Linda Brooks Davis

Joan Hetzler on Let’s Chat

Welcome, everyone

Joan HetzlerJoan Hetzler graces us with a visit this week. Welcome, Joan!

Joan has been a freelance writer and editor for over twenty-five years. Her creative writing experience includes plays, poems, short stories, humor, memoir, and classic mystery novels. For eight years, she produced and hosted The Writers Show, a radio program devoted to writers and their readers at a local college station.

From the coastal islands of South Georgia to the mountains of Northwest Georgia, Joan captures her experiences in stories and poems that reflect the glory of God.

GIVEAWAY: Readers, here’s the link to Joan’s book that is FREE as an ebook on Amazon for three days beginning March 17th through the 19th: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L3V33SX/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1 

Joan Hetzler: In Her Own Words

I’ve always been a writer. In first grade, I wrote poetry and kept my first “book” of poems.  Throughout school I studied English and literature. Eventually I became a professional writer and worked for communications firms where I wrote and/or edited everything from resumes to training manuals to press releases.  For a while, I worked as a regional reporter on a city newspaper.

Writing a fiction novel was always a dream I carried with me and thought about while working a full time job and sometimes another part time job as well.  I attended writer’s conferences and won awards but never could find the time to start that novel I dreamed of.  Then in my thirties God put me in a situation that I suddenly had time on my hands.  After a sudden exposure to heavy pesticides, I became allergic to modern chemicals and essentially the modern world. I moved to rural Georgia to live in my parents’ 19th century log cabin and old frame house. It was a beautiful serene area but far from my busy life in Atlanta as a technical writer for a software company. 

Pious Deception by Joan Hetzler

Joan HetzlerSo one morning on my healing journey, I took a pad and pencil and sat on a hill looking over a small creek and distant pastures.  Without planning, plotting or preparing, I started writing.  Mmmmm.  Where would I set my first mystery?  How about a software firm?  What city?  How about Atlanta?  Who would be my protagonist?  What about a single woman in her thirties?  Well, not too imaginative, but my first book was off and running.  After all, convention wisdom says write about what you know. 

This book took a long journey to publication.  It “set on the shelf” for a while, was rewritten, updated, and then put aside as life took me to new situations and environments. But one goal remained steady: to use my writing to share my Christian faith. Eventually, I self-published it under the title, Pious Deception: A Megan O’Connell Mystery. To my surprise, those who read it — even those who didn’t read mystery novels — said they loved it. 

Pious Deception is the story of a female reporter who is burned out on her job and returns home to Atlanta and finds a good friend being blackmailed. She goes undercover to work in her friend’s company to find the blackmailer but finds murder instead.  The title, which is an oxymoron, “pious” and “deception,” reflects her conflict in deceiving people even for a good cause.  Her friend has lost her Christian faith and strayed from the church and Megan also feels conflicted in how to help her. This book is free as an ebook on Amazon for three days beginning March 17th through the 19th at this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L3V33SX/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1 .

Relative Truth by Joan Hetzler

Joan HetzlerEncouraged at the good response, I started my second novel, this type set in a mega church in Atlanta. It eventually became, Relative Truth: A Megan O’Connell Mystery and was traditionally published along with a republication of the first book last November.  “Relative” and “truth” is also an oxymoron, and the plot revolves around the seemingly motiveless murder of a deacon who made a lot of money preaching that there is no truth and all is relative. Suspicion falls on a well-liked popular pastor who preaches God has the truth. The same characters from the first book continue to grow in their faith and some very devout but humorous church ladies help Megan solve this new mystery.

Fair Play by Joan Hetzler

I am currently hard at work on my third Megan O’Connell mystery, which will be titled Fair Play: A Megan O’Connell Mystery. This book is set in the sports world and the wealthy men and women who play not only sports but games with people’s lives. It is due to be published in late spring or early summer.

Other Works by Joan Hetzler

But I write more than mysteries.  I’ve won an award for a stage play and written church skits and am planning a screen play.  And I still write my first love – poetry.  For ten years, I lived on a barrier off the coast of Georgia called St. Simons Island.  While I lived there I felt inspired to write poetry that shares my love of God and the beauty of the island.  I sold these poems in books locally and after I moved away turned them into on ebook on Amazon under the same title: Waterways and God’s Ways on St. Simons Island. Then later I added another chapbook of poems and short stories about growing up in the rural south title, Sunlit Memories at Grandma’s House. These books are also at my Amazon.com author page listed below.

Links to Joan Hetzler and her Books

I invite anyone who is interested in reading my work to visit my webpage: www.joanhetzler.com. It has links to my books and also an option to sign up for my monthly newsletter.  To visit my Amazon page, go to https://www.amazon.com/Joan-Hetzler/e/B0119HQTGG.

Joan Hetzler

~ ~ ~

Dear Lord, please bless each word Joan writes for you. 

~ For Jesus’ sake

 

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *