Welcome back to Clockwork Conversations, everyone!
I'm your host, February Grace, and today my guest is author Arleen Williams.
Let's start with a bit about her...
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Arleen Williams is the author of three books. Running Secrets, the first novel in the Alki Trilogy, is about the power of friendship in helping overcome the dysfunction of family and life. Biking Uphill, book two of the Alki Trilogy, invites the reader into a world of undocumented immigration, where parents are deported, and a young girl is abandoned to face life on her own. The Thirty-Ninth Victim is a memoir of her family’s journey before and after her sister's murder.
Arleen teaches English as a Second Language at South Seattle College and has worked with immigrants and refugees for close to three decades. Arleen lives and writes in West Seattle.
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Welcome, Arleen!
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Arleen Williams is the author of three books. Running Secrets, the first novel in the Alki Trilogy, is about the power of friendship in helping overcome the dysfunction of family and life. Biking Uphill, book two of the Alki Trilogy, invites the reader into a world of undocumented immigration, where parents are deported, and a young girl is abandoned to face life on her own. The Thirty-Ninth Victim is a memoir of her family’s journey before and after her sister's murder.
Arleen teaches English as a Second Language at South Seattle College and has worked with immigrants and refugees for close to three decades. Arleen lives and writes in West Seattle.
~*~
Welcome, Arleen!
Q1: Where did you grow up: city, country, or suburbs?
AW: I
grew up on ten acres of underdeveloped land in the Issaquah Valley
southeast of Seattle, WA. It was not a working farm. My father was a
steamfitter, my mother a nurse, and neither knew the first thing about
farming. But at different times throughout my childhood, we had a few
horses and cows, some pigs and chickens and a failure of a vegetable
garden.
Q2: Was it much different from where you live now?
AW: Now
I live in Seattle, a place I rarely visited as a child though only
twenty-five miles away. My life is totally different from that of my
parents. I live within walking distance of everything I could possibly
need or want in the way of shopping or entertainment, including two huge
parks and Alki Beach. And I have a ten-minute commute to the college
where I teach. Only now and then I wonder what it would be like to ride a
horse again.
Q3: Do you have any hobbies unrelated to writing/reading?
AW: I
bike and hike in the summer, cross-country ski in the winter. I love
movies and theater, a good meal with friends and family, snorkel-related
travel when winter gray gets overwhelming, and spring flowers and
summer green in the small yard I tend with my husband. I suppose I could
help him more with the gardening, but there just aren't sufficient
hours in a day what with all the hammock-based sky gazing.
Q4: If you could spend just one day in any city in the world, what city would it be? Why?
AW: Tough
question. Do I return to one of the cities I've visited and loved:
Paris or Venice, New York or London? Do I visit one of the cities where I
once lived: Caracas, Mexico City, Honolulu? Or do I go someplace I do
not know: Amsterdam or Barcelona, Havana or San Jose de Costa Rica? For
JUST ONE DAY? Does that include travel time?! If so, I'd stay closer to
home and head to Santa Fe or Taos, New Mexico. I've heard wonderful
things about New Mexico and somehow have not made it there. Yet.
Q5: *Bonus question for everyone* Do you collect anything? If so, why?
AW: Refrigerator
magnets. They remind me of all the places I've traveled. I may have to
limit the collection. The refrigerator groans under the extra weight.
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I can picture that, mine is the same way!
Thank you again, Arleen, for visiting today.
Thank you again, Arleen, for visiting today.
You can learn more about the author and her books by visiting her website at: www.arleenwilliams.com
See you all next time, when my guest will be author Lisa Fernow.
~bru
