An Interview With Author, C.L. Talmadge

A native of Los Angeles, C.L. Talmadge lived in England during her high school years, cruised the Mediterranean twice, and graduated with an honor’s degree in history from Bryn Mawr College at age 20. Under the byline Candace Talmadge, she was a staff or freelance writer for numerous media that included The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, Forbes,Reuters America, Business Week, the Dallas Times Herald, and Adweek.

C.L. has co-authored and published non-fiction about emotional and spiritual healing based on working in the energy of human consciousness. Her fiction, the Green Stone of Healing(R) series, explores what happens when politics, passion, and piety collide in the lost island nation of Azgard. The first four novels in the multigenerational tale are available in paperback and as
ebooks through www.greenstoneofhealing.com.

Series Synopsis

When politics, piety, and passion collide in the island nation of Azgard, the conflagration destroys the country and much of the world.

The Green Stone of Healing(R) speculative epic combines action-adventure, aliens, alternate history, palace intrigue, the paranormal, and romance that lives from lifetime to lifetime as favorite characters reincarnate on their spiritual sojourns.

Four generations of strong-willed heroines own a green gem with unusual properties of healing and protection. In the background, the otherworldly Mist-Weavers teach the women how to use their jewel to offer a loving, inclusive alternative to power-hungry theocrats who persecute those who do not look like or believe as they do.

The Vision launches the tale with first-generation heroine Helen Andros, an illegitimate, despised half-breed. Helen meets the father she never knew and becomes caught in political machinations that almost cost her life.

In Fallout, Helen clashes repeatedly with her powerful new found parent. The Temple of Kronos aims to destroy her while her father’s enemies (and presumed allies) plot to use his relationship to her to bring him down.

Helen and her father, now reconciled, endure savage punishment and proscription at the hands of the Temple in The Scorpions Strike. Helen learns the basic of energy manipulation and first uses the stone for healing. Her father must choose between her and his newborn heir to avert civil war, and sends Helen away to safety with the family that once sheltered him.

As an Outcast, Helen learns advanced energy skills for healing and protection from Maguari, the otherworldly Mist-Weaver. A false allies plot to assassination Helen’s father reaches its tragic conclusion and Helen is forced to return to live among those who would slay her and others who would betray her.

In the fifth book and beyond, Helen’s story gives way to that of her descendants, who struggle to bring healing and hope to a nation ravaged by greed, endless war, and lust for power.

Jackie O’Neal, founder of O’Neal Media Group interviewed the author for a series on Media Connections Lab.

1. What prompted you to write your series?

My most marketable skill is writing, so that is what I both for a living and because I like to do it. I get up every morning wanting to write. Fish swim. Birds fly. I write.

2. Can you share the premise of your series?

This multi-generational tale is based on two of my past lives, and the past lives of family, friends, and acquaintances. The setting is a powerful island nation called Azgard that is sharply divided by race, rank, gender, and income. A male oligarchy controls the wealth and divides political power with a monarch and a religious organization called the Temple of Kronos. Most of the people are poor and have little hope of social advancement or secure prosperity. The story chronicles the utter destruction of Azgard
after powerful theocrats, seeking total domination, unleash a force beyond their control. Azgard was a loveless, authoritarian house divided against itself and could not endure. I see many of the same troubling trends emerging in the United States today.

3. In particular, what prompted you to write your series?

I read a lot of fiction during my lonely, dreamy teen years, and was always frustrated that there were no women as primary protagonists. All the heroes were male. So I began to imagine such a woman, and eventually realized that her story began several generations before she was born.

4. Is there a key person or group that has inspired you in the process of writing your series?

The mother of my best friend from childhood put a novel in my hand when I was 12 or so and encouraged me to write similar books. I dedicated the first novel in my series to her. My partner since 1986 also has been invaluable in helping me be emotionally and spiritually prepared to write the story and to
remember more about my past lives.

5. How do you envision your series will impact your readers?

I am writing mostly to tell a good story and entertain people. My desire is that my fiction will fill readers with hope and move them to want to know more about the spiritual and emotional sides of their being, which our culture either ignores or trivializes.

6. As you embarked on writing your series, what was the overall message you wanted to convey to your audience?

If there is a message in my series, it’s that love, healing,
self-acceptance, and peace cannot come from others or outside of self. We find those only by going within and reawakening to our own personal truths, and then living those truths to the best of our ability. Another message: the quest to know self better is not nearly as hard or complicated as most would have us believe. We simply have to know where to look within self and
what to do when we get there.

7. What process did you go through to research your series?

In the late 1970s, I finally realized I needed to learn about Atlantis, so I read everything I could find on the topic. This took me to some pretty esoteric material, such as Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky. But mostly the research I eventually relied on was my own emotional and spiritual healing and self-growth. Through this personal journey inward, I awakened to the two past lives that form the basis of this series.

Series website: www.greenstoneofhealing.com

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