Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions for us at FAR- Fallen Angel Reviews. We know a few things about you such as your web site: http://www.carolynlampman.com but we are all curious to know more. So by answering these questions you can help us get to know you.
 
What is the one thing that you would want us, the readers to know about you?

I love to read and I love write. Not surprisingly, I write the kind of book I like to read, with multi-dimensional characters, intricate plots, and a touch of humor. That’s because I want you to enjoy reading the book as much as I did writing it. I am meticulous about my research and love to put in little historical tidbits I find.

Not only are you a screenplay writer for LITERACY: BUILDING BLOCKS OF A BRIGHT FUTURE, you have a program called Kick Starts for Kids, can you tell us about them?

It all started with several years ago when another teacher and I put together a workshop for other teachers on writing books with their students. By the time we’d finished with the class, we had the beginning of a book and a fledgling company, KickStarts for Kids. Our card reads “custom writing workshops” but we seem to get pulled into a lot of other things. To date we have written three books, produced a video, created several language arts kits for the home-school market and trained somewhere around three hundred teachers and parents in a variety of different workshops.
Literacy: Building Blocks For a Bright Future is a video for parents of children from birth to age six. It tells how to raise your child to be a reader and a writer. We did it for the Wyoming Parent Information Center for dissemination to parents. It is available in English and Spanish. Last I knew between 7,000 and 10,000 copies of the video were in circulation. My partner and I have done several workshops around the video too. If you are interested there is a link on my website that will connect you to the PIC website and the video.
Currently my partner is focusing on brain research workshops and I’m doing workshops on learning disabilities with parents and teachers. It’s been a wild ride!

Out of all of you accomplishments what do you think is the greatest one?

Being married to the same man for 25 years and raising four kids with him! Oh you meant career-wise. I guess I’d have to say my nonfiction book, L.D. From the Inside Out. I had to completely reinvent my writing style to do it. It is also important because it has the potential of helping literally thousands of kids. Years ago while I was teaching special ed, my supervisor became frustrated with me over a child I felt needed services but was a point or two off from qualifying for special education. I just wouldn’t give up. He finally shook his head in exasperation and said “Carolyn, you can’t save them all!” I looked him right in the eye and said, “Maybe not, but I’ve got to try!” L.D. From the Inside Out is my attempt to “Save them all”

If you could pick one of your books as having a special meaning what would it be?

Ooo, that’s a hard one. They’re all special to me in different ways. It’s sort of like picking your favorite child. You don’t love them all the same way but you love them all an equal amount. I’d have to say, it’s the one I’m working on at the moment the question is asked. That’s always the one that speaks to my soul and fills my heart. The act of creating the story, of building the characters and watching them interact with each other, of seeing the story unfold, are the reasons I write. There is absolutely nothing like it in the world. The book I am currently working on is always the most special of all my books and the best one I’ve ever done. That one right now is set on the Oregon Trail and while it may not be a true suspense novel it has many suspense elements as well as a lot of humor. I can’t wait to see how it ends!

 
Do you have any new books coming out? Can you tell us about them?

Not yet, but I am working on bringing the Cheyenne Trilogy out again. I also have a full book finished and another a little over half done that I haven’t sold yet. That’s five books that might hit the shelves in the next couple of years.
Please tell us about the new trilogy that is happening.

It’s actually not a new trilogy. The Cheyenne Trilogy first came out in 1993 and 1994 from Harper Collins. I’m currently updating and revising so that I can bring them out again in e-books and trade paperback formats.

Murphy’s Rainbow was the third book I wrote, though it was the first one to be published. When I wrote my first book Shadows in the Wind, I sent it to a friend who said I needed another character to increase the romantic tension. I created a brother. Now everybody likes Levi Cantrell, but I adore him! He had no more than walked onto the page than he started to take over the book. Luckily my heroine kept her head, preferring the handsome Cole Cantrell to his older brother Levi. It was obvious Levi had to go, so he rode off into the sunset and into his own book, Willow Creek. About halfway through Willow Creek I realized why I love him so much. He’s my husband! I hadn’t recognized him because Bru is a dairy farmer/truck driver not a six-foot something cowboy, but the personality is 100% my sweetie.
When I finished Willow Creek, I still felt I hadn’t told the entire Cantrell story, somehow. I got to thinking about a housekeeper named Mrs. Murphy who was in Shadows in the Wind. It suddenly occurred to me that she wasn’t the housekeeper; she was Cole and Levi’s stepmother! With that in mind, I went back and wrote Murphy’s Rainbow, the story of Kate Murphy and their father Jonathan Cantrell.

I’ve noticed you have some great covers for your books and believe one of them is modeled after your daughter, is there any truth to this rumor?

I love my covers! They’re all by Nora Baxter who is a very talented artist that I have worked with on other projects including the literacy video. In fact I sort of inadvertently got her into doing book covers. I asked her to do one for me and the next thing I know Whiskey Creek Press had hired her!

Yes, my daughter is the model for Silver Springs. She looks more like the twin on the top of the cover than the other.

What do you believe people should know about Learning Disabilities? I have friends who swear your non fiction book about it is the bomb! Can you tell us about it? I have heard that every one has some form of learning disability, how true is that?

I’m going to answer the last part first. Yes and No. While it’s true that everyone has certain things that are difficult for them, a true learning disability is more intense. It’s a matter of degree. For instance, you may have difficulty remembering phone numbers. I can only remember three numbers at a time so I learn phone numbers as twenty-three forty-five rather than 2345. If I look a number up in the phone book I usually can’t hold it in my head long enough to dial it and have to refer back half way through the dialing process. I know three phone numbers, my social security number and my address. Everything else I have to lookup. That’s a learning disability
For a person to be labeled L. D. they must have average or above intelligence. In other words they’re smart! My husband was once at a parent group where the speaker was talking about L. D. She said a child with a learning disability was like a battery with a dead cell. My husband said, “No, no, you have it all wrong. A child with a learning disability is like a high performance race car you don’t have tuned just right. Once you find the right combination it will take off and leave all the rest. I have found that to be so true. Every adult I know with L. D. has talents and gifts that have helped them lead normal lives. some cases

I decided to write the book when my fourth child showed up with L. D. I’d been special ed teacher for 20 some years at the time and had a spent a life time dealing with my own learning disabilities (I have Dysgraphia, which is just like Dyslexia except in the realm of written language.) I knew in the long run he would be all right, but the only way I can describe my feelings at that moment was devastated. How much worse for parents without my experience. It must seem nearly hopeless. That’s why I wrote the book, to help parents understand the “gift” of L. D.

With your busy schedule what made you decide to add romance author to the list of your accomplishments?

I didn’t. It was one of those things I didn’t plan, it just happened. I started writing during a time win my life when I was practically to the breaking point. Can’t even say what the exact catalyst was other than I needed to escape. I sat down at the typewriter and started to write. Two months, two typewriters, and six hundreds pages later, I had the rough draft of my first novel and an addiction to writing.

If you were to win the lottery, what would you do with the money? Besides give it to me. LOL

First thing I’d do is pay the income taxes on it! Then pay off all my debts, quit my job and start writing full time. My grandfather who was a rancher answered the same question, by saying “I guess I’d just keep ranching until it was all gone.” I guess I’d do the same thing, keep writing until it was all gone.

If there was one place that you would want to visit where would it be and why?

Somewhere along the west coast because I want to see a whale in the wild. A whale-cruise to AK would be wonderful! We saw Orca’s near the San Juan Islands in WA and it was fabulous!

Besides all the other stuff going on in your life now you are undertaking having a new home built, what free time do you have and if you do have any what do you do with it?

ROTFL- Free time? Surely you jest! We close on our current house two days before schools starts and the new house won’t be quite done. On top of that we got new carpeting in school so my classroom is stripped. Everything is sitting in the gym. I’m going to have to put my classroom back together and move at the same time, plus get ready for the opening of school. ARGH! I’ve planned my nervous break down for Labor Day weekend!

Usually, though, I spend most of my free time writing. I also like reading, gardening, and working on the dollhouse my great grandfather built my mother for her 5th birthday. I also build dollhouse furniture. I plan to learn how the play the piano as soon as we get moved.

Thank you for taking the time for answering my questions. I must say I am mighty impressed with all that you do. On behalf of my friends and family I wish to give you their heart felt thanks for the book on Learning Disabilities that really helps those of us that need it. Please keep us in touch with all that is going on with you.

Interviewed by: Wendi