Featuring The Liberators of Willow Run by Marianne K. Martin
Praise for Marianne K. Martin
“Deeply engrossing and quite beautiful, Martin’s talent for creating human characters that would walk off the page into real life will leave her audience craving more.”—Foreword Reviews
“Marianne K. Martin is a wonderful storyteller and a graceful writer with a light, witty touch with language and a sensitivity to the emotions of people in love. There is a tenderness and brightness to her characterizations that make the personalities quite beguiling.”—Ann Bannon
“Marianne Martin is a skilled writer who develops her characters and pulls the best from them.”—Mega Scene Book Reviews
The Liberators of Willow Run by Marianne K. Martin
America is the Arsenal of Democracy.
Ships. Tanks. Airplanes. Munitions. With nine million men away fighting in Europe and the south Pacific, it’s up to America’s women to produce the tools of war—and victory rests on the wings of America’s Liberator, the B-24 bomber.
Audrey throws herself into the war effort. Hard work and long hours are just what she needs to keep the past at bay. Nona joins Audrey’s crew at the Willow Run Bomber Plant outside Detroit. She’s left her home in Kentucky to do her bit, and buys all the war bonds she can afford—she has a plan for her life. Ruth seizes the opportunity to create a new life for herself—a life her mother would not recognize.
Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world, these women capture the spirit of the times through their determination, ingenuity, and enduring courage.
Order your copy of The Liberators of Willow Run today!
Author Spotlight: Marianne K. Martin
If you were to stand up in front of a room full of strangers and introduce yourself, what would you say?
I’m Marianne K. Martin. I’m a writer, co-owner of Bywater Books and a former public school teacher, photo-journalist, coach, and athlete.
What authors and books had the most profound influence on you as a writer, as a reader?
As a reader, the first books that offered me inclusion and identified a world I needed to know existed was Ann Bannon’s Beebo Brinker stories. As a writer, Katherine Forrest’s Curious Wine was the book that gave me permission to express what I feel and to actually put that in black and white.
When did you first, without hesitation, call yourself a writer?
I never actually considered myself a writer until I held a copy of my first book. Just holding that book, knowing that the publisher believed in my work enough to produce it, made it official.
Is writing a job or a vocation?
It seems that I have always written – diaries, journals, essays, stories. Shyness caused me to always opt for the written assignments over the oral ones in school. And as an adult, writing became my affordable therapy. I really needed to write, which affirmed, at least in one way, my favorite literature teacher’s comment on my last paper for her, “You must write.” It wasn’t until I retired from teaching and my first two novels were published that I considered my writing a career.
Describe your writing style in 10 words or less.
Minimalistic, dense, getting into each scene as early as possible.
What is your favorite part of your writing process?
I think creating characters is my favorite part of my process—challenging them, questioning them, creating a past that invests in their future. I want to create seemingly flesh-and-blood characters who readers can imagine being in the same room with, watching and listening to them first hand.
When you hear from readers, what do they most often say?
Readers often say that they relate to the realistic events and characters in my stories, which is one thing that I strive to accomplish in my writing. The most heartfelt thing that readers have told me is that a book has touched them personally, that it has affirmed them, given them hope and inclusion.
If a potential reader asks, “Why should I read your books?” what would you say?
I would say that if they enjoy realistic, well-researched stories, either contemporary or historic, that empower and affirm women, they would likely enjoy my books.
What one question has no one asked, and what would your answer be?
I don’t remember if anyone has ever asked why I write. They have asked why I began to write, but that is different from why I write. My answer, if I were asked, would be a quote from my grandmother, Margaret Nickerson Martin, a poet and artist.
“Out of the evening dusk
there drifts the poet’s song,
singing because he must…
knowing the night is long.”
Recent and Upcoming Bywater Books Releases
