6 minute read
DESTINATION PARRIS
KEEPING UP WITH NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR PARRIS AFTON BONDS IS NOT FOR THE FEINT OF HEART.
Velda Brotherton
Pinning down New York Times bestselling author Parris Afton Bonds to an interview is like trapping a whirlwind. She is always on the verge of a happy dance. It proved challenging to rein her in long enough to talk about herself.
She told me her dream as a child was to be a ballerina, a nurse, or a fl ight attendant, not necessarily in that order. Th en it occurs to her that when she was fi ve she wrote her fi rst story. Th ree pages. “But I didn’t think it was any good. My mother knew I had the talent, so she kept it.”
She would be 26 years old and staying home with the children before her mother’s belief would come true. “We moved to Old Mexico and I sold my fi rst article there, but no one knew but me and my postman. I interviewed a secretary at the American Embassy and sold the article to Modern Secretary. I was bored and thought, why not write? It was too cool to get patted down by the guards at the Embassy.”
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR PARRIS AFTON BONDS.
She says she got lucky when she sold her first book, Sweet Golden Sun. “When I look back on it now, it’s not very good.”
Because of her husband’s job Parris has traveled around the world, probably more than once, and when you read one of her books you can bet on the realism of the locale. From Australia to Scotland, from early America to the historical west and locales in between, her stories ring true. She has a way of telling even the strongest fi ction as if it really happened and it’s easy to believe it did. Th is portion of a forward from Tame the Wildest Heart explains why her stories convince the reader they very well could have happened.
PARRIS ON THE HIGH SEAS
“My great grandfather was an Indian Scout under General Sheridan. Later in life he owned a blacksmith shop in Tucson. Among the incredible adventures on the frontier was his rescue of two white girls who had been taken captive by the Indians, one of whom later wrote a book about it, mentioning my grandfather as one of her two rescuers. At 92 with an arrow-straight back he was still performing saber drills As children my mother and her brothers and their friends would listen spellbound to my great grandfather’s spine tingling stories about the Indians. Th is story Tame the Wildest Heart is for my great grandfather Albert Kit McAlester.”
To write one of her recent books, When the Heart is Right, she sold her house and moved to Taos. Th ere she absorbed herself in the life. Th e story is set in the 1920s and the atmosphere and way of living is cleverly absorbed in this romantic tale that captures the heart.
There’s a story behind this story, though. Visiting Taos with a friend, Parris fell in love with the area and knew she had to set her next book there. When her son went off to college leaving her nest empty, she sold her house in Texas and bought one in New Mexico. Th ere she absorbed herself in the past, in the lives of people like Mabel Dodge, a woman with many lovers who fi nally met and married Antonio Lujan, a Pueblo Indian. Shocking all her friends she continued to live a wild life among other characters of the time such as D. H. Lawrence, artist Georgia O’Keefe, Ansel Adams, and Gertrude Stein, along with people like the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, to name only a few.
Mabel Dodge was a huge part of the Taos scene, quite a character, and an important woman. She was good-hearted, and often donated clothing and money. She had a lot of lovers, but married a man who didn’t care about her money. Th e two lead characters in Parris’s book are loosely based on Mabel and Antonio Lujan.
PARRIS ON ANOTHER ADVENTURE AT THE TOP OF HUAYNA PICCHU.
It was in this la querencia, atmosphere among the Pueblo Indians that made Parris feel secure and safe, that she wrote her latest book. Much as her spirit loved Northern New Mexico, her heart pulled her back to her family and Texas once the story was finished.
PARRIS (LEFT) AND HER EDITOR, KELLY SOHNER (RIGHT).
When she’s not busily researching and writing, Parris can be found roller-blading, playing tennis, or water skiing. Or if you can’t find her there, she might be in her son’s office, where she works four days a week. She told me that he just thinks she’s working for him. In reality, she’s writing another book.
With five sons, ten grandchildren and one great grandson, she is one busy lady who celebrated her 75th birthday recently. I would have guessed mid-fifties, which made her blush.
I promised to keep it a secret.
How does she feel about her accomplishments? Grateful, she says. “My life is so good if I keeled over right now in front of you, I’d be happy. I’ve lived all over the world, had a full life—an exciting life—and I’m never bored or lonely.”
PARRIS (LEFT) WITH HER SON, BATTALION FIRE CAPTAIN JASON BONDS (RIGHT).
Discussing all those books, Parris shrugs. “They say you make more money if you keep a brand, but I would be bored. Money’s not going to make me happy, but writing about what I love will.”
Along those very lines, we spoke about her recent decision to publish with Arkansas-based Oghma Creative Media. I asked about that since her previous books were published by other companies. She told me that she was so impressed by what Oghma President and Chief Executive Officer Casey W. Cowan is doing that she decided to jump in. To show just how committed she was to this new adventure, she offered the up-and-coming publishing house her latest labor of love, the new five-book western historical romance series The Texicans. The first book in the series, The Brigands, was released last November. The sequel, The Barons, is due to hit stores this April.
So how does she go about turning out so many books? “With five children, I learned early on to write moment by moment rather than scheduling. Sitting in the bleachers at football practice. Or anyplace they had to be. I still do that. Even if a writer doesn’t have a pen in their hand, they are still writing, still engaging their imagination.”
PARRIS (FAR RIGHT) WITH HER FRIENDS KD MCCRITE (FAR LEFT) AND BRETT DEISER (CENTER).
She kept asking me questions about my own life, so her total absorption with other people’s experiences tells a lot about her. She told me nothing would make her happier than to go to bed with Johnny Depp... or Jason Mamoa. “You can put that in,” she jokes. “Maybe one of them will read it someday and make me happy.”
Interviewing Parris is sort of like trying to capture that whirlwind I spoke about. She was so curious about me and my life that steering her back proved a bit like driving a wild mustang into a corral. When I finally did, she soon kicked her way out to go on to another adventure.
