Welcome to Novel PASTimes, James Cooper! We are pleased you stopped by today.
Tell us something about where you live:
Right now, I live in Stone Creek, a small backwater town. I mean, would you believe my boss at the paper wants me to report on a fox getting into a chicken coop? He’d probably love for me to write a story about a cow wandering off a farm too. The town needs more interesting news than that. Anyway, the people are nice enough. We have a newer pharmacy where they actually carry items like aspirin. And we have our own paper, The Stone Creek Herald.
I prefer the faster pace of our state capital, Lansing, where I worked the last couple of years at a bureau of the Detroit Free Press. By the way, Detroit is where I grew up.
What do you do for a living? And what are your ambitions for your career?
For too long it seemed I was a lowly copywriter at the Herald, but I jumped at the chance to do some cub reporting at the Lansing bureau of the Free Press. When I heard there was an opening for a reporter at the Herald I had some hopes that eventually I could become the editor, but then I got off on the wrong foot with Clem Montgomery, the owner’s son.
I was hoping when he moved onto another of his father’s businesses, I’d slip into the spot. But that obnoxious gum-chewing so-and-so has it in for me right now. And that won’t help me look like editor material in his father’s eyes.
What happened to cause this rift between you two?
He isn’t too happy with how I reported the suspected arson at Hope’s Place, the unwed mothers’ home. Now I must apologize to the local pastor, Reverend McCormick. I’m not sure why the people of Stone Creek can’t accept honesty better, but I’ve been warned to take a lighter tack.
What’s your family like? Do you have brothers and sisters?
I’m an only child. I was raised by my Aunt Phoebe, who was my mother’s best friend. The odd thing is that I always felt more at home with her than with my birth parents.
She is quite eccentric. I didn’t have many friends growing up. The other boys’ parents warned their sons about hanging out with the kid who lived with “that Vaudevillian entertainer.” Not everyone’s mom sings and dances around the house.
I heard you were sweet on Nora Armstrong. Are you planning on wooing her anytime soon?
Huh! Like that will ever happen. She’s a lovely girl… and I think she used to be sweet on me too… but she’s been keeping me at arm’s length. I just wish I knew why. And her Aunt Gert and Uncle Edmund, who she lives with, don’t want her to have anything to do with a lowly newspaperman.
Oh, and since Phoebe came to Stone Creek to visit, they’re even less likely to allow her to be in my orbit. Her being a former entertainer and all.
But what if that changed?
Well, I do admire Nora. She’s grown more beautiful in my absence, and I’d really like to renew our acquaintance. She rebuffed me the first time she saw me back in town in the aftermath of the fire.
You wouldn’t believe how mean her aunt is to her, and her uncle is such a milk toast. Yet, she remains kind to them and to others. I think it has something to do with her faith… which I don’t share. That’s another thing that comes between us.
I’m a man of science and letters of course. It has to be logical to me. And how she endures them, well that’s not logical!
What are your hopes for the future?
Please don’t tell Nora, but if I were being honest, I wish my future could include her, but I don’t see how. There are just too many things keeping us apart.
Eventually I guess I’ll need to move on and find another paper where I can become the editor. Shoot! I’d like to start my own newspaper if I had the means. Then I could cover the news I think is important that helps protect the people, warn them of the evil around them, and I could make sure it gets reported properly.
I sure would miss Nora, but I don’t think I can stay around and watch her marry some fop her aunt picks out for her.
You’d give up that easily?
Of course not! I haven’t yet. I’m doing my best to show her kindness when I get the chance, which unfortunately isn’t often enough. I suppose I should remedy that somehow.
On that note, James, I want to say thank you for coming by Novel PASTimes and sharing with us about your life today. I wish you all the best with Nora.
Kathleen Rouser is a multi-published, award-winning author of historical and contemporary Christian romance. She is a longtime member of American Christian Fiction Writers and a member of Faith, Hope and Love Christian Writers. She resides in southeast Michigan, a location which she often uses in her novels, with her hero and husband of forty-some years and two sweet cats who found a home in their empty nest.
Find out more about Kathleen at her website.
You can find her books here: On Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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