Orly Konig goes the distance...plus a book giveaway

We're pleased to introduce Orly Konig today and feature her debut novel, The Distance Home. Melissa A was thrilled to find out that Orly lives in a neighboring town and hopes to meet her soon. They can talk about the joys of having curly hair in person. She's here to talk about what inspires her to write.

Orly Konig is an escapee from the corporate world where she spent roughly sixteen (cough) years working in the space industry. Now she spends her days chatting up imaginary friends, drinking entirely too much coffee, and negotiating writing space around two over-fed cats.

She is a co-founder and past president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and an active member of Writers In The Storm blog and Tall Poppy Writers.

Visit Orly online:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest

Thanks to Forge Books, we have one copy of The Distance Home for a lucky reader!

Synopsis:
Sixteen years ago, a tragic accident cost Emma Metz her two best friends—one human and one equine. Now, following her father’s death, Emma has reluctantly returned to the Maryland hometown she’d left under a cloud of guilt.

Sorting through her father’s affairs, Emma uncovers a history of lies tying her broken family to the one place she thought she could never return—her girlhood sanctuary, Jumping Frog Farm.


Emma finds herself drawn back to the stable after all these years. It’s easy to win forgiveness from a horse, but less so from her former friend Jillian, their once strong bond destroyed by secrets and betrayals. But despite Jillian’s cold reception, for the first time in years, Emma feels at home.

To exorcise the past, Emma will have to release her guilt, embrace an uncertain future, and trust again in the healing power of horses.

Orly Konig's The Distance Home is a powerful and sparkling women's fiction debut novel of second chances, friendship, and healing. (Courtesy of Amazon.)

Where the Writing Started

I’ve always been a reader, although I can’t point a finger at one author or book and say, “that’s the one that made me want to write.” I never even imagined myself as a writer growing up and the couple of attempts at creative writing during my school years were far from brilliant.

I wrote plenty of articles for trade publications during my corporate days, but fiction, nah, that was the world I went to when I wanted to escape from the real world.

And yet here I am, celebrating the debut of my first novel.

For me, it wasn’t so much the need to tell a story as a need for an outlet. I’d made the switch from corporate to freelance, and was adjusting to my new world as a mom.

My reading habits had always been quite eclectic but I found myself reading more and more women’s fiction. Those books touched me in a way others didn’t. They were the friends I went to when I felt overwhelmed or unhappy or lost. Through those books, I felt less isolated.

When I started writing on that very first manuscript, it wasn’t with the idea of becoming a published author. I was looking for those “friends.”

There’s a quote I keep close to my computer –
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor

My characters sort through emotional upheaval. They confront the people who hurt them. They change their lives in 300 pages.

My characters do the things I can’t always do. Through them, I can release the pressure building inside me. The characters I write about don’t speak for me and they don’t deal with the issues I’m going through at that period in my life. But through their emotional journeys, I can release my own fears and heartaches and dreams.

My stories are the family and friends I can’t always open up to. Through them, I can spread my wings. The stories don’t reflect who I am or what I do. But through them I can explore new ways of becoming whole again.

And that’s why I write.

Thanks to Orly for visiting with us and Forge Books for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Giveaway ends May 14th at midnight EST.