AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH KATHERINE NORLAND RE POETIC PRESCRIPTIONS FOR PLAGUING PROBLEMS

Katherine Norland is the author of the Christian poetry books, Poetic Prescriptions for Pesky Problems, Poetic Prescriptions for Eternal Youth [Examining Earthly Beauty from a Heavenly Perspective], and the just-launched Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems [Biblical Remedies for When Life Bites].

In addition to the various hats she wears as a wife, mother of two boys, filmmaker, and actress, Katherine specializes in writing poetry and self-help books that make use of "applied spirituality," making spiritual concepts accessible and biblical scriptures applicable to daily life.

Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems was just released on Amazon, and already has garnered stellar reviews.

Midwest Book Review stated that the book "shines with Katherine Norland’s warts-and-all honesty regarding her own struggles, and her pure desire to lead others out of the dark spiritual vacuums of their own making and into the Light of God’s Grace."

Mel Ayers, Pastor with In His Presence Church, had this praise:

"Just when you thought everyone sounded like everyone else, God drops FRESH right in your lap! Katherine Norland not only gives us a new perspective on 'everything,' but also a bold, risky, enjoyable read."

Readers' Favorite raved with a 5-star review:

"A truly fantastic look at the Christian approach to self-help...Poetic Prescriptions For Plaguing Problems will certainly reward those who have faith and seek the solace of God’s teachings in their overcoming of fear, addiction, depression, and other issues, but there is also much hope and comfort for the less religious in this very effective volume."

We caught up with Katherine for a brief interview while she's in the midst of preparing for a multimedia book talk/launch at the Pasadena Public Library on Monday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.) It is free.

Katherine Norland [Photo by Jim Jordan]

Q and A with Katherine Norland

1.  How did you come up with the notion of the “10 Plagues” from the Old Testament as the basis for a book of poetry? When did you first start writing it?

I was being plagued by so many things: doubt, money issues, relationship problems, fear, work related issues. It felt like I was riddled with at least 10 plagues coming at me at once. I combed through my poems as if I was combing through a child’s hair looking for lice -- and compiled them into a first draft of all the modern-day plagues that I felt are now an epidemic, plaguing our society. And I combined the Biblical 10 plagues with plagues that we’ve faced throughout history like typhus, the bubonic plague, the Moscow plague of 1771, etc.

2.  Has writing this book helped you heal yourself?

There’s a tendency in the church to pretend like everything is okay. When someone asks how you are, you say, “I’m fine, God is good, I’m blessed” because sometimes there is this fear of being ostracized if you’re in a battle, or you feel like you should have it handled and this thing shouldn’t be plaguing you, and you feel like “Maybe I’m not a good Christian if I’m still struggling with this thing.”

There’s just something freeing about writing poetry. I’m able to say things I wouldn’t dare share with someone in a conversation. This book exposed me to God, my friends, and my family in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible and that are hard to think about. People who’ve known me for years have said, “I know you so much better now after reading your poems.”

3. Your book is divided into four parts with humorous titles:

I. The Plague: It’s Like a Locust Infestation

II. Aware: Place Roach Motels in Every Room

III. Combat: Armed with Pesticide, Wearing a Flypaper Dress

IV. Eradicate: Time to Tent the House

What does “Place Roach Motels in Every Room” mean exactly? Can you give us an example of a “Roach Motel” remedy as it appears in one of the poems?

“Place Roach Motels in Every Room” is in the poem “They Just Wanna Fight.” It’s a metaphor for what you have to do to take matters into your own hands and protect yourself if you’ve got people in your life crawling all over you and consuming all that you have, pointing out your flaws. If you’re around people who never bring any good into your life, you must debug and get rid of them or they will multiply. Those frenemies have nothing on Egyptian desert roaches. Here’s an excerpt from that poem:

These dark deeds they deduce I do,

So odious they think I am,

Are sewage that they dine upon.

When I flip on the light, they scram!

They crawl all over picnic plans

Swimming in my lemonade.

Bug bombs I pitch with fervent clip

Anti-parasite grenades.

It’s time to stop being the victim in your own story. When you finally recognize what the problem is in your life and where it’s coming from, it’s your duty to do something about it for your health and well-being. We must use the brains God gave us to get out of those situations.

4.  As the mother of an autistic child, what life lessons have you learned and have they found their way into this book and/or your previous books?

Patience. And pack clean underwear. My son has taught me a lot. He’s helped me to not take everything so seriously. The lessons from him are in this book indirectly, but they taught me to embrace humor in the midst of my mess and let that shine through.

I’m now writing about my son in two different memoirs: one about his premature birth, four months early, and a second on what it was like for us when he was diagnosed as being a special needs child.

Book Info:

Title: Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems [Biblical Remedies for When Life Bites]
Author: Katherine Norland

Available on Amazon.
Paperback: 110 pages
Publisher: Poetic Prescriptions Publishing (September 26, 2019)
ISBN: 978-0998395210

Author Websites:

Katherine Norland

Poetic Prescriptions

Press Kit: 

EPK Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems

Follow Katherine on:

Twitter: @katnorland

Facebook: @KatNorland

Instagram: KatherineNorland

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REVIEW: POETIC PRESCRIPTIONS FOR PLAGUING PROBLEMS PACKS A PUNCH

REVIEW:

Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems: Biblical Remedies for When Life Bites
Author: Katherine Norland

Publisher: Poetic Prescriptions Publishing

Genre: Christian Poetry/Spiritual Growth

ISBN: 978-0998395210   Paperback (110 pages)  $9.97

Date of Publication: September 26, 2019
Available on Amazon

Kindle E-Book  (ASIN: TBA)

Author Website: http://poeticprescriptions.com

“Buzz off, Beezlebub!”—Katherine Norland

Poetic Prescriptions for Plaguing Problems: Biblical Remedies for When Life Bites shines with author Katherine Norland’s warts-and-all honesty regarding her own struggles, and her pure desire to lead others out of the dark spiritual vacuums of their own making and into the Light of God’s Grace. The book’s stated purpose is to answer two questions that the author would ask whenever the chips were down:

Where is God in all this? How can I get Him to answer my prayers?

Norland cleverly and meticulously structures the book to reflect her own hard-won journey to Salvation by dividing it into four sections with humorous titles:

I. The Plague: It’s Like a Locust Infestation

II. Aware: Place Roach Motels in Every Room

III. Combat: Armed with Pesticide, Wearing a Flypaper Dress

IV. Eradicate: Time to Tent the House

Norland’s talent for crafting original imagery comes through in such poems as “Chasing Scraps,” which depicts the dead-end nature of getting caught up in the rat race of life, and offers this remedy:

It seems that only God can change my ways;
With Him I’d get my cheese and leave the maze.
My body tires out and I collapse.
Look up to see I was just chasing scraps.

This book will appeal to anyone who is hungry for spiritual growth and willing to accompany this bruised, but triumphant, poet on a pilgrimage through the plagues, pestilence, and heart-wrenching struggles of life, where trials must be faced and devilish temptations eradicated until each battle is won with the one-two punch of telling Beezlebub to “Buzz off!” and believing that God does indeed hear our prayers, if we have the courage to pray.

###

This book is the third in Katherine Norland’s POETIC PRESCRIPTIONS series, which also include POETIC PRESCRIPTIONS FOR ETERNAL YOUTH: EXAMINING EARTHLY BEAUTY FROM A HEAVENLY PERSPECTIVE and POETIC PRESCRIPTIONS FOR PESKY PROBLEMS. Both available on Amazon.

SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF A FIRE WALKER POET

Title: Inspirational Verse for Those Who Hunger and Thirst
Subtitle: A Book of Poems to Feed the Soul
Author: Artemis Craig

Genre: Inspirational and Religious Poetry

(Sale Sheet Info Below)

Reviewer: Marlan Warren

I have respect for anyone’s spiritual journey. And I have a lot of respect for the poet Artemis Craig, whom I met at USC, while we were both in film school studying screenwriting. We only met once, in the changing room of the gym, but her feisty humor made a lasting impression.

“Before they’re done, this school’s gonna own the drawers on my butt!” she said. I don’t know about her, but that school does own the drawers on my butt. The one thing I do know that we share is post-film-school depression. A not uncommon affliction in L.A.

Now, a couple decades later, Craig has risen out of the ashes of Hollywood as an evangelical poet who has walked through fire, and lived to tell her story in the form of Inspirational Verse for Those Who Hunger and Thirst: A Book of Poems to Feed the Soul.

With straightforward honesty and a gift for storytelling, Craig has arranged the poems in this anthology as an odyssey washed in the blood of heartaches, losses, and disappointments after returning home as the Prodigal Daughter. All the elements that make  “inspirational verse” inspirational are there (finding and praising the Grace of God), woven into searing moments from Craig’s life, told with her flair for dramatic prose and metaphor.

Her post-graduation first experience--pitching to execs at a major studio--soured her forever on staying on that track. Many film school alumni can relate (this one does). A sensitive soul, Craig stayed away from the written word until she began writing poetry in the 21^st Century, finally gaining the spiritual strength to openly share it in 2013 with this book.

The poem that opens the book, “Speak Now,” reflects the pain felt by many a disillusioned film student:

Without words I became invisible which was fine by me,

Found a home for my anger and bitterness in my invisibility.

Disappointment and hatred festered inside all the while,

But none knew because through it all I wore a smile.

I felt personal resonance with her personal poems about loss. One deeply regrets missing the passing of her grandmother because Craig was busy pursuing her career on the other coast. I was at USC editing my film for class when news of my father’s sudden passing came.

One of the most moving poems is “Life Not Mine to Save,” remembering her futile attempts to save her father’s life when he died of heart failure:

One, one thousand, two, one thousand

Chest compressions like I’d been taught weren’t enough

Formed a seal over your mouth and into it blew a quick puff.

Stay with me! Stay with me! But you refused to wake

Afterward she fills such bitterness, that she questions God’s actions:

Though it’s hard to believe, your life was not mine to save.

Anger at God is all I can feel,

That along with the hope that somehow

This can’t possibly be real.

The poem plays out like a short film. With a “resolution” that is accepting and spiritual:

Away from me, Daddy, your body lies in the cold grave

It seems like only yesterday, try as I might,

Your life was never mine to save.

But mine to cherish in moments of panic and doubt,

To keep as memories when I feel trapped and can’t get out.

I had an elderly aunt who would tell the story of her life and end it with “I didn’t know they’d throw the book at me!” Here, Artemis Craig, has thrown a book out of her life for others to gain some solace as they grapple with their own journeys.

As Charles Bukowski once said: “What matters most is how well you walk through fire.”

About the Author

Artemis Craig was born in a rural town in Birmingham, Alabama to a steelworker father and educator mother. She graduated with a BFA in Cinema and Television from the University of Southern California. She is the mother of one son, Roderic, who is her inspiration. Her hobbies include writing poetry in the Gifts of a Wordsmith group at her local library, as well as, performing at the On Stage at the Carver Theater open mike showcase. Currently, Artemis is finishing her second poetry book, Southern Fried Comfort Food: Recipes to Encourage the Soul, as well as her first novel, a sci-fi murder mystery, A Little Taste of Death. She divides her time between Birmingham, Alabama and Newport News, Virginia.

Author Website: https://artemiscraigpublishing.com/

SALE SHEET INFO

Title: Inspirational Verse for Those Who Hunger and Thirst
Subtitle:  A Book of Poems to Feed the Soul

Author: Artemis Craig

Publisher: Artemis Craig Publishing (Nov. 6, 2013

Paperback: $15.00   Pages: 64

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Inspirational-Verse-Those-Hunger-Thirst/dp/0989087603

ISBN-13: 978-0989087605

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Inspirational-Verse-Those-Hunger-Thirst-ebook/dp/B00HLXV864/

ASIN: B00HLXV864

Genre: Inspirational and Religious Poetry

#ChristianPoetry
#FaithBasedPoet
#Recovery
#SpiritualOdyssey
#Evangelical
#Poetry 
#ArtistSurvival