Full Transcription
Barbara:
And my advanced reviews for this book are stellar. It is heartwarming, heartbreaking, inspirational, page turner. Can’t put it down. By far the best thing I’ve ever written.
Jeff:
Please welcome bestselling author, Barbara Hinske.
Barbara:
We need to raise awareness within the sighted community of the isolation that the blind, particularly newly blind people face.
Jeff:
Author of the Rosemont Series, The Christmas Club and her new release Guiding Emily.
Barbara:
And Garth is actually based upon our real guide dog named Gnocchi, who is Julie Rock’s guide dog from the foundation and she’s my dog trainer.
Jeff:
Bringing awareness to blindness and support for the Foundation for Blind Children.
Barbara:
I’ve recently retired as a business attorney. So the business aspects of publishing didn’t discourage me. It didn’t bother me. I felt like I could handle them.
Jeff:
Guiding Emily is now available on Amazon. So please welcome bestselling author, Barbara Hinske.
Barbara:
Write your book, keep writing and do not listen to anyone who would discourage you from the path.
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. Today in the studio, we have bestselling author, Barbara Hinske and she is the author behind the Rosemont Series, as well as The Christmas Club, which was made into a Hallmark movie in 2019. Barbara, welcome to Blind Abilities.
Barbara:
Thank you, Jeff. I’m thrilled to be with this morning.
Jeff:
Well, thanks for taking the time to share with our listeners a little bit about an upcoming book, Guiding Emily, that you are about to release on the 12th.
Barbara:
Yes. Thank you. Guiding Emily is a tale of love, loss and courage. It’s the tale of the love story between Garth the guide dog and his handler, Emily Main, who loses her eyesight on her honeymoon. It’s the story of their journey to find each other.
Jeff:
You yourself you’re sighted. What inspired you writing Guiding Emily?
Barbara:
Thank you for asking about that. I live less than a mile away from the Foundation for Blind Children in Phoenix, Arizona, and I’ve driven by it for 30 years, but I had never been inside, was always curious. And in February of 2019, I was seated at a dinner next to the development director for the foundation. And Steve said to me, “You guys live right down the street. Why don’t you come for a tour next week? Just come anytime.” So my husband and I did that. The foundation services children from birth to 105. It’s a wonderful organization and a fabulous facility.
Barbara:
When we were done with that tour, we were both moved. I was choking back tears. And I said to Steve, “What do you need? How can I help you?” Well, they’re a nonprofit, so of course he said we need money, and we need to raise awareness within the sighted community of the isolation that the blind, particularly newly blind people face. So I said, “Well, I’m a successful novelist, and a book can do both of those things. I can write a book.” So I’ve written, Guiding Emily. I’ve addressed some of those issues and other issues for guide dogs, which we can talk about if you’d like, and I’m donating half of my proceeds from this book to the Foundation for Blind Children. So it’s got a big old mission that it needs to go forward in this world and accomplish, and I’m working very hard to get the word out about it so it does just that.
Jeff:
Well, we are glad to get the word about Guiding Emily out and about your story too. And that’s a really neat story that 30 years of being that close to it and it being just, if I may, out of sight from what it’s all about. Can you tell us a little bit about when you attended there, when you went there and you told me, going to a little bit of cane travel or some experiences, what really set in when you did all that?
Barbara:
Thank you. I’d like to address it in two parts, because I’ve been there a lot. They’ve been wonderful to me in my research. The initial meeting was so powerful and moving because they don’t, and maybe most of the blind schools, they don’t turn anyone away. So all of these children who have visual impairments and other disabilities are served by them. But some of those staff to student ratios are two children to one staff and they are working so effectively with these children.
Barbara:
I met a six-year-old boy from Canada who has multiple disabilities, but he was walking around, just the most cheerful child, gave me a big old hug. His parents had been told in Canada where they lived, that really he would not have a long lifespan. He would never walk or talk and that they just should make him comfortable. Well, the parents didn’t buy into that and researched and came to Phoenix, moved their family from another country. That’s a big deal. And here is this child has his arms around my waist. One of the hallways has photos on the wall of a group of young adults and teens that climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Okay. Holy cow. And during that initial visit, we turned the corner and went to their big Braille library. And there was one of those big old checks on the wall like people do for publicity from Major League Baseball for a million dollars.
Barbara:
And I’m kidding you not, I felt an electric current go through my body. And I looked at that check and I thought, I want a check from me on that wall for $2 million, but I’m not rich. So I thought, well, how can I do that? When I was later talking to Steve, then the idea was born. I can write a book. That was in February of 2019. I was still working full time as an attorney. I retired in July of 2019, started writing the book in August. I finished it in October and it’s now been edited and formatted and all the kinds of backend book things that need to happen. And it will be published on June 12th.
Jeff:
Congratulations.
Barbara:
Thank you. So I got on it, but it never seemed hard. I felt like this book just flowed. Some people believe in divine guidance, and I know other people don’t. I’m someone who does. I feel like I was divinely guided through all of this. My advanced reviews for this book are stellar. It is heartwarming, heartbreaking, inspirational, page turner. Can’t put it down. By far the best thing I’ve ever written.
Jeff:
I saw some of those reviews and it was just inspiring is just like, wow, it makes me want to get the book and that’s coming out on the 12th. So it’s not long from now.
Barbara:
Thank you for that. So that was my initial introduction to the foundation. And then of course, to write this book, I had to do a ton of research on ways that Emily Main would lose her eyesight, her retinal detachment, and the doctors were very helpful with all of that. I was afforded the opportunity to have basic white cane training and I’ve written a blog post about that, about how crazy terrifying it was to walk outside of the foundation’s premises and just go up and down a quiet sidewalk knowing I was only wearing goggles to replicate blindness. So I could take them off at any time and I had the instructor right there. I was perfectly safe.
Barbara:
It gave me something of an idea that newly blind patients signed waivers and let me sit in on a group therapy session where I heard about the panic attacks about even going into Starbucks with a sighted guide was so frightening. So I got to learn about all of this and about isolation, which by the way, I think COVID is not a good thing, but right now I think this book will resonate on that isolation issue to a broader and even broader population because everybody’s been stuck at home with a stay at home order. So I think there’s a tie in.
Jeff:
Yeah, I’ve heard some. It’s not funny, but I’ve heard some people talk about how the isolation stay at home unemployment and all that resonates with the blindness community as themselves with a low percentage of employment. What else is interesting is working from home is something that people with visual impairments and challenges are pretty good at because they do have the good techniques of communications and that. So when you were behind the goggles or some people call them shades, what was that like? Did you feel vulnerable? What emotions struck you the most?
Barbara:
Yeah, I definitely felt vulnerable. One of the things that was sort of crazy unexpected was I just felt like there was a gorilla on my shoulders. I felt this real super awareness of my body in space. I’m kind of getting the heebie-jeebies just sitting here on my sofa with my eyes open just thinking about it, just putting your foot forward. The sweeping the cane thing I got pretty well, but anybody, any sighted person who, if you wake up in the middle of the night, say in a hotel room, so you’re not in your normal environment and you got your blackout drapes drawn and you can’t see anything, it’s real unnerving. Well, pour jet fuel on that feeling.
Jeff:
Oh wow.
Barbara:
I knew intellectually Spencer Churchill was at my elbow. Nothing was going to happen to me. I could take off the goggles, nothing could happen to me. Plus I had the kind that have a little pinhole vision in my, I think it was in my left eye. So I could swing my eye all around and at least to see something. I wasn’t in total darkness.
Jeff:
So it replicated something like RP would be.
Barbara:
Yes.
Jeff:
That’s interesting because I went through training myself and I had some residual vision, so I wore sleep shades and I got confident after a while, after going through that really here goes, but then I started getting upset with like the sprinkler noise that was going off in the distance because it masked some of the noises I wanted to pay attention to or a refrigerator truck that was parked there. But I’m really glad that you got some experience here and that you’re actually interested of course, as well as your husband, but you’re actually collecting data. What made you decide … Well, your caning experience, but what made you decide to … Well, two questions. Why did you name the guide dog, Garth? And you went with the guide dog.
Barbara:
Well, I chose the name Garth because I like it because it’s male. Garth is a character who is pure good. It’s hard to lose your eyesight and then her marriage has problems and all kinds of things fall apart, as happens in families with sudden blindness. So Garth lightens everything up. His chapters are interspersed in the book to make it not a really heavy read. I wanted him to be seen as a little bit sexy, a little bit protective. I want the reader in their mind to kind of have almost a little bit of a cowboy accent to him. Maybe that’s because I’m in Phoenix and we’re kind of the West.
Barbara:
I met the actor, Cameron Mathison who was the main character in my Hallmark movie. His name was Edward in the movie, nicest guy in the world. And as I was writing Garth’s character, I was hearing Cameron’s voice in my mind and he’s got kind of that little bit of a gravelly growl in his voice. So that’s how I named Garth. Garth is actually based upon our real guide dog named Gnocchi, who is Julie Rock’s guide dog from the foundation. And she’s my dog trainer. So I’ve gotten to know Gnocchi because he attends our training sessions and just kind of hangs out and is wonderful. So, that’s how I came up with Garth.
Jeff:
Well, that’s great to hear about Garth. My wife has a guide dog, Logan, and they’re just such great animals and well trained. So how did you learn more about guide dogs?
Barbara:
I knew that I wanted to intersperse this book, craft the book, structure the book with a subplot from Garth’s voice. By the way, everybody who’s reviewed the book, loves Garth with the exception of one person who said they’re allergic to dogs and she just skipped and doesn’t like them. So she skipped the dog parts. I’m thinking, what? But I knew I wanted to include that. I was introduced to a local newscaster. Her name is Kristy Siefkin and she’s been a puppy raiser for Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California.
Barbara:
So she opened behind the scenes doors for me and my husband and I, he is the most supportive spouse in the world. He and I went to California and spent three days with them and kind of behind the scenes, talking to people. And once again, they were so generous with their time and attention and people from both organizations, the foundation and guide dogs, sorry about my cuckoo clock, have read the draft and done technical edits on the draft.
Jeff:
I got a cuckoo clock myself. I like them.
Barbara:
They’re wonderful. They’re fun, and people like to hear them. So Kristy Siefkin opened doors behind the scenes for me at Guide Dogs for the Blind. My husband and I went and spent three days there. They are most generous with their time and attention to us, Rabih Dow their Development Director spent an entire day with us and he and others there have reviewed my manuscript and made technical issues. I asked them, what do you want to see in this book? What awareness do you want to have raised in Guiding Emily? And they said they really want the public to understand the dangers posed to legitimate service dogs by this proliferation of phony service dogs and how dangerous those animals can be to service dogs and career ending. So I wrote a scene in Guiding Emily where Garth as a puppy is attacked by a phony service dog in a restaurant.
Jeff:
Oh wow.
Barbara:
That was a hard scene to write.
Jeff:
It brings back Old Yeller or something like that.
Barbara:
Yeah. It was a hard scene to write because it could have been career ending. And Julie Rock was really helpful to me in getting that scene right, and having the puppy raiser’s reaction be accurate.
Jeff:
So with the guide dog, Guiding Emily, Emily being the main character who lost her sight on the honeymoon. So you’re going to build in the whole dynamics of the family, the changes that went in to everything. How did you develop because you created Emily, how did you develop her character as losing eyesight and where did you gain the confidence to develop Emily’s character?
Barbara:
Okay, thank you. Well, Emily has her retinas detach and she’s had this destination wedding, island wedding and the medical care there is not sufficient to take care of that. By the time she gets home back to where she lives in San Francisco, it’s basically too late for reattachment surgery to be effective. The doctors at the foundation were helpful to me in that respect and so was my research. I wanted her to have something obviously that would be doable, but I didn’t want her to have a head injury so that she would have other issues. I wanted her to experience the isolation and she has panic attacks. I mean, it’s pretty heavy. She has panic attacks and isolation and all those things, but yet she was a software developer and a project leader and had a very successful career at a technology giant.
Barbara:
So I wanted her to be able to go back to that. And maybe this isn’t realistic, I don’t know, but her coworkers are instrumental in convincing her to get help and get into white cane training. She has people around her who love her, unfortunately is not necessarily her husband. Her mother, who is wonderful and loves her and kind of just doesn’t know what to do with all of this. And she has a coworker who, I loved writing this character. His name is Dhruv which means faithful in Indian. And he just is tenacious as all get out and just quietly insisting that she needs to get white cane training and she needs to resume her life.
Barbara:
So there’s some very heartwarming and tear jerking scenes with Dhruv and with her coworkers. It’s the first in a series, there’s going to be a sequel. I think there’s going to be maybe some love stories for people. Maybe even Dhruv’s going to find somebody because I and early readers love Dhruv. I like to write romantic things, who doesn’t like the happy ending? So there’s got to be some good stuff for Dhruv. He’s such a good guy.
Jeff:
You’ve had some experience at writing series from the Rosemont Series. Can you tell the listeners what that’s about?
Barbara:
Yeah. So Rosemont is my first series. It’s about a woman, Maggie Martin, she’s in her mid 50s and her husband dies suddenly, that’s bad. And then she finds out he had been embezzling from his employer and that’s worse. And then she finds out he had a second family. Okay. That’s really bad. But she also learns that he had inherited this fabulous mansion in the Midwest known as Rosemont and he had never told her. Now that he’s dead, she’s got the mansion. Okay. Well, that’s not quite so bad. She travels to see it because she’s trying to figure out who this guy was that she was married to for 30 years and didn’t really know, and she’s going to put the place on the market, but she just wants to see it.
Barbara:
So she goes there and says, falls in love with it and decides to uproot her life and move to Rosemont. A stray dog adopts her and leads her to their local veterinarian and on and on. There’s some fraud and embezzlement in the local town. I don’t want to do any spoilers. It’s got mystery, thriller, suspense themes in it. So I’ve just finished writing my seventh book in that series.
Jeff:
Wow.
Barbara:
And then I’ve just published mid-May my first standalone murder mystery called Deadly Parcel. I wrote it a couple of years ago and just decided, well, I’m just going to publish it and it’s done really well. So I guess I can write a murder mystery without all the love story.
Jeff:
You just hung onto it for a little while.
Barbara:
I did. And I had another one that’s going to come out in August called Final Circuit. That’s another murder mystery. I don’t write blood, guts, gore on the page. I don’t like to see it on TV. I don’t like to think about it. I don’t like to read it or write it. So it’s not there. I like to write about interesting kind of odd ideas, you’ll find passages about. Oh, and I love the idea of finding like silverware in the attic and a rare stamp and a painting you didn’t know was real.
Barbara:
I just kind of always, I like going to garage sales and I’m always like looking for a van Gogh or something, you know? So I write about those kinds of things. And then you get into some of the aspects of all of rare books. And so I hope I don’t have boring amounts of detail. I don’t think I do, but just little tastes of those kinds of things. There’s almost always some romance and always some little mystery going on in most of the stuff I write. There’s no mystery in Guiding Emily though.
Jeff:
But it seems like you like to put your little darlings right in there and play around with that. That’s really cool.
Barbara:
I do.
Jeff:
What about The Christmas Club, that got made into a movie? And what was that experience like to see something in a different vision that you created on ink and paper then to see it hit the screen?
Barbara:
That was quite a moment. The Christmas Club is a novella. So it’s only 20,000 words or about a hundred pages. It was set in 1952, and it was based upon a homily that I heard in church about a person who’s a woman comes out of the bank and slips on the ice and her purse flies open and her money, and I fictionalize this. So in my book, it’s six $5 bills fly to the wind. And two people see her, a man and a woman who don’t know each other, see her, help her up, get her back into the bank. And the man says, “How much did you lose?” And she told him and he said, “Well, I’ll go out. Look for it.”
Barbara:
Well, of course the money’s long gone. It’s blown away, but he goes out of the bank and he pulls, she had told him I lost six $5 bills. So he had five $5 bills in his wallet. The woman who helped him had one. They pooled their money, took it back in the bank and said, “We found it, here’s your money.” So she got her money back, but it wasn’t like they were saying, “Oh, you poor old lady. You poor charity case. Here’s our money.” She was grateful. But she was grateful because they did something nice. They found it. Not saw her as a charity case. So the important thing was it was doing something nice, or something kind, doing it in a nice way.
Barbara:
Then in my book, the $5 bills are each found by someone else who does something kind for another person with it. So it’s all pay it forward. And then the man and woman who helped her into the bank, there’s a little romantic spark and they keep missing each other through the book until Christmas Eve. Hallmark took that and rewrote it and made it into a more typical Hallmark romance and set it current day. But the screenwriter did a beautiful job with the script. I believe it was their top rating movie of last season. So I was very pleased with that.
Barbara:
Cameron Mathison and Elizabeth Mitchell were the stars. It was her first Hallmark project. She said her mother read the book and called her and said Elizabeth. And she said, my mother never asks me for anything. But my mother called me and said, “Elizabeth, find out if somebody is making a movie and if they have, I want you in it.” I mean, how about that? So it was filmed in Winnipeg, Canada. My husband and I went up for a week last July for filming and got to be on location for the week. They treated us like kings and queens. It was just crazy because I thought we’d be underfoot.
Barbara:
They were so kind. I’m telling you a couple of times we got really teary seeing actors say words that I wrote. It’s quite a moment. I have to say about a Hallmark, I have this impression of movie stars being all DB and everybody being mean and snippy and yelling at each other and all that. Well, not in a Hallmark movie. Everyone was kind and respectful and it was hot 14 hour minimum days. They had every reason to be short with each other and they weren’t. It was quite an experience.
Jeff:
Oh, what an experience so to see something take total transformation into a whole different media. That’s really something you can hang your hat on there.
Barbara:
Absolutely. The movie got … Well, all of Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas gets crazy publicity in the international business digest. I mean all kinds of stuff. So my assistant and I, at that point, I remember I had written Guiding Emily and I knew what I wanted to do with it. So we contacted every news source that had covered the Countdown to Christmas, and we said 107 of them. We said, “Would you like to interview me guest blog posts, podcast, whatever.” And 102 of them said, yes. So I spent the next month just doing that. At the end of every interview, whatever I would pitch Guiding Emily.
Barbara:
Frankly, I would tell people what it was about and what the mission was. And everybody said, “Oh, please get back to us when you’re going to publish.” So that’s what Lisa and I have been doing for the last 10 days. And we’re again, getting a big response. So I’m hopeful that that will help push this book forward because I figure the audiobook will be 4.99. Not the audiobook. I don’t have the audio rights sold yet, but the e-book will be 4.99. So for five bucks you can buy yourself a lovely book and realize that you’re making a significant donation to the Foundation for Blind Children. That’s a win-win in my book.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah. That’s really great what you’re doing for the Foundation of Blind Children, because they’re an organization, as we talked earlier from basically newborns to 105, you said.
Barbara:
Yes.
Jeff:
Wow.
Barbara:
Yeah. It’s incredible.
Jeff:
That’s a huge spectrum.
Barbara:
Yes, it is. It is. I wish everyone could see their campus. They’ve had the money to redo their space and it’s wonderful. It’s beautiful. They have the rock climbing wall and the gym and just all kinds of stuff. They do a lot of Braille translation for the schools and others and they have a huge mission.
Jeff:
Oh, that’s great. Now this interview would not be complete unless I would ask a question of you from, I know Lois Strachan and she’s from South Africa. She’s an author. She’s blind and she’s written children’s books and she’s written a book about blindness. There we go.
Barbara:
There we go. My stupid dogs.
Jeff:
Well, believe me, that’s so fitting that I mentioned Lois’s name and boom. There’s the dog’s hand. I didn’t have to add sound effects. So that’s real.
Barbara:
Yeah, exactly. They’re not stupid. They’re sweet, but they’re just mouthy at times.
Jeff:
You warned me. It was coming.
Barbara:
Yeah.
Jeff:
But Lois is an author and she always talks about writing books. What advice would you give to aspiring authors, people who are interested in writing books, what advice would you have for them?
Barbara:
Keep writing, write your book, keep writing and do not listen to anyone who would discourage you from the path. I am a self-published author by my own choice. I’m a business attorney. I’ve recently retired as a business attorney. So the business aspects of publishing didn’t discourage me. It didn’t bother me. I felt like I could handle them. And I’ve felt like I’ve made far more money doing this on my own than I would have if I had had a publishing contract. And I do have some publishing contracts. So early in my writing career, I can’t tell you the number of lawyer friends and other friends and families said, “Oh, well you’ll never make any money,” that, “Oh, you can’t do this. You can’t do that.”
Barbara:
Well, none of that is true. You can. You can get your voice heard. And was it a lot of work for me to learn how to do the business aspects of it and learn how to do creative writing? Yes, it was. Was it doable? Absolutely. Has it been the greatest joy of my life? You bet. Will Guiding Emily and the money it can raise for the Foundation for Blind Children be an enduring legacy of my life? That’s what I’m affirming. So I don’t want anyone to be discouraged and if I can help any writers, I would love … I don’t edit, I don’t critique. I don’t do all of that, but I have a list of resources that I send people to, the things that I looked at to learn how to write. So is it okay if I give my email, somebody can email me?
Jeff:
Of course.
Barbara:
Okay. It’s B like the letter B Hinske, H-I-N-S-K-E bhinske@gmail. So shoot me an email with any kind of questions and I will do my best to share resources and encouragement. But the biggest thing is, write your book and turn aside the naysayers.
Jeff:
There you go. That’s great advice. Barbara, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come on the Blind Abilities and talk about your writing, how you got involved in it, your books, your series, the new book coming out, Guiding Emily due out June 12th. So be sure to go get. Where can they find the book?
Barbara:
Amazon.
Jeff:
Amazon?
Barbara:
Yeah.
Jeff:
No bigger place than that, is it?
Barbara:
Yep, absolutely. Yeah.
Jeff:
Well, great. We’ll put some links in the show notes here and it’s really neat that you went by 30 years, but you went in there and look what you’re doing now for the Foundation of Blind Children and for the awareness for everyone to get about blindness. You bringing awareness is a huge thing, so thank you very, very much.
Barbara:
It’s my honor. And thank you so much for having me on. I’m so thrilled to be able to connect with your listeners, and I hope that all of the listeners and readers of Guiding Emily enjoy it and feel inspired and uplifted, and I hope everyone stays safe and well. Thanks, Jeff.
Jeff:
Thanks, Barbara. It’s such a great time talking to Barbara Hinske. Go check out the links in the show notes and check out amazon.com for Guiding Emily, a tale of love, loss, and courage. Available in paperback and Kindle edition. A big thank you goes out to the Foundation for Blind Children, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, and all those who supported, coached, trained and encouraged Barbara to create this book, Guiding Emily. Be sure to contact your state services for the blind, your voc rehab, and find out what they can do for you. Live, work, read, succeed.
Jeff:
A big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau. And from all of us here at Blind Abilities, through these challenging times to you, your family and friends, stay well, stay informed, and stay strong. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed. And until next time, bye-bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] – When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com.
Thanks for listening.
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