Author Interview with Johanna Rojas Vann & a Giveaway

I hope you enjoy this interview with Johanna Rojas Vann about her new release, Where Wilted Flowers Bloom. Be sure to comment below by September 8 for a chance to win a paperback of Johanna’s book! (US only)

Welcome back to the Hope-Filled Fiction blog, Johanna! Tell us a little about yourself and your family.

I am wife and mom to three young children and currently expecting my fourth! My oldest is a boy and then I’ve had three girls in a row—such a gift!

Congratulations on baby number four! How do you balance writing with your life and family obligations?

As a full-time, homeschooling mom, my family always comes first and if writing ever got in the way of meeting my family’s needs, I would give up writing in a heartbeat. While I feel called and so privileged to get to write books, it has to fit inside the slim margins of my family obligations. 

How I made it work with my last book (when I had three young children) included writing in the hours before my kids woke up, writing on the weekends when my husband was home, and even taking my kids to visit grandma three hours away where I could sneak away to write for longer stretches of time while they got quality time with their beloved grandparents.

With such a busy mom life, do you have time for any hobbies? If so, have you incorporated any of them into your books?

I love to be in the kitchen cooking food from scratch, especially bread. Bread is my love language. It’s no surprise then that in my latest novel, my protagonist teaches herself how to cook (and bake bread) when she moves from a tiny walkup in New York City to a beautiful home with a large kitchen in Nashville. 

Sounds yummy. I’d love to know if you have any unpublished and unfinished manuscripts and if you plan to pursue publication for any of them.

None! The two manuscripts I’ve written have been published and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!

That’s a great accomplishment! What would you tell your younger writing self?

You’re a much stronger writer than you think you are ❤️ Stop doubting! 

Great advice. What is the setting of your current novel? Is it a real location or fictional? Tell us about it.

Where Wilted Flowers Bloom takes place in East Nashville—a real and super awesome place to live. I spent 6 years living in that beautiful city and it was truly so much fun to write a book set there. 

I’m originally from the Chattanooga area, so I love Tennessee! Is Where Wilted Flowers Bloom inspired by true events or personal history?

A little bit of both. This book came to me the year I became a mom. I had quit my corporate job, so I was new to being a stay-at-home mom. I spent many mornings and afternoons rocking my new baby on the front porch and that’s when I noticed there was someone else on my street who was home all day like me—my elderly, widowed neighbor. That’s when I had the idea to write a story about a stay-at-home mom who becomes close friends with her elderly, widowed neighbor. 

I love that. What is one of your favorite quotes from Where Wilted Flowers Bloom?

“’God is always able to take our brokenness, take our troubles, our regrets, everything—he gladly receives it and—if we will let Him, he will exchange our ashes for a crown of beauty.’ Her hands start at the top of my head and slowly move down on either side as if she has just put an imaginary crown on my head. She holds my gaze with soft, misty eyes and I desperately want to believe the words coming out of her mouth right now, but something stops me.”

Absolutely beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. What did God teach you through writing this book? 

That he writes the best stories. There were so many instances throughout the writing process of this book where God showed up and reminded me that he was writing this book with me. His hand is all over the manuscript, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

That’s the best way to write! Tell us what you’re reading right now.

I’m reading Ina Garten’s memoir—cooking is truly a passion of mine and I even love reading about it!

What’s next from you?

Hopefully a series! We shall see… 

I hope that works out for you! Thanks so much for sharing about your life and writing on my blog. I wish you the best with this new book and all those to come.

Join the conversation. Have you read Johanna’s first book, An American Immigrant? Does her new release sound like a story you’d like to read? What questions or comments do you have for Johanna?

Be sure to comment below by September 8 for a chance to win a paperback of Johanna’s new release! (US only)

Where Wilted Flowers Bloom by Johanna Rojas Vann

Click the book cover for purchase link

“From the multi-award-winning author of An American Immigrant comes the story of a woman walking through paralyzing grief and the unlikely friendship that might unlock a path to healing.

Leaving behind the only city she’s known, Sandra and her family move from New York City to East Nashville for her husband’s job and a fresh start. She’ll miss her family and thriving career, but she is desperate to leave behind the city that holds her greatest loss.

And yet even with moving into a new home she designed and having the freedom to be a stay-at-home mom for the first time, her new life in Nashville is not what she thought it would be. She quickly realizes grief still follows her, and no new place can fix it.

When she meets her next-door neighbor Mark—an elderly, widowed, retired Pastor—an unlikely friendship quickly forms. His humor, spiritual wisdom, and affinity for gardening—a skill he was forced to learn when his late wife passed—brings a welcome distraction from Sandra’s suffocating grief, giving her hope for the first time since her tragic loss. Will this friendship be just what Sandra needs to heal her broken heart? Or will more unexpected news leave Sandra with even more heartache?”

Johanna Rojas Vann is the multi-award winning author of An American Immigrant. She is the recipient of the Christy Award for First Novel, the winner of the International Latino Book Award for Best First Book and the Silver Winner for The Isabel Allende Most Inspirational book award. Her debut novel was also a finalist for the Tennessee State Book Award.

She lives outside of Nashville, TN with her husband and children where she spends her days baking bread, chasing preschoolers around playgrounds and libraries, and writing inspirational fiction.

Connect with Johanna: Website / Instagram

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If you missed Amanda Cox’s Zoom interview about her new release, Things We Cannot Keep, FIND IT HERE.