Vanilla Heart Publishing
Smoky Trudeau grew up on the flat plains of Illinois, but her happiest childhood memories are of the extended camping trips her family took each year to the mountains of Virginia, the eastern shore of Maryland, or—her favorite destination—the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
Graduated from
Her diverse interests led to a career as a freelance writer;
her articles appeared in publications such as
Smoky’s
short stories have appeared in Potpourri and CALYX; her collected
short stories were published in 2003.
Her story, The Last Flight Home, was nominated for the 2003
Pushcart Prize. She writes books reviews and the occasional article for SageWoman
and Pan Gaia magazines.
Smoky works as a freelance editor and
private writing coach, and has taught writing and creativity workshops at
venues nationwide. She lives in
The tragic deaths of her mother and two younger siblings have left Grace Harmon responsible for raising her sister Miriam and protecting her from their abusive father, Luther, a zealot preacher with a penchant for speaking in Biblical verse who is on a downward spiral toward insanity.
Otto Singer charms Grace with his gentle courtship and devotion to his brother, Henry. But after their marriage, Otto is unable to share with Grace the terrible secret he has kept more than twenty years. Otto believes he is responsible for a tragic accident that claimed the life of a young woman and left Henry severely brain damaged.
Luther's insane ravings and increasingly violent behavior force Grace to question and reassess the patriarchal religious beliefs of her childhood. Then tragedy strikes just when Otto's secret is uncovered, unleashing demons that threaten to destroy the entire family. Can Grace find the strength to save them, and in the process find her own redemption?
Redeeming Grace is set on
Doubleclick the Video Trailer to open full size
Smoky
Trudeau has written a book of love...marital love, love of family, love of
nature and the land. But that love is threatened by the insane love of an old
man for his jealous god. Long-suppressed secrets erupt into nightmares, a
tornado strikes, and an unspeakable crime is committed. An unlikely hero
saves the day and we see how authentic love does indeed conquer all things.
Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. is the
author of Pagan
Every Day, Finding New Goddesses , and Quicksilver Moon.
Trudeau's passion comes
through in this compelling tale of a young woman's struggle with spirituality
and cruelty. Written with journalistic precision, Redeeming Grace drew me in so that I
felt Grace's emotions and found my breath catching in anticipation of the next
segment. I was literally there, could smell the marsh and salt and could
hear the lapping water. The people were real to me, as if I'd known them
all my life. Redeeming Grace
is a gripping narration and one I would highly recommend.
Vila SpiderHawk, author
of Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the
Crones and Forest Song:
Finding Home.
SageWoman Magazine
The
Cabin
by Smoky Trudeau
The Cabin is an historical fantasy, with a hefty dose of
romance thrown in (although not romance in the traditional sense of a romance
novel). James-Cyrus Hoffmann has just
inherited his grandfather’s farm, and with it a mysterious cabin deep in the
woods on Hoffmann mountain; a cabin he has dreamed about since childhood. When James-Cyrus enters the cabin, he is
vaulted back through time to the Civil War era, where he meets Elizabeth, the
brave young woman who lives in the cabin, and Malachi, a runaway slave.
James-Cyrus
realizes his dreams of the cabin were visions of the past, and that
Full of Byzantine twists and turns,
Smoky Trudeau's The Cabin is a fascinating read. This truly
beautiful tale of humanity's connection to the natural realm and to a force we
cannot see teaches us that the world is, indeed, a wondrous place full of magic
we do not understand. I highly recommend this haunting tale.
–Vila SpiderHawk, author of Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones
and Forest Song: Finding Home.
Front-word,
Back-word, Insight-Out:
Lessons on Writing
the Novel Lurking Inside You
from Start to Finish
Every day, people sit down in front of a blank computer screen or piece of paper and start to write their own version of the Great American Novel. Many never get beyond “Once upon a time....” Their stories remain stuck inside, where only they can hear them. That’s because writing a book is easier said than done. Writing a good book is even harder. Why? Because novel writing is a skill that must be learned, just like a nurse must learn to take a patient’s blood pressure, a pilot must learn how to fly, and a concert pianist must learn to read music.
Based on her years of teaching writing workshops, author Smoky Trudeau has created a program of step-by-step lessons to teach you how to transform that story stuck inside you into good fiction. You’ll learn winning techniques for starting your story and how to decide which character should tell it. You’ll gather ideas for writing believable dialogue and developing characters readers will love—and those they’ll despise. You’ll learn how to build tension, write an exciting climax scene, then gracefully bring your story to an end; and much, much more.
Full of examples and exercises to help you hone your skills, Front-word, Back-word, Insight-Out is the must-read book for anyone who wants to unleash their inner author and free the stories lurking inside.
Buy Front-word, Back-word, Insight-Out HERE
Front-Word,
Back-Word, Insight Out is the
Fiction Writer’s Workshop Smoky taught at community colleges and other venues
for eight years. Here are just a few of the nice things her students have said:
Smoky’s impeccable writing expertise and teaching
skills inspired me to write a short story that not only won a local competition
but will soon be published in an anthology.
That story will someday be a novel, and I owe it all to Smoky.
Sue Stewart
Your insights, energy, and sense of humor make you an
outstanding teacher. You should win a
prize.
Donald
Sherbert, Ph.D.
Trudeau is a delight…she knows a lot and conveys
examples in class tactfully and with skill.
I always left class inspired...
Anonymous
Student Evaluations
and Coming Soon!
The Storyteller's Bracelet
It is the late 1800s, and the push to remove Native American children from their tribal homes to attend schools in the east to learn the ways of the white man is in full swing. When 17-year-old Otter is forcibly removed from his tribe and sent to school, he fights to retain his Indian identity, but soon finds himself fighting a losing battle. Encouraged by Sun Song, the young woman from his tribe whom Otter hopes to some day marry, Otter throws himself into his coursework.
Given the biblical name Gideon, Otter excels in his studies, and within a year earns the trust of his teachers and school officials. Sent to work as a gardener at the home of the wealthy Thatcher family from town, Gideon meets Rachel, the feisty daughter who soon steals his heart. Their affair is uncovered when Rachel becomes pregnant, and Gideon finds he must flee for his life from the wrath of her racist father.
More than one hundred years later, Lark Waterman inherits a bracelet from her grandmother—a storyteller's bracelet, with pictographs that reveal a tragic story from Lark's family history, a history her grandmother had been forbidden to explore. Lark sets off on a journey to decipher the meaning of the bracelet. She soon meets Sophia, a healer and seer who recognizes Lark too has the power of sight.
With Sophia's guidance, Lark learns to tap into her gift of sight, a gift that soon proves crucial to understanding the meaning of the bracelet. The two women set off for the Southwest, following the clues of the bracelet, on a journey to unlock a secret from Lark's past that just might allow her to reclaim the birthright denied her grandmother a century earlier.
