I am so excited to tell you about this book from Local Author, Erika Liodice. Erika contacted me and asked if I would like to read and review her book. I have been so overwhelmed the last couple weeks but I was drawn into the storyline from the bio. Plus Erika is a LV native and I read her blog and decided that she is one cool lady, so I cleared some time to read Empty Arms. I read it in one weekend cover to cover and normally I do not have the attention span for that. I found myself drawn into the story and the characters. I love love loved it. You can read the “official” book summary HERE. Basically, the book is about a woman who was forced in the seventies to give up a child who she wanted to keep. She was a teenage mother and was sent to a maternity home for women, which was common for unwed mothers in that time period. Many years later, she is still longing for her child and in a cruel twist of fate, she is unable to have another child and struggles with infertility. The characters touched me as I had my own struggles with infertility and the author captured the emotions and the interaction between the couple perfect. I became attached to the character, Catherine and wanted her to be able to have that child and find the child that she lost so many years before. I don’t want to give too many more details of the book as there are many twists and turns and I don’t want to give anything away! But I will say, the ending was fantastic and you wouldn’t expect what happens. You must read it for yourself. Erica is an extremely talented writer and I’m sure is going to be very succesful with her writing career!
I asked Erica if she would like to be my first official Q&A interview (for what I am hoping turns into a weekly thing featuring awesome women around the Lehigh Valley) and she said yes! P.S. Make sure you also check out her inspirational blog Beyond the Gray
Q: How long have you lived in the Lehigh Valley?
I never thought I’d say this, but…all my life. I was born and raised in Bethlehem Township, I graduated from Freedom High School, and attended business school at Lehigh University. Growing up, my plan was to live somewhere beautiful and exciting. But as the years passed, I’ve watched the Lehigh Valley evolve into just such a place. Somewhere along the line my desire to move away was replaced with a desire to stay and participate in the vibrant culture right here in our backyard.
Q: When did you know you wanted to be an author?
I’ve been writing books since I was five years old. In fact, I recently came across one of my first books,
The Boy and Girl Got Married. When I was little, I would show my books to my Nana and I remember her saying, “You’re going to be an author one day.” I smiled and thought,
Yeah, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. Of course, I took a big detour through business school and Corporate America first. But in the end, I’m so thankful that I found my way back to my true calling.
Q: What inspired you to write this book?
Empty Arms is inspired by a family friend who had a baby out of wedlock when she was sixteen, back in the 1970s. She was sent to live at a maternity home to hide her pregnancy, and when she finally delivered her daughter, she was forced to place her for adoption. Everyone told her that she would forget about her baby and go on to have more children when she grew up and got married, but years later she discovered she was infertile and couldn’t have any more children. The cruel irony of her story stayed with me for quite some time. Eventually, I started researching concepts that were foreign to me: maternity homes, forced adoptions, and secondary infertility. What I learned outraged me. Between the 1940s-1970s, approximately 4 million women had babies out of wedlock and were coerced into placing them for adoption (a period of time often referred to as “The Baby Scoop Era”). Maternity homes were looked at as baby factories for infertile wealthy couples, and most of the young mothers who surrendered their babies were never given the option to keep them. Most didn’t even know they had the right to. I felt passionate about writing this story because I wanted to shed light on this oft-overlooked subject and give a voice to the millions of women who endured similar heartbreak, kept this painful secret, and spent years suffering in silence.
Q: What advice do you have for others who aspire to be an author? What have you learned from your experience?
Always be growing. Writing is a competitive and rapidly-changing industry, and you’ll quickly learn that there is always room for improvement. You will have a better shot at success if you arm yourself with a solid understanding of the craft
and the business. Over the years, I’ve read dozens of books, hundreds of magazine articles, and thousands of blog posts; I’ve attended classes in person and online, signed up for webinars, and traveled to literary conferences in an effort to soak up all the information I can. There are tons of resources available that can help you make your writing dream a reality. In fact, I offer lots of
free resources for writers on my blog,
Beyond the Gray, spanning a variety of topics: creativity, motivation, plotting and writing, editing, publishing, and more. In my opinion, if you make the commitment to always be growing as a writer, you’ll never go wrong.
Q: I love your blog and your inspirational messages… So tell me – did you and your husband really go skydiving on your second date?
We really did. In fact, our whole relationship has been quite an adventure. We met on a train in New York City one evening on our way home from work. On our first date, at a charming little Italian restaurant, we got to talking about all the things we dreamed of doing with our lives. Skydiving was one of them. So the next day, I found a place and signed us up. I think Dave was a little shocked by my boldness, but he rose to the occasion and we and jumped out of a plane that weekend. It was terrifying and exhilirating at the same time, but most of all it showed us that you don’t have sit around and daydream about the life you want to live…with a little effort, you can make it a reality.
Q: On your blog you talk about chasing your dreams. What one piece of advice would you give to someone who wants to follow their dreams but is scared to take that leap?
I’ve found that we often feel scared when we are facing something that is too big or filled with unknowns. Following a dream can be daunting, especially when you’re at the very beginning, staring up at the big mountain you’ve got to climb. But I always find inspiration and solace in the Confucius quote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” To make your journey less scary, I suggest breaking it down into a series of smaller goals that you can tackle one at a time. For me, some of my smaller goals were: save money, attend a fiction writing class, start a blog, get some articles published, attend writing conferences, and finish my novel. Did it happen overnight? Of course not. But, step by step, I inched closer to my dream by accomplishing each of those smaller goals, and the journey itself, though long, was rewarding because I was working toward something I really wanted. By tackling my dream one small step at a time, the fear shrunk proportionately and was much easier to work through. A few months ago, a box arrived on my doorstep. When I opened it, I found a dozen copies of my book staring up at me. Holding my book in my hands for the first time made me realize that I had traveled that thousand miles that once seemed so daunting. And now I look forward to the next thousand.
Q: On a lighter note, what is your favorite restaurant here in the Lehigh Valley? What are your favorite things to do here?
My all-time favorite restaurant is the
Apollo Grill. It must be a lot of people’s favorite because I always have to reserve a table way in advance! I also recently discovered
Jumbars, which is a terrific place for brunch. As far as things to do, I love taking long walks on the Lehigh River tow-path, going to concerts at
SteelStacks, and waking up on a Saturday morning and ordering a breakfast sandwich from Johnny’s Bagels.
About Erica:
Erika Liodice is an award-winning blogger and founder of the motivational blog,
Beyond the Gray, where she shares her journey to publication while encouraging readers to reach for their own dreams. She is a contributor to literary and travel sites, including Writer Unboxed, The Savvy Explorer, and Lehigh Valley InSite. She received a B.S. in Business and Economics from Lehigh University and studied fiction writing at Gotham Writers’ Workshop. Erika lives in Bethlehem, PA with her husband.
Empty Arms is her first novel.
P.S. You can find her book on Amazon or Amazon Kindle HERE
. And she is having a book signing at Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem on May 5th from 4-6 p.m. so please show her some love and tell her I sent you:)
