Rukia Publishing Featured Author Andrew C. Branham
Andrew Branham is an award winning writer and business executive who lives in Jackson, MI. Over the years, he has received several awards for his editorial columns and op-eds. His memoir, Anything for Amelia, has won multiple honors/awards.
He was born in the culturally rich and diverse town of Lorain, Ohio. He is married and they have one daughter. Andrew is an avid writer and has contributed articles and op-eds for multiple major newspapers throughout the country. He also writes business articles for many different publications and websites.
Anything for Amelia is his first book and he was inspired to write it due to his extremely difficult adoption that many experts claimed was 'the most difficult adoption in U.S. history'. Andrew found that writing in a journal each day during the adoption helped him to relieve the extreme levels of stress that he was facing. The journal proved to be the key to him writing the memoir. Andrew hopes that his book will help other adoptive families to avoid some of the mistakes that he made. In addition, he is donating a portion of any profits to the foster care system.
He has recently finished his first fiction novel, Parched (available 4/14/16). It is a post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel that is set in a time when the world has nearly run out of water. It follows a family as they attempt to cross the United States in search of food, water and shelter. He was inspired to write this novel while living through the extreme droughts of Northern California.
www.andrewbranham.com
Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter (receive exclusive offers and news):
http://eepurl.com/bSqs41
Get A Copy of Parched: http://amzn.to/23G8xYQ
Get A Copy of Anything For Ameila: http://bit.ly/A4Amelia
He was born in the culturally rich and diverse town of Lorain, Ohio. He is married and they have one daughter. Andrew is an avid writer and has contributed articles and op-eds for multiple major newspapers throughout the country. He also writes business articles for many different publications and websites.
Anything for Amelia is his first book and he was inspired to write it due to his extremely difficult adoption that many experts claimed was 'the most difficult adoption in U.S. history'. Andrew found that writing in a journal each day during the adoption helped him to relieve the extreme levels of stress that he was facing. The journal proved to be the key to him writing the memoir. Andrew hopes that his book will help other adoptive families to avoid some of the mistakes that he made. In addition, he is donating a portion of any profits to the foster care system.
He has recently finished his first fiction novel, Parched (available 4/14/16). It is a post-apocalyptic/dystopian novel that is set in a time when the world has nearly run out of water. It follows a family as they attempt to cross the United States in search of food, water and shelter. He was inspired to write this novel while living through the extreme droughts of Northern California.
www.andrewbranham.com
Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter (receive exclusive offers and news):
http://eepurl.com/bSqs41
Get A Copy of Parched: http://amzn.to/23G8xYQ
Get A Copy of Anything For Ameila: http://bit.ly/A4Amelia
An Interview With Andrew C. Branham 4.14.16
How long have you been a writer and how did you come to writing?
I’ve been intrigued with writing ever since I was a small child. As a boy, I would constantly write books that my mom would laminate and put them into a book format. As an adult I wrote my first book when I was 24 but I never published it. From there, I had a long span of writing op-eds, editorials, and columns for newspapers, websites, Huffington Post, and several business publications. It wasn’t until my very difficult adoption in 2014 that I started to write books again. For me, writing was an outlet and a way for me to deal with extreme levels of stress. Once I started, I got the ‘itch’ again and now, two years later, I have two books published.
What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?
For the most part I love everything about writing. I really enjoy being able to create new worlds, new characters, and new situations that have never been done before. The thrill of seeing my books move from concept to being published is very rewarding. With my memoir, Anything for Amelia, it made me feel really good that I was potentially helping other families by sharing our story. We made a plethora of mistakes and I wanted to share those so that others could avoid them. With Parched, I wanted to successfully deliver a fun, page-turning story that also sent a message about the power of nature. The not-so-fun aspects of writing is the constant editing. I don’t think many people realize just how much editing goes into a book. It is countless hours of rewriting, proofing, re-reading, and then more rewriting. It is also very challenging to find the time for all of the marketing that goes along with writing a book. Getting book reviews on Amazon is extremely important yet it is extremely difficult to get readers to actually write them. Sometimes I get frustrated with that part. I don’t want to annoy friends, fans and family by constantly asking for reviews but I also find it to be a necessary part of being an author in today’s market.
What inspires you to write?
Because I enjoy writing so much, I really don’t need much inspiration to do it. I honestly enjoy it. But I do get a lot of gratification knowing that my memoir may have helped other people. When random emails of support came rolling in from complete strangers after it was published, that really did inspire me. I still get emails to this day from fans asking questions and giving their support. For fiction, I just want to provide people with an entertaining read that also delivers a message. I am also a huge nature lover and environmentalist. Therefore, simply being outdoors can be inspirational for me. I live on 40 acres of woods and anytime I get frustrated or writer’s block, I simply take a walk through the forest and I am instantly refreshed.
How did you come up with this story?
I was living in Northern California during the time of the very serious and intense drought. In fact, it was so bad that a neighboring city came within three days of literally being out of fresh water. As a nature lover and environmentalist, global warming and climate change were also always top of mind to me. I had always been a fan of post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels and it drove me to imagine a world where there was very little fresh water remaining. I wondered how quickly society would deteriorate and how people would change for the better or worse. What extremes would people go to in order to survive? It was my hope that my book would not only be entertaining, but it would also deliver a message about the power of nature and how we should never take our natural resources for granted. I hope it brings climate change and global warming to the forefront of the discussion.
What would your friends say is your best quality?
Most people say that I live my life by the golden rule. I almost never think of myself before I think of others. This is particularly true with family. Family is the single most important thing in my life and always will be.
Are reader reviews important to you?
Reader reviews are paramount to the success of an author in today’s market. Getting Amazon reviews early and often are so important to the success of a book. I truly appreciate every single review (good or bad) and I want to thank all of my readers that take the time to write them. If you read either of my books, I would really appreciate a review.
Do you have any blogs/websites?
www.andrewbranham.com (blog and website)
www.facebook.com/drewanddjadoption
Twitter = @authorandrewb
Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorandrewbranham
What do you do when you don’t write?
First and foremost I am a dedicated husband and the father of an amazing sixteen month old. Family is always my first priority. I am a marketer for my day job and that too is very time consuming. For fun, I enjoy reading, nature, fishing, hiking, cooking and dining out. I also have a passion for exotic travel and I am often called an ‘extreme adventurer’. I usually don’t go to typical travel destinations. I am one of only a handful of people who have successfully hiked the Darien Gap (the jungle that separates Panama and Columbia). I spent two weeks working with wild elephants in Northern Thailand. I support an orphanage in Chiang Rai Thailand. I’ve traveled throughout the Middle East and really connected with the people. I try to go to a different place every time to experience new cultures and religions. This year we are going to Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Tell us about your other books?
My other book is my true-life story of what industry experts called the ‘most difficult U.S. adoption in our history’. The memoir follows our 206 day journey from matching with a birthmother to bringing our daughter home. It is a roller-coaster of emotions as we had to deal with one of the most manipulative and sick individuals that we had ever encountered. Most readers email me to tell me that they could not put the book down or stayed up all night reading it. Honestly, you will be shocked at that pain one person inflicted on anything and everything that she touched. I also included a chapter at the end with adoption tips and guidance to help other families.
If you could share one thing about yourself that you would like readers to know what would it be?
That I truly appreciate every one of my readers and fans. I value you more than you will ever know.
Would you like to share and excerpt from "Parched" for your readers?
The sun no longer shone canary yellow. It hadn’t done so for years. Instead, it glared down, obstinate, punishing—beet red, like the garden tomatoes that no longer existed. It stood guard over the desert-dry water taps that had likewise fallen prey to the relentless heat, even in mid-October. Livermore, California had been a town set on rolling hills, swathed in green grass and fragrant orange poppies. Now, each day played out like the one before it: sun, heat, illness, death.
On that particular day, relative calm engulfed them. Only a few trails of smoke rose up in the distance toward the west and the Oakland Hills. Usually it was worse—the smoke was more like the dense cloud of marine fog that used to roll in daily. Now, the arid air, once fresh with coastal mist and the scent of eucalyptus trees mixed with wild lavender and rosemary, smelled like burning hay. The sun’s transition from an earthly asset to man’s most vicious foe had been going on for decades, but you would never have known it. It had caught humanity ill-prepared. Those who once had awaited its daily arrival now despised its very existence.
Scientists had a word for it; scientists had a word for everything. They called it a Red Giant, a star that had exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and had switched to thermonuclear fusion. As a result, the Earth found itself baking, its waters evaporating, and humanity’s extinction imminent. No scientist or politician could explain why the sun had made such a drastic transformation; nor did it matter.
In the distance, the sound of a laboring sixteen-wheeler lumbering up the road startled James as he popped up from his sleep. Scanning the room, he breathed out his relief. Everybody’s okay, he thought, checking out their California king bed. For a brief moment, he recalled his dream, in which he had been frolicking with his brother along the beaches of Lake Erie, near where they had grown up. But, instead of laughing, shouting, and swimming in cool waters, he was perspiring. Sweat soaked the bed and stained his shirt and underwear. His mouth felt and dry.
What’s the truck doing here at this hour?
The clanking of the massive tires hitting the potholes brought him back to reality. Rising cautiously, he kicked into the nightstand and let out a yelp, awakening their infant, who began to cry.
“What is it?” his wife asked.
“Nothing. Just the water truck. Go back to sleep.”
His thirteen-year-old son, Silas, was now awake as well and was scanning the room with his eyes. His long blond hair was matted down against his boyish face and, despite his sleep, he still looked extremely fatigued. He was irritated not only at the unrelenting heat and his sister’s cries, but also that he woke up in the same depressing room where they almost always stayed. Sometimes he hoped his life was just a nightmare that he would someday wake up from. Looking around, he saw walls stacked with cardboard boxes, dirty clothing on the floor, and dirt-stained sheets on the bed in which he was lying. The two windows in the room were covered in a thick film of dust and sand. A loaded rifle and handgun were on a box next to the bed.
“Can someone keep her quiet?” Silas grumbled as he looked toward his crying infant sister, Charlotte. “It’s impossible to sleep around here.”
Already dressed, James grabbed his shotgun and several plastic gallon water jugs, which he had strung together with nautical rope, and sprinted down the steps, the jugs thumping with each step. He pushed aside the heavy desk and chair he had used to barricade the door and scrunched down to peek out through a two-inch crack he had opened. He saw the truck that had stopped in the middle of the road. As he struggled to focus, he smelled the burning air and saw the heat waves reflecting off the cracked and buckled asphalt. He made out several residents emerging from their deteriorating town-homes, guns and jugs in hand, walking toward the truck with its distinctive Red Cross logo. The sound of his baby crying and the rustling of his waking family echoed through the empty stairwell.
I’ve been intrigued with writing ever since I was a small child. As a boy, I would constantly write books that my mom would laminate and put them into a book format. As an adult I wrote my first book when I was 24 but I never published it. From there, I had a long span of writing op-eds, editorials, and columns for newspapers, websites, Huffington Post, and several business publications. It wasn’t until my very difficult adoption in 2014 that I started to write books again. For me, writing was an outlet and a way for me to deal with extreme levels of stress. Once I started, I got the ‘itch’ again and now, two years later, I have two books published.
What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?
For the most part I love everything about writing. I really enjoy being able to create new worlds, new characters, and new situations that have never been done before. The thrill of seeing my books move from concept to being published is very rewarding. With my memoir, Anything for Amelia, it made me feel really good that I was potentially helping other families by sharing our story. We made a plethora of mistakes and I wanted to share those so that others could avoid them. With Parched, I wanted to successfully deliver a fun, page-turning story that also sent a message about the power of nature. The not-so-fun aspects of writing is the constant editing. I don’t think many people realize just how much editing goes into a book. It is countless hours of rewriting, proofing, re-reading, and then more rewriting. It is also very challenging to find the time for all of the marketing that goes along with writing a book. Getting book reviews on Amazon is extremely important yet it is extremely difficult to get readers to actually write them. Sometimes I get frustrated with that part. I don’t want to annoy friends, fans and family by constantly asking for reviews but I also find it to be a necessary part of being an author in today’s market.
What inspires you to write?
Because I enjoy writing so much, I really don’t need much inspiration to do it. I honestly enjoy it. But I do get a lot of gratification knowing that my memoir may have helped other people. When random emails of support came rolling in from complete strangers after it was published, that really did inspire me. I still get emails to this day from fans asking questions and giving their support. For fiction, I just want to provide people with an entertaining read that also delivers a message. I am also a huge nature lover and environmentalist. Therefore, simply being outdoors can be inspirational for me. I live on 40 acres of woods and anytime I get frustrated or writer’s block, I simply take a walk through the forest and I am instantly refreshed.
How did you come up with this story?
I was living in Northern California during the time of the very serious and intense drought. In fact, it was so bad that a neighboring city came within three days of literally being out of fresh water. As a nature lover and environmentalist, global warming and climate change were also always top of mind to me. I had always been a fan of post-apocalyptic and dystopian novels and it drove me to imagine a world where there was very little fresh water remaining. I wondered how quickly society would deteriorate and how people would change for the better or worse. What extremes would people go to in order to survive? It was my hope that my book would not only be entertaining, but it would also deliver a message about the power of nature and how we should never take our natural resources for granted. I hope it brings climate change and global warming to the forefront of the discussion.
What would your friends say is your best quality?
Most people say that I live my life by the golden rule. I almost never think of myself before I think of others. This is particularly true with family. Family is the single most important thing in my life and always will be.
Are reader reviews important to you?
Reader reviews are paramount to the success of an author in today’s market. Getting Amazon reviews early and often are so important to the success of a book. I truly appreciate every single review (good or bad) and I want to thank all of my readers that take the time to write them. If you read either of my books, I would really appreciate a review.
Do you have any blogs/websites?
www.andrewbranham.com (blog and website)
www.facebook.com/drewanddjadoption
Twitter = @authorandrewb
Linked In - https://www.linkedin.com/in/authorandrewbranham
What do you do when you don’t write?
First and foremost I am a dedicated husband and the father of an amazing sixteen month old. Family is always my first priority. I am a marketer for my day job and that too is very time consuming. For fun, I enjoy reading, nature, fishing, hiking, cooking and dining out. I also have a passion for exotic travel and I am often called an ‘extreme adventurer’. I usually don’t go to typical travel destinations. I am one of only a handful of people who have successfully hiked the Darien Gap (the jungle that separates Panama and Columbia). I spent two weeks working with wild elephants in Northern Thailand. I support an orphanage in Chiang Rai Thailand. I’ve traveled throughout the Middle East and really connected with the people. I try to go to a different place every time to experience new cultures and religions. This year we are going to Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
Tell us about your other books?
My other book is my true-life story of what industry experts called the ‘most difficult U.S. adoption in our history’. The memoir follows our 206 day journey from matching with a birthmother to bringing our daughter home. It is a roller-coaster of emotions as we had to deal with one of the most manipulative and sick individuals that we had ever encountered. Most readers email me to tell me that they could not put the book down or stayed up all night reading it. Honestly, you will be shocked at that pain one person inflicted on anything and everything that she touched. I also included a chapter at the end with adoption tips and guidance to help other families.
If you could share one thing about yourself that you would like readers to know what would it be?
That I truly appreciate every one of my readers and fans. I value you more than you will ever know.
Would you like to share and excerpt from "Parched" for your readers?
The sun no longer shone canary yellow. It hadn’t done so for years. Instead, it glared down, obstinate, punishing—beet red, like the garden tomatoes that no longer existed. It stood guard over the desert-dry water taps that had likewise fallen prey to the relentless heat, even in mid-October. Livermore, California had been a town set on rolling hills, swathed in green grass and fragrant orange poppies. Now, each day played out like the one before it: sun, heat, illness, death.
On that particular day, relative calm engulfed them. Only a few trails of smoke rose up in the distance toward the west and the Oakland Hills. Usually it was worse—the smoke was more like the dense cloud of marine fog that used to roll in daily. Now, the arid air, once fresh with coastal mist and the scent of eucalyptus trees mixed with wild lavender and rosemary, smelled like burning hay. The sun’s transition from an earthly asset to man’s most vicious foe had been going on for decades, but you would never have known it. It had caught humanity ill-prepared. Those who once had awaited its daily arrival now despised its very existence.
Scientists had a word for it; scientists had a word for everything. They called it a Red Giant, a star that had exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and had switched to thermonuclear fusion. As a result, the Earth found itself baking, its waters evaporating, and humanity’s extinction imminent. No scientist or politician could explain why the sun had made such a drastic transformation; nor did it matter.
In the distance, the sound of a laboring sixteen-wheeler lumbering up the road startled James as he popped up from his sleep. Scanning the room, he breathed out his relief. Everybody’s okay, he thought, checking out their California king bed. For a brief moment, he recalled his dream, in which he had been frolicking with his brother along the beaches of Lake Erie, near where they had grown up. But, instead of laughing, shouting, and swimming in cool waters, he was perspiring. Sweat soaked the bed and stained his shirt and underwear. His mouth felt and dry.
What’s the truck doing here at this hour?
The clanking of the massive tires hitting the potholes brought him back to reality. Rising cautiously, he kicked into the nightstand and let out a yelp, awakening their infant, who began to cry.
“What is it?” his wife asked.
“Nothing. Just the water truck. Go back to sleep.”
His thirteen-year-old son, Silas, was now awake as well and was scanning the room with his eyes. His long blond hair was matted down against his boyish face and, despite his sleep, he still looked extremely fatigued. He was irritated not only at the unrelenting heat and his sister’s cries, but also that he woke up in the same depressing room where they almost always stayed. Sometimes he hoped his life was just a nightmare that he would someday wake up from. Looking around, he saw walls stacked with cardboard boxes, dirty clothing on the floor, and dirt-stained sheets on the bed in which he was lying. The two windows in the room were covered in a thick film of dust and sand. A loaded rifle and handgun were on a box next to the bed.
“Can someone keep her quiet?” Silas grumbled as he looked toward his crying infant sister, Charlotte. “It’s impossible to sleep around here.”
Already dressed, James grabbed his shotgun and several plastic gallon water jugs, which he had strung together with nautical rope, and sprinted down the steps, the jugs thumping with each step. He pushed aside the heavy desk and chair he had used to barricade the door and scrunched down to peek out through a two-inch crack he had opened. He saw the truck that had stopped in the middle of the road. As he struggled to focus, he smelled the burning air and saw the heat waves reflecting off the cracked and buckled asphalt. He made out several residents emerging from their deteriorating town-homes, guns and jugs in hand, walking toward the truck with its distinctive Red Cross logo. The sound of his baby crying and the rustling of his waking family echoed through the empty stairwell.
