These women had poured their hearts out to me I'd literally wept reading their e-mails. I published the article, but 1200 words didn't do it justice. (I sure didn't.) I wanted to write a magazine article about the topic, so I interviewed her and four of her Army wife friends who were also in the middle of a deployment. It was eye-opening to me, and I knew that the average person has no clue what deployment is like for the families at home. She unloaded a lot of her worries and feelings, including how different deployment was from what even she, as a military wife, expected. This time, however, I got the long-awaited acceptance!ĭeirdra: I was really touched by the premise of your book Band of Sisters can you tell us a little about this book.Īnnette: When a good friend went through her husband's deployment, I had a bit of a backseat view. Once again, I had to submit the regular way. I felt like I'd just crashed against a brick wall. Turns out she was leaving the company and that was her last day.

When I was ready to submit my next book, I contacted her, asking what format to send it in because she'd given me the (then) rare chance to submit electronically. We went over several synopses of past manuscripts, and she gave me feedback on them, specifically on target readership and what was and wasn't working in each story. She felt I'd be an asset to the company if we could get me accepted. Eventually, an editor who'd seen my work several times invited me to lunch to discuss why I'd come so close but never quite crossed the line. I came very close to acceptance many times and even got several rejections that actually put me in a good mood, they were so glowing. She has received three publication awards from the League of Utah Writers and took first place in the 2009 Funds for Writers essay contest.ĭeirdra: What was the pathway like for you to get your first book published?Īnnette: Long, winding, and frustrating. Spires of Stone, her fifth novel, was a 2007 Whitney Award finalist for Best Historical Novel. In 2007 Annette was awarded Utah's Best of State medal for fiction. Her newest release, a cookbook called Chocolate Never Faileth, is a delicious departure from fiction and the culmination of over 5 months of test kitchen craziness and fun.

Band of Sisters, her seventh novel, is about five women who come together during their husbands' deployment to Afghanistan. She's perhaps best known for her historical novels centered around the four old Utah temples. A cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English, she has had success as a professional editor and doing newspaper, magazine, and business writing, but her first love is creating fiction.

Annette Lyon has been writing ever since second grade, when she piled pillows on a chair to reach her mother's typewriter.

Between the Lines by Annette Lyon