Tag: Joan of Arc

Marcia Noren Joins the Staff

Author Marcia Quinn Noren
Author Marcia Quinn Noren

We are pleased to share the news that nonfiction author and editor Marcia Noren is joining the staff of Indies Unlimited as our resident nonfiction guru.

Marcia is the author of the biography Joan of Arc, The Mystic Legacy. She spent over a decade researching the life story of Joan of Arc, and published the book in November, 2011. A second edition will eventually follow.

Her memoir, “Sheets of White Linen” is still in progress. An excerpt, submitted for critique was awarded “first place, nonfiction book” by the California Writer’s Club.

We know Marcia’s insights, experience and expertise will help address the growing need for information specifically geared to nonfiction writers and researchers in the indie author community. Please welcome Marcia Noren to the Indies Unlimited family.

 

The Challenges of Publishing Indie Nonfiction Books by Marcia Quinn Noren

Author Marcia Quinn Noren
Author Marcia Quinn Noren

For the sake of simplicity, let’s agree that authors who write fiction draw freely from their imaginations. Nonfiction writers are expected to deliver verifiable truths. We do not invent characters, events or dialog. Our task is to spill hard, cold, often ugly facts onto the page, framed in captivating paragraphs. Like novelists, we are storytellers engaged in a similar creative process, and what we write is filtered through our subjective perceptions.

Passion is the emotional component that drives the research. How we interpret information cannot be objective, no matter how hard we try to restrain influences that sway our points of view. Deeply held convictions influence the way our sentences are constructed, determine which resources will be brought forward to support our opinions, while at the same time we strive to keep the third person narrative consistently detached and trustworthy. After scouring every other author’s tome on our topic, we must remain convinced that we have something utterly new to offer our readers. Otherwise, why bother to retell the story? Continue reading “The Challenges of Publishing Indie Nonfiction Books by Marcia Quinn Noren”

Meet the Author: Marcia Quinn Noren

Author Marcia Quinn Noren

Marcia Quinn Noren is the author of Joan of Arc: The Mystic Legacy. This  is a nonfiction biography that began as a series of essays. Two of those were published by a Berkeley anthropologist who required a scholarly format and academic style; including references, quotations and endnotes.

Marcia says, “That set the tone for the book, but my intention is to engage the reader’s emotions, while stimulating their interest in Joan’s history within the broader framework of Late Medieval France. Eventually, a consistent, less formal voice emerged. Another challenge was organizing the placement of thirty-seven color photographs from my three field trips to France and direct quotations from Joan’s trial records, without interrupting the book’s momentum and flow.” Continue reading “Meet the Author: Marcia Quinn Noren”