(Kerry) You have been getting great reviews on your first novel with us, The Front Porch Prophet. Tell us about how you came up with such a story.

(Ray Atkins) I spent my adolescent and teen years in a small Southern town not unlike the fictional Sequoyah in the novel, so the telling of a story within the framework of rural eccentricity was a natural choice for me. You could say that I had already done the research, and that the fieldwork had long been completed. The story itself and the characters in it are entirely fictional, so the challenge for me was to place fictional characters into somewhat real and familiar settings and have them behave in a believable manner.

(Kerry) There is a serious point to the story, but the humor in the book is what makes it so unique. Why did you feel the need to put humor into the story?

(Ray Atkins) I put humor into the story because I am incapable of writing a story without presenting the humorous point of view. The narrative tone in The Front Porch Prophet is very similar to my own outlook on life. Unexpected situations arise for all of us, and often our ability to cope with them depends on our perspective. I don’t mean to imply that there is always a bright side. Sometimes terrible events transpire, and at times like those, all a person can do is hang on and hope for the best. This is why we cannot pass up the opportunity to smile when we the opportunity arises.

(Kerry) Are you a writer full time? When did you decide you wanted to become a published author?

(Ray Atkins) I have been writing full time for a little over a year now. In addition to novels, I also write a humor column that appears in several publications and an industrial maintenance column that is a regular feature in a nationally distributed maintenance magazine. I have wanted to be a writer and particularly a novelist my entire life, but I began to get serious about becoming published around five years ago.

(Kerry) What can you tell us about your next book?

(Ray Atkins) My next book, Sorrow Wood, resembles a murder mystery at first glance. But even though a murder is solved over the course of the narrative, it is actually the story of the lifelong love between Wendell and Reva Blackmon. The story takes place in the neighboring town to the fictional Sequoyah in The Front Porch Prophet, and some minor characters from the first book make brief appearances in the second. The official blurb for the story reads as follows:

Reva Blackmon is a reluctant probate judge in the small town of Sand Valley, Alabama. She lives in a Rock Castle with turrets and a moat thanks to Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, and she walks on one leg thanks to a drunken railroad engineer on the Southern Pacific. She sings Wednesdays and Sundays in the choir at the Methodist Church and believes in reincarnation the rest of the time. Her husband, Wendell, is the love of her life, and if she is to be believed, he has been her soul mate for many lifetimes, stretching back down the corridors of time.

Wendell Blackmon is the disgruntled policeman in this same small town. He rides herd on an unlikely collection of reprobates, rogues with names such as Deadhand Riley, Gilla Newman, Otter Price, and Blossom Hogan. Law enforcement in this venue consists of breaking up dog fights, investigating alien abductions, extinguishing truck fires, and spending endless hours riding the roads of Sand Valley. Unlike his wife, Wendell does not believe in reincarnation. Nor does he believe in Methodism, Buddhism, or Santa Claus. But he does believe in Reva, and that belief has been sufficient to his needs over their many years together.

But the routines of Sand Valley are about to change. A burned body has been discovered at a local farm named Sorrow Wood. The deceased is a promiscuous self-proclaimed witch with a checkered past. Wendell investigates the crime, and the list of suspects includes his deputy, the entire family of the richest man in town, and nearly everyone else who knew the departed. As the probe continues, a multitude of secrets are revealed, including one that reaches from the deep past all the way to the Rock Castle. Who was this woman who met her end at Sorrow Wood? Where did she come from, what were the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death, and what did her presence mean to Wendell, Reva, and the remainder of the inhabitants of Sand Valley?

(Kerry) Can you tell us something about yourself that we would be surprised to know?
Some surprising things about me?

(Ray Atkins) Let’s see. My accent sounds like I might hail from Sheep’s Gut, Arkansas, but I was actually born on Cape Cod. I received an F on my first college essay. I am color blind but love to go to the auction and buy non-returnable Oriental rugs for my wife. I like fancy coffee but hate to pay five dollars for a cup of it. I have a psychology degree I have never used.

(Kerry) If you could have dinner with someone, past or present, who would it be with and why?

(Ray Atkins) I would like to dine with Harper Lee. After we ordered and I thanked her for writing To Kill a Mockingbird, we could talk about whatever she chose.