We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Debbie Schrack a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Debbie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

As a former educator of over twenty-five years, I hope I will be remembered as a warm-hearted teacher who went the extra mile for her students and instilled a life-long love of learning. I always enjoyed reading to or with my students and I hope that I started many on a path to becoming avid readers.

As an author, I hope that my novels Saving Sophie and Over the Fence, as well as any future novels I write or contribute to, be remembered for their thoughtfulness in dealing with difficult subjects as well as for being well-written and entertaining.

Most of all, though, I would like to be remembered as a kind and loving person who was a good wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

Debbie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a former teacher and young adult novelist with two published novels. SAVING SOPHIE is a story about a seventeen year old boy who falls in love with the sole survivor of a car accident caused by his half brother. OVER THE FENCE is the story of two girls who bond through their backyard fence. One of the girls was kidnapped when she was six years old and is being held captive by a psychopath and the other girl has a sister who was the recent victim of domestic violence. Both novels have won several awards. I also wrote a story representing the state of Virginia for the forthcoming middle grade anthology HAUNTED STATES OF AMERICA. I am currently working on both a young adult and a middle-grade novel.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I wrote my first novel SAVING SOPHIE in an advanced novel writing class through Writer’s Digest. I got such good feedback from the instructor and the other students that I mistakenly thought my novel was ready for publication. Not so! After numerous rejections, too many to even count, I rewrote the book from scratch. Still no interest. I kept rewriting until I finally found an agent five years in. I am still so grateful that she took a chance on me. But then I mistakenly thought it would be easy to find a publisher. In fact, it took many more rejections and revisions before a publisher offered a contract on my book. The whole process took ten years and I’m so proud of myself for not giving up. I still pinch myself sometimes in disbelief that I actually fulfilled my dream.

Have you ever had to pivot?

After I wrote my second novel OVER THE FENCE, I sent it to my agent thinking that in a few weeks she would be submitting it to publishers. I was very excited about this book because I felt like it was very well-written and a subject that I was passionate about. However, I was taken aback when my agent told me she was passing on the book because she thought the subject matter was too dark. She said I could look for another agent or self-publish the book. Neither of those options interested me. It had taken five years to find an agent for my first book! In the end, I approached my publisher for SAVING SOPHIE and asked if she had any interest in taking a look at my book despite not having an agent to represent me. She agreed to send it to one of her editors, and two weeks later e-mailed to let me know that the editor had loved it and she was sending me a contract to publish.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.debbieschrackbooks.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.schrack.7/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/debbie_schrack