Carolina Writers Speak
Carolina Writers Speak
Carol Baldwin, Author, Publicist
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Carol Baldwin is a author passionate about all things literary: reading, writing, and teaching writing. I live in Charlotte, NC, am a team member of Write2Ignite, and am a volunteer publicist for Monarch Educational Services. Carol hs written for many local and national publications and presented at numerous writing and educational conferences. She has published two nonfiction books. Her debut YA historical novel, Half-Truths will come out in June 2025. As a SCBWI member for over twenty-five years, she is committed to promoting great literature for children and young adults.
To be a wordsmith is defined as a person who writes, an author, a journalist, a person who commits their thoughts to paper. But I believe it is so much more. The ability to craft a story, to change lives, to transport the ordinary life to an extraordinary place. To put words on paper and awaken the imagination in ways that the reader never dreamed possible. Yes, to have the ability to see what isn't there and make you see it too. To awaken the senses in new and amazing ways, like feeling a cool breeze on a hot summer day on your cheek. To smell wildflowers as they bloom, to taste a delicacy on foreign soil. To feel like you've never felt before, touching places long forgotten, connecting your soul in new ways. That's what writers do. It's my pleasure to host Carolina Writers Speak, a new podcast, a chance to hear actual writers' voices. Hear what inspires them. Experience their trials and their struggles and realize that we all have a story and it's worth telling. Hi, I'm Rose Cushing, and I am the host of Carolina Writers Speak. Today my guest is Carol Baldwin, and Carol is an author and a publicist and a good friend. So she has a brand new book out that is called Half Truths, and I know you're gonna enjoy learning all about it. So how welcome to the show, Carol. Thank you. Thanks for having me back again, Rose. Oh, I always enjoy you being on the show. Tell us a little bit about you before we start on the book.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm not a Carolina native. I grew up in South Jersey, and before I moved to Charlotte, which was about 40 years ago, I hadn't gone much further south than the Washington, DC. So this was a big change for me.
SPEAKER_01I bet it was. How long have you been here now?
SPEAKER_00Almost 40 years. Yeah, my husband and I have been married almost 40 years. Okay. Well, that kind of makes you a southerner.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I think so too. Tell us about this wonderful book because I'm so excited about it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Um, my this is my debut, YA historical novel, takes place in Charlotte in 1950. And the premise of it, or the main the blurb about it, is that a 15-year-old Southern girl wants to become a journalist in order to shed light on racial injustice. But can the problem is can she face her family constraints, the societal prejudices, and her own fears in order to make her voice heard? So that is the backbone of the book.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a big topic for the 50s.
SPEAKER_00It is a big topic for the it is, it is. I started out wanting to, I've wanted to write an a novel for young adults, for young people for a long time. I had written nonfiction and felt very comfortable there, but I really wanted to write a novel. And then I moved here and was curious about what Charlotte was like before civil rights. And so for a while there, I was thinking, well, that's what this book is. It's a book before civil rights, until I went to a highlights workshop and worked with Harold Underdown, which who is a wonderful mentor. And he said, No, Carol, that's just your setting. And I was like, Oops. And he said, What does your character want? And so it's it took me quite a while to figure that out, what my character wanted.
SPEAKER_01That sounds like such good advice, though, because that's you know, that's the the whole plot for the book is what does your character want? And do they do it?
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly. And what obstacles do they face in the process? Sure. Right.
SPEAKER_01Like you, I've written nonfiction all my life. So switching was a a job.
SPEAKER_00Well, it was a job, but it for me it felt scary because nonfiction feels very safe. Like I could describe anything. And you know, as long as I can see it or experience it in some way, not necessarily seen, but experience. Yeah. But to come up with fiction was really that was really different.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Now what what age group is your book targeting?
SPEAKER_00Young adults are 13 and up. Okay. Uh so far, I mean, I've had some kids as beta readers, so some kids have read it, but I've had more adults that read it. And since it takes place in the 50s, a lot of adults can either relate to that themselves or have heard stories about the 50s from their parents or grandparents.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I can see where you'd have a huge audience of people that could relate to this from the memories, like you say, or the learning experience.
SPEAKER_00Right. I hope so. That's what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping for that crossover market with adults. Definitely.
SPEAKER_01Now tell me a little bit about your character.
SPEAKER_00Kate. Well, Kate Dinsmore, her full name is Anna Catherine Dinsmore. She uh grows up in Tabor City, North Carolina, which it took me a while to figure out where she was coming from. I knew that she was going to move into Charlotte from a rural area, but I wasn't sure where that rural area was. And then I was researching and looking around and trying different places in South Carolina. And then I found this, it's not a story, it's a real event that took place in Tabor City in 1950 when the KKK had a parade through the town. And um, my mentor, Joyce Hostetter, when I told her about that, she was like, that's where Kate's from. And so that's the opening of the story. So she she grows up on this tobacco farm. She lives with her parents and a younger brother and her grandparents. It's her mother's parents on the farm. And the first few chapters show us her background and what she has learned about race. But her father is from Charlotte, and he, you find out in the book how he ended up in Tabor City. So she has also heard a more um, I want to say merciful, but a very different approach to blacks than is what around what's around her in Tabor City. So she has heard a different opinion and different sensibility about blacks. Her father, um, at one point in the story, its backstory doesn't take place on the page, but her father helped with an arson when a church was burned down, a black church was burned down. And so she is learning from him at the same time that she's learning racial prejudice from her mother's side of the family. So she moves to, I don't want to give away the whole story. No, I don't, I don't want you to, but uh, but you asked me about her. She wants to be a journalist, she's a writer, and um, I played around with that for a while, for a while there. My mind was a photographer, and then I think somebody said to me, Well, you know, you you know writing. And so, um, and I was on the high school newspaper, she's on the high school newspaper. And so that's her dream of being a journalist, becoming a journalist.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, that dream slaps all of us, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. But see, women weren't welcome in the newsroom in 1950.
SPEAKER_01No, sir, they surely were not. Right. In fact, I I don't know when they were actually welcomed, probably in the the 80s. Probably. Maybe 90s is, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I mean, now you know, you turn the TV on and there's all these women newscasters, and but you know, that is relatively new.
SPEAKER_01It is really, but I worked at a newspaper for a long time. Yes, and it was very much a good old boys' club. Um I'm sure the important jobs, you know. I tried to do little things, but I couldn't do the the main things. Right. I remember very well.
SPEAKER_00I bet you do.
SPEAKER_01I should have interviewed you. That's just because I'm old as dirt. So when you were writing this book, tell us a few things that were obstacles for you that you know you've been you've given us a few, but what was the main obstacle that you faced to finish it?
SPEAKER_00Well, one of the hard things that happened along the way is that when I first okay, I haven't explained this to the listeners. So when when um when Kate comes to Charlotte, she meets her grandmother's very light-skinned black maid, whose name is Lillian. And through a variety of circumstances, they discover that they're related. So I always wrote it from Kate's point of view, but I went to a SCBWI conference. Maybe I was six or seven years into the process. I didn't know how long it was going to take me. And one of the editors read what I had written and suggested that I write it from both the white, both Kate's and Lillian's point of view, both a white and a black point of view. And I was really like sort of very scared of doing that and just wasn't sure about myself. But I was encouraged to do it. So I did that. I spent about 10 years, not 10 years, two years, writing it from both girls' points of view. But by the time I was done and ready to send it out, I was told that that I could not do that, that I couldn't write Kate, uh Lillian's story from a black point of view. And so that was really hard to hear because I had spent so much time invested in that. And I had to decide what was I gonna do? Was I gonna give up on this whole project? But I'd already invested a bunch, decided not to give up on it, and went back to just Kate's point of view. But it was richer having been in Lillian's head for a while, if you will. And I'm not, I don't regret that now, but at the time it was difficult. I'm sure. So I'd say that that was one of the hardest things for me.
SPEAKER_01So are you gonna is there gonna be a second book that'll be Lillian's point of view?
SPEAKER_00Well, if it were, it wouldn't be for me. Um, I don't see that happening. My next book is actually what I want to do is write sort of a prequel. It will be her grandfather's story. Okay, and her her paternal grandfather, who is in Charlotte, that's who the she comes to live with, is her father's parents. And he was a glass blower in South Jersey as a child. And I've already always been really fascinated with glass, and glass the whole glass industry is fascinating to me. It is, and so it's gonna take place in 1893 in South Jersey, and it's gonna be his story, cool, but also the story of a colonial glass boy. I'm gonna try to have two timelines going on, which I've never done before, so that'll be interesting.
SPEAKER_01You know, I love books for kids that talk about lost arts and teach them about, you know, and glass flow and it's becoming a lost art.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, yeah, it is I mean, there are people who still do it, and you go to studios and it and it's really fun to see, but it's not, yes, it's not the run-of-the-mill thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But um that'll be cool to teach them about a whole new world that's out there that they don't even know about.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I hope so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um you are traditionally published or have a traditional, I mean you published it yourself.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I'm publishing with Monarch and Monarch Press, and uh they're a traditional publisher from beginning to end. Jen Lowry, um your friend Jen Lowry has been an amazing supporter of this book. You know, from the very first day that I queried her, I was so nervous. And she wrote back, I think within hours, that my query was stellar, and I was blown away because I had received so many rejections up until that point. But she really she saw my credentials and she liked what she heard about the story and she asked for the full manuscript right away, which was like, Are you kidding me? Yeah, that was that was just amazing. So I'm very thankful for Jen's um championing my champion championing my book.
SPEAKER_01Jen's just an amazing person in every facet. Oh to death, and she's a lot of a publisher.
SPEAKER_00Oh, is that right? I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01She helped me get started and answered questions, and we still talk. So yeah, yeah, I think the world over. Um, and she writes, you know, she publishes really good clean literature that you don't have to worry about your kids reading. Right. Which is so nice in today's world, you know. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00Right. And that's what really attracted me to her. Um, a friend of mine, an author friend of mine, sugg who has been published with her, Rebecca Wheeler, she suggested that I query Jen. And I'm so thankful that I did.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's just awesome. So is your your book is out now?
SPEAKER_00It's pub date is April 2nd. Okay, but you can find it for pre-order on Barnes and Noble. Pre-order it. And if anybody pre-orders it, and you can go to my website, which is Carol Baldwinbooks.com, and there's a contact information on that. And if you pre-order it, send me an email through my website with your receipt, and I'll send you some swag. Nice. So very nice. Yeah, so I'm working on that.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And how how do they you have social media sites they can follow you on?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, I'm on Facebook. I have a Facebook author page, but it's mostly I just put stuff on my regular page and also Twitter and Instagram. I'm slowly learning Instagram. Okay. And that's been a little bit of a challenge, but I'm getting there.
SPEAKER_01I understand. Um, so the uh the book is coming out April the second. And will it be available in an ebook and a print or just a print?
SPEAKER_00No, in print, I mean it's available as a Kindle now. You can go on Amazon and get it as a Kindle. Um, Amazon has just been slow in putting it up as a paperback. Right. So it it'll be paperback. Okay. And all right. I want to show you I show you a picture, but your readers can't see it. But this is what it looks like. But they could go see the website and see the cover.
SPEAKER_01And I'll put it up in the podcast so they can see it. Okay, I'll do that. Okay, so the book is half truths. The author is Carol Baldwin, and it's available April 2nd on every place nice books are sold. Is that right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they can. I'm hoping, I'm hoping that'll be true.
SPEAKER_01And so they can follow you on all the main social media sites under Carol Baldwin. Carol Baldwin author. All right, that sounds wonderful, and I'm sure it's on Monarch books too. So I can't tell me their website. I can't recall it.
SPEAKER_00It's Monarch Educational Services, that's their website, which is under construction. They're still they're making some changes to it, but um, you can you can still go there. But the we're they're Jen is adding some things to that website.
SPEAKER_01Okay, all right. Well, that sounds exciting, and I am so glad to have you on the show today. And I know folks are folks will love your book, and it is a perfect um timing because this would make a wonderful Easter present, you know, for for those 13-year-olds that you don't have any idea what to buy them.
SPEAKER_00So, and it's it's for for girls or boys, yes, but I also think um I'm hoping that moms and daughters will read it together. So it would be an interesting Mother's Day tie-in. So that um, or grandmothers and daughters, because it's a generational book and it talks about the stories that are sometimes not true that are passed from one generation to another. And the other thing I'll mention is that we chose Jen and I pet chose April 2nd for the pub date because that's National Reconciliation Day. Right. And um, that's a time when you are to be building bridges with people. And I'm hoping that this book will build bridges within families and between people who don't necessarily normally talk to one another and build some bridges between students of different races, perhaps. If it's studied in the classroom, I really hope that it'll be picked up in the classroom and used for um social studies because it's in the Jim Crow South or in language arts.
SPEAKER_01I was just sitting here thinking, you know, what a wonderful tool to to have your kids and your mother connect, you know, so grandma could tell them what it was like when she was born and what she lived through, you know, versus the book. And they could talk about what it's like now, and that would be a wonderful gift. All right. All right, well that's what I'm hoping for, I can't wait to read it myself. So everybody, thank you. Remember Half Truths, Carol Baldwin, April 2nd, perfect gift for everybody in your family, and you can get it wherever good books are sold.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_00Thanks a lot, Rose.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate it very much. And as always, everybody listening, I appreciate you guys for being there to listen to the show as well. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Everybody has a story. Just let your mind drift away and find yours. I know it's out there. What are you waiting for?