Books I recommend

Welcome to The Daily with Silstein here on Anchor. Now, today I'm just doing a short segment of my section on The Daily with Silstein that we started doing, the author's corner where books I recommend. Today is release day for author Chastity Gaines. I'm really, really excited for her, for her new book, and I will be having Chastity on hopefully tomorrow on The Daily.

We'll talk more with her. But I wanted to share a little bit about her book here. It's called The book release was today, and it's by publisher Hydra Productions, and the book is called or titled Requiem of the Dead. And the blurb reads, it's a collection of poems about life, death, and grief.

Losing those around us can come as a shock, or sometimes we expect it. But processing it is not easy. Through the written word, I have tried to give my take and personal experience on it. Maybe in this book, you will find the comfort and peace you have been looking for, or at the very least, can relate.

Now about the author, Chastity Gaines was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in South Georgia among the brick red clay and buzzing mosquitoes. Chastity started writing as a young child to help cope with her parents' divorce. She has several diplomas and certifications as well as her BA or bachelor's in creative writing and English through Southern New Hampshire University. She has several poems published through various platforms, and she currently acts as an assistant editor with Coffeehouse Writers.

So another Coffeehouse writer editor. She is signed with Hydra Productions. So this is today was her release day, and I wanted to share that on the podcast of books I recommend. And please be sure to check out Chastity Gaines and her book is on Amazon.

I believe she also has an author page and I will read that to you. And I'm pretty sure she has other, she can share more stuff with you guys. Her author page is called Chastity's, C-H-A-S-I-T-Y, Poetry and Other Musings. So Chastity's Poetry and Other Musings is her author page.

And on her Instagram, I don't know if she's under Chastity Gaines, I believe she is. And we'll ask her more about that tomorrow, but please feel free to check out Requiem, sorry, of the Dead. It's by author and poet Chastity Gaines. It was released today.

I hope you'll check out her book. And this is just a short segment of The Daily with Solstein to send a shout out to her. Hopefully have her here tomorrow to talk more about her awesome book and her author life and also ask her about how she begins writing her drafts. We'll add that to the series as well.

And if you have not checked out the other podcast, please do. I had the amazing writer, editor, chief of operations, advertising genius, and her website blog, Functionally Fiction, Caitlin Haynes yesterday. Check out that interview. I also had Sean Michael Stevens share his insight on writing a draft.

He also has a podcast. Please check that out. And I also had amazing messages left by writer and editor, Treece Hinton, Treece Shine Hinton. Thank you so much.

And also the amazing, also amazing, thank you, Treece Shine Hinton. And also the amazing author, Alexander Ray. So please check all of those out along with my segment on how to write a draft and the other podcasts on The Daily with Solstein. But I hope you'll check out Chastity Gaines' new book, Requiem of the Dead, available now.

Have a great day and congratulations, Chastity. Have a great one and have a happy, happy Thursday, everyone. All right, and welcome to The Daily with Sil Stein here on Anchor. I'm so pleased today to have an amazing author you're going to get to know.

And she's just written her first, I believe, her first book of poetry and it's called Requiem of the Dead. And I'm going to have her tell you more about her book and everything that's been going on since she just released it. But I want to share a little bit about our author today. Her name is Chastity Gaines, and I'm going to talk a little bit about her and then I'm going to have her, you know, tell you more about herself and her book.

And I'm really happy to have her here today. So happy, happy Friday, everyone. I am Sil Stein for The Daily with Sil Stein on Anchor. And I'm happy that you guys are joining us.

Now, a little bit about Chastity. She is a poet and fantasy fiction author with several short stories that can be found in anthologies. She has always had a love for words. As a little girl, she played with words and rhymes, creating poetry about nature and negative emotions she couldn't deal with.

She is a graduate from Southern New Hampshire University with her BA in English and creative writing. And she comes from all the way from, she lives in Moultrie, Georgia with her husband of 10 years and her older son and two fur babies, Trinity and Magatha. But enough about me. I'm going to have her come in here and I want to congratulate you first for the release of your book, Requiem of the Dead, but also being on the number one on the Amazon bestsellers list, Chastity Gaines.

Thank you for coming and joining us today. Thank you, Sylvia, for having me. Oh, no problem. So tell us about yourself.

I said a lot about you. I hope that was okay. About you, but tell us about you and, you know, and this book and, you know, what you want to share with us today. Okay, well, the book Requiem of the Dead was basically, it's a collection of poems that I've written over the years after losing loved ones, you know, family members and friends.

And especially after my dad passed away in March of 2018. I'm so sorry. Thank you. That was the only way of my, you know, it was the only way I could process and feel like that, you know, I was going through anybody that's lost a loved one, you know, knows it's hard.

So I used my poems as a way to get all of that out on paper and just to, you know, to deal with it. And that's what I've noticed with your book because I purchased it and I love it. And it's very therapeutic, especially as you said, if you've dealt with life or like it says in your blurb, a collection of poems about life, death and grief and how when you lose someone, how hard that can be. I can relate in the way that I felt with the loss of my dad, my grandparents, especially my best friend, who was like a sister.

So I can't imagine how you must feel with. I know that it was, it has been hard for you to lose your dad. I know how close from what you've shared, how close you guys were. So has this process helped you and what more can you share about that and how it ties into your book?

I think it, I think it did help to get it all out. Like I said, it is dedicated to my daddy. Uh-huh. Are you there?

Hello? Chastity, are you there? Am I there? Yes, now you are.

You hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, I was, stopped walking. Oh, okay.

Okay, now we can see you. Loving it and you hate it at the same time. That's right. That is exactly it.

It's helpful and then it's, it makes you want to scream. Right? It's okay. But also a few of the poems were poems that I wrote when my grandma, both my grandmother and my great-grandmother passed.

When my godmother passed, my uncle. I mean, it's just been, you know, I think it was just therapeutic to get it all together. Yes, yes. And, and to see it come together.

And so I guess it did help in a way. Yes, yes. Dealing with everything. And like I, and I named it Requiem of the Dead so that it's in separation of their memory.

Yes, I was going to say, because a requiem is kind of like a, you would describe it as a kind of a, a requiem is like kind of like, it can be an ending and a beginning, right? Or something like that. Yeah, it's a memorial. Yeah, exactly.

A memorial. Yes. But that was the whole point of naming it that. You know, just in memory of these people that were so, you know, made such an impact on my life.

And to have them not here, you know, but just to have them in spirit. It's, it's a good feeling, you know. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Now, that's just wonderful. And did you ever imagine, you know, taking out your books? I know you're a great poet. You've been writing for a while, and we'll talk more about that in a minute.

But I want to just take you into how you're, you're feeling today with, take releasing it yesterday and then waking up to the news that you're on the Amazon bestsellers list. How was that for you? Well, that was really, that was really amazing. I was in tears really because it's just, you know, for it to be the type of book that it is and to see it go to number one like that, you know, on the new release in poetry, that was just really amazing for me.

I know I probably had quite a few people laughing at me because I was sending the screenshot to everybody I knew. No, there's nothing laughable about that. If it were me, I'd be doing the same thing and Have written. Where did you tell us about what began the writing for you?

What was it that you that started it for you as far as your writing was concerned? Like when did you know this is what I want to do? I think I've always known even when I was young, just playing with words, trying to put together different things, just seeing how you could change words around and that mean this or mean that. And I think and I've always been keen to writing little stories.

So from the very beginning, I believe my grandmother was real big into reading to me and my sister. So and then my great grandmother was a big reader. So I guess that just, you know, once you've read everything that's in your hands or that you can get your hands onto, you start to try to build your own stories. You know, it's like, well, let me see what I can do.

Yeah, exactly. Basically, reading was a big factor in you wanting to create your stories, right? Even from a young child, correct? Yes.

Yeah, because I can totally see that because reading was always a big part of the reason I became a writer and wanted to do that. And there was a lot of passion because books always take you to a different world, even with all the stuff going around us. And I always said, I want to do that. I want to take someone into my own, you know, into a different journey that they could follow and they could really see themselves in and stuff like that.

So and other authors have said the same thing. Like I had Caitlin spoke about her love of reading. Shout out to her. And, you know, everyone has a different thing.

So it's really awesome to hear you say that because every story is created by different things that happen in our life. Because, you know, life is hard. You know, we all have stuff happen to us in our life. And sometimes we want to make it a little bit more fiction by creating a story.

Sometimes we want to just bring it to life in a poem or in an actual nonfiction story that we've written. Correct? Oh, yes. I see that is correct.

Exactly. So, Chastity, so now as far as your public publishing and all of that, you have other stuff you're working on and you've graduated from Southern New Hampshire with your B.A. in English and Creative Writing. As far as like when you begin to write, because I started doing a bit of a series on the Daily with Still Standing because the whole point of this podcast is to, you know, introduce new authors like yourself, recommend books, and of course, offer writing tips and stuff.

As far as a draft, do you outline when you write or does everything just come to you? Tell us a little bit about that. Now, I wish I was an outliner. I really do.

I'm more of a free writer and I do a lot of thought process. That's where a lot of my outlining goes is the thought process. And then I will, you know, write down little notes or like if I don't have a notepad or a pen, I have the notepad on my phone and that's very helpful at times when you have, you know, inspiration strikes at any time. And I kind of just work from there.

I'll go back and look at the little notes and then I try to, when I write, to sit down and write and get all my ideas out all at once. Then that way I can go back and if I feel like, well, this area needs a little bit more, you know, description or a little bit more world building or character, you know, and then I can go back and fix all that and add in. And that's where your editor skills come in, right? You could say, well, I didn't really like this.

I'm going to change this. Yeah, and that's, you know, when you're editing someone else's work, you're trying to stay as true to them as possible because, you know, it's not your words. It's their words. So, you know, you're just trying to help them get it as polished as possible and still stay true to them.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Now, I know you write a lot of poetry and when you write a short story, do you think your ideas come more from a theme or a plot or is it more driven by whomever you're writing about? Because me and Caitlin were talking about how characters seem to drive her stories rather than the plot. Or do you think it's more about the theme or the plot of what you're writing?

I think with poetry, I can say it is the theme, you know. Now, when it comes to stories, I think usually it's a character that comes to mind. Yes. OK.

And then it's like, where would this character live at? What would this character be doing? Now, there are some times where the plot itself comes to you before anything else. Yes.

It's just one of those things that you kind of just go with and see where it takes you because you don't, you know, you never know. The character might want to go on a totally different direction than you want to. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's kind of, like you said, it depends on what you're writing.

Like poetry, I can totally see that it's more of a driven by a plot or a theme that you're working on. Like in this case, a lot of your poetry came from, you know, a feeling of grief, of dealing with those feelings of loss. And of course, the people that you love, which, you know, in this case, you know, it is painful to lose a loved one and it's never easy. And then when you write your stories, it is, I can see how characters drive the plot.

That's the way I feel when I'm working on any book, the characters what drives my whole story. You know, and I remember talking to Caitlin the other day and we were talking about how sometimes you can develop subplots in the story if you're writing about more than one character. And then you go back and fix all that with your characters, but kind of it kind of aligns the rest of your story, right? Yeah, yeah.

It's all different. Like I said, this is a brilliant part about being a writer and being able to create these stories. But, you know, and each writer has their own style and method of going about and it's great to, you know, especially, you know, talking with the Coffeehouse Writer crew, you get to see all these different ways and, you know, it's just see and then try to implement it into your own way. And you kind of grow, you know, just grow.

And that's really the way you grow is from reading and interacting with your contemporaries, you know, and seeing how they do things. Exactly. And one of the things I can tell about you is that when I read your poetry, I've seen several publications, right, that you've had poetry published now, right? Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. And I can tell, like in each of your points, they're different. Like now you've written this book, but you've had others that you shared and you, you know, do you write a little bit of everything in your life or is it like selective? Can you share about that?

I do use a lot of life experiences. Now, I do have poems where it's strictly nature-driven, you know, just sitting outside taking in, you know, a bird flying by or something like that or a storm. But I do use, you know, experiences of my own life with my poetry. Poetry is more a personal, you know, I get, you know, any, you know, extricate any demons that I have, you know, it's just, it's cathartic to get all those emotions out.

Yes. And I can feel that every time I've read your work, you know, I feel like I'm in that, in that, what you're been experiencing. Not that I know, but I feel the emotion, the passion or the pain that's coming through that whole point or that particular work. And I'm really proud to hear that.

I hate to hear, you know, say I'm proud to hear anybody feels the pain, but you do want that connection. That's what you want with, like when people tell me, oh, I cried because of this story, you know, I shouldn't be happy, but I'm like, yay, I made them cry. But in a mean way, I'm like, yay, I can actually, I wrote a scene that affected someone, you know? Exactly.

You know, and my husband's like, you're happy that they cried. Nevermind that. You know, he doesn't understand, but I kind of make a joke and he laughs because he knows what I'm saying. But I'm like, I don't mean it in a negative way.

I mean it in a very positive way. Oh yeah. It's all connections. That's really all, you know, anybody wants is connection, you know, just.

Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, are you more of an indie author? I see that you have a publisher.

What can you tell us about that? Yes, I'm signed with Hydra Publisher. Oh, congratulations. Thank you.

I'm thinking it was the contract and we got the ball rolling with Requiem of the Dead. And I have a lot of stuff that's upcoming with Hydra through Hydra and other publishers that work with Hydra with the grandfathers. Yes, that's awesome. I'm so happy for you.

Thank you. So I hope to be very busy this year, this year writing and publishing. Well, that's, that's what you deserve. Like I said, the whole point of this podcast, as I shared before, is to, you know, make sure to pay it forward for new authors that, you know, that are new like to share here.

So we really do appreciate what you do. Thank you so much, Chasity. But like I said, I couldn't do any of it without you guys. You know, it takes a village, you know, to all of us.

And like I said, I go by my faith, you know, I always think, you know, how they say, treat others as you would like to be treated. And I always go by that rule in anything I do. And even when there's those that may not, I still do the right. I still try to do the right thing all the time.

Oh yeah. Right. But I was gonna say, would you be willing to share one of your points before we let you go? Because I would really want, you know, if you're okay with that, I don't want to put you on the spot.

If you wanna, you know, share an excerpt or a small one of your poems. And also, what other advice can you give someone, like another author that has helped you? Well, I won't answer that question. Keep writing.

Don't ever think that your dream is not achievable. There are, you know, I know a lot of people get on Facebook and they're trying to find, you know, some way to break out. Well, join those groups, the writing groups, you know, find the friendship like coffee house writers. You know, they have done a great job for, you know, so many people, you know, to help them, you know, build themselves up and, you know, get followers and to take that next step into the writing field.

Yes, yes, they have, especially coffee house writers, Jess Canopole, Caitlin Haynes, all of the wonderful people, Alexandra Paley, and if I messed up her name, I apologize, and all you wonderful editors and writers out there, you've been wonderful. I have. And including yourself, of course. Oh, thank you too now.

Yeah, like I couldn't do any of it without you. I learned something new every day. We have the best editors, writers. And now, like I said, I'm really thrilled for you, Chastity, and what's coming next for you.

And now I look forward to hearing one of your poems, if that's okay. Yes, that's fine. I am trying to look through here to just find the perfect. Just pick whatever you think, and I have time here to wait for you.

So it's not like you're in a rush. I'll do this one. This one right here, it is for my granddaughter's uncle on her mother's side. He was like a son to me, and he passed away a few weeks before my dad did, and he was 18 years old.

Oh my goodness. Okay. Are you there? Chastity?

Can you hear me? Yes, now I can. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Give me just a second. No problem. I'm here. Stolen too soon, a bright star, burning brightly in the ethereal night sky.

Your head in the clouds, your laughter rainbows, right after a rain shower. Your smile sparkles, cheery warmth, twinkle like the stars above. And I know Little Jay keeps an eye on all of us, as he dances amongst the green fertile lands of Elysian Fields. Oh, that's beautiful.

He was really into nature, and so I felt like that embodied what he thought and the person he was. Yes, exactly, exactly. That's so beautiful. And that's among one of the poems that you can find in her book, Requiem of the Dead.

And I have to say thank you so, so much for being here, Chastity. It's been amazing to have you on the show. Like I said, I'm so happy and grateful, and I wish you nothing but more success to come. And whenever you want to come and share anything about your books and writing or any new thing that you want to talk about, you're always welcome to The Daily with Silstein on Anchor.

Well, I really appreciate it. I've enjoyed my time here, and I've enjoyed speaking with you, and I appreciate everybody's support. It's been amazing. Well, you're just a great person.

And like I said, you know, anytime you need any type of support, you can always count on me and anyone else that has supported you is for that reason because you're just a very supportive individual. You always have been. I try. But it's been wonderful.

And now, you know, thank you for joining me today, Chastity. And I want to say to all of you tuning in, I hope you'll check out her books. And if you want to connect with her, she gave you, she gave the information on our show, and I'm going to post it on the link for the show once I share the show with you guys. And you can find us on Anchor, iTunes, Spotify, and many other platforms that I will share with you guys.

So be sure to check out this interview. It should be out in hopefully less than, probably less than 30 minutes. I will share the show with you guys. And whatever other questions you have, feel free to send them to Anchor or to connect with Chastity Gaines.

And thank you again for being here on The Daily with Silstein. Thank you so, so much. Thank you. Have a great one.

And this has been The Daily with Silstein on Anchor. Join us again for more wonderful interviews with authors such as Chastity Gaines and others. And our series will continue with how you write a draft, hopefully in the coming next week. Thank you so, so much.

Have a happy, happy Friday, everyone. Bye-bye.