Hope(Debut Author)

Hope Gibbs grew up in rural Scottsville, Kentucky. As the daughter of an English teacher, she was raised to value the importance of good storytelling from an early age. Today, she’s an avid reader of women’s fiction. Drawn to multi-generational family sagas, relationship issues, and the complexities of being a woman, she translates those themes into her own writing.​Hope lives in Tennessee with her husband and her persnickety Shih Tzu, Harley. She is also the mother of five. In her downtime, she loves playing tennis, poring over old church cookbooks, singing karaoke, curling up on her favorite chair with a book, and playing board games.​Hope has a B.A. from Western Kentucky University and is a member of the Women's Fiction Writers Association

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theWait wait, wait wait, I'm not
saying Woman's cave anymore. Let mespeak. Oh I remember, I am
saying the actual name of my podcast, welcome to And I thought podcasts go
figure. It's been seven years andI finally decided to introduce the podcast by
its name. I mean, justadmit, imagine that the Oh my goodness,

(00:24):
the brightness of this thought when Ifigured that out by its name,
that way people could find it anyway. Moving on, and you're not really
interested what I have to say anyway, because I mean, as a narcissist,
I can always talk about myself forforever, including this one strand of
hair that we won't go where it'ssupposed to. I'm will known no.
By the way, I remember tointroduce myself, I piped to me,
hold on, they're my professional today. Kind of weird. But you're not

(00:49):
here to hear about me. You'rehere to hear about our wonderful guests.
The wonderful guests. What you'd liketo introduce yourself? Hi everyone, and
thank you for having me today.My name is Hope Gibbs, and I
am the debut novelist of Where theGrass Grows Blue, which is a contemporary
women's romance. Three things about me. I grew up in Kentucky. I'm

(01:10):
a mother of five children, andthis is my debut novel. So again,
thank you for having me. Somy first question, of course,
since this is your debut novel,I have to ask everyone, what are
the challenges of sitting down to writethe first like hundreds of pages? Well,
actually I didn't sit down to writea book. I was going through

(01:32):
kind of like a little midlife crisis. Two of my children were already leaving
for college, and I started thinking, what am I going to do with
the rest of my life? What'sgoing to be my next chapter? Because
I had been a stay at homemom for almost twenty years at that point.
So I started journaling, and Ihated it because I didn't care what
I thought. I didn't want towrite down my fears. And before I
knew it, I had started creatingthis character who ended up being my protagonist,

(01:56):
named Penny Crenshaw, who is thestar of my book. And before
I knew it, I had twentyeight more chapters and an epilogue. So
then that's kind of how I startedwriting. I kind of stumbled into it.
Follow up, are you going towrite another one? Actually? I
am in my last chapter of mysecond book, and I already have my
third book mapped out. I'm plottingit out as we speak. Oh,

(02:19):
this sounds marvelous. Us. Canyou tell us a bit about your book,
just a little synopsis so we canall be like gott to read that.
Okay. So, Where the GrassgrowsBlue is one woman's journey to either
accept her past by embracing the powerof forgiveness, or risk losing a second
chance at love in a small Kentuckytown. So that's kind of like a
little quick synopsis of my book.But it is set in Kentucky. It's

(02:45):
called Where the Grassgrows Blue. Kentuckyis known as the blue Grass State.
So there's a lot of food,Southern food, quirky characters because my character
has to go back home to hersmall town in Kentucky after being gone for
twenty years. She lives in Atlantaat the beginning, and she finds out
her husband's cheating on her. Hedivorces her. She's a single mom,

(03:06):
and her grandmother dies and gives hera house in Kentucky and she has to
go back, but she doesn't wantto because the person who she loved,
the person who was the keeper ofher darkest secrets and protector of her soul
but shattered her heart, still livesthere. And naturally, I'm sure you
are gonna guess they're gonna bump intoeach other. It's a small town.

(03:28):
Everyone bumps into everyone. Absolutely.I grew up in a small town,
so I get it. So I'vemoved to a small area and like so
m I go shopping and they're like, I see you here all the time.
I don't know who you are,but they're sure. Knights is all
get out and talking and they tellme about their family's family, and I
think it's wonderful. But it's verydifferent. It is. It's very all

(03:51):
right. So is this the samecharacter as that we're looking forward to,
like extending the universe and the secondbook or do we write ah, now,
when we say about a penny,we sake about a penny. So
my second book is going to takeplace in Nashville, and it's about a
circle of friends who are kind ofrocked. The world is rocked when their

(04:14):
best friend has passed away suddenly andunder mysterious terms, and as they're trying
to figure out, you know,to deal with their own loss. They're
starting to figure out her life wasnot that perfect, and they start finding
out did they really know this womanat all? So I'm almost finished with
that book. But all of mybooks are going to take place in the
South. I am a Southern writer. I want to showcase the place that

(04:34):
I grew up in the place thatI still live. So definitely not to
mention the food. The food inmy book Where the Grass Grows Blue,
I'd talk a lot about food.There's also a church pot luck. I
grew up in a Baptist church andI just came. I just remember all
of those the vegetables and the saladsthat are not like green salads. They're

(04:58):
like cream, cheese and sugar andall that, and fried chicken and all
that. So it's a very muchit's it's a pot like that's been thrown
in a penny's honor, and sheis not someone who likes the spotlight on
her, but she loves it becausefood is welcoming, it's it's a community,
it unites us. What how didyou decide on how you wanted to

(05:19):
publish this book? So I reallydidn't know what I was doing when I
started that my querying, you know, when I put out my letters.
I started in two thousand and twentyone in the summer, and by December
I had a deal with read aDept. They're a small press, and
then read a Depth Publishing. Theyput my book out there and for audiobook

(05:43):
rights in Blackstone acquired my audio rights. So I really Originally I only thought
there were two ways to do it, either self or traditional, But there
are a lot of other ways thatyou can publish a book. There's hybrid
publishing. There is small press,which is like traditional publishing, but much
smaller, more of a boutique kindof press. So you have a small

(06:04):
press. Correct. I'm with asmall press right adapt and my publishing,
my audio rights is with Blackstone Audioand all of my book. My book
will be coming out on May sixteenth, so you can get it in paperback,
you can get it on your kindle, or you can get in the
audio version. Oh, I amso excited to read this book up.
First of all, I'm a hugefan of Southern food anywhere and of courses

(06:28):
Kentucky Derby. I know I'm beingvery stereotypical with Kentucky right now, I
apologize for that. Well, it'sfunny that you said that, because I
just wrote a blog to put onmy website about the Kentucky Derby because it
is a big deal in my state. And so I did a three recipes
that you must have or tomorrow,and one of them was, of course
the ment gulut. But I doit with a twist, So a twist

(06:49):
of line. No, I putchampagne in blackberries and my mint julut because
I am from Kentucky. I loveKentucky, but I'm not a big bourbon
fan, although I love to cookwith it. I make a mean bourbon
ball at Christmas, but I don'tlike a mint julip. But if you
add champagne and this BlackBerry purede,it is fabulous. I'd actually would drink

(07:11):
them. Well, then you haveto go to my website tomorrow and you
can see my blog. Yes,thank you. So tell everyone where our
blog is so we can all goto the website that you can follow me.
It's Authorhope Gibbs dot com. AndI'm also on Facebook. I am
on Instagram and on Twitter and TikTok. My daughter talked me into TikTok last

(07:31):
year. I still don't quite understandit, but I'm trying so and I'm
again hope Gibbs, you can putme in there and it will pop up.
What was the learning curve like forbeing using social media as an author?
Well, I only did social mediato post things about my children,
because you know they I have fivekids, put you know, all their

(07:53):
activities. But then I had torealize how to use it for myself.
And it was a learning curve becauseI signed my deal in December of twenty
twenty two or twenty twenty one,and I knew the entire year of twenty
twenty two I wasn't going to havea book, because it takes that long
traditional publishing to get a book outwith all the edits and the cover art
and the layout. It takes along time. So how was I going

(08:16):
to you know, make someone wantto follow me? So I started reviewing
books, and I started putting thatup there, and then I started doing
things that were kind of related tomy book without people knowing it, like
recipes or little facts about Kentucky.And I really engaged other bookstagram people,
and I also engaged authors, andI went from having maybe two hundred people

(08:37):
that were my friends and now I'vegot twenty five hundred followers on Instagram because
I engage. You just you haveto engage if you want to try to
get a footing and Instagram. AndI learned how to do reels. That
was fun. That is amazing.One more time because now I'm actually wrapping
it up. I know it feltlike I was wrapping it up when I
asked that question, like where there'syour blog? I was just like wrap

(08:58):
everything up at the end. Butnow that I'm wrapping things up for real,
can you tell us one more timewhere we can find out the information
about your blog? Follow you onInstagram and definitely pick up this book on
mid sixteen. So here's the book. I just want to show the cover
Blue had Ranges love it again.It's author Hope Gibbs dot com. Or
you can just put in where theGrass Grows Blue. It's going to be

(09:18):
sold on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google, Clay, anywhere you can
buy books. Even Walmart is carryingthe audiobook. So thank you so much
for being here with us today,Hope. It has been an absolute pleasure
to learn more about Kentucky, SoI don't have stereotypical knowledge anymore. Thank
you, and I do appreciate andI hope you enjoyed the Derby tomorrow.

(09:39):
Oh, I definitely have my hatalready, so yeah, I definitely will.
And so I'm gonna tell you whereyou can find a more information about
Lana and j D and I thoughtladies because I didn't do it at the
beginning. You can find out everythingyou want to know about your ladies at
www dot end I thought ladies dotcom. You can go down to the
bottom of the page and along ofthe middle of the page book the bottom
of the page, and you cansee the charities that we proudly support.

(10:01):
Yes that you give a little timeand support them as well. That does
not mean that we have to givethem money. You can give them information,
you can give them your energy.These things don't cost and we thank
you in advance for that. Rememberthat wisdom is all around you if you're
going to finding an acceptance a pieceof love you guys from Willinona and the
Missing Jay. Oh yeah, thanksfor listening.