Blogger ∙ Liz Adair - Service

Today I'd like to introduce you to the wonderful woman blogging on our Service Block of yourLDSNeighborhood.

Liz Adair, was born in southern New Mexico to working class parents. “They were extraordinary people,” she remembers. “Mama was Auntie Mame and Dad was steady and quiet. I had a wonderfully adventurous, yet very secure childhood.”

Liz graduated from Fredonia (Arizona) High in 1958. She spent two years at BYU before transferring to Arizona State College (now NAU) where she graduated with a B.S. in Education.

Liz married Derrill Adair in 1963, and they had four children of their own and adopted three more. Liz became a reading specialist and taught school for several years, but decided she needed to stay home to be a full-time wife and mother. She calls that her ‘Mother Earth’ decade, when they lived in an old farmhouse and milked cows, had chickens and pigs, put up hay, and raised a huge garden.

Then came the ‘Business Mogul’ decade, when Liz established a specialty wholesale bakery next to the farmhouse in a little building that Derrill built into a commercial kitchen. “Both of those experiences let me teach my children to work,” she says. “I don’t pine for a lost career.”

The ‘Literary Decade’ began in 1989 and is still going on. Books by Liz Adair include the Spider Latham Mystery Series, consisting of The Lodger, After Goliath and Snakewater Affair, as well as Mist of Quarry Harbor, all published by Deseret Book. Liz is also the co-editor (with her daughters Terry Gifford and Ruth Lavine) of Lucy Shook's Letters from Afghanistan. Her newest work, Counting the Cost, a novel based on family history, comes out this fall and is published by Inglestone Publishing.

Liz and husband Derrill live in Sedro Woolley, Washington, in close proximity to eleven of their sixteen grandchildren. She and Derrill have a consulting company doing project construction management for healthcare organizations. Liz teaches early morning seminary in the Sedro Woolley Ward.

1. What brought you to the Blogging World and what is your favorite thing about blogging?

Marsha Ward, author and blogger extraordinaire, invited me to participate on a team blog for our writer’s group, American Night Writers Association (ANWA). I was very timid, because it was an unknown, but a year later, I participate in four blogs: the ANWA blog, a blog that my brother and I use to post and identify old family photos for posterity, a blog where I team with Cecily Markland to write about using family history in fiction, and the blog, SezLiz, I keep for yourLDSneighborhood and news about my writing.

What is my favorite thing about blogging? It’s finding a comment. I’m always so surprised; it’s like getting an unexpected present. Someone was listening. Somebody heard.

2. What intrigues you the most about blogging for yourLDSneighborhood?

The thing that intrigues me is the possibility of reaching a wider audience, maybe someone who likes the way I write or who understands what I’m trying to say.

3. What is your favorite thing about yourLDSneighborhood?

This is just a surface answer, because the time I could spend wandering, I’m glued to the computer writing my blog. But, I like the way they’re reaching out, offering things to a broad range of interests. However, soon I intend to venture out and explore.

4. Tell us a little about yourself: What your likes, dislikes, hobbies, hopes, dreams, etc . . .

Well, of course, I love to write. I love to cook, hate to clean. Love my job—I work in construction management. I love the baritone horn and hope someday to be able to play longer than half an hour without losing my lip.

5. Tell us something unique about yourself.

Do you know, I’m such an old shoe, I don’t think there’s anything unique about me. I’m a gray-haired grandma, but I drive a red Miata. Does that qualify? How about this: my favorite food is beans. Frijoles. Love ‘em. My husband says I’m a real cheap date.

6. What has been your greatest challenge to date?

I think it was being mother to seven. I never liked children much before I married, and I intended to wait a looooong time before having a select few. Needless to say, I had my first child two months before my first wedding anniversary, and my second fourteen months later. We adopted three ‘unadoptable’ (what were we thinking?) children before having two cabooses as we were pushing middle age. Poor planning, all the way around. Which leads me to think that living with my own consequences is my biggest challenge.

7. What books/projects/songs are you working on right now?

I have a new book coming out this September. It’s to be published by a small press in Phoenix, Inglestone Publishing, and Cecily Markland is my editor. The title is Counting the Cost, and it’s set in the Great Depression. It’s about a New Mexican cowboy who falls in love with a socialite from back east. It’s based on family history, and anyone who likes Spider Latham will like the hero of this book, Heck Benham.

8. What obstacles have you run into?

In writing? Only my own lack of discipline. Or, the fact that I love my day job almost as much as I love writing, and it pays better.

9. What advice do you have all the browsers in Blogland?

Stick around!

10. If you had three minutes to give advice to someone headed into danger, what would it be?

It probably wouldn’t be me giving that advice. I get brain cramp when I have to speak under pressure. I frown. I grimace. My face gets red. Finally some cryptic words escape which are entirely logical to me, but which any danger-pointed person would have trouble understanding, so they are likely to meet their doom puzzling over what that gray-haired lady was babbling about.

Thanks for dropping by the Neighborhood, Liz. We're looking forward to all the great things about service you'll be blogging about.