Meet Stephanie Cowell

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

Stephanie, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.

I am a novelist and I write many drafts and revise endlessly to communicate effectively. Sometimes when I begin a book I don’t know what I want to communicate…writing the book makes it clearer. And as it gets clearer, I have to chose the scenes which will make it come alive for the reader. My husband once asked me, “Is this the 14th revision of the 10th draft, or the 10th revision of the 14th draft?” I sometimes feel like an ant scurrying over a vast forest and that it will take me forever to get to the other side.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

Both my parents were painters/artists and growing up, it never occurred to me to want to do anything but work in the arts. I wrote, sang and acted in my teens and won prizes in the prestigious writing competition in Seventeen Magazine and was published in several literary magazines. But in my early twenties, I found writing too lonely and maybe too difficult because I had written from natural ability I think to that time and had. no idea how to keep on this path of so many rewrites. I became an opera singer and a balladeer which I simply loved. I founded a singing group, an arts festival, and many other things. At about forty I had to support my two young sons so I took a day job and returned to my writing. It took several years to get a contract for my first novel. It was the most amazing joy. So many people were rooting for me. I was still a singer so I sang 17th century songs at my first Barnes & Noble reading. With singing you perform great music others have written. In writing, it is all up to you.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think first you have to be steadfast. You have to respond to your stories and characters however long their journey takes. Second, you need always to be open to learning. And third I think you have to learn patience. At first I thought I would just write successful books one after an other but every particular talent has it own way of being. You find your inner rules as you go on. The first book I tried to write took 39 years of revisions before it was published. At the age of forty I could never conceive of such a thing.

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

My parents immersed me in the arts from the time I can remember because it was what they were. They were artists to the core. We lived in New York City and I was taken to serious theater before the age of seven. I went to art galleries when my head was far above me. I felt a kind of awe for their paintbrushes and easels though I have no talent in drawing. When I was less than two years my mother put me to bed saying the words from Romeo and Juliet: “Goodnight, goodnight, parting is such sweet sorrow…” I am sorry my mother did not live to see me publish my novels but my father who was in Switzerland when I received my first contract, sent me a telegram (this was before emails) saying he was in tears of joy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stephaniecowell.com
• Facebook: StephanieCowell