Deborah Robillard was born in Okinawa, Japan to military parents, but Georgia was her first home in the United States. She returned with her family and grew up just a few miles from where she’d lived as a baby when her father retired from the service. Deborah received her education and spent her formative years in the South. Although she has traveled the world, Georgia will always be where her heart calls home. Deborah is a Registered Nurse, a career she loves, but she has been drawn to writing since she learned to speak and tell stories. As she grew older she started writing them down and finds it is her true passion in life. She’s a proud Army wife who has supported her husband through multiple deployments while raising their sons.
Deborah has just finished her first film based on her novel The Crickets Dance and is currently working on another novel entitled The Ageless which she also hopes to see in film. She is also currently working on the third and final installment of Cameron Manor.
FWM: When did you discover your love for writing?
Before I could actually read or write I would tell myself stories in my head I think to escape the fear of constantly moving. My father was in the military and every few years it seemed I had a new home. But I discovered rather young that I could be any where or anyone I wanted. I was fortunate that Georgia was a constant and we always seemed to find our way back there. But during those long flights and sometimes lonely years in a new school, I would just simply make up a time and place where I could go and leave the anxiety of being the new kid behind. When we finally settled back down in Georgia for the third time and for good, I was eleven. The stories that brought me comfort when I was little were still there. I started writing them down and the stories turned to poetry, and imaginary places born out of having seen most of the world from the Orient to Europe and back again. It was never something I was comfortable sharing with my friends or family as with any form or art I think most people are afraid of the criticism that can come with sharing personal thoughts and fantastical ideas. For years I kept notebooks hidden away with my stories and characters that offered me an escape.
FWM: What inspired your novel The Crickets Dance?
When I was in my 20’s a friend I grew up with and considered a sister became pregnant. Life moving on after high school and college as it does, I had not seen her in a while. One day she came to pick me up and take me to her new apartment and there was no hiding it… she was about six or seven months pregnant. I was a bit hurt she had hidden it from me. We were family and had grown up doing everything together. That is when she told me the baby was going to be biracial and she was afraid of what people might think. Of course, it made no difference to me, and I was thrilled for her. But she was still afraid and began having nightmares that her son would never be accepted. Although I graduated from nursing school a few years before I had always spent my days in the Emergency Department. OB was just not my thing, but the day my friend went in to deliver she asked me to be there. She began having sever complications as soon as they put in her epidural. Her blood pressure dropped as did the baby’s heart rate. Unbeknownst to anyone she was allergic to the medication they put in the epidural. She and the baby were in grave danger. There were no extra staff available so the nurse tending to my friend asked me for my help. I was in street clothes at a hospital I did not work at and found myself wanting to run from the situation. The thought of watching either or both of them die was terrifying but leaving her was never an option. I focused on my friend while the other nurse focused on the baby. When she pushed the code button on the wall my heart sank and I just knew the odds of saving them both were slim. But all through this time my friends mother paced and prayed in the hallway and extra medical hands seemed to appear out of nowhere. I stayed right in my friend’s ear while the other nurses started trying to reverse the epidural, As she slipped in and out of consciousness, I told her she needed to push to save her son. She slurred the words “I can’t,” I told her over and over she had to. Once I heard him cry my friend started to slip away but in God’s mercy and the hands of the Dr’s and nurses he’d sent just in the nick of time they managed to stabilize her and over the course of three days she became coherent. That was when it struck me how anyone could look at that precious baby boy and not see him as anything but a miracle. How anyone could think of him as less than perfect because of the color of his skin was unthinkable.
FWM: Give us a glimpse into the story and why it was important for you to take it to film.
I thought about my friend and that day for a long time to come. All of the what if’s ran through my mind on occasion and I realized one day after we’d had a particularly terrible trauma in the emergency room as I stood over a patient holding a bag of blood over my head and squeezing it into him and watching it run right through onto my shoes that not once when it came to life or death had any person ever asked me what color the blood donor was. In that moment when we face death nothing that trivial seems to matter anymore. So I sat down and began to write. I wanted to put down on paper in some type of meaningful way a story about biracial children in the south and just how far we have come in acceptance of one another. The book was released through a small literary agency in Las Vegas and just sort of found it’s way into the hands of readers, especially throughout the south. I began getting emails from people I did not know asking when the movie was coming out. I’d never even considered it. After speaking with my agent she encouraged me to find small production companies. I had never used twitter before, but the third company I reached out to took on the task of making the film. It took four years to see it on the screen and nobody was more shocked that I was when it started winning at multiple film festivals before it came out on several streaming platforms. Of course, there were the few voices that were critical but for the most part it was well received. It was also one of the first things I’d written that I had the courage to share and I realized If it touched one person then it was worth putting my pride and fear of failure aside and letting people see my heart.
FWM: Why do you think this film has resonated with audiences?
I think the story of this book and film resonated with audiences because at some point we have all felt like the odd man out for whatever reason. At it’s core the book is about learing to love yourself and others…and realizing there is no shame in being exactly who God made you to be. For me it was a journey of realizing that I was made on purpose for a purpose, as are all God’s children. When I was in college my literature teacher stopped me on my way out the door. I was late for biology when she asked me what my major was I told her it was nursing her reply surprised me. She said “No your major is not nursing. Trust me when I tell you you will be a writer someday.” I dismissed her advice and didn’t think of it again until The Crickets Dance was out in both book and movie form. Little did I know that God has a way of telling us our purpose even if we are not always listening. I feel like that message also comes through in the journey the characters in The Crickets Dance take. It is something we all need to be reminded of. To limit ourselves out of fear of rejection or criticism only serves to stand in the way of God’s plan for our lives. I hope that as people read The Crickets Dance and discover how Emmaline and Ophelia find a sisterhood, despite their circumstances will inspire readers and movie buffs to do the same.
FWM: Your recent novel is entitled The Ageless.” Please share the importance of this book. Do you plan on taking it to film?
The Ageless is a forthcoming novel about the lengths some people will go to find the elusive fountain of youth. It is about the potential for corruption to overtake reason when it comes to longevity and beauty. How the medical profession has in some cases been blinded by money in order to promise those who are willing to believe that eternal beauty and a longer lifespan are indeed possible to those with the money to buy into the lie. It asks the question how far is too far and what if modern science is able to prolong life for those who can afford it. The poor, sick and desperate would steal it while the wealthy would pay untold billions for the chance to live longer healthier lives while maintaining a youthful appearance that seems to make them ageless.
FWM: What is next?
We hope to release the novel The Ageless when we begin filming. We are currently in development and assembling a team I could not be prouder of. My producing partner for The Ageless is Walter Duckworth. The hope is to have both the book and film out soon. I am also working on the third book in the Cameron Manor trilogy. It is the story of a teen girl on a quest to do the impossible. It asks the question what any of us would do to go back in time and change just one day, and what would the ramifications be on the future if we could. The first two books are out and I hope to have the third novel completed within the coming year. You can find Cameron Manor The Meeting and the Magic and Cameron Manor The Sisterhood and the Sacrifice on Amazon, both in book form and on kindle. The third book will be entitled Cameron Manor The Faith and the Future.
You can find out about all of these projects by following me on social media.
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Thank You for the wonderful article!