Meet Angelique Conger | Author

We had the good fortune of connecting with Angelique Conger and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Angelique, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
Risk is important to success. If I want to succeed, I needed to step out of my comfort zone and try something new. I have often done this through my life as I saw something I wanted or needed to do.

A college education with 5 little children, one of whom was a premie, seemed wrong, but it was necessary. My husband had come close to death, and I had no way to support these five little ones, so I did it, I graduated from UNLV a year before my husband retired from the Navy.

One year, an opening in our local teachers’ union came open. Although I knew little about it, I took the step to seek election. After my election, I spent 3 years serving the teachers and learning about the union.

Years later, after things happened and I left teaching, my sister suggested I join her in writing for National Novel Writers Month (NaNo). I would be 60 at the end of that month and had never successfully written any fiction. Why not?

Like all new authors of my age, I thought traditional publishing was the only way. Then I learned how difficult it was and how long it would take. I was already getting old, and I had stories to tell. No way was I going to wait on someone else to publish my books and keep most of the money when there was a better way. Rather than waiting the 3-5 years to publish one book and see if it would sell, in those years I have written and published 22 books.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I write books about women who lived in the past whose stories were not recorded. Most of these people were real, but we only know the name of one, Eve, wife of Adam. But we know little about her. The Bible includes a few lines about her. The names of the women who married her sons and grandsons who followed Adam as prophets and leaders of their people were not recorded. I needed to find names that fit them and write their stories with little or no information. Many of their prophet husbands received little more than a notation that he lived and served as a prophet. In those first three years I wrote about Eve, I had the impression she sat next to me and shared her story with me. I would reach a point in the story where I had no idea how they could have solved the problem that faced them. I’d leave my computer and take a walk or a nap, maybe even wait until the next morning, but when I opened my computer again, the resolution came through my fingertips onto the keys of the computer, and I learned the resolution to Eve’s and Adam’s problem.
Writing about people who lived many hundred years in one book is difficult, if not impossible. I learned that to complete Eve’s story, I needed to tell the stories of the other women, Seth’s wife, Enos’s wife, Enoch’s wife, Methuselah’s wife, Noah’s wife, and the others. In each of these stories, Eve played a major part.
Then, as I wrote the first book about Eve, she told me about two children, stolen and taken to the city of the wicked and sold as slaves. That was all Eve could tell me. So, I wrote a book to find out, and wrote a 12-book series, Lost Children of the Prophet.
I know of no other author who writes in such ancient times before the Flood of Noah. No one I know writes fiction about the women who lived during that time. That puts me in a special place, alone in the telling of their stories, in a tiny niche, making it difficult to market.
I have written since I was a little girl, but most have been reports and educational papers. I tried to write fiction before 2013, but never succeeded. I tried to write Eve’s story before, too. It was not until my sister’s challenge and a change from telling about her to allowing her to tell her story (3rd person POV to 1st person POV) that I could write her story. I had to take ME out of the story and allow it to be all HER.
I had never written in another’s viewpoint, but I enjoyed the challenge. I wrote most of my later books, not about the matriarchs, in 3rd person point of view, but Eve needed, she wanted, to tell her own story through my fingers.
It humbles me and gives me pride that even though Eve’s book was my first ever fiction book, it still sells better than all the others I have written. When others write to tell me how it affected them, I am overwhelmed with gratitude to my first mother.
Since that book, I have written enough to publish 6-8 books every year, until this last year. Covid has slowed me down. Covid brain is real.
I have learned to trust the story that comes through my fingers. I only tell the story. It surprises my parents and husband that I could write so many books, since the only writing I had done before was strictly non-fiction.
The stories continue, as the women share with me. They are historical, because they lived in a historical time. They are fiction because there is nothing left after the flood to research.
I believe the women of this time deserve to have their story told. They were women of God who trusted in Him. I will continue to share their stories as long as they allow me to do that.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I live in Las Vegas, Nevada. Most people come here for the casinos and the gambling. Some love the high roller ride. But I stay away from the center of town. The things I love are at the edges. We love to go out to Red Rock recreational area and drive through it to see and walk in the beauties of nature in a desert. When that part of the earth was created, layers of white, red, and orange were laid down. People younger than me love to hike and scale the canyon walls. We like to take a picnic out there and enjoy the beauty in the shadows where we can get out of the scorching summer heat.
I also love to explore some of the museums. When we have little children visit, we take them to the Children’s Museum and the old Mormon Fort downtown. There is a neat little train museum about 30 minutes away in Boulder City. We can ride the train for a short distance.
While in Boulder City, the Hoover Dam is amazing to visit. They offer trips down through the dam to see the power plant workings. Walking along the top of the dam and looking into Lake Meade is impressive.
Lake Meade has always been a fun place to go boating and swimming.
I like to go out to the Latter-day Saint temple and show friends where I spend at least one day a week.
You can get almost any kind of food you would like here in Las Vegas, and most of it is close. It is a great place to visit. I just stay from the casinos.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would not be where I am in my author/publishing career without: *My sister, Tora Moon, who initially encouraged me to join her in writing in 2013.
*NaNoWriMo has been a help as I participated in many years competition to see if I could write 50,000 words in 30 days. I did each time, except last year when I had Covid pneumonia and couldn’t write.
*My first editor, Danica Page, who worked with me on that first book and helped me to see what needed to be added AND what needed to be cut. She helped me see how to write an interesting book.
*My cover editor, Dar Albert, who has created 21 beautiful covers for my books.
*20 Books to 50K Facebook group and annual conference, who have helped me to see individual authors can do as well as traditionally published authors.
*The ANWA organization that supports authors, and our little Time Spinner group who offer support and encouragement.
*Marsha Ward and others who join me most evenings to sprint write and support each other.
*My readers who encourage me to write more books.
*Last, but never least, my husband, Jack Conger, who sits beside me alone as I get lost in the world of my book, and still he supports me!

Website: https://www.AngeliqueCongerAuthor.com

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Image Credits
Covers by Dar Albert