Ann Crawford - When a Bewildered Alien Ends up in Kansas

Posted on 5th of April, 2020 by Naomi Bolton

Ann Crawford is the award-winning and bestselling author of ten books; a speaker as well as an improv and standup performer; an award-winning filmmaker and humanitarian; a world traveler and adventurer; and a believer in magic, miracles, and love at first sight. She and her family live in Colorado. As our Author of the Day, Crawford tells us all about her book, Fresh off the Starship.

Please give us a short introduction to what Fresh off the Starship is about.

A befuddled alien means to land in Washington, DC, where she was planning on helping humanity on a grand geopolitical scale, but she accidentally lands in…Kansas! She wakes up in the body of a young, married woman, who had mysterious secrets of her own. The starbeing lost all of her Earth training in the quick switch and has to figure it out as she goes along. Can you imagine waking up as a fully adult human and having to navigate life on Earth in the twenty-first century, for the first time? This brings a lot of laughs.

Why did you pick a small country town in Kansas as the backdrop for your story?

My husband was a Kansas farmboy. The first time he took me, a big-city person, to Western Kansas, I fell in love with the land and the people. Very few people visit there, it being a “flyover state” and pretty far from the Interstates and all. It’s far more beautiful than the Wizard of Oz would have you think. So I wanted to celebrate this beautiful land and the people, along with the peacefulness, different texture of life and connection to the Earth.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

Haha. When I wrote my bio for my improv team, a teammate said, “This is like the bio of someone with a secret identity!” So that tells you I’m somewhat quiet about all that I do, plus that I perform improv. In the past year I’ve started performing standup, as well. This is a huge step for someone who’s always been fairly quiet and is happy to be tucked away in my writing nest all day long.

I’m also an award-winning filmmaker. I made a movie about Viet Nam vets going back to do humanitarian work and healing their wounds of war. Some of their stories show up in Fresh off the Starship.

I’ve traveled a great deal: all 50 states and 75 countries and counting. I call myself a high-flying and deep-diving author, and in addition to going there in my writing, that’s because I’ve flown planes and enjoy scuba diving.

I love to laugh and sometimes even wake up laughing, LOL.

In which way is this a different take on the whole alien visiting earth theme?

I don’t know of any other starbeing stories where the family and friends don’t know this isn’t their family member/friend. So while the alien is figuring out life on Earth, they’re adjusting to her – although they just think their old Missy has amnesia.

Another view I haven’t seen before is this starbeing’s planet can’t understand why Earth is so crazy with its wars, pollution and all. But they’re not inside a human body, feeling first-hand what a human goes through—especially the tremendous amount of pain from loss that we experience. I talk about how that loss opens us up, gives us compassion and connects us with each other. What the whole planet is going through now is a great example of that.

One of your readers say that you have a talent for finding the good in situations. Why is this important to do?

Oh, I guess that comes from a lifetime of making lemonade out of lemons. I’ve had a number of tragedies come my way, and—not to use too many metaphors here—looking for the silver lining became my main focus long ago. My tagline is “Love, light and laughter” and that’s what I look for everywhere and I try to put out in everything I do.

What is your favorite line from this book and why?

Well, you might think it’s when the alien talks about how beautiful life on Earth is, and that’s my second favorite moment. But my most favorite is when Tommy says, “How’s that now?” I can’t tell you why—that’d spoil the moment. But I can say I love love, and I’m living my own romantic comedy, so, as I said above, I try to share that love, light and laughter as often as I can.

Do any of your characters ever take off on their own tangent, refusing to do what you had planned for them?

Hahaha—what a great question! Yes, they do that all the time. One time I took a screenwriting class and I mentioned how my characters often surprise me. The professor said, “You mean to say that you say, ‘I can’t believe I wrote that’?” And, well, yes—that’s exactly what I mean. Very often I can’t believe I just wrote what I just wrote, LOL. They also show up in the middle of the night, or knock on the shower door, or talk to me in my car. No, I’m not crazy…I just have very vocal characters.

What did you have the most fun with while writing Fresh off the Starship?

Anyone who knows me would know it’s the love story part. 😊 But that’s all I can say, as I don’t want to give it away.

Do you consider yourself a disciplined writer? Do you have a schedule that you stick to, or is it more in the moment?

Yes, I’m a very disciplined writer. I sit down every morning at about the same time, although I don’t aim for a set amount of words or pages per day. I write what the day brings. Sometimes that’s one hour; sometimes it’s six hours. On the very rare occasions where the writing isn’t flowing at all, I read and do research.

What are you working on right now?

I just landed a top New York agent for my latest book, which I’m currently in the final moments of the last revision for. It’s about three generations of women: a former hippie/flower child, an arch-conservative, and a trans twenty-year-old woman. All under one roof. What could go right? It’s very edgy, contemporary and relevant.