Aggie Villanueva
http://www.aggiev.org/rightfullymine
http://www.visualartsjunction.com
http://www.aggiev.org
Interview with Aggie about her novel, Rightfully Mine: God’s Equal Rights Amendment
Book Synopsis:
An historical novel by Aggie Villanueva
Originally published by Thomas Nelson, reprinted by Aggie Villanueva
Reprinted, available in several formats at: http://aggiev.typepad.com/rightfullymine/order-rightfullly-mine.html
174 pages
ISBN: 978-0-557-08654-2
“Let us enter into an era in Israeli history where anticipation is a palpable hum, where the bedouin lifestyle gives way to the birth of a nation, a promised nation, where men gear up for war: the era between their forty-year wandering and their victories over Canaan…. And into this era of the Bible that is often brushed over Villanueva “seamlessly weaves into the plot a love story of Rhett-Scarlett-Ashley proportions.” Excerpted from review by Linda Yezak
This is a women’s equal rights amendment straight out of history, and handed down straight from the throne of God. I wonder, how much more do we need in order to understand the great worth of women and our worth to God throughout history, today and evermore?
What’s the hook for your recently self published book, Rightfully Mine?
Aggie: I believe it’s the subtitle “God’s Equal Rights Amendment.” That seems to draw much interest, no matter the religious point of view. And it seems, the fact that it all took place so long ago (scholars debate, but approximately 1200 to 1500 BC) incites further interest.
Tell us about Rigthfully Mine in your own words.
Aggie: The story is in fact a question: How could the nation of Israel inherit the Promised Land when they denied basic rights to some of their own? I believe it might be God’s last question to Israel, after all the questions they had to answer in their 40-year desert wandering, before they were prepared to enter the Land of Milk and Honey.
Though it’s the story of an infant nation finding itself before it can emerge to war and earn what is rightfully theirs, it’s also the story of the woman, Noah, in Numbers 27, who was one of 5 daughters of Zelophehad.
When God instructed Moses to divide the Promised Land between the nation of Israel, Moses did it according to custom, which means only men are allowed to own/inherit land.
It was an unexpected blow to realize that the Promised Land was finally being divided all right, but only between the men. With only women in the family, and their father dead in the wilderness wandering, someone had to defy the law; it was Noah, who Thomas Nelson urged me to rename to avoid the obvious confusion. I nicknamed her Rizpah. She stood against an entire nation of men to earn for her and her sisters what is rightfully theirs.
We’ve heard as much talk about your subplot as the main biblical story. What about that subplot?
Actually there are five subplots, naturally, with five daughters in the story. But the main subplot I think you’re talking about is Rizpah’s story. It involves love, actually a love triangle, plus murderous greed, attempted rape, public disgrace, her family being torn apart, being cut off from every dream she harbored in her life to earn what God had planned for her instead.
BIO:
Writing since the late 70's, Aggie Villanueva’s first novel, Chase the Wind, Thomas Nelson 1983, was published before she was 30 and her second, Rightfully Mine, from Thomas Nelson in 1986. Villanueva freelanced throughout the 80s and 90s, also writing three craft columns and three software review columns for national magazines. Villanueva was featured on the cover of The Christian Writer Magazine October 1983.
After teaching at writers conferences throughout the Midwest, she founded/directed the 3-day Mid-America Fellowship of Christian Writers conferences for four years until 1990. For the past several years Aggie has blogged. She is founder of Visual Arts Junction: http://www.visualartsjunction.com, and is known for her in-depth interviews.
Photographic art entered in 2007, and within two years Villanueva was critically acclaimed and award winning. Dubbed the Grandma Moses of the American Southwest by her artistic peers, Villanueva is represented in several online and walk-in art galleries across the nation.
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