Fame & Fortune: Author Tami Hoag
Thriller writer loves to horse around with her money |
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Hoag: No, not at all.
My dad sold life insurance. My mother was a housewife and an Avon
lady for a while. We lived an hour south of Rochester, Minn., which
is where the Mayo Clinic is. We lived on a little hobby farm. We
were just a normal middle-class family. I was the kid that wanted
the pony and just would not relent until my parents caved in and
got me one. I was 9. And he was a nasty, mean pony who threw me
off every chance he got, and I still wanted a pony! I just didn't
want that pony. I was just so determined to ride, and I just loved
the animals. And my dad got into buying and selling and trading
horses, so it became more of a family thing. We would go to local
shows and compete at that level.
Bankrate: You've described your relationship with horses as spiritual. How so?
Hoag: You become such
partners with your competition horses, and especially in dressage,
that the partnership needs to be so solid, and you need to be able
to trust each other. It's such an intimate style of riding that
you become very bonded to these horses. And in dressage you have
a horse for a long time to develop over the years or to remain at
a high level of training. My one Grand Prix mare I've had now for
six years in September, and she's just absolutely my partner. I
didn't begin competing in dressage until 1998, but I'd been riding
my whole life in other disciplines.
Bankrate: When did you begin writing as opposed to riding?
Hoag: Actually, it was
about the same time; I was in the third grade and we had an assignment
for English to write a little story and illustrate it, and then
we made our own little books, and I thought that was the coolest
thing ever.
Bankrate: We can only
guess what you might have written about. ...
Hoag: Of course! Mine
was about a black pony and the two children who shared him (laughs).
I just loved being able to create my own world and my own characters
and do whatever I wanted with them. I always had stories going in
notebooks and that kind of thing. I was a good student and on the
school newspaper. I knew that was what I wanted to do, but I also
was very practical about it and knew that the great majority of
people who want to write never make it and those who do just kind
of eke out a living; a very small percentage make it to where I
am now. I knew I had to have a real job until I could make this
happen.
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