Tammy Pasterick
A native of Western Pennsylvania, Tammy Pasterick grew up in a family of steelworkers, coal miners, and Eastern European immigrants. She began her career as an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board and later worked as a paralegal and German teacher. She holds degrees in labor and industrial relations from Penn State University and German language and literature from the University of Delaware. She currently lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore with her husband, two children, and chocolate Labrador retriever. Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash is her first novel.
Twitter: @TammyPasterick
Instagram: @AuthorTammyPasterick
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
Doctor Zhivago and Schindler’s List have definitely influenced my writing. I’ve always been swept away by emotional stories set against the backdrop of revolution and war. These two films provide such an honest account of the horrors of the Russian Revolution and Holocaust, but at the heart of these historical epics are deeply human stories of love, desperation, and survival. The best historical fiction—whether in the form of a film or novel—entertains and moves the audience while shedding light on turbulent world events.
Favorite non-reading activity?
I love to ski. I spent a lot of time on the slopes when I was a teenager, but never had the time or money to keep up with the sport in my twenties and early thirties. When my kids were in elementary school, my husband and I enrolled them in ski school, and they fell in love with the sport. Our family now skis in Vermont several times per year and has even made it as far as Montana and Canada. The scenery is always spectacular, and the runs are exhilarating. I just wish I had younger knees.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I really enjoy photography, but I don’t have any real training other than taking too many pictures while traveling the world. I became very skilled at capturing moving objects when my kids were little and started experimenting with photo editing. I like playing with filters, cropping images, and filling my walls with portraits of my kids and dog. I recently started adding quotes to my photos and posting them to Instagram.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?
I bought a burgundy LL Bean windbreaker during my senior year at Penn State and wore it every single day when my boyfriend and I backpacked through Europe in May and June 1997 after we graduated from college. That windbreaker saw Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. I wore it during most of my overseas travels for almost twenty years. In fact, when I was in Salzburg, Austria in 2012, I asked my friend to take a picture of me wearing the windbreaker at the Hohensalzburg Fortress. It looks almost identical to the picture my boyfriend—now husband—took in 1997 at that same fortress. I should really contact LL Bean about using my windbreaker in a commercial. It’s the most durable piece of clothing I have ever owned.
Do you speak a second language? Do you think differently in that language? Does it influence your writing?
I studied German in college, spent a semester at the Universität Bayreuth in Northern Bavaria, and even taught high school German for a few years. I don’t get enough practice to maintain my fluency, but the language miraculously comes back to me whenever I visit Germany or Austria and find myself having a pleasant conversation with someone on the street. Learning German has influenced my writing in that it has made me very cognizant of grammar and tense rules in English. Studying German literature taught me the elements of plot and character development, and more importantly, how to write about the human condition.
