Guest Post & Giveaway — Sharon Lynn Fisher: Writers Are Magpies

Posted on April 25, 2014 by janicu

Today I have a guest post from Sharon Lynn Fisher, author of Ghost Planet, a science fiction romance which had a premise I loved, which is that everyone that lands on Ardagh 1 eventually has the ghost of someone they once knew attach themselves to them. She’s also the author of the recently released The Ophelia Prophecy that takes place on Earth in the aftermath of genetic research gone awry. The Manta, products of human and insect DNA experiments, are now the dominant culture, and this story is about a Manta and a human getting thrown together and the resulting clash and fallout — another great premise. I was quite excited to hear from Tor about hosting a stop on her blog tour, and actually very pleased she picked the question I’d asked about world building. Enjoy.

(Tor has also offered 3 copies of The Ophelia Prophecy to give away to 3 readers of this site, so check that out at the bottom of this post).

I’m going to start off this post with the terrific question provided by Janicu:

I imagine that writers, like a lot of creative people, are like magpies that save little bits of something from the world, internalize it, and remake it, rearrange it, add a whole lot of their own magic, and voila. What would you say are little pieces of inspiration that went into the making of this new story? (If you wanted to mention ECHO 8, I wouldn’t mind hearing about that too)!

World building is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve mentioned in a few interviews how I used to hate it. I found world building really intimidating, and thought of it as the stuff that happened between bits of “real” story (action, dialogue, romance).

I have since become disabused of that oversimplified understanding. World building is so much more than descriptions of setting (though that part is pretty important too). It fuels just about every other aspect of the story. It helps develop character and motivation. Drives creation of the plot.

But moving on to this magpie thing, because Janicu really hit on something there.

Connemara Abbey (image courtesy of Sharon Lynn Fisher)

In my current release, THE OPHELIA PROPHECY, I built settings based on real-world locations. Places I had visited and wanted to return to. Sanctuary, the last human city, is located in the otherworldly landscape of Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. After Asha, the heroine, is abducted from Sanctuary by the hero, Pax, their next stop is Connemara, in County Galway, Ireland. Connemara is one of my favorite places on Earth (based on what I’ve seen of it so far). Dramatic and often bleak landscapes, and a living sky, constantly shifting from sun to rain to wind. You can feel its history. You can almost hear the voices of the people who’ve lived and died there. No wonder Ireland produces such amazing writers.

Granada Alhambra (photo by Javier Carro, distributed under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license)

But the real showcase setting of OPHELIA is the Manti capital in Granada, Spain. The Manti are the human/praying mantis transgenic organisms that all but destroyed humanity with a targeted plague. I needed a location suited to them — exotic and sensual, with a complicated history. This Moorish city is charming just as it is, but I depicted the fictional version as enhanced by the Manti to included living, organic architecture inspired by Gaudi structures I’d seen in Barcelona (and then finished it off by layering on some political and religious conflict). One key location, a tavern called Debajo, was inspired by an image I came across on the Internet. A stone, squat, clearly medieval building situated among the more graceful architecture of the Albayzin. This tavern peddles a drug inspired by a flower I saw and learned about on a trip to Costa Rica.

Colman School (image courtesy of Sharon Lynn Fisher)

As my hostess mentioned ECHO 8 — my third book from Tor, due out early next year — I’ll say a word or two about that. That book is set in current-day Seattle, and also on an alternate Earth that has been devastated by an asteroid strike. The primary location is an old school building visible from I-90 on the way out of Seattle. I used to drive past the circa 1900 building with its boarded-up windows and thought what a shame it was that someone was going to tear it down eventually. But they didn’t. It was renovated and converted to an African American history museum, with affordable housing on the upper floors. For ECHO 8 it became the Seattle Psi Training Institute. Another key location is the creepy decommissioned ferryboat, Kalakala, which has a very colorful past. I once lived in a tiny house on a dock on Lake Union, near downtown Seattle, and this massive derelict was parked there for a time. I always wondered about it, and when I started writing ECHO 8 I did a bunch of research, and it became a setting (and almost a character) in my book.

Kalakala (photo by Barnaby Dorfman, distributed under a CC BY 2.0 license)

But the book of mine that best illustrates the magpie idea, I’m working on now. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, as it’s still in the earlyish stages, but it’s set in Portland and features an artist heroine and a physicist/warrior poet hero. The heroine, Neve, IS a magpie. She collects bits of garbage she passes on the street, and she turns them into art books. She sees meaning and beauty in discarded objects as ordinary as a dry ballpoint pen or a popped balloon.

Magpie (photo by Adrian Pingstone)

Writers are just like that. It can be things or people or places or even garbage. They are captured and cataloged every day of our lives. And they decorate our mental landscape. I remember one day I was walking down a busy street in downtown Seattle, near the Pike Place Market. I saw a woman walking toward me carrying a box. As she came closer, I saw she was wearing a fairy costume, and she looked annoyed. As she passed, I noticed her wings were in the box. There she was, a whole story walking down the street in broad daylight. And nobody seemed to see her but me.

Sharon Lynn Fisher Author Photo ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist and a three-time RWA Golden Heart Award finalist, SHARON LYNN FISHER lives in the Pacific Northwest. She writes books for the geeky at heart—sci-fi flavored stories full of adventure and romance—and battles writerly angst with baked goods, Irish tea, and champagne. Her works include Ghost Planet (2012), The Ophelia Prophecy (2014), and Echo 8 (2014). You can visit her online at SharonLynnFisher.com.

GIVEAWAY:

This giveaway is closed!

Rules:

This giveaway is for U.S./Canada only
Contest ends: Wednesday, April 30th.
One entry per person please!

Guest Post: Rachel Neumeier on Under the Radar books

Posted on February 7, 2014 by janicu

Hi everyone! I’d like to introduce Rachel Neumeier, author of the recently released Black Dog (watch this space for a review soon), as well as The House of Shadows, The Griffin Mage trilogy, The Floating Islands, and The City in the Lake.

neumeier

I love hearing recommendations from other readers, and today Rachel has a fantastic list of books that might not have gotten the attention they deserve. There’s a few here I’ve not heard of that I have to get my hands on now, and I can tell you she’s not wrong about the books that I have read.

Thanks for inviting me over to Spec Fic Romantic – it’s a pleasure to be here!

I’ve been writing a good many guest posts about Black Dog lately, so this time I’d like to try writing on a topic that’s slightly removed: I’d like to share with you a handful of my favorite books that should be right at the top of your TBR pile, but that you might not have heard of because they are old, or have been “flying under the radar,” or are simply outside your normal reading range.

These days, I think many of us get most of our book recommendations from blogs and Twitter. Certainly I do, especially now that I have a Kindle. One enthusiastic recommendation from a blogger whose taste matches mine, and I may very well just pick the book up immediately. Naturally, following book-review blogs leads to a huge TBR pile and promotes some excellent books, but I suspect it also leads to a concentration of social-media attention, so that a handful of new releases pick up the lion’s share of notice. Often those books are great and deserve every bit of the attention they get, but all too often an equally great title languishes because it didn’t happen to get that initial buzz. And, of course, anything published before the social media Phenomenon is simply out of luck. With all the new, shiny titles hitting the shelves, it’s almost impossible to generate buzz for anything published more than a year ago, much less more than a decade ago.

On the other hand, blogger recommendations can lead you straight to titles or authors you wouldn’t ordinarily try, which is an unmixed blessing.

So, here we go. I think that anyone whose taste runs toward character-driven stories with beautifully drawn settings ought to consider trying the following titles.

Thursdays Children by Rumer Godden 1. I thought I’d start with the oldest. How many of you have ever read anything by Rumer Godden?

Godden wrote a whole lot of books from 1936 right up through 1997, an amazing career that ended a trifle in advance of the social media explosion. In This House of Brede was published in 1969. It is not fantasy. It is not adventure. It is not a romance. It is a contemporary novel (not actually contemporary anymore, true, but set in our world).

I read mostly fantasy, with some science fiction, mysteries, and historicals thrown in. I don’t read many contemporary novels. But this one? This one is simply one of the best and most powerful novels I’ve ever read, of any genre.

For those who particularly enjoy YA, Godden’s Thursday’s Children is one you should really look up. Especially if you love dance. I don’t know anything about ballet, but this perfect little novel had me completely enthralled with the story of a gifted boy who tags along with his sister to ballet class. Read it the first time for pure enjoyment and a second time as a character study, because the depth of characterization is amazing.

2. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson is a true contemporary published only a year or so ago. This one is a good example of a single blogger recommendation leading to an out-of-the-usual purchase for me. Ana at The Book Smugglers raved about this book, so even though it’s a YA contemporary, I picked it up. It is a very intense book and you should have a box of kleenix handy when you read it – but you should read it. And then go back through and read all the scraps of poetry:

At 4:48 pm on a Friday in April / my sister was rehearsing the role of Juliet / and less than one minute later / she was dead. / To my astonishment, time didn’t stop / with her heart.

This is a story about grief and recovery, but it is also a story that celebrates friendship, family, and love. I think absolutely everyone should have this title right at the top of their TBR pile.

The Chocolate Thief by Laura Florand 3. I really don’t read many romances, so this next one, a contemporary romance series set in Paris, represents an even greater departure from my normal reading range. In fact, this is another example of a series I tried solely because of a blogger’s review. But, whether romance is your first love or not, you just have to try Laura Florand’s Chocolate mysteries.

The first is The Chocolate Thief, which is light and fun; the series deepens as you go on. My favorite is the third, but all of them are wonderful. Florand can make any character sympathetic; it’s amazing. The poor little rich girl? Yep, sympathetic. Anyone could learn plenty about characterization and using backstory to deepen character from this author. Luckily, she is a fast writer and has brought a good many titles out over just the past couple of years.

Dolly and the Singing Bird by Dorothy Dunnett 4. I do like mysteries and read a fair number of them, but one mystery series that has completely faded from view is the “Dolly” series by Dorothy Dunnett. You’ll also find them referred to as the “Johnson Johnson” mysteries. I think a lot more people have read Dunnett’s fat historicals – which I like a lot – than have even heard of her mysteries. Dunnett wrote these in the seventies, but they’ve all been recently republished under different titles.

I discovered this series when I was just starting to think seriously about writing, and I found Dunnett’s technique fascinating. Every book in this series is told in the first person by a different young woman, but the real protagonist is arguably Johnson Johnson himself – famous painter, owner of the yacht Dolly, and perhaps a bit more than he seems at first glance – whose point of view is never shown to the reader.

Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy 5. RA MacAvoy wrote a good handful of fantasy novels in the eighties, of which one of my favorites is Tea With the Black Dragon. This is a wonderful little gem of a novel, with just the most subtle fantasy elements laid into what seems on the surface a straight contemporary. I mean, is Mayland Long really a dragon or isn’t he? (Personally, I’m positive he is.)

Plus, Tea is one of those vanishingly rare stories where the romance involves middle-aged people. How often do you see that, right? I can’t really talk, because most of my protagonists are young, too. But I really enjoy seeing a great story where one of the central characters is an older woman.

Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells the cloud roads by martha wells

6. While on that topic, anybody who hasn’t read Martha Wells is missing out. Her standalone fantasy Wheel of the Infinite is a great story, with wonderful worldbuilding – wonderful everything, actually, but Martha Wells just excels at worldbuilding. This one has a Southeast Asian feel to it. Plus, the main protagonist in Wheel is an older woman who is at the height of her power and basically doesn’t ever need to be afraid of any ordinary threats. How often do you see that in a fantasy novel, right?

Wheel has been out for more than a decade, but Wells’ more recent Raksura trilogy, starting with The Cloud Roads, was only completed in 2012. Again, spectacular worldbuilding, this time of a world that is completely unique among fantasy settings. You trip over an ancient city built on an immense turning platform, or whatever, everywhere you go. The nonhuman shapeshifter protagonists are equally unique; these are not just funny-looking humans who sometimes have wings, but a different species with their own body language and ways of thinking.

Plus, people, let me tell you, you really don’t want to miss the giant zombie sea serpent.

Hero by Daniel R. Kerns Border Dispute by Daniel R. Kerns

7. I wonder how many people know that Jacqueline Lichtenberg wrote two books as Daniel R Kerns? Hero was first published in 1993 and Border Dispute in 1994, and it’s a crying shame Lichtenberg didn’t go on to write half a dozen more. I don’t know whether to call these books space opera or military SF, but either way, if nonhuman protagonists appeal to you, these slim little novels will make you stand up and cheer. It’s not that there aren’t humans in these books, but the protagonist, Indiw, certainly is not human. His confusion at human behavior is endless, and Commander Falstaff is certainly equally confused by Ardr behavior. I don’t know of anyone who has ever done this kind of culture clash better than Lichtenberg.

Valor's Choice by Tanya Huff 8. Speaking of military SF, Tanya Huff’s Valor series is amazing. If military SF doesn’t normally appeal to you, well, pick up Valor’s Choice and see if that doesn’t change your mind at least for this one series. Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr is a wonderful protagonist, smoothly handling her superior officers so that she can do her best by her mission and her people. I don’t know what inspired Huff to make the protagonist a sergeant rather than the commander, but it was an excellent choice. Every book stands pretty well on its own, but there’s also plenty of room in this five-book series for another installment, and I sure hope Huff has one in the works.

The Magic and the Healing by Nick O'Donohoe 9. Nick O’Donohoe wrote a handful of widely disparate books in the eighties and nineties, of which the best, if you ever thought you might like to be a veterinarian, is the Crossroads trilogy. The first book, and probably the best, is The Magic and the Healing. If you’d like to know how to repair the horn of a unicorn or diagnose gout in a griffin, this is the series for you. The veterinary medicine is well done (says my vet, who borrowed these books from me), and the actual story is top notch as well. I have a soft spot for The Magic and the Healing, which demonstrated to me the difference between an author declaring a character is smart when she is actually stupid as a post; and the author actually writing a smart character. Obviously, this is book offers an example of the latter. BJ Vaughn is one of the most perceptive characters I can think of, in her quiet way.

The griffin in this book also directly inspired the griffins in my Griffin Mage trilogy. Though O’Donohoe’s griffin is actually nothing at all like mine, he made me fall in love with griffins.

And All the Stars by Andrea K. Höst 10. I don’t usually read self-published books, but enthusiastic reviews from The Book Smugglers and from Heidi at Bunbury in the Stacks made me pick up And All the Stars by Andrea Höst. That one was good enough that I went on to pick up Höst’s Touchstone trilogy. And that was so good it was my top read of 2013 and led me to pick up the rest of Höst’s backlist.

Lovers of romance should particularly look for her Medair duology and And All the Stars, both of which offer stunning plot twists that will leave you absolutely dumbstruck. Everyone should read the Touchstone trilogy, which is a wonderful portal SF story that explores issues of technology and privacy while following the battle of, um, psychic space ninjas against extradimensional monsters. Sort of. Anyway, Cassandra’s voice is wonderful, the slow-burn romance is wonderful, the setting is wonderful, and this trilogy (plus the Gratuitous Epilogue) belongs right at the top of everyone’s TBR pile.

So there you go, ten excellent authors that might not be the subject of a lot of current buzz, but are well worth a look. I hope you’ll look up one or two of them no matter how many new titles you have cluttering up your TBR piles. Enjoy!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rachel Neumeier started writing fiction to relax when she was a graduate student and needed a hobby unrelated to her research. Prior to selling her first fantasy novel, she had published only a few articles in venues such as The American Journal of Botany. However, finding that her interests did not lie in research, Rachel left academia and began to let her hobbies take over her life instead.

She now raises and shows dogs, gardens, cooks, and occasionally finds time to read. She works part-time for a tutoring program, though she tutors far more students in Math and Chemistry than in English Composition.

Deborah Harkness on her book, A Discovery of Witches (w/ Giveaway)

Posted on January 25, 2011 by janicu

I’m currently reading A Discovery of Witches (coming out February 8th), and hopefully my review will be out sometime next week. In the meantime, I have something special today: a few words about the book from it’s author Deborah Harkness. Viking has also generously offered a copy of the book to giveaway (US and Canada only), so be sure to scroll down for the details after reading her words.

Why does a history professor decide to write a novel about witches? It’s a good question!

Writing a novel is a mysterious process and many of my life experiences went into A Discovery of Witches. One of my favorite books as a child was Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond. The history of alchemy and magic caught my interest as an undergraduate, and I’m still fascinated by these subjects today. And, once upon a time, I discovered a lost alchemical manuscript—although it was not (so far as I know) enchanted.

A Discovery of Witches tells the tale of a reluctant witch named Diana Bishop and her discovery of a long-lost alchemical manuscript at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. There, Diana meets Matthew Clairmont: a geneticist who happens to be a very old, secretive vampire. Witches and vampires are traditional enemies, but Diana and Matthew grow closer as they try to puzzle out the manuscript’s significance. Their search for answers takes Diana and Matthew from Oxford, to his ancestral home in France, to her family’s farm in upstate New York. But they are not the only creatures who want to solve the mystery of manuscript, and their fellow daemons, vampires, and witches frown upon their unorthodox relationship. Are these just old prejudices, or is it something more?

Our culture’s renewed obsession with witches, vampires, and other things that go bump in the night has been fascinating to me as a historian. I’ve gone from needing to explain what alchemy is to having my students all nod wisely whenever Nicholas Flamel is mentioned. Parents have confessed that they’ve been staying up late to read their kids’ copy of the latest Harry Potter. Our reading habits reveal that even grownups need a little magic—with the limitless possibility, unpredictability, and even chaos that inevitably comes with it. My goal with A Discovery of Witches was to write a fairy tale that was mesmerizing but spoke to adult issues and concerns. I tried to create characters who were strange—yet strangely familiar. Many of us will recognize ourselves in Diana, who has so much power but is afraid to use it. Others will empathize with Matthew’s inability to let go of his 1500-year past—even though we have less of a past to worry about! And still more will wonder, while riding the train or sitting in a meeting, if that strange creature opposite just might be a daemon or a vampire.

It it’s magic you need this winter, I hope that you find some in A Discovery of Witches.

Giveaway details:

1. Email janicu[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES GIVEAWAY, and with “please enter me” or something like that, and that should be it.
2. One email per person please.
3. This giveaway is US and Canada only
4. This contest ends one week from now: midnight EST February 1st.

For a second chance to win, along with an excerpt of the book check out this post at Fantasy Book Cafe!

Exclusive Brent Weeks Q & A Video

Posted on August 19, 2010 by janicu

Something special for today – a video where Brent Weeks, author of the Night Angel trilogy and a new series, Lightbringer, answers a few questions I sent to him via the folks at Orbit at Comic-con!

I’m about two thirds done with his newest book, The Black Prism (which comes out August 25th), and it is so far really good. My husband has already read it and has been asking me where I am every night. I’ll be posting a review next week plus a book chat with The Mister about it.

In the meantime, this is the video where Weeks discusses Geekery, Weird Research and the length of this new series:

Other Brent Weeks videos and Black Prism fun stuff:
Here are the videos in this series so far, which ask excellent questions about the new world, characters, and the writing experience:
1) Grasping For the Wind
2) Fantasy Book Critic

Pixelated Geek has a 15 minute interview up at their site.

For some fun stuff go to Brent Weeks’ website and take the What Color Is Your Magic Quiz. I’m apparently a superchromat and Blue Drafter.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s One Question Interview Blog Tour!

Posted on June 23, 2010 by janicu

I got the chance to ask Lauren Baratz-Logsted one question for her One Question Interview Blog Tour, and because I’m always interested in books people recommend to one another, it was this:

Q: I noticed in your bio that you used to work at a bookseller and you had other book related jobs. What are some of your favorite books to recommend people (let’s say top 5 or 10?) and why?

Lauren Baratz-Logsted A: Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s my favorite novel by a living author. (The Great Gatsby is my favorite novel by a dead author.) I once saw someone on the beach reading it and experienced intense book envy that the person had the discovery of much of the book still ahead.

Freeze Frame, by Heidi Ayarbe. This YA novel about a boy who isn’t sure if he intended to kill his friend or not is a perfect example of why adults love YA these days too.

The Memoirs of Cleopatra, by Margaret George. The title tells you exactly what it’s about and this doorstopper has given me more pleasure than any other historical novel.

Breath, by Tim Winton. This Australian novel was my favorite adult novel in 2008. Without the framing device of an adult telling a story about his teenage self this could have been easily published as YA. The story, about a boy’s fascination with surfing and the dark road down which it leads him, is thoroughly gripping.

Forever on the Mountain, by James M. Tabor. A nonfiction account of a real mountain-climbing expedition gone bad, this is so well done that even though the reader knows from the start just exactly who will make it down the mountain and who will not, it’s still edge-of-the-seat suspenseful.

Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns. Back when I was a bookseller a woman came into the store wearing dark glasses. It was obvious she’d been crying. “Just give me something good to read,” she said. After mentally rejecting more serious literary and dark commercial fare for fear those books might send her running for the open windows, I handed her this charming crowd-pleaser. She bought it and came back the following week to thank me. She said I’d saved her life with that book. How can I not love and go on recommending a book that saved a woman’s life???

The Education of Bet

Lauren Baratz-Logsted

Baratz-Logsted has a new Young Adult novel, The Education of Bet, coming out on July 12th. The story is about a girl pretending to be a boy in Victorian England. From the blurb on Amazon:

“When Will and Bet were four, tragic circumstances brought them to the same house, to be raised by a wealthy gentleman as brother and sister. Now sixteen, they’ve both enjoyed a privileged upbringing thus far. But not all is well in their household. Because she’s a girl, Bet’s world is contained within the walls of their grand home, her education limited to the rudiments of reading, writing, arithmetic, and sewing. Will’s world is much larger. He is allowed—forced, in his case—to go to school. Neither is happy.

So Bet comes up with a plan and persuades Will to give it a try: They’ll switch places. She’ll go to school as Will. Will can live as he chooses. But once Bet gets to school, she soon realizes living as a boy is going to be much more difficult than she imagined.”

It sounds like it could be cute, especially since she develops a crush on her roommate at the Betterman Academy.

Previous stop (June 22) @ Persephone reads: If you could bring any character – not your own – to life for a day, who would it be and why?

Next stop (June 24) @Wendy Toliver: If an alien offered to give you any position in the world, what would you choose?

Originally posted on janicu.vox.com

Author Interview: Lili St. Crow

Posted on May 16, 2009 by janicu

I decided to do something I’ve never done before in this blog. An author interview. ooOooo!! Very exciting! 😀

I just reviewed Lili St. Crow’s new book, Strange Angels (link to wordpress / LJ) and I sent her some questions about the series and some general questions about being an author. She reveals some interesting information about the rest of the series, plus talks about being an author who uses plenty of profanity (hehe), and I think it gives people an idea of what to expect from this series. Thank you for answering my questions Lili.

Read on for more.

Strange Angels questions:

Please tell us something about Strange Angels. How would you describe this book?

It’s like Supernatural meets Buffy, plus Appalachian folk magic and Eastern European folklore, plus a soupcon of Vampire Hunter D. Dru Anderson, our heroine, has been traveling around with her dad, killing things that go bump in the night. When her dad shows up as a zombie, suddenly she’s on her own–and all the secrets her parents never told her start crowding in. The things she and her dad hunted start hunting back.

The scene with Dru at the beginning of the book with the zombie had a lot of suspense and I had to reassure myself that she’ll be ok because there would be no book otherwise. It reminded me of good horror movies where you’re freaking out along with the person on the screen. Are you a big zombie horror movie fan and if so do you have any favorites?

I’m not a huge zombie buff. I’ve seen Romero’s movies, sure, and I watched Shawn of the Dead and Planet Terror like everyone else. My favorite horror movies tend to include more vampires than zombies, because I’m fascinated by the polymorphous aspect of the vampire myth.

The scene with Dru and the zombie was in the very first bit of the book I had done, and when I was asked to do some YA I sent that along, so the editor would kind of see what they were dealing with. To be honest I expected there to be trouble over it, because it is such a troubling scene. But that is the kind of writer I am, and I wanted it up-front. I wanted to say, this is what we’re dealing with here, there is real risk and real danger. Without real danger to the character, horror just isn’t…well, frightening.

The werewulfen and zombies and other creatures in this book are familiar yet different. For example the zombies turn to dust after being “killed”. What’s your favorite otherworldly creature and why?

There are so many otherworldy creatures! I don’t know if I can pick a favorite; they are a feast for a writer. Certainly the creature I’m most fascinated with is the vampire. The permutations and changes of the vampire as each generation starts playing with bloodsucking as a metaphor are something I find fascinating. People’s vampires tell you a lot about them, a lot about how they view the world and what they’re scared of.

I noticed that for Strange Angels, you use the name Lili St. Crow and I’ve seen you as Lilith Saintcrow on other titles. Is this to distinguish your young adult books from adult ones?

Yes. I’m a fairly prolific writer, and we wanted to be clear that these books weren’t part of my adult oeuvre, so to speak.

How did deciding to write a young adult series come about? Was it just a natural progression – the next story you wanted to tell happened to be young adult, or was it more planned – you wanted to try your hand at it? And how different is it writing adult versus young adult?

I actually never thought I would be writing in the young adult. My work has plenty of profanity and plenty of troublesome themes that I thought would mean I’d never get close to writing anything for younger readers. But…I was asked if I had anything that might do for a young adult book, and I had the first few chapters of Strange Angels lying around. It was something I was very interested in, because I could tell the rest of the story was there, but I hadn’t had time to work on it yet.

So I sent those first few chapters off and started working on it full-time, and next thing I knew we had a contract for a series. And I was terrified. I’d never written young adult before, and part of the process was me calling the editor and saying, “You’ve read what I write, right? You know I put the F-word in things, right? You know characters are going to die, right?” And she was fine with that. That was why they’d asked me, as a matter of fact.

So I was still terrified, but I decided to just barge in and do it. Nothing ever gets done if you’re too afraid to make a move. Besides, I feel very strongly that if I show up consistently to take dictation, the Muse won’t let me down. My job is to be available for the words, and the words will take care of the rest.

For fans of Strange Angels – any influences? Are there authors or books you’d recommend for young adult readers?

Of course the first few episodes of Supernatural and the first two seasons of Buffy were huge influences, as well as Vampire Hunter D and Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John books and short stories. And Dru and her father listened to a lot of classic rock, so I’m rediscovering classic rock stations now, and music I listened to in my childhood since it was the only thing the whole family could agree on. The music is a huge part of my creative process.

When I was younger, I read omnivorously. I particularly enjoyed Stephen King, Alice Hoffman, LJ Smith, Robin McKinley, Anne McCaffrey, early Mercedes Lackey, and of course all the Algernon Blackwood, Robert Aikman, and Tanith Lee I could get my hands on. That’s not a bad lineup of authors, I think.

Strange Angels is the start of a series – do you have an idea how many books this series will be?

Right now there’s three in the series, with the possibility of another two books later. That’s about as far as it would be possible to tell Dru’s story.

Any hints you want to give us about what to expect in the second book? When will it be out and what will it be called? 🙂

The book will be out in November ’09, and it’s called Betrayals. We have two first kisses, lots of fight scenes, burning buildings, a car chase, and treachery. In other words, I had a lot of fun.

General questions

It seems to me that you are a prolific writer – the Dante Valentine series of five books all came out within two years and then you started the Jill Kismet series and I’ve seen books from you at other publishers (The Demon’s Librarian which I want to read, and Steelflower..amongst others). You must be very busy! Tell us something about your day to day schedule.

My day is pretty boring. Get up, make breakfast for the kids, tend to correspondence and the weblog. Make lunch, settle down to writing between the other minutiae of childrearing and keeping the house from sinking into chaos. Make dinner, clean up, go back to writing. Put kids in bed, then write until about midnight. Go to bed around 1AM. Get up in the morning and do it again.

See? Boring. Most days I don’t even leave the house.

I really liked Selene and Nikolai when they were first introduced in the Dante Valentine series and then reading the serialized novel “Selene” online. Are you planning to continue their story from where “Selene” leaves off?