Posts Tagged "author interview"

And for that song in particular, I listened to it so much when writing the Epilogue.  I suspect you can see the influence of that song in there if you’re looking for it.

Last week I was invited to interview the very talented Lara Morgan while she was in town on her book tour. Lara is the author of The Rosie Black Chronicles, the first book in the series, Genesis was released last year (see our review here), with the second book, Equinox, due out in November this year.

Check out our chat below, followed by some shots from her signing at Dymocks on George st in the city (Sydney). That outting coincided with the Water For Elephants premiere, with crews setting up barricades and fans setting up camp just around the corner to reserve the best vantage point for Robert Pattinson’s red carpet arrival (oh and Reese Witherspoon was there too…but that fans were basically there for Rob, sorry Reese).  The city was insane…

You’re in Sydney for 3 days for the book tour, with today being your last day. Have you done a book tour before?

No, actually, this is my first time at getting driven around by people who I called minions yesterday. One of the kids at one of the talks asked, “who are those people?” and I said, “oh they’re my minions” and they were like, “what’s minions mean?” [laughs]

Have you done a book signing before?

I have done signings before, for when my first book came out, Awakening, which is a fantasy book, and I did a few signings for that and I’ve done a few for Rosie Black as well.

So Genesis is your 3^rd book, which came out last October and Equinox will be coming out in November. What’s it like seeing quite a few books now on your bookshelf with your name on it?

It’s kind of surreal, because you know, I feel like those books belong to someone else, even though I am one now [an author]. I’ve got a special bookshelf for them at home, where I have the twins fantasy books [Twins of Saranthium series], plus the international versions, it’s come out in German now which is awesome even though I can’t read it [laughs], plus Rosie Black is up there as well. If I’m ever having a bad day it’s nice to look at them and see that I actually am an author, I call myself that now, so it’s a pretty cool feeling.

I had looked around other review sites such as Goodreads, and Rosie Black has been really well received, lots of 4 or 5 star reviews. Were you ever surprised by that reaction?

Um, I think I’m always hopeful. I hold myself back from reading reviews because I always actually fear that no one’s going to like what you do and will say, I can’t believe you wrote this, it’s absolutely crap or you should just go away and die. [laughs] There’s always this thing in the back of your head that says, you don’t know what you’re doing. So it’s always such a nice surprise, to see people say something nice about something you’ve spent so much time working on. I like to comment on reviews sometimes.

What stage is Equinox at now? Is it finished?

I’ve submitted it to the publishers and I’ve been talking with the editors about it, it’s at the major editorial stage right now, just tidying it up and streamlining the plot before we do the copy edits, so there’s still quite a bit of work to do. The story’s there, we just have to make sure it all makes sense before we go ahead.

So how does your writing process work? Do you start from the story? The characters?

Well, I always find that the story is driven by the characters. I do the background as well, which is something I have to think about a lot as well when writing something like the Rosie Black series, I had to come up with the world that the characters exist in. I do a little plot map, I draw a line on a big piece of paper, one of those artist blocks, and I think, ok, this is where Rosie’s gonna start, this is where I see the story ending and in the middle there’s this big climactic thing happening. Then I might put some points in between, and then I start writing, and as I go along, I figure out if the little things are worth doing and it changes a lot. Generally the beginning and the end doesn’t change, but the middle can change.

The world Rosie Black lives in is essentially a dystopia, which has been very popular this year for young adult books. Why do you think that is?

I think kids today can see the problems of the world, they’ve grown up hearing about these things, and it’s gotten worse as they get older. So of course, they’ve got these concerns and it’s something that interests them, it’s something that they think about.

Do you have a favourite moment from the book?

I like writing the moments between Rosie and Pip, and they’re often the hardest to write. I love a love story, I’ve got lots of deleted bits between Rosie and Pip. Just the moments between them, as their relationship grows .

You’ve done a few interviews now, quite a few talks, is there a question that you wish someone would ask?

I get so many good questions, probably not, kids tend to ask things that are just off the wall. One question I wish they wouldn’t ask all the time is, where do you get your ideas from and it’s almost impossible to answer because I get ideas from anywhere. I understand why people don’t know and they want to ask it, but it’s just from everywhere.

If you could spend the day with any author dead or alive who would you pick?

Ohhh….

You can pick more than one

Ursula Le Guin, I love her, I just want to be around her, maybe absorb some of her genius. Eoin Colfer, I think he’d be really funny, and Jane Austen, it would be so cool to talk to her, to find out what she was really thinking.

Last one, we’ll end on a fun one – crunchy or smooth peanut butter?

Crunchy, absolutely, what’s the point of smooth? [laughs]

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Signed copies are now available at the Dymocks’ city store, so if you couldn’t make it to the signing, you can always head into the store on George st, Sydney and pick up a copy Saskia (center) from TeaMouseBooks.com also came along, and as you can see from out shot with Lara, we’re happy customers, haha.

A big thank you goes out to the very lovely Jo at Walker Books

Gwen Hayes is the author of the brand new novel, Falling Under.  We were lucky enough to chat to Gwen for a quick Q&A.

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How did the story in Falling Under all come about?

As most good stories, it wouldn’t leave me alone when I was trying to write something else. First, came the first line. It was playing over and over in my head like one of those songs that get stuck. I finally had to give in and write the first scene.

Who came first when you originally started thinking about the story – Theia or Haden?

Theia did, but Haden is much easier to write. He’s transparent. Theia is a difficult personality.

Amelia is very into tarot cards, crystals visiting psychics etc, but Donny is definitely not – which character do you agree with?

I tend to think we make our own destiny, but that some tools help us reach our own intuition. So, I’m like a Donny/Amelia hybrid.

Is there a secret about one of your characters that you can share with us?

Mike is deeper than you think. More about that in the sequel. And Haden hasn’t told Theia something really important about their relationship yet.

The cover of Falling Under is amazing (and was even featured as our Cover of the Week back in January) what do you think of it and did you get much input in the design?

I LOVE my cover. My input isn’t huge—my editor and I discuss ideas a little, but it’s more about my editor and the art department. They know their stuff, though. I’m in good hands.

Can you tell us anything about the sequel?
I can tell you that I turned it in. I don’t want to talk too much about it in case it changes a lot during revisions. Let’s just say that Under isn’t through with Theia.

We’ll end on a fun one, crunch or smooth peanut butter?

~Smooth~

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Thank you Gwen! Be on the lookout for our review coming very soon.

Beth Revis is the author of the fantastic new novel, Across the Universe, which is our January Book of the Month! She was nice enough to take time out for a quick Q&A.

Amy and Elder’s life on the Godspeed is incredibly fascinating – where did the idea for the story come from?

The entire story revolves around the ending. I had an idea for that twisty end, and everything else—the setting, the characters, the plot—all of it came about as a way to make that ending happen.

During the early planning stages of the story who came first – Amy or Elder?

Elder. Originally, the first chapter was told in his point of view, and his voice was the easiest for me to write at first. I had to go through rather a lot of revision and rewriting with Amy—it took me awhile to figure her out, but once I had her voice down, she actually became the easier character to write.

There’s a lot of technical info about the way the ship works as well as biology, genes, space travel seen in the book, you must’ve done a lot of research before writing the book?

I had to research mostly in terms of what we don’t have and why we don’t have it. For example, I had to research why cryogenic freezing doesn’t work now (the cell walls burst when frozen) and then invent something that would make it work (the infamous “blue goo” Amy encounters in Chapter 1). In some ways, this made things easier for me—since it’s fiction, I got to do a lot of creative inventing to make the science work, and could use my imagination rather than facts.

During the Plague the ship was cut off from communications with Earth – was that someone’s doing or a computer malfunction?

Oh dear….I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you. That is something that will be addressed in the future books, though!

Most of the reviews on other blogs and on Goodreads are 4 or 5 star ratings, are you surprised by the warm reception?

Happily so! It’s so terrifying to send creative work out into the world. Even though I’m fully aware that writing and reading is an entirely subjective thing, there’s so much of me in my work that to see someone not like it feels like a personal insult when I know logically it isn’t. The wonderful reception AtU has received so far has made me thrilled beyond belief and just confirmed my idea that I have the very best readers in the whole world.

I’m sure it’s still top secret at this stage but is there anything you can share about what we can expect from the next book?

I can only say that at least 2 things you think are true from the first book….are actually lies.

And lastly, let’s finish on a fun one….crunchy or smooth peanut butter? (Would they have that on Godspeed?)

Crunchy for me! Peanuts are a crop that would be easy (and necessary) for the residents to grow, so I imagine there’s lots of peanut butter around Godspeed—and since peanut butter is so easy to make, I’d say that they can have it either way they want, crunchy or smooth!

Thank you Beth! Check out our review of Across the Universe here and Beth’s guest blog here.

There’s still time to enter our Across the Universe giveaway too, click here to enter.

Inara Scott is the author of The Candidates, the first book of the Delcroix Academy series. As promised, she sat down for a quick interview with us. Enjoy!

Lets clear this up right from the start – how do you pronounce Dancia’s name?
Dan — see – ah. I’m not sure that’s the way the dictionary would do it, but that’s my phonetics.

Why did you decide to set The Candidates in Washington?

As part of my job I spent some time in a small town in Washington that lies in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. I always loved the way the volcano loomed over the city and seemed to create a sense of both peacefulness and potential danger. That combination fit perfectly for the feeling I wanted to create in Delcroix Academy.

It seems that urban fantasy novels like this always have a love triangle twisted into the plot these days. Why do you think that is?

I’m not sure; I started writing The Candidates in 2006, and it was always a book about choices (in fact, the original title was Taking Sides). It felt right to have a “good” boy and a “bad” boy for the heroine to choose between. But keeping in mind that Delcroix is also about gray areas, I’d warn people against taking sides too soon — there’s another book coming, you know!

Just wondering, are you Team Cam or Team Jack?

Despite all my talk about choices, I’m not sure the Team Cam and Team Jack thing really holds up in Delcroix. Dancia’s choice at the end of the book is more about herself than it is about a boy. I’m really Team Dancia.

For you, what came first, Dancia as a character, or the Academy?

Great question! What came first was really a “what if” — what if you had extraordinary powers, but when you used them, terrible things happened? From that question I started to build a character and world for her to inhabit at the same time.

Do you have the entire series mapped out already, or are you creating as you write?

I do both. I create the story ahead of time, and then change it as I write. It’s an organic process; each books influences the outcome of the next.

What’s in your TBR pile right now?

Oh man, there’s more than I can tell you! But two books I’m particularly excited to read are: The Mermaid’s Mirror, by L.K. Madigan, and Wildwing, by Emily Whitman.

What’s your all time fave YA novel?

It wasn’t classified as YA when I read it, but I think it’s shelved that way now: Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. My other favorite is I Am The Messenger, by Markus Zusak.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing with yourself?

Ha — I just quit my job as an attorney a couple of months ago, and there’s no doubt I’ve still got lawyer in my soul. But not the fighting in a courtroom type of lawyer; I am more the “let’s figure out a way to work out our differences” kind of lawyer (yes, they do exist!).

Where were you when you found out that your book was going to be published? How did you react?

I was at work, and I almost passed out. I got an email on my blackberry while I was in a particularly boring meeting. It was from my agent, and she said to call her right away. I went out in the hall and called, and she told me we had a two-book deal, a preempt from Hyperion (dream publisher!). Luckily, there were a couple of chairs in the hall, so I could sit down when things got foggy.

Thanks Inara! If you missed Nikki’s review of The Candidates, you can find it here:

http://www.yareads.com/delcroix-academy-the-candidates-inara-scott/book-reviews/2947

The Candidates giveaway is still on, enter here:

http://www.yareads.com/delcroix-academy-the-candidates-giveaway/contests/3082