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Interview with Chenoa and Keith Egawa Illustrators and Author of Tani's Search for the Heart

5/6/2014

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Bio: 
Keith and Chenoa Egawa are a brother and sister writing and illustrating team of Lummi and S'Klallam Indian ancestry. Keith is a published novelist with experience in education reform and social work. His extensive work with families has provided him with both inspiration and insight into his subject matter. In addition to literary readings for adult audiences, Keith has conducted writing workshops for Native youth throughout the US. Chenoa has worked as a professional illustrator, international indigenous human rights advocate, actor, and is a traditional ceremonial leader, storyteller and singer. She was a fellowship recipient from the Institute of Current World Affairs, and traveled throughout Central and South America facilitating communication between indigenous peoples to protect and preserve traditions, languages, and homelands. Chenoa has also worked in the public school system to create programs that teach Native American culture and history, empowering Native youth, and inspiring a broader appreciation for the wealth of traditional knowledge from the First Peoples, to benefit all people of today’s world.


Links: 


website: http://tanissearchfortheheart.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tanis-Search-for-the-Heart/165646770257012


The making  of Tani’s Search for the Heart: http://vimeo.com/67577618



1) Where did the idea for Tani's Search for the Heart come from?

Keith:



I was working for a non-profit social services program for urban Native Americans in the 90’s. At the time I was working on my novel Madchild Running. The lead children’s counselor asked if I’d write a short play for the kids in the children’s talking circle to read/perform. The kids were receiving counseling for sexual/physical abuse and neglect. So the original purpose of the story was to instill such messages as: you can heal and get beyond bad things; the importance of disclosing the abuse to an adult you can trust; there are good people in the world that will protect you; finding strengths in friendships, etc. The characteristics of the animals embodied these sentiments. At that time, Chenoa and I decided that we’d like to turn it into a children’s book and adjust the messages to make them more far-reaching and not specific to abuse. I began re-writing and Chenoa began illustrating, but finishing the book fell by the wayside. Then, last year, I finally decided it deserved to be completed and we went to work making the book. The general idea was to show the relevance of traditional values in contemporary life. Such as: honoring one’s gifts; the importance of family and ancestors (the teachings of previous generations); respect for oneself, others and the world around us, e.g. the environment; and doing the right thing for oneself and one’s community, regardless of the challenges.


Chenoa:

I can remember when I was a little girl.  Our family would often go visit our great grandmother who lived on the Lummi reservation.  She was born at Jamestown S’Klallam in 1886.  During our visits, she would share many wonderful stories with us about her life.  There was a lot of magic in these stories that reflected the connection people had to the spirit of the land, elements, plants and animals.  When you think about how life has changed in this region, and in most parts of the world over the last 100 plus years, you can imagine how there was definitely another way of seeing, understanding and interacting with the world around you.  Much of life was directly connected to nature, especially in indigenous cultures.  For Coast Salish people of the Northwest, life was intimately tied to the land and waterways, and still is.  Salmon, and other fish, shellfish, deer, roots, plants, etc. made up the primary diet.  People knew how to read the signs that are always present in nature and being reflected back to us continuously, if and when we are aware.  People understood those signs and lived by them as part of their knowledge base and way of life. 

The fast paced world we live in today has a whole different array of stresses and strains that come with living in a modern technological reality.  In many ways, it inhibits our connection to the natural world that supports our life in each moment.  Some children I have worked with have never left the city before.  They have never had the chance to walk in the woods or on the beach. 

For me, as a child I always wished that I could have lived in an earlier time.  Not from a place of ignorance, thinking that everything was perfect back then.  I know there were many hardships in the past and different challenges to be faced. However, the magic of our great grandmother’s stories stayed with me all these years and allowed me to search my own heart and live in a way that has shown me that all of this magic and deep connection is still very much alive and present for us if we want it.  In Tani’s Search for the Heart, we wanted to include important teachings such as our relationship to animals; the support we receive from nature; the way nature listens to us; the guidance that is always there for us from our ancestors; the importance of a loving family and healthy relationships.  All these aspects that formed a part of our lives are included in our story.



2) How did you select the animals that Tani meets over the course of the book?

Keith: 



Originally all the characters were animals commonly seen in traditional Native American stories. But as I worked on the story I decided to incorporate creatures that are not typically used – or never used.  I’ve studied animals since I was a little kid, so I chose a few that are favorites of mine; specifically the pacific giant salamander, the fisher, pacific spiny lumpsuckers and the stubby squid. These are all regional animals that I’m sure most people aren’t familiar with. So I thought it’d be nice for kids to learn about animals they might otherwise never hear of. Although there are physically powerful and majestic animals in the story, such as eagle and bear, I wanted to show the value of small creatures that people might otherwise wrongly view as insignificant or incapable of playing an important role, such as the stubby squid, spiny lumpsuckers and pacific giant salamander.   


Chenoa:

Keith selected the animals.



3) Can you tell us a little bit more about the Stick Indian and his legend?

Keith:



 I actually haven’t heard traditional legends and stories with the stick Indian in them. There probably are actual stories that include the stick Indian, but my knowledge of him is from accounts of sightings, as opposed to fictional legends. Kind of like Bigfoot in this regard. For example, Chenoa and I did a presentation for grade school kids at the Muckleshoot reservation, and we asked the kids if they’ve ever heard of the Stick Indian. About 75% of the class raised their hands, and then proceeded to talk about seeing a stick Indian, hearing one outside their windows at night, or telling stories their parents told them about encountering one.  From what I gather, the stick Indian isn’t described as good or bad. He is just another part of the natural, or spiritual, world. My sense is that he’s used to keep kids from disobeying their parents, particularly in regard to going out alone at night – similar to the legend of the Wild Man of the Woods or Basket Woman (who collects and eats children). In Tani’s story the Stick Indian plays an active, or more involved, positive role because, like the animals in the story, he recognizes the special gift within Tani. He knows the role she will play in the preservation of the wilds (his world). So he makes his presence known in a non-typical way.


Chenoa:

The Stick Indian is a well-known part of the story of Coast Salish people.  There is an awareness of his existence and a respect for him as well.  The Stick Indian is part of the natural world.  A spirit, a being of the forest.  I love the way he is integrated into our story. Despite our differences, or OUR unique ways of living, we all need to work together to preserve and protect the sacredness, health and well-being of all life.  As humans we have a voice, but even those who communicate in different ways can conspire to work together on behalf of what is right and true.  Every culture on the earth has their stories, languages and teachings.  I think they are all important.  They remind us of how much knowledge, wisdom and experience every culture has, and how those parts are important to the whole. 


4)The art style is wonderful! How did you choose the tone and style you used for your book?

Keith: 



Chenoa may have more to say about this. For me the choice of illustrations is kind of like the process of writing, in that I don’t put a lot of forethought or outlining into it. Not a lot of planning. The illustrations I did were more the result of feelings. Meaning, as I wrote the story I’d naturally envision a particular image within the text and start drawing. Chenoa and I neglected to sign our respective illustrations in the book, but we each did about half of them.


Chenoa:

I, like Keith, ‘see’ the images as the story is told.  All good stories give the reader the ability to see, feel and be a part of the story.  It was really fun to work on all the illustrations and one by one share them together as the story opened up.  Keith and I get along so well that it was easy to simply trust each other, talk about ideas and then just sit down and let the images come in.  Very fun!

There are actually two phases of drawings.  The pencil drawings are from the earlier story Keith began years ago.  I drew the pencil drawings for that one early on.  Some of the animal characters were the same in the original story, and the little girl of course was the main character, being guided and advised by the animals, as those were the friends in her life she could completely trust. 

As we picked up the story again to create Tani’s Search for the Heart,” we both started a new round of colored pencil and pastel drawings.  As Keith said, we each contributed half of the illustrations.  Bringing in the color was great.  For myself, I know that my style with the color was much more free, and it represents the growth and change I have gone through in my own life to let go of being a perfectionist and trust myself as opening to what wants to be created through me.



5) Are there any authors or books that inspire you today that you read as children?

Keith: 



That question’s always a tough one for me. There are many stories/books that I’ve liked and been affected by, but I have a hard time deciding when/if a particular book actually served as an inspiration.  Sorry – I think my answer to that one is always kind of disappointing. My mom told me that I loved Where the Wild Things Are as a little kid. The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings (decades before the movies) are my first memory of being really affected by books.


Chenoa:

I remember Where the Wild Things Are too.  One of my memories about it, funny as it is, was the introduction to the word, ‘companion.’  I think they spoke of the ‘traveling companions!’  I had never heard that word before!  I liked all the books that had magical characters, and books about children with special gifts that could hear and see the unseen.  One story I loved was Children of Morrow.  That was one of my favorites when I was probably in the 3rd or 4th grade.  I loved Charlotte's Web and actually got to help my 4th grade teacher read it to the class.  I liked A Bargain for Francis and read that one to Keith when he was a little guy.  My brother, sister and I loved many of the Hans Christian Anderson Fairytales too.  I don’t remember having any Native children’s books as a child.  I don’t think many were available at that time.  It is definitely a good thing to have many stories from different cultures available for all children today. 



6) What other projects do you think you will work on together and individually? Tell us a little about where you'd like to go from here.

Keith:



We’ve been talking through a couple ideas. We realize that Tani’s Search is a long story with a lot of text. But I felt strongly about it being as long and full as it is, in order to tell the story I set out to tell. We believe Tani’s Search has messages that are now more important than ever for young people to be aware of and think about. So I envisioned this book being read to kids by adults. So that the themes could then be discussed, e.g. environmental degradation and the fact that human beings have no choice but to change the direction we’re headed, in terms of pollution, loss of natural resources, exponential extinction of species, etc.  However, we plan on doing a much shorter picture book that’s accessible to younger children. A more typical type children’s book with a couple sentences accompanying the illustrations on each page. We also have an idea for a book based on a dream our older sister (her name is Tani) had about her son (our nephew). The book will be about a little boy who’s brought into the world by whales.  

On a related topic, I’m on the home stretch of another novel for adults called Last Screams of Tabitha. The book reflects the state of modern society (or aspects of it), and people who are formed by childhoods of injustice and forced to live in survival mode from an early age on. As my fiction for adults is very dark and focuses on things adults have done wrong to each other and the planet, Tani’s Search, and future children’s books, is an opportunity to explore the more hopeful side – the opportunities children have to correct the mistakes of adults. 




Chenoa:

Yes, we have some ideas for other children’s books as Keith mentioned.  I love focusing on messages of cultural diversity and teachings, hope, positive mindset, working together, acceptance, tolerance, appreciation, gratitude, overcoming obstacles, recognizing the beauty of life, letting each child know they are special, and that their unique gifts are important to express and feel good about.  I’m excited about the coming book on the child of the whales!!  The book based on my sister’s dream will tie in the significance of names, oral tradition, extended family and of course lots of magic!  It is a story that lives in our hearts through our family and is just waiting to be shared!


7) You're both very involved in helping kids to grow and have opportunities. What would you like to tell children both as aspiring storytellers and explorers of the world around us?

Keith: 



I’d tell them some depressing and frightening things, along with a genuine – and maybe a little desperate -- attempt to be encouraging. We can’t avoid the fact that kids of today will face challenges that none of the adult generations have faced, specifically in regard to the manifestations of human greed, over-consumption, and the irreversible effects our behavior has had on the world. When I was a kid people talked about large-scale catastrophes we might face in the future, if we didn’t change.  Now they are a very obvious reality. When I was a kid they talked about how some day we may only see polar bears in zoos or in books (among many other animals). Now that will likely be true within the next 20 years. When I was a kid, people talked about the hazards of clear-cutting, the burning of fossil fuels and what it would do to the atmosphere, etc. etc. But now we’ve actually reached the point at which people will not have a choice as to whether or not we make the necessary sacrifices. The world we knew will simply not be there anymore. 


We’ve literally devastated some of the most numerous species of fish in the ocean. The scientific community has concluded that if we don’t phase out the burning of coal within the next couple of decades, the atmospheric damage will be catastrophic. But our use of coal has actually increased since the global community of scientists calculated and announced this terrifying conclusion. I realize that this may not be exactly how I’d communicate these subjects to little kids, but the reality is they will have to face these truths, regardless of how upsetting it may be. Because they will be living it. The message, or advice, I’d offer is that they need to think for themselves. Learn what they can from adults, but apply what they know to be right and wrong to everything they learn and do. In other words, be true to ones’ self and be aware of the impact your life and behavior has on the world and others. Do not be directed by irrelevant values such as accumulating material wealth as the sole reason for existence. 


 Specific to storytelling, I would encourage children to experience people and the world, and to represent the truth of what they see within their writing/storytelling. I would tell them to share their unique views and their truth in a manner that will teach others, creating awareness of important realities that others may otherwise not be aware of.  One of the ever present mantras adults have repeated over the generations is that children are the future. But collectively adults have not lived in a way that truly ensures a positive future for children. Young people will need to do this for themselves.  Upcoming generations must find the courage to choose a more difficult road when they know it’s the right thing to do. 

Chenoa:

Children come in to the world open, curious and excited to learn and discover.  They want to know about everything and everyone. They know what is right and wrong, because they feel it in their heart.  They are not born with prejudice and judgment.  They are authentic and say what they feel from a place of honesty and fearlessness.  We learn about prejudice, judgment and fear too quickly the first time someone mistreats us or when we are in danger.  Then begins the process of blocking off the heart to protect it from others, from the hardships in life. 

I like to encourage children and all people to remember their true nature, that we are all storytellers and that we all have stories to tell and that all stories are important.  I also like to encourage children to embrace their uniqueness, to stay open to the miracles of life in each and every moment, to explore, to stay curious, to follow their hearts and what makes them happy. I want them to feel good about themselves, to learn about happiness, to be kind and respectful.  I like to talk with them about things they might not be aware of and how much there is to discover in their lives.  And I always let them know to follow their heart, to trust themselves and their feelings.  I want them to appreciate the differences we each have from person to person and from culture to culture so that they can begin to understand that diversity is wealth and beauty. 

 

8) How has it been to work with your sibling on this book? Has it been a learning experience?

Keith: 



Our family is very close. Chenoa and I had a great time working on this together. We conduct presentations to students together, and that has been particularly fun. Chenoa has unique talents and viewpoints that make the experience much more enriching for the kids. It has been a learning experience, in regard to struggling to get the word out about our book. But actually creating the book together was a very natural fit. We spent many hours sitting at a table together drawing and discussing our ideas. We share a similar vision, and having life-experience in common made the process fun and very easy. 


Chenoa:

Keith and I work together so easily.  As my brother said, our family is so close, supportive, loyal, encouraging and loving to one another.  It is one of the greatest things to create something you are proud of to share with others in a positive way, and to be doing that with someone you love so much.  We are looking forward to the next projects!

We have been learning a lot about the challenges of self-publishing and marketing.  It is definitely a lot of work.  I am hoping that the right people come along to recognize the value of the story we have created and want to help support the distribution to all the children who’s lives will be inspired by Tani’s Search for the Heart.




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Interview with Sharon L. Higa

4/28/2014

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Bio: At six years old, Sharon L. Higa became obsessed with the supernatural, compliments of an older cousin who fascinated her with stories of hauntings and horror.  Travelling the world with her family, the fascination grew, resulting in creating and telling her own stories. She wrote intermittently for a number of years, but it was after she and her husband moved to East Tennessee that her family and friends convinced her to write and publish her works. She is a newly published author with one novella, ‘The Dam’ and two novels, ‘Number 6’ and ‘Rose & Steel’., as well as four short stories in the Anthology ‘Midnight Remains’,  all published by JEA Press. She also has one short story in an anthology, ‘Mental Ward: Echoes of the Past’ with Sirens Call Publications – with many more stories bubbling on the mental burners.  She now writes full time. She resides with ten cats, one dog and Mark, her patient and loving husband of twenty two years.



Links: 

Website: http://www.leapingunicornliterary.com/
JEA: http://www.jellingtonashton.com/sharon-higa.html
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7303130.Sharon_L_Higa
Twitter: https://twitter.com/elf126



1) Your Debut novel #6 is a murder mystery and revenge tale revolving around a woman who is murdered. Can you tell us a bit about the book and why you wrote it?


I wrote #6 after hearing about an actual murder which occured over thirty years ago when I was living in California. A nurse was kidnapped by two men who then drove her out to the Los Angeles National Forest, took turns raping her then slit her throat. The girl' body wasn't found for one year, but it actually was another year later before the men were caught committing a totally different crime. The younger of the two men confessed to her killing, implicating his partner as well. He said the reason he was confessing was because 1he kept seeing her everywhere he looked and he couldn't handle it anymore. The lawyers, police and media put it down to a guilty conscience, but there was always the thought in the back of my mind that she could have been truly haunting him. And that's how the idea for #6 was born.



 2) It’s been called a brutal tale because of some of the darker elements related to both Ida Moreno’s (the main character) death and the crimes she is involved with trying to solve to catch the killer. Do you agree or is it just what the tale needs to be? 


The tale is brutal because the crime committed against Ida is brutal. This is what the tale needs in order to carry out the dark theme throughout the story. I don't like gore or sadism for 'window dressing' - I believe it needs to apply to the story and carry the plot otherwise it has no place being in there. Then you are simply relying on shock to carry the reader to the end and that does not always work.



 3) Do you often write dark horror fiction or is it one of a few different genres you like to work in?


I like to work with horror, thrillers, mysteries, dark comedy, and fantasy/action. I'm definitely not a girly-girl - give me a good action, adventure or ultimate horror and I'm as happy as a clam! To quote from the horror specialist Stephen King, "Write what you know" is my guide - and I guess I know through life experiences these genres very well!



 4) Rose and Steel is your newest book and features an investigative agency that utilizes supernatural powers to solve their cases. Do they all share the same powers or are there a few different types in the company?


Each one of my characters all share the ability to transform into wolves, but they also have talents of their own as well. Shane, our main character, can read minds as well as send messages telepathically; Travis, our youngest and most timid of the group has the ability to become invisible and is very adept at medical aid which is discovered in book two (yes, I have a second book prepped!) and the others have special gifts as well. The key to the story is that they can combine each one of these gifts and help solve every case they are given.



 5) The main story revolves around a series of crimes that leave children abandoned without any clear cause and human traffickers that are taking children. Was it a difficult subject for you to tackle? 


That was the interesting thing about this story. It basically wrote itself. The 'children' who are abandoned (my 6 gifted characters) is explained using another fact of history - that many times children who were considered by some societies to be mentally deficient/insane or adults too old or sick to benefit the society would be abandoned in desolate areas to basically die. This story gives the fact a little twist which inevitably encompasses the major case they end up working on.



 6) What other projects do you have in progress or due to come out soon? Tell us a little bit about them.



I have my own anthology of 13 short stories coming out soon. The title is "Horrors & Occupational Hazards" and - as you can guess from the title - each little story revolves around a regular job that has a 'twist'. The style, my wonderful editor, Mark Woods says, is very 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents'. I am also collaborating on a novella whose title is 'Z-REGEN (Zombie Regeneration Project)' which is not really your typical zombie story. It is about a CDC researcher who is looking for a cure to the 'Zombiefication Plague' which has hit the planet in the year 2031. I'm also working on a dark comedy novel called 'One Night in the Eternity Of......' -about an Asian vampire with narcolepsy. Not to mention the little shorties I'm coming up with on the side. I guess my plate is pretty full at this time! I would truly be lying if I didn't say I'm lovin' every minute of it!

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Interview With Susan Simone Author of Morning Song

4/25/2014

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Bio: Susan is a writer and artist by day, a child and pet wrangler by night, and occasional crazy person on the weekends. She lives in a place where new hybrid cars, beat up farm trucks, and Amish horse and buggies meet in fast food parking lots for coffee.

Susan grew up in central Wisconsin, only to move to rural Ohio in adulthood. She's a country girl through and through with progressive and optimistic ideas of nation and society. A heathen by faith and major sci-fi fan she is an eclectic person and welcomes as much diversity into her life as she can to feed her fertile imagination. She lives by the motto, "Let your freak flag fly!"

Susan is the author of "Silent Heart", "Under A Twisted Moon", "Morning Song", and other titles forthcoming. Susan also has her one and only zombie short in the JEA anthology "All That Remains".   In addition she has published articles on the Yahoo! Contributor Network in a wide variety of subjects such as the validity of deity in the American government and the use of easy to find herbs.

Susan is the Executive Editor with J. Ellington Ashton Press as well as a graphic design student at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division.  She does a large portion of the cover art with JEA and has worked with businesses in the past for logo creation and event announcements.



Links: 


Website: http://susansimone.weebly.com/
Yahoo Contributor Network: http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/1652160/susan_simone.html
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6941373.Susan_Simone
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SusanSimoneFanPage
Publisher: http://www.jellingtonashton.com/index.html


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1)    Morning Song is a great story about a wise woman and hedge witch facing her fears and owning her strengths to find that life has a great deal in store for her and the strange man she meets near the beginning of the book. What inspired Morning Song? 


It started with a name.  I know that sounds odd.  I wanted to write a BBW heroine and started thinking about how that would work.  There was this idea of calling her Morning.  It was almost surreal.  With that one thought I could see her in my head so clearly.  I was actually the biggest snob picking a model for the cover because I knew what Morna (Morning) looked like to me.  I started with the opening scene and that was the last part of that book I wrote consciously.  The rest just poured out.  It was as if Morna and Arrick existed in another realm or dimension and they were simply telling me their tale. 

Yes, writers really are that insane.  We have to explain all those extra voices somehow.

2)    Was it difficult writing a post-apocalyptic fantasy romance and handling the midwifery and herbal magic Morna uses in the book?

Post apocalyptic was harder because I’m not used to it.  I had to think how the country would be broken up.  What parts were important?  I had this very clear idea of music.  As a singer myself, I’ve picked up all kinds of folk music, madrigals, classics, contemporary.  I played with this idea of what music would stand the test of time and turn into folk songs over the years.  The music I chose was not a prediction, but more of a secondary idea of getting people to listen to the music and understand how it enhanced the scene.

Midwifery and herbals were much easier.  They are subjects I have a fascination with.  I do have some midwife skills, but I am not currently licensed because of the direct entry laws.  The state I live in won’t let me apprentice under a midwife, I have to have an RN to practice which is another eight years of school.  However, I still love it and I’m one of those very annoying people who hand out random unasked for advice when around pregnant women. Lol

I do the same with Herbs. “Oh you’re sick?  Try this, this, this and this, but watch out for that, and only use this at this time of day.” That is only an amateur study for me, though.  I ascribe to the American Indian belief that everything we need to live happy, healthy lives, and dispel illness grows somewhere on the planet.  With doctors and scientists help we need to use it.


3)    Under a Twisted Moon also deals with a heroine discovering herself and growing stronger for it. In this case she learns the part of herself she hid was really her strength. Do you feel that many women find themselves in a position where other people cause them to fear their strengths?

That’s a deep question.  I think any *person* of any gender or orientation who finds themselves in an abusive situation, regardless of the abuser or type of abuse, is there *because* their fears have been berated and their strengths twisted to weaknesses.

Some of Amelie’s experiences with Rick were based on things I lived through.  I kept that under wraps for a long time, and even came up with politically correct answers to the inevitable questions.  In a way, watching Amelie survive and thrive opened the door to a lot of conversations we need to have as a culture.  Yes, we all know abuse is bad.  We all know abuse comes in many forms and can sneak up on you, but until you’ve lived it, it’s very hard to understand how you got there. 

The worst thing I hear is, “Why does she/he stay?”  I want to shake people when I hear it.  Fear.  Fear of the abuser’s reactions.  Fear that all the things they told you to keep you down were really true.  A very real fear of society taking over the abuse and victimizing you when you just want to live in peace.  Fear of being alone because you’ve been beaten down so hard you won’t ever have a normal relationship with anyone ever again, like an abused animal is never normal again. 

“Why does he/she put up with it?”  Because it’s not clear.  Before you all scream at me, listen for a moment.  It sneaks up on you.  The line of the initial abuse is blurred.  You can’t see it clearly from the inside. It doesn’t start with violence.  It starts with an unreasonable argument.  A personality disorder.  A little niggling in the back of your head that makes you wonder if they really were being that manipulative or if they were having a bad day.  Then there are more bad days.  A lost job, or a fight with a friend.  Oh of course they’re having a bad day.  They don’t mean it.  Pushing away your friends and family, slowly one by one.  Life is really hard right now.  He/she needs me.  The line is blurred and by the time you realize it’s been crossed you’re so far over you start to believe all the lies you’ve ever been told.  You worry about staying for the sake of kids, forgetting that by allowing it you’re teaching them that it’s normal or okay.  Eventually you find yourself alone; facing things that you know may end your life.


4)    You write about strong female characters that are grounded in the real world. Do you think this gives your book a leg up on books that feature women in more unrealistic or unhealthy fantasy relationships?

I think that was on accident.  I’m always interested in the psychology of it.  Why do people do what they do?  How do people get into these situations?  But that’s on behavior alone.  I do think it important to reflect women and men who are real, flawed.  I pick characters because their flaws are interesting to me.  I can’t stand the perfect blond bombshell types, or the overdone hardcore, but really sensitive and sweet deep down types.  Everyone is a jumble of all that.  No one is perfect, and society’s ideas of how genders should act or what they look like is nothing but a construct created thousands of years ago by a few that were insecure with their own image so they had to spout their way was the only right way. (That was *not* a religious diatribe, btw.)

5)     You write about some tough subjects in your books, how do you approach these? Catharsis or characterization?

Courage?  For me and many other writers, the characters are like living people with their own separate lives.  I don’t control them.  I’ve had several die or get into relationships completely without my approval.  I write the hard stuff instead of glossing over because I am honoring them and all the living people that have survived the same things.  It’s a disservice to cut it out or gloss over because it’s ugly or makes me cry.  In reality my characters may be fictional, but real people, myself included, live these things.  There are no tasteful cutaways, or suspenseful music.  The world did not stop moving just because your life as you knew it is forever changed.  If we are to grow as a society, *that’s* what needs to be known.  That’s what needs to be said.

6)    Under a Twisted Moon is a very strong empowerment piece about owning your strengths and coming out of a place where things had been very bleak. In a very real way while one of the male leads helps her to start out on her path to self-discovery it is she who must stand up and take up the reigns of her own life. Is this a message you hope will help others to do so for themselves?

Absolutely.  No one can walk your path.  It is entirely unique to you.  Sometimes you need a little love or a loving kick in the rear, but you still have to be the one to stand up and be counted. 

7)    While there are some very involving dramatic pieces there are also lots of humorous and endearing ones too. Was it difficult to write humor into Silent Heart, Under a Twisted Moon and Morning Song or does it come naturally to you and your stories?

I’m one of those dorks that laughs at her own jokes.  I’m even snickering as I write this.  The humor is very organic.  I’ve noticed my dialogue follows my moods.  The jokes, the tough conversations, the arguments reflect what I was feeling at that time.  Sometimes I’m slap happy and everything in the world is hilarious.  I’m also a horrible smart ass, and I think my own natural voice comes out a lot.  The things I really want to say but often just laugh to myself about, or the things I wish I said at the time.

8)    Silent Heart was your first book and you’re currently at work on a new cover for it(See the new cover for Silent Heart and Under a Twisted Moon below). Is it hard to go back and try to think of a new way to represent your books after they’ve been in print?

Sometimes, covers make me want to cry. Lol  When I did the original cover for Silent Heart, I was new to graphic design and still had a lot to learn.  It was not a good cover.  So right now I’m revamping a few covers, Silent Heart among them.

I had this perfect image in my head.  Red and golds.  This layout involving a band of color over top of a pivotal scene in the book in which Paige, a talented artist, takes back some of her power by doing this charcoal drawing on leather of her love.  I even managed to make the perfect model for Stone look like it was a charcoal drawing.  I was so proud of it.  Thought it was great, (I still love the hell out of that image).  I showed it off for feedback, which is very important for any work of art.  Survey said?  No.  It was a cool image, but just didn’t work.  It didn’t peak anyone’s interest to read the book.  Well fudge.

So I slept on it and tried something else the next day. That finally worked.  I grudgingly admit it’s a better cover.  It fits the genre, but stands out from the crowd, which is what you want.  That kind of redo and version after version is really normal for cover art.  Never settle for the first thing an artist shows you.  Push them and get something great
.

9)    You’ve been a cover artist and executive editor at JEA for a long while now. You’ve even trained a few interns and earned an award for the cover of A Fish to Die For in the 2013 Predators and Editors competition. Do you feel like you’ve learned a lot since you first started out?

Yes.  Each cover is learning something new.  Finding this tool I hadn’t used in quite that way before.  A new layout or idea.  It’s amazing to take a concept from an author’s mind and turn into a picture for all to see.  I love seeing how excited they get.  I even love the tough ones that make me go through 10 versions before it’s right.  The end result is always amazing.  Every once in a while, something will happen, a new thought from one of my classes, a certain request I’m unfamiliar with, and it’s like someone flipped a switch and my work is never the same after, always moving forward.

10) In recent months you’ve also branched out from providing covers for JEA to becoming a freelance cover artist for other writers. What kind of services do you offer and how can people reach you to ask about their projects?

The best way to contact me is through my website.  I have a contact form on the artwork page.  I offer original design and full rights to the author.  In other words I won’t get angry at you down the road and say you can’t use my art anymore.  I also do something new that I want to make industry standard.  I provide the client with documentation of where the images used on their cover came from.  There is so much image plagiarism out there it’s rather insane.  Covers on some sites are lawsuits waiting to happen.  I’ve personally had to replace covers done by so called “professional” artists because they used a video game screen shot or stole one small part, like a hand, from a major piece of art and blew it up, both of which are illegal. I want to put out such a high standard that it forces authors to demand it from others and other artists to adhere to it.

11) Will you stick to the romance genre or do you think there are some other genres you’d like to explore?

I never intend any specific genre.  I just write where the story takes me, following along in its wake attempting to capture the important parts.  I get an idea in my head and I run with it.  Sometimes that’s romance and sometimes not.  I’ll figure out the classification when I’m done.  I’m the same way with length.  I don’t believe in word lengths based on popular books in the genre.  I just write until the story is told.  Sometimes that’s longer, sometimes shorter.  If I need to flesh something out, I’ll worry about that later.

12) Do you have anything in progress you’d like share?

I have this one I call, Kiss of Luck.  It’s a dystopian society with alien mind control and young adults, still teens really, that want out and stage daring escapes.  I’m kind of careful with my ideas.  I know more than one person that has had ideas stolen.  Kiss of Luck, is a special one for me.  I dreamed it one night, start to finish, the entire plot line.  I’m just filling in details as I go, but it’s going to be really cool.


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Interview with Jim Goforth Author of Plebs

4/17/2014

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Bio: Jim Goforth is a horror author currently based in Holbrook, Australia. Happily married with two kids and a cat he has been writing tales of horror since the early nineties.
After years of detouring into working with the worldwide extreme metal community and writing reviews for hundreds of bands across the globe with Black Belle Music he has returned to his biggest writing love with first book Plebs published by J. Ellington Ashton Press.
Jim also has a couple of collaborations due out later this year, involving other notable authors, and appears in the heavy metal horror themed anthology Axes of Evil  from Diabolus in Musica, an imprint of Chupa Cabra House.
At present Jim is working on a host of full length novels and a handful of short stories with a variety of ideas for anthologies in the works. 




Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JimGoforthHorror
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jim_goforth
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7777382.Jim_Goforth
Website: http://jimgoforthhorrorauthor.wordpress.com/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Goforth/e/B00HXO3FRG/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Other: https://www.facebook.com/PlebsHorror
Plebs on Amazon http://smarturl.it/Plebs
Axes of Evil on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Axes-Evil-Heavy-Metal-Anthology-ebook/dp/B00JAQ1F72/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397204394&sr=1-1&keywords=axes+of+evil
J. Ellington Ashton Press http://www.jellingtonashton.com/jim-goforth.html




1) Plebs is an intense thrill-ride of a novel likened to classic grindhouse slashers and it’s earned you quite a few 5 star reviews. What do you think of the response to your first published novel?

I’ve been pretty damn thrilled by the overall response to Plebs so far, the reviews have all been exemplary and there have been some wonderful things said. Having the work likened to some of the names that have been mentioned in various reviews is quite awe-inspiring and extremely flattering. I’m anticipating that a book like this isn’t going to be exactly everybody’s cup of tea and inevitably some folk are going to hate it, and I’d be rather interested to see what sort of negative response would be garnered from someone who didn’t particularly like it. I’m constantly saying that a bad review can generate as much attention, if not more than a good one, but so far it has been awesome feedback as a whole.

2) The plot centers around a band of men looking for a good time and via a group of lovely ladies allowing themselves to run afoul of a group of people called Plebs. Can you tell us a little about them?

Corey Somerset, Lee Hunter and Tim Hayworth are the young men still out celebrating after a friend’s birthday celebrations, making the unwise choice to wander a little further afield than they might have otherwise done if they weren’t under the influence of too much alcohol. They’re basically good guys, just somewhat prone to making bad decisions and not thinking a great deal of how much trouble some of those choices are going to land them in. Various circumstances in each of their lives have led to them being fairly shiftless slackers who lack any real motivation to find purpose; one is an idle rich kid, one is a bullied stoner and the other is a big brash ladiesman.

Their random intoxicated stumblings bring them into the domain of a group of mysterious women who are all fugitives from one thing or another, and who carry a host of killer secrets. These women share the domain in which they reside in an uneasy co-existence with the freakish creatures from which the book takes its name from, the Plebs themselves. Fundamentally, these entities were once upon a time human, now morphed and warped into bloodthirsty subhuman mutants courtesy of the experimentations of a disgraced scientist and through their encounter with the dangerous band of women, the three drunken adventurers come face to face with these horrors.

From then on in, things go to hell in a rush.


3) Unlike some of the old slasher films Plebs is a novel with a solid plot that pulls you along at breakneck speed, according to many reviews the 600 pages fly by. Would you tell us a bit about the writing process for the novel?

Plebs wasn’t actually supposed to turn out as a novel, much less one that clocked 180k words and spanned out to 600 pages. When the original idea occurred I was aiming to write it as a short story, with a similar premise to the events that occur in the first ten chapters or so, albeit probably with less happening than what I ended up with. The more I wrote though, the more I realised there was a whole lot more that was meant to happen with this story, the more I grew fond of building the characters and tossing them into horrendous situations. Ideas kept coming, new characters emerged to stamp their indelible mark on the thing and ultimately it had to become a full length, though even then I didn’t envision how lengthy it was going to be. I used to write all of my stories with trusty old pen and paper, shorts and novels alike, and Plebs was one of those that was entirely written that way, and I’m not talking notebooks, I’m talking pages upon pages of blank A4 printer paper. I have two prior novels which were written in notebooks, but with this one meant to be a short story I figured I would have it wrapped up with a handful of sheets of paper. Wrong. I’d be writing and writing in lunch breaks at work, on the train to and from work and all kinds of things. It was a staggered process and even at the time I was writing it, I wasn’t essentially writing to publish, I was writing to get the story out of my head and down on paper. I wrote it around a host of other things I was doing at the time and it was actually on hiatus unfinished for a while at one stage. It was written from start to finish without jumping between scenes or writing sections out of order, and then of course when it was finally complete I had to type the whole damn thing up from a stack of paper probably comprised of several small forests. I submitted it as a first draft, nothing was changed or altered from the very first write, and I’m pretty happy to say, even after a couple of rounds of edits, there was still very minimal alterations and absolutely nothing which changed the integrity of the story at all.

4) Has the length posed you any problems with editing or sales?

In terms of editing no, there were no problems at all. As I mentioned, the amount of edits required were so minimal that it was no issue going through any suggestions, or minor sentence restructurings or anything of the sort. I was more than impressed with the work done by the brilliant editors who presided over Plebs and have high praise for them. As a general rule I just write and almost never agonise over changing things, scrapping parts or worrying about how the story is coming out as I’m telling it and consequently I might underuse commas or overuse superfluous works. The editing process of Plebs has been more of a benefit to me than anything, it has definitely taught me a few things on honing my craft.

Plebs is certainly selling so I can’t say there are any problems there, though as a first book, I don’t really have anything to measure it by. I have the ability to track sales through Amazon and do so, but I know it’s selling elsewhere in places like Book Depository and Barnes & Noble which I don’t personally have the means to track.


I suppose the length may be somewhat daunting to some and in this day and age where ebooks are a massive industry, and a 20 page quick read can be published as a standalone work, a giant book may not be a reader’s first choice when there are so many shorts/novellas etc becoming available every day.
On the other side of the coin, there are those people who want to read a big book, who want to be immersed in a story that isn’t over in the blink of an eye, but instead is something where they can become fully involved with the characters and their fates. I love to read epic books that you don’t really want to end and have the ability to hold interest throughout, and I love to write them as well, and it would seem that other people are digging that too.

5) Before you decided to get back to your writing recently you were involved with reviewing and promoting extreme metal bands. Do you think the experience has given your work an interesting edge?  

Most definitely. I’m a massive extreme metal aficionado and being involved with the scenes on a global scale in terms of reviews and interviews and promoting, and putting on gigs and metal shows locally has given me all kinds of interesting insights into a wide array of things. This isn’t confined to mere music itself, but the people who make it, the people who follow it, all sorts of perceptions of human nature and behaviours, some good and of course, some hideous. It is a veritable wealth of fodder for not just horror fiction like I write, but fiction and in fact non-fiction, in general. Some pretty ugly character traits can surface in there as they can in any given scene, which works fine for me, I have some rather ugly characters in my work.

On the upside, I always maintain that horror and metal go hand in hand, and the pair often intersect supremely successfully, the types of metal I most often choose to listen to are the dark varieties, black and death metal. If extreme metal was a fiction genre it would slot easily into horror or dark fiction realms, and vice versa.

Courtesy of the lifelong passion I’ve had for metal which parallels the lifelong obsession I’ve had with horror, I frequently incorporate elements of music into stories, even to some points where the music I love is a key facet, or in fact something a whole written piece may revolve around. Since many have referred to Plebs as a grindhouse/splatterpunk opus, I’ve taken to adopting that as an easy way to describe the way I write, adding in the fact that it is grindhouse horror driven by heavy metal.

6) You've got a story in Axes of Evil: The Heavy Metal Anthology, tell us a little about it and your experience working on it.

The story I have in Axes of Evil was not a story that was specifically written for that particular anthology, it was actually one written quite some time ago, well before I’d even started to write Plebs, but when the idea for the anthology came up I figured this piece Sinister Cavan had the requisite elements to fit the bill there. As with plenty of my writing it is a meld of heavy metal with some horror and so I submitted it and managed to score a spot in exactly the type of metal driven horror I’m stoked to be a part of.

Basically the story revolves around a morals crusader with a history of stamping out mediums (music, film etc) he considers to be evil and corrupting influences attempting to prevent a blasphemous metal band from playing a show in his hometown and the lengths he is prepared to go to when he finds he isn’t able to prevent it, in opposition to many of the things he’s closed down in the past. The underlying theme is primarily revolving around a juxtaposition of what people consider to be evil.

Because it was written a fair few years ago, it possibly isn’t something that can be considered a great representation of where my writing is at today, but in the vein of Axes of Evil it seemed rather appropriate.

It is around the 11k mark and was written very quickly when I had a whole slew of different ideas for short stories and was writing a bunch of them. The beast that eventually became Plebs was also among those seeds of ideas though it didn’t start to come to fruition until a little while later.

7) You also took part in Feral Hearts a cooperative novel with 5 other JEA authors, have you enjoyed collaborating and taking part in anthologies?

The Feral Hearts collab (and the Lycanthroship project as well) was an enormous amount of fun and I’m massively proud of being part of it with five truly excellent authors who are at the top of their game. Each of those involved has brought their own unique touches to the novel and the amount of variety and talent exhibited in this work is phenomenal, and it is something I cannot wait to see unleashed on the world.

Having never been involved with something of this magnitude, or indeed any form of collaboration with other authors I was extremely interested to see how I would work by stepping outside my own usual writing processes and having to adhere to certain guidelines and premises as was the case with these collab projects. I found it very much to my liking, incredibly challenging as well, but so much fun I would be keen to be part of something like it any time at all, the enjoyment I derived from it was immense. I’d never previously considered that I would be the type of author who could thrive in writing to specifics, or collaborating and working to a rule set, but now having done so, I can safely say I loved it.


8) Do you have any other novels or short stories in the works? Tell us a little about your ideas.

I’m almost always working on something, and more often than not it is multiple projects. This is my main method of dealing with anything that resembles writers block striking me, if that happens then I shift from the problem child work to another project and write on that either until I knock it over, or recharge inspiration for the other one.

The chief reason I have myriad things on the go at any one time though is because I’m always being inundated with ideas and concepts to write about, most of them, wildly dissimilar and unable to be all used in one specific story, so I have to get them all out, even if a few have to wait while I work on others.

Right now I am concentrating on one full length novel, after clocking 180k words on another one which I’m going to have to look at making into a couple of books in two parts since even at 180k it is only partially done.

The one I’m investing the majority of my writing time is my first exploration of the oft-travelled route of the undead, albeit with my own interpretation of a few things. Referring back to the remarks about my past experience with extreme metal and passion for the music, this book draws plenty from that since it revolves around various scenes of black and death metal, and a bunch of aficionados and band members who find themselves up to their necks in flesheating undead ghouls. Like Plebs, this book was actually supposed to be a short story which was going to form part of a series of shorts/novellas.

The other book, which is essentially complete if I decide it’s going to have to be two books was one that was always going to be split into two parts (I just didn’t imagine it would expand into such a giant monster in the first part alone). This revolves around a host of disgruntled ex-employees of a quaint rustic little carnival/circus creation who find themselves unceremoniously fired when their good natured old boss abruptly vanishes and is replaced by a sinister soul intent on turning the place into something entirely different. Not content on taking this indignity lying down, these suddenly jobless folk cook up some plans for revenge and discover there is much more to the apparent blueprint to turn their beloved former place of work into a new modern horror park than appears on the surface.

Aside from that I currently have a collection of short stories in with JEA and between writing on the novels I’m always writing an assortment of other novellas/shorts of all kinds of horrific things. I have a series of other music related horror tales I will be getting together at some stage, so when I’m not dedicating writing time to bringing that undead expedition to a conclusion, I’m writing on these.



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March 27th, 2014

3/27/2014

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AUTHOR BIO:
Born and bred in the West Midlands, Martin writes under the pen name of Peter Martin. Against Her Will is his debut novel, and is the story of one young woman's fight to lead a normal life after a horrific rape.
Martin's interests lie mainly in crime, suspense and thrillers. His favorite authors are diverse, including Robert Goddard, R J Ellory, Kate Mosse,Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Diane Chamberlain, Harper Lee,Wilbur Smith.
For more info martinperks.weebly.com


LINKS:
WEBSITE: hpps://martinperks.weebly.com
AMAZON LINK : http://bookShow.me/B00D50BFGK
FACEBOOK: hpps://facebook.com mart.perks
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/pmartinauthor
GOOD READS : https://www.goodreads.com/Martinperks


1) What inspired you to write Against Her Will? 

I've always felt strongly about how rape affects women, and how few of these women ever report these crimes to the police. Of those reported, many never come to trial and if they do conviction rates are low. Therefore I wanted to write a book from the victim's perspective, to give an idea what she has to go through, and show how it can destroy lives.
 
2) Is it challenging to promote a book with tough subject matter?


Yes, it can be challenging, but I believe in my characters and the subject matter. It has been difficult to promote, but I feel if people read the book, they will see I have written the book in a sensitive and compassionate way that highlights what a woman has to go through and how it can affect and blight their lives forever.

 
3) Do you feel Donna is a character who reacts realistically to her plight?

Donna had problems before she was attacked. She found it difficult to deal with the way she looks, having been pushed into the spotlight from an early age, against her wishes. Having overcome this in later life, the rape became a catalyst that brought all her other problems back to the fore again.
 

4)  Do you feel that books which tackle this issue in the way you have will bring light to women facing the same struggles after an attack?

I hope so. More women need to be strong to bring these men to justice. They must be made to realise these attacks will not be tolerated and only way to do that is for more women to come forward. I feel the sentences should be longer to ensure for certain they will be deterred from committing these acts. At present these people will only spend a short amount of time in jail, in comparison with the victim, who may not ever fully recover from what has happened to her.
 
5) Do you feel that women who deal with issues related to assault both sexual and/or physical get enough care and understanding after such traumatic events?

No, I don’t. Whilst I agree that the police in the main do deal with these crimes in a sympathetic way, what victims have to go through at trials, can be as difficult as the crime itself. There is always the feeling that the victim asked for it, by the way she dresses or acts.

6) Do you think you'll keep writing suspense novels of this type or will you tackle other subjects as you continue writing? 

I will continue to write novels like this if I feel strongly about a subject as in this novel. My next novel is about a young boy who runs away from home and goes missing, and how it affects his family.



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Author Interview with Dusty Lynn Holloway Author of Dragon Dreams

3/21/2014

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Dusty lives in California with her two children. She loves exploring, and hopes one day to learn to fly a plane, try on night-vision goggles just for the fun of it, and float in a room with zero gravity. Not necessarily in that order. 

You can find out more about Dusty Lynn Holloway and The Chronicles of Shadow and Light at the links below: 


https://www.facebook.com/Cerralys
http://www.amazon.com/Dusty-Lynn-Holloway/e/B005OXV66A/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1395434412&sr=1-2-ent

1) Dragon Dreams is a book in your series The Chronicles of Shadow and Light, what inspired your series and this book in particular?

I've always enjoyed writing, but never really seriously considered writing a book until several years ago. I thought about what I loved, what interested me, and I went from there. In my mind, I saw the prologue to Dragon Dreams very clearly. I felt Auri's emotions as she ran onto the plains of fire, and I felt Nachal's sense of helplessness. That scene, was so vibrant and real to me, that I built the rest of the books around it. 

2) In your series there are humans, elves, dwarves, and shape-shifting dragons Was it difficult building a
world for your characters to inhabit?


Certain parts were more difficult to get down than others. For instance, in El`dell, the land of the elves, I could see the island very clearly in my mind, but making it come alive on the page was much more difficult. As far as the characters, I would say that the characters have been the most clear to me. In a sense, I built the world around the characters, rather than the characters around the world. 

3) Tell me a little about your central protagonist and his plight. How does it affect his world
that he's had these dreams?


Nachal has had an unusual upbringing. To be brought up to inherit a crown is daunting enough, but to be brought up to inherit the dragon crown is something else entirely. His whole life has been built around these dragons, and around Cerralys, the Dragon-King in particular. Not only has he been raised to inherit the crown, but he's also been taught and honed by the most elite dragons in existence to be a commander in what the dragon's have believed for two decades to be the coming final battle between dragon-kind. I think to understand why the dreams effect him so deeply, you first have to know those things about him. To put it bluntly, his world is shattered by these dreams. I don't want to spoil things too much, but Obsidian, the leader of the Rebel's, figures prominently in the dreams he continues to have about Auri. Her life is in danger. Very real danger. And if that wasn't enough, through the course of time, as he continues to have these dreams, he comes to care deeply for her. He comes to love her. The dreams haunt him. Prodded to action by his foster father Cerralys, he sets out to find her and protect her from what he knows is coming. 

4) What sets your world apart from other fantasy series?

I can probably say without hesitation that what sets my series apart is the emotion of the characters. Reading this book, you literally come to feel what the characters are feeling. They spring to life on the pages. As Nachal is trying to find Auri, you feel his sense of time closing in around him, suffocating him. As Auri sees El`dell for the first time, you feel her sense of wonder and frustration that she could have had such beauty in her life all along, but didn't. The emotions, whether they are turbulent and wild, or confused and wary, are felt. For some this might not be their cup of tea, but for me, it makes the characters and story more real. I want Nachal to find Auri. I want them to find a way to survive. I feel their pain and their triumphs both, and every time, even as the person who wrote it, it sucks me back in until I feel like I'm a part of the story again. 

5) I see there are two books in the series thus far, do you know how many there will be when you've completed it?

I'd always planned it as a three part series. Dragon Dreams is the first, followed by Dragon Ties, and currently I'm working on the last and final book, Dragon Light. 


 6) Would you say it's harder to write and promote fantasy fiction in the indie market? How has your experience been so far?

I actually think that fantasy is an exploding genre right now, and has been for some time. I think, as an author and a reader, there is something so . . . intoxicating about reading or writing something that has no limits. You're not forced into a box. You're free to let your imagination carry you to the next story, and the next. As a matter of fact, my other project right now is a time-travel romance set in the 1800's. Again, fantasy. :) I just can't seem to get enough of it. I tried writing other things, but again and again I'm pulled back to the fantasy genre. For me, it's a world without limits. Anything can happen, and that's a heady feeling.

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    Amanda M Lyons

    Ms. Lyons is an author of fantasy, horror, and an avid reader of all genres.

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