Interview With Author BJ Sikes
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I wrote my first book, lost to the shoals of time, when I was 13. It was about a boy and a dog. I am neither and to be truthful, prefer cats.
After a disastrous Creative Writing class in high school where I was convinced by the teacher that I was absolute pants at writing, I diverted into science and wrote a dissertation. That’s a book, right?
The first FUN book I wrote and published was The Archimedean Heart. It was all about robots and revolutionaries and artists in and around Versailles, during a Belle Epoque that never was. I call it the world of the Roboticist of Versailles.
Since then, I’ve written three full-length novels but only published one more.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The Vitruvian Mask is my latest book and I wanted to follow one of my characters from The Archimedean Heart, the scientist doctor Adelaide Coumain. As a scientist myself, she is near and dear to my heart so of course I had to torture her.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
If I don’t have a cup of tea next to me while I write, I get quite grumpy. And I use writing as an excuse to eat FAR too much chocolate.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Mary Robinette Kowal’s prose inspires and delights me. It’s so clean but not sparse.
What are you working on now?
The Cultist’s Wife, a historical fantasy set mostly in the Bahamas. I’ve been working on it for what feels like decades. I’m on draft #6 or maybe #7?
And I have a niggling idea for book #3 in the Roboticist of Versailles series.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Awesome Gang, of course,
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t listen to other people’s advice on when to write, how often to write, what to write. This is YOUR writing, no one else’s.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Collected Stories of Colette
that’s all I’d need
Author Websites and Profiles
BJ Sikes’s Social Media Links