Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
As a child, I was always fascinated by history and the stories of people who lived in different places and times. Who were they? Where and when did they live? What was the political atmosphere in which they lived? What kinds of experiences did they have and who did they know? What drove them to make the decisions they made? I love exploring these types of questions and allowing the characters to reveal themselves to me as I learn about them. I believe that my background in anthropology gave me a tremendous vantage point for seeing the world and a greater understanding of how it works. I also feel that my experience as a screenwriter has honed my skills and conditioned me to be a better storyteller than if I had only worked in the traditional book narrative.
I’ve written two or three books, depending upon whether or not you count the screenplay version of Unbound that’s also available on Amazon Kindle. The first book, Heretic: The Life And Death of Akhenaten, is about the controversial 18th Dynasty Pharaoh, Akhenaten, who was father to King Tut, and husband to Nefertiti. The second, Unbound, is a trippy time-travel story about an anthropologist whose soul leaves her body and experiences the witch persecutions in Scotland after a suicide attempt.
I write in several different genres depending on my interests– supernatural and/or psychological thrillers, horror, comedy, (and horror/comedy)– but my true love is historic fiction and every variation within. I love getting an idea for a story and then doing the research that would give it some foundation of reality or credibility. I learn so much along the way!
I hope that readers find my stories enlightening as well as entertaining.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Unbound is my latest book. Believe it or not, it was inspired by a photograph in an archaeology magazine. In the picture, two bog bodies seemed to be embracing, and I thought, “What if this was a man and a woman? What if they were in love? What if they were somehow tied to the witch persecutions?” As far as I know, witches were never punished by being left in peat bogs, but the story centers around this anomaly. I used resources from three different universities around the country to understand the background of the witch persecutions in Scotland so that my storyline, in which the punishment is atypical, would still be credible.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think I’m a typical writer. Most writers write every day. I write as often as I can, but my best writing comes when I’m feeling inspired and hearing my muse. For me, that doesn’t usually happen in routine situations. I’ve been known to find inspiration while driving, in the shower, listening to music, in dreams, from photographs… So many things can trigger an idea or my creativity. Often, an idea can be triggered by experiencing another form of art– like a painting or a song. My whole blog is dedicated to the creative muse.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I love writers who can tell a good story with well-developed characters, intelligent plot, and clever dialogue. I’m especially impressed if they can do this in a concise, lean way, while still having a poetic quality in their narrative. Some of the contemporary writers I’ve enjoyed most recently are Yangsze Choo (The Ghost Bride), Carolyn Jess-Cooke (The Boy Who Could See Demons), Laura Moriarty (The Chaperone), Sarah Addison Allen (The Girl Who Chased the Moon), Lisa See (Peony in Love), and Mary Sharratt (The Daughters of Witching Hill).
I also really love Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) and a lot of classic writers like Edgar Allan Poe (I even have a great aunt named “Annabel Lee”), Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson.
What are you working on now?
I often work on more than one project at a time. One of them is another novel version of a screenplay I wrote a few years ago called “Fortune Cookies”. It’s a horror story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It was originally written for adults, but I feel like it really should be told to twelve-year-olds, so I’m adapting it for that age group. The story revolves around siblings, Jack and Molly Chang, and their suspiciously superstitious grandmother, Li Ping, who practices a whole host of unusual rites and rituals that the children find both entertaining and alarming. Little do they know, she’s trying to protect them from a ghost only SHE knows about…
The other project is a story about my own great-great grandfather, James G. Crutcher, who was a Confederate soldier from Kentucky in the Civil War. It’s a bit of a morality tale in the vein of “here is my life and my story, these are my sins, my mistakes, and my lessons, and I hope that you will learn from them and choose wisely”. It is narrated by James himself to his own descendents from his perspective after his life has been long over. This project requires a lot more research and I’m planning to spend the next year in Kentucky to focus on uncovering the details I need for this story and putting it together into novel format.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Ask me in a year or two. I’m not very proficient at marketing. As a creative person, I find the business side of being a writer does not come naturally.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you’re self-publishing, get feedback from beta readers (and editors, if you can afford them!) on your work to make sure you’ve edited as thoroughly as possible. Even the best writers make typos and grammatical errors sometimes and it’s difficult to catch them all when you’re self-editing. You should release the most polished work possible.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I once heard Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Jacob’s Ladder, Deep Impact) speak at a screenwriting conference. He was talking about how there are a lot of movies made that don’t have very many redeeming qualities. To paraphrase him, he said, “Writing a screenplay is your ninety or hundred and twenty minutes or so to talk to the world. What do you want to say to it?” I will never forget that. It really resonated with me and I find that it applies to writing books as well as screenplays. What do I want to say to the world? I want to say things that make readers want to learn something new, to move them emotionally, to inspire them, and to challenge them.
What are you reading now?
Speaks the Nightbird, by Robert McCammon. I’m also reading The Idiot, by Dostoevsky, as well as several books by independent authors.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Mastering the art of marketing and promotion. Hopefully.
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?
I’d bring my iPad. It’s LOADED with books on my Kindle app– many of which I have yet to read!
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