Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am an author of YA books–fantasy and sci-fi mostly, but also hi-lo readers for struggling readers. I am a reading interventionist in an urban school district in the Kansas City area. I sometimes have a hard time finding books for my struggling readers that have middle school protagonists and themes, but that are at a level they can access easily and enjoyably, so I write them myself. My first published work, The Second Battle, is a retelling of a tale from Irish mythology.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The first novel in my series, The Were-Children, is entitled Cat Moon. It will be published by Distinguished Press in late summer, 2015. Honestly, at the time I wrote it, the market for vampire YA fiction was exploding, and I just wanted to write something different. I took the approach of lycanthropy’s being more a disease than an evil, but that fear led people to attack or shun those afflicted. I think that has any number of modern, real-life parallels.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not really what I’d call unusual. I write straight to the laptop, which I suppose is skill I gained as a high school/college journalist back in the day. I have been known, if I’m honest, to steal a moment here and there while my students are working on something. Some might call it shirking my duties. I call it modeling being a writer!
What authors, or books have influenced you?
No YA fantasy writer can work today without reckoning with J.K. Rowling. My children grew up with her series, and they have been and continue to be a great unifying factor in our family. Other YA popular authors I admire are Rick Riordan, Eoin Colfer, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and Suzanne Collins. I’m also working my way through the Divergent series, and I’m enjoying it very much. I would also say that Victorian literature has been a great influence on my writing.
What are you working on now?
I am currently editing Cat Moon for publication, as well as shaping up the second novel which is in very rough draft form, following this past November’s NaNoWriMo. I’d never done NaNoWriMo, so I gave it a shot this year. There’s a lot of collegiality in the KC metro group, and I loved every stressful minute of it. The results are the roughest draft I think I’ve ever written, but it’s 160 pages of story I didn’t have in October!
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I only recently acquired a publisher for my novel, so this is all so new to me. Distinguished Press has a pretty sharp PR lead, and I’m only just beginning to learn what I need to know about marketing and promotion. Right now, I have an author page on Facebook and a WordPress blog. Learning as I go!
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Read everything. Make carving out time for writing a priority. If you don’t, it won’t happen.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The best advice I’ve ever heard is exactly the same advice I give my students or anyone who writes. In other words, see above.
What are you reading now?
I am currently working through my unread books on the alleged BBC meme that goes around the internet. Not sure why this goal struck my fancy, but I plan to be able to post that I’ve read 100/100 books on the list, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the BBC, of course. I’m working on A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole now, and I have three more to go after that. I’m also working through Teaching with the Brain in Mind by Eric Jensen.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I suppose what’s next is working through the process of editing the first novel in the series and getting that published. After that, we move on to the second book.
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 will opt for four, of course:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Search of the Indo-Europeans by J.P. Mallory
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
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