Paul and Chris are the people who have brought us The Edge Chronicles, and the final book, The Immortals is published today, Feb 5th. I feel honoured to have been able to review this book very recently, and I’m now working my way through the earlier books.

Over to Chris and Paul..

Q. Who came up with the initial idea for the series, and where did it come from? For those who are new to the series, how would you briefly describe it?

A. The Edge Chronicles themselves started in one of these sketch books. Back in 1994, Chris drew a map of the Edge, with its familiar jutting rock, floating city and endless forests. He gave it to Paul, saying ‘Here’s the world. Let’s find out what happens in it.’

The Edge Chronicles are a series of books based in the Edge lands where all sorts of adventures happen. There are battles, funny moments, characters you empathise with, sky pirate ships, strange creatures, lots of illustrations and a cracking good story.

The books are not traditional fantasies. They are influenced by the tales of the Brothers Grimm and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast. In much traditional fantasy, a world of good versus evil is depicted. The Edge does not deal with black and white in this way, but rather in shades of grey, which is far more like our own world. There is also no magic. We thought it would be too convenient if a cloak of invisibility or magic spell was used to solve a problem. Instead, the world has its own physical properties, from floating rocks to solidified lightning.

The Immortals is the tenth and final instalment and it publishes this month. It’s set 500 years after the end of the previous book, in the Third Age of Flight. This third age has been made possible by the unlocking and harnessing of stormphrax’s immense power: the power of lightning.

Q. How did it progress from the initial idea.. does Chris add the illustrations after the stories are told, or do you gain inspiration from each other?

A. Our working method varies. Sometimes passages influence the drawings, sometimes the drawings influence the text as we are working. Most important, however, is talking. The Edge Chronicles are a collaboration. We plot and plan together, talking over every aspect of the storyline and the Edgeworld itself. Out of these long conversations, the books slowly emerge, first as text, and then final illustrations are added.

Q. What was your initial vision, did you intend to write just one book, one trilogy, or the whole series.

A. When we first started the series, we thought it might turn out to be a trilogy – if we were lucky. By the time we’d finished the three books about Twig, Beyond the Deepwoods, Stormchaser and Midnight over Sanctaphrax, we had so many ideas remaining that we decided to produce two more books – the first, Curse of the Gloamglozer, a prequel, to tell the tale of his father, Quint; the second, the Last of the Sky Pirates, a sequel, to reveal what had happened to Twig. This book introduced a third main character, Rook Barkwater, Twig’s grandson. His adventures also turned into a trilogy, with Vox and Freeglader.

So both Twig and Rook had three books each about them, but Quint only had one – though not for long. The Winter Knights and Clash of the Sky Galleons followed his boyhood through the Knights Academy of Sanctaphrax and off in the Galerider in search of his family’s murderer. The Lost Barkscrolls is four stories in one book, taken from episodes that occurred in the first and second Age of Flight.

Once we had got so far, the Immortals – the tenth and final book – had to be written to bring all the threads of the stories together and, as American therapists put it, to achieve closure.

Q. Do you have to keep lots of notes, to remind you who lives where, the developing time lines etc, or is it all stored in your mind?

A. Yes, it’s a complex world! The thing is we’re so absorbed in it, it’s as if the characters are our best friends, and you don’t forget your best friend’s birthday or what happened to their parents, or when they were injured in a battle! We have lots of notes, but mostly we talk, talk, talk – plus our editor at the publisher is very good at spotting when we make mistakes or there are inconsistencies.

Q. Do you feel that all the books in the Chronicles are aimed at the same age group, or has the writing changed as your initial audience grow up?

A. We write the Edge Chronicles for ourselves, or rather the twelve-year old boys we once were. Both of us loved adventure books when we were that age, from Henry Treece to Willard Price. We’d have loved the Edge if it had existed then! Throughout the writing of the Edge series, both of us have had long, detailed conversations with our sons about the world, and their reactions have helped us steer a course through the books. Our readership is very varied, from enthusiastic boys and girls and their parents, to a post-graduate student in Los Angeles who was writing his thesis on the Edge. And Chris’s mum, a vicar’s wife in her seventies, also loves them.

Q. Do you have a favourite book or trilogy? How about the characters, do any stand out for you as your favourites?

A. Paul’s favourite character is Xanth Filatine. He is a complex figure, with divided loyalties, sometimes doing good things for bad reasons, sometimes doing bad things for good reasons.

Chris’s favourite character is Zelphyius Dax, a librarian knight of the Third Age of Flight, who voyages through the Deepwoods aboard his skycraft, the Varis Lodd. He remembers and reveres the past, and is an opponent of new phraxships and the ecological damage inflicted by progress.

Q. The Immortals wraps up old stories, and is said to be the final instalment in The Edge Chronicles – did you always plan to write that final book, rather then letting the series continue on indefinitely?

A. We had to stop somewhere! We’ve been in absorbed in this world for over 10 years, we live, eat and breath the Edge – it can be all–consuming.

We always intended the Edge Chronicles to be a self-contained series of books, and the Immortals completes the story arc. Various threads were left untied in the previous books. What happened to Cloud Wolf in the white storm? Was Twig alive or dead when the caterbird takes him to Riverrise? What happened to old Sanctaphrax when the anchor-chain was cut and it floated off at the end of Midnight over Sanctaphrax? Where did stone sickness come from? And what became of the gloamglozer? All these questions, and more, are answered in The Immortals.

Q. So now The Edge Chronicles has come to an end, where do you both go now? Will you continue to work together, or working on separate projects?

A. We don’t think we’ll ever stop working together! And yes, we have a very exciting idea we are working on at the moment but we’re not allowed to say any more about it. Ssssshhh!

Q. What else have you both written or illustrated?

A. Paul has a number of picture books and novels out like Dogbird and The Weather Witch, and Chris writes and illustrates the Ottoline books; Ottoline and the Yellow Cat and Ottoline Goes to School. Chris also does some picture books for Walker.

Q. Finally, what did you enjoy reading when you were younger?

A. Paul loved Rupert annuals, the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, the ‘Alice’ books, all the novels of Alan Garner, especially Elidor. He also read huge amounts of science fiction.

Chris, as a boy, loved Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown, old Dandy and Beano annuals, Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter, and the Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner.

Official Site

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Jonathan Stroud’s latest book, Heroes of the Valley, was published at the beginning of this year, and I was lucky enough to be able to review it just prior to it’s launch. Following on, Jonathan has been kind enough to answer a few questions…

Q. You’re probably best know for your Bartimaeus Trilogy, but you’ve had other books published prior to that – could you tell us a little about them?

A. My first book, published way back in 1994, was a book of word puzzles (see below); this was followed by several gamebooks – books that combined stories with puzzles of various kinds. Two of them: The Lost Treasure of Captain Blood and The Viking Saga of Harri Bristlebeard are still in print. They’re for 7-10 year olds. Meanwhile I was working on a novel about a nasty dragon – this became Buried Fire, which was followed by two other novels, The Leap and The Last Siege. These pre-Bart novels are all fairly different – BF is a straight fantasy, The Leap is a psychological fantasy and The Last Siege isn’t a fantasy at all, but a modern-day thriller.

Q. Did you enjoy writing when you were younger, and how old were you when your first book was published?

A. I always loved writing, and I’ve got various tattered stories and booklets I put together when I was 8 or so. For a long while, though, I didn’t write conventional stories – I made comics instead, or devised boardgames. But it’s all part of the same creative itch! My first book – Justin Credible’s Word Play World came out when I was 23, I think, though it’s hard to remember all that time ago!

Q. Returning to the Bartimaeus Trilogy, can you tell how some of the initial ideas came about?

A. The idea came very suddenly: walking along one day I was pondering the challenge of writing about magic and magicians in the post-Harry Potter age. And it struck me that most of these wizards in children’s books fall into the Dumbledore/Gandalf pattern – i.e. genial old coves with big beards fighting evil. I wondered if I could turn it around and make the human wizards the bad guys. For my hero I’d have a demon (again reversing the tradition). During the same walk I also decided it would be set in modern London and that the magicians would all be politicians. A few days later I sat down with this idea and wrote the first 2 chapters of Amulet: Bart just appeared fully formed and I knew that it would be good, though I hadn’t a clue what the actual story was yet!

Q. Was it always meant to be a trilogy, or did that idea develop as you started writing?

A. To begin with it was going to be a single novel, but pretty quickly I developed three strands of narrative  – following Bart in the present, together with Nat and Kitty’s back stories. Kitty was going to be a major figure in the first book then. Before long these three intertwining threads were getting too tangled and the book too complicated, so I stopped writing and worked out an overall 3-book structure, bringing Kitty in properly in Book 2 and working towards the eventual ending. Then I went back to Amulet, restructured what I’d done and kept on typing!

Q. I understand that there is to be a film based on The Amulet of Samarkand. Can you tell us how that is progressing?

A. Several years ago we had a screenplay and a director and producer and all was looking very good. Then it all went a bit quiet, but I’ve heard recently that the script Vis out to several new prospective directors, so it looks as if things are moving again – fingers crossed!

Q.  How do you feel about seeing your ideas on the big screen, and who would you like to see play the role of Nathaniel?

A. I’m delighted at the prospect of a movie version of Amulet. Inevitably it would be different from the book: it’s impossible to include all the subtleties of a 500 page book in a 2 hour film – but that’s no different from the way that traditional folk and fairy tales have been told and retold by countless different narrators over the years. It’ll be a distinct version, that’s all. As long as the key relationships between my characters are true to the book, I’ll be content. As for Nat, I don’t have an opinion – it would have to be a young actor that no one’s ever heard of, preferably fairly slender, dark and nervously charismatic.

Q. Your latest book is still fantasy, but it has a very different feel to it. Can you tell us a little more about Heroes of the Valley?

A. Heroes is inspired by Icelandic Sagas, which are remarkable medieval accounts of life on the island. They’re mainly about farmers bickering and inter-marrying, but every now and then there’ll be a sudden appearance of a ghost or giant: the supernatural lurks on the edges of ordinary life. I wanted to do a story that had the same sort of tone: the fantasy is on the margins, in stories told by the characters, constantly threatening to become real. The central character, Halli Sveinsson, wants to be like the great heroes of old, but is unfortunately rather short, stocky and a bit rubbish at fighting. He gets a chance to go on a quest, but things don’t go according to plan and he needs to team up with a clever, independent-minded girl called Aud, in order to survive. It’s got lots of jokes, action and other good things!

Q. Your books are marketed as children’s books, but they also appeal to adults. Do you set out to write for a specific age group, or do you hope that it will appeal to all?

A. Ever since Bartimaeus I’ve had the hope (and expectation) that my books would have a wide audience. Essentially I try to write something that I would like if I found it myself on a bookstore shelf. I know that I’d have liked Bart (and Halli) when I was a boy – and I’d like them now. So that makes me think that other people, old and young, would enjoy them.

Q. I’m sure your fans would like to know if you’re working on something new. Can you give us any sort of peek into what we can expect from you next?

A. Well, it’s too early to say, really! I’ve recently written a short story which is a sort of sci-fi fantasy about a detective hunting dragons in a big city: it’ll be published (I hope) in an anthology before long. Maybe that will turn into something longer one day… I don’t know!

Q. Finally, do you get much chance to read for your own pleasure.. and if so, who are some of your favourite authors and books?

A. I don’t read nearly enough when I’m writing, because I find it hard to vault into some one else’s created world when I’m struggling to build my own. But recently I’d enjoyed books by the great travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor, Neil Gaiman’s new fantasy The Graveyard Book, and some very peculiar but great 1950s books about a schoolboy called Nigel Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle. This last series is well worth checking out: it’s very very funny, very anarchic, satirical and verbally deft. It’s also very English.

The Official ‘Heroes of the Valley’ Website

Tom Bale is the author of a new crime novel, which I recently reviewed. Tom kindly answered some questions, about the book, and his writing.

Q. Could you start by telling us a little about Skin and Bones?

A. It’s a fast-paced thriller, set in the Sussex countryside. A young woman gets caught up in a shooting spree, and after being chased and nearly killed, she discovers something that no one else knows: there was a second gunman involved. She joins forces with the son of one of the victims, and together they go in search of the truth about what really happened. But as they uncover the conspiracy behind the massacre, they realise the killing didn’t begin on that cold winter morning, and worst of all, it won’t end there…

Q. Where did the ideas and inspiration come from?

A. It sounds corny, but this one came from a dream – I literally dreamed every detail of the entire opening sequence, where Julia goes into the village, discovers a massacre taking place and then gets chased by the killer. (Admittedly, it was the night after a boozy Christmas party!) I woke up in the early hours, ran it all through in my head to see if it made sense, and thought: “Oh my God, I’ve got to write this!” For one thing, I wanted to know who was trying to wipe out an entire village, and why…

Q. It’s always interesting to read crime books set in England, do you write about areas you know, or are they fictional?

A. A bit of both. The setting is very much the Sussex that I know and love, as I was born in Brighton and have lived down here most of my life. But with SKIN AND BONES, I had to create a fictional village, bearing in mind the grisly fate suffered by so many of the residents.

Q. Have you always enjoyed writing, or is it something you’ve started recently? Have you written any other novels before this one?

A. I’ve been writing stories since I was seven, or thereabouts. Over the years I’ve written probably millions of words: novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, a sitcom – you name it, I’ve tried it. For years I collected rejection slips, then had a few agonising near misses before finally crossing the invisible, magical line to publication.

Q. Do you have a ‘day job’, and does it help or hinder your writing?

A. All the good advice on this subject suggests keeping your job until your writing career is well established, but I ignored that advice! Actually, I left my last job in what was probably a bit of a mid life crisis. The company I worked for was taken over by a new management team with very different ideas about running things, so I jumped ship and had a couple of years where I did some consultancy work and tried to make it as a writer. We were scraping by on my wife’s salary and our rapidly dwindling savings when the deal with Preface came through.

Writing full time should make it easier, but I never seem to be as productive as I expect to be. For one thing, I often get more done at night than I do during the day – probably because of all the years when I’d come home from work (or school) and write in the evenings. And I suspect the Internet has had a devastating effect on most writers’ productivity – to combat the isolation of working from home, it’s all too easy to spend hours online when you’re supposed to be writing.

Q. How about the characters in the book, good and bad.. are they based on anyone you know?!

A. I never consciously base my characters on people I know, though I’m sure that various traits slip in that could be traced back to friends and family – and of course I think there are always elements of the writer in all of his or her characters.

Q. Do you enjoy reading crime fiction.. any favourite authors?

A. I love reading crime and thrillers, and it’s almost unfair to list my favourites, as I’m bound to leave some out. But here are a few, in no particular order: Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Lee Child, Carol O’Connell, Martin Cruz Smith, Carl Hiassen, Ian Rankin, Mark Billingham, Mo Hayder, Michael Robotham.

Q. Do you enjoy reading other genres? Again, if so, which are your favourite books and authors?

A. I love the comic novels of David Nobbs and Sue Townsend. And I used to read quite a bit of literary fiction, but I must admit I find a lot of it nowadays is just too pretentious and long-winded. I want something that really grabs my attention and spirits me away to another world. But my favourite literary writers include Hemingway, John Updike, Ian McEwan, Lisa St Aubin de Teran, Pete Dexter, Peter Benson – and the mighty Graham Greene.

Q. Is there a book that you wish you’d written?

A. There are lots! Anything that Graham Greene wrote, for a start. And a really remarkable novel that should have won the 1981 Booker prize: The White Hotel by DM Thomas.

Q. Finally, can you tell us a little about what we can expect from you next?

I’ve just finished the first draft of another Sussex-based thriller, provisionally called TERROR’S REACH. It’s set on a fictional island in the Emsworth/Bosham area of West Sussex, amongst a very wealthy community not unlike the famous Sandbanks resort in Dorset. A criminal gang take control of the island, with much more than just robbery on their mind, and the only person who can stop them is a disgraced former undercover cop, now working as a bodyguard to one of the island’s families.

Dave Boling is the author of Guernica, a book that I recently received to review. Dave has been kind enough to answer some questions, to tell us a little more about the book, and his background.

Q. Can you tell us a little about your inspiration for Guernica, and how it came about?

A. I married a Basque/American girl when I was fresh out of college. That provided a very thorough lesson in the fascinating Basque culture and history. After the terrorist attacks in 2001, I was surprised that nobody really traced the history of such atrocities back to the 1937 bombing of Guernica. To me, it seemed to be a sad oversight.

In the spring of 2005, I decided I’d like to try my hand at fiction. As I considered topics, I liked the idea of using the bombing as the historical context for a novel of relationships. Sometimes when we see the worst of humanity, we also see its best in response. I thought if I could embed some inspiring characters into that challenging environment, there might a few things we all could learn from it. And that, hopefully, would raise the level of awareness of one of the great tragedies of the 20th Century.

Q. How would you explain your book in your own words?

A. It’s really a story of relationships … a love story — love of family, love of country, love of a way of life. It’s a story of courage and resilience in the face of tragic loss.

Q. Was Picasso’s painting something you already knew about, or did you discover the background during your research?

A. I knew about it, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I studied the event that spawned it. For me, it was only once I understood the horror of the attack that I was able to fully see that the faces in the painting were the faces of the victims. Each time I see it now, I have a more difficult time getting away from it. I keep seeing more subtle elements that transfix me.

Q. Was it difficult to use some real people in the story, and yet give them partly fictional storylines?

A. Not really. Actually, in my initial version, Franco and Picasso were fully imagined characters; I spent a great deal of time researching their backgrounds, and trying to reconstruct the forces that led them to be the people they were. They were contemporaries with the fictional Justo Ansotegui, and the three – the military man, the artist and the common man – were intertwined until their lives reached new definition in the aftermath of the bombing of Guernica.

However, when I submitted my manuscript, it came it at over 600 pages. My agent (correctly, I’m sure) felt that would be difficult to market a book that long for a first-time novelist. So, I cut roughly 200 pages by eliminating almost all of Franco, most of Picasso and a great deal of the political background. That left Picasso in there by himself as a lean character who kind of pops up to provide some cultural context. Some critics have said that he seems a little extraneous. I’m tempted to tell them that I have about 200 pages of copy sitting in my computer they can read if they want more background.

Q. Are the fictional characters based on anyone?

A. Don’t they say there’s always a great deal of autobiography in any fiction? Sure. The way Miguel and Miren meet in the book was similar to the approach I used on the girl would became my wife. Her grandfather was a very strong and admirable Basque man named Justo (although he was not boastful and egotistical like the Justo in the book). Her cousins were in a Basque dance group, and I watched them do the Dance of the Wine Glass some 30 years ago. My grandfather came to America after having been a coal miner in Newcastle. His name was Charles Swan, and his sister was Annie Bingham – two names I appropriated for the book.

Q. How long did the book take to research and write?

A. It was about a year and a half from the first idea to the completion of the final version I submitted to agents. It seems pretty quickly now to have done 165,000 words in that time while also writing roughly 200 sports columns a year for my newspaper The Tacoma (Washington) News Tribune.

Q. This is your début published novel, what is your background, and have you written anything else?

A. As a newspaper columnist, I’m writing all the time. I think that provided the discipline I needed to finish the novel. This was my first try at fiction, though. I really decided I wanted to take it on as a personal challenge. I mostly wanted to see if I could do it. I could see that the newspaper business was entering a rough period and I figured it might be wise to seek out some alternatives – to hedge my bets.

Q. What are you working on now, can we expect another novel from you?

A. I had no idea how much time the promotions for the book would take. I expected I’d be done with the second one by the time the first one came out, but that was dreaming. Also, basically doing two jobs for the last few years has been a bit of a drain so I’m not pushing too hard at the moment. I have four or five ideas that I’m researching – mostly historical fiction, again – and I’m sort of waiting to see which one sprouts first.

Picking the topic is tricky. You might enjoy this story. As I researched topics, the one I liked the best examined the occupation of the Channel Islands by the Nazis. I was intrigued by the way those left on the islands were mostly women, and I saw great potential in examining the various ways they could have reacted to the occupation. Some would be in resistance, some perhaps collaborate or at least commiserate, and in the end, almost all were united in the same battle against privation. Since my first book was named “Guernica,” I liked the symmetry of making the second one “Guernsey.”

As I started really working on it, Charlie Greig, my incomparable editor at Picador, called me. “Ah, Dave, have you seen the book that’s come out and been very successful?” Of course, it was “The Guernsey Literary etc. …” Oh, was I happy that I hadn’t spent about two years working on a book with that topic only to have another come out and be so successful just before I could finish. It would have been an entirely different story, but I suspect it would have been hard to go to publishers at the time with a book in the same general time frame and circumstance.

Q. Do you enjoy reading? Which are some of your favourite authors and books?

A. For as much as I love to read, I found I could not read anybody else while I was writing my own fiction. I found that somebody else’s style was creeping into my work, and after I finished reading one book, the style of the next book I was reading kept leaking out. It seriously affected the “voice” of my prose. I had to stop. Once I finished my editing, I dove into the pile of books that had risen on my bedstand.

Q. Are there any books that you think everyone should read?

A. Oh, goodness. In addition to new books, I have a core of favorites that I recycle through on a regular basis. Most of them I consider classics. But there are two strands, the serious and literate: Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, etc. And then those who can dress their commentary and insights in humor or biting perspective: Salinger, Vonnegut, Brautigan, Robbins.

I think what I like best are novels with strong characters whose integrity stands up to great challenges, and who have a degree of indignation over social injustices. And if I had only one book to take on a desert island, it would be “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

In the search for a horror book that doesn’t rely in gore and sex, I discovered Adam Nevill’s Banquet For The Damned.

Neil tells us a little more..

Q. Can you start by telling us a little about your current book, Banquet For The Damned?

A. It’s a horror novel, but of a particular caste. One steeped in the occult and the supernatural, in European witchcraft. It’s about something coming back into a modern university town from a grim time in Scottish history – at first through dreams or night terrors and then as a real and growing physical manifestation of ancient evil, felt incrementally throughout the entire town. Something that could not exist, something too preposterous to even suggest in the modern world, and yet …

It is a novel written from my desire to contribute to the great tradition of the supernatural in literature that I have always enjoyed with a passion as a reader. It draws upon the craft of using suggestion and implication to introduce the supernatural to the natural order of things, by offering glimpses and hints as opposed to full and bloody revelations, and by trying to achieve a sense of awe and wonder through  the supernatural. But I didn’t want the novel to be a pastiche, but a thoroughly modern novel in idiom. So while I observed the craft of the masters in terms of how I described the unworldly aspects, and created suspense and mystery, I also used the structure of the modern popular horror novel defined by Stephen King and Peter Straub etc in the seventies and early eighties. I hoped to achieve the best of both worlds, to reemploy the subtlety and craft of the past when dealing with supernatural horror, while writing in a thoroughly contemporary and accessible language and narrative.

Q. Where did the idea / inspiration come from?

A. The British Isles has a wonderful, rich and diverse history of the weird tale. And my main influences are drawn from what I would call the great age of the supernatural in fiction, from the late Victorian to the Edwardian period. It is the fiction that made me want to write in the first place, that began the compulsion to write a horror novel. And it’s a very British field – Sheridan La Fanu and Bram Stoker from Ireland, Arthur Machen from Wales, R L Stevenson in Scotland and M R James, Algernon Blackwood and Walter de la Mare from England to name but a few of the precursors of the field.

So these influences informed me on how I wanted to approach a novel of the supernatural, but the concept of a young alienated man seeking a mentor -  and a once notorious writer and master of ritual magic and the black arts – in an old town by the sea, I had carried around with me for a while. And, literally, as I drove into St Andrews the first time, a story started to write itself from that simple idea. The novel just took shape in my imagination immediately. I suddenly had this wonderful setting for so many set-pieces. So many things about the town just suggested the story to me.

M R James’s short stories, without a doubt, and Algernon Blackwood and Walter de la Mare were my primary stylistic influences, though their influence is usually confined to short fiction. I wanted to pull it off on an epic scale, and I’d always wanted to have a go at a long, multi-plot novel with an entire history of its own, a rich background and fully developed community and sense of place and atmosphere, like Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, and King’s Salem’s Lot – the kind of novels I read a lot of in the eighties.

Q. Is the history in the book based on actual documents, or from your imagination?

A. Bit of both. The library at St Andrews university was a wonderful source of information for the occult in Scottish history. At one time I had over thirty books on loan on my library card about witchcraft alone. But I also studied sleep disturbances and anthropology, and the town’s history. I wanted the history behind the witchcraft, and the anthropological information, to seem feasible, and to add authenticity to the story. I think if an author can show a command of place and history and setting the reader is more likely to become immersed in the story and mystery. More likely to suspend disbelief. I keep coming across modern novels with no interest in language at all, with no sense of place, no real description, no atmosphere for a story to rise from, just dialogue and action like film scripts. A few people have said to me that Banquet reminded them of how books used to be written. They’d almost forgotten. That pleased me.

Q. Is St Andrews an actual place, and if so, does it have any occult history?

A. Yes, it is Scotland’s oldest university town. It’s like an Oxford or Cambridge of Scotland. A great seat of learning and once a major European ecclesiastic centre like Rome that attracted huge numbers of pilgrims. In fact the town is planned on three long processions up to the now ruined cathedral. Most of Scotland is steeped in the occult and witchcraft, and the Kingdom of Fife has a very rich history too.

Q. Are you personally a fan of horror books, and do you prefer modern horror writers, or the more classical?

A. I am a fan of the field, and have read much of the canon from its Gothic beginnings onward. I’ve studied it twice at university too, writing thesis, seminars and essays etc, so I have an all round interest as a reader, student and writer of the weird tale. And I think it essential for a writer to read the canon of the field they write in, of what has gone before them, before they make a contribution. And I have discovered some excellent writing right from the classic period of the ghost story until the modern day. So I like elements of the classic and modern. I love M R James, but then I think Dan Simmon’s The Terror is probably one of the best horror novels of all time, and that was published last year. I often reread Lovecraft and Machen, but then tend to look for what I like in those writers in new authors too. I really rate John Marks Fangland and Max Brookes World War Z – which are both very new and innovative approaches to the field. So I’m not stuck in the past, drawing a line at 1926 or anything like that. Nor am I a writer of pastiches, but those who neglect to school themselves in the masters, well, it shows quite frankly, and there a lot of really awful horror novels out there.

Q. You have previously written under a pseudonym.. which genre has been your favourite to write?

A. I wrote a great deal of erotica, cut my teeth in that genre. I read Anais Nin when quite young and she had a huge impact on my imagination. So I’d had a few erotic novels published long before Banquet. I’m concentrating more on the horror now, due to time limitations more than a preference. But writing in each genre has been enormously pleasurable, though also fraught and difficult. Each are hard to get right and are loaded with so many reader expectations. But had I not written so much erotica and learned my craft there, I may not have written Banquet.

Q. What are you working on right now, and what plans do you have for your writing future?

A. I’m just completing a new horror novel – the thirteenth draft right now in fact. It’s taken three years to complete, the same time-frame as Banquet. It’s been a very ambitious novel and I binned 80K words a year ago and started the subplot completely from scratch. It’s nearly broken me at times, and I have seriously thought of abandoning the book twice. But I had the same misgivings, doubts, anxieties and concerns about Banquet (and axed a big portion of that too). But I worry that if I ever abandon a novel, it will become easy to give up on future novels once they become problematic too. I know writers with graveyards of unfinished and abandoned books on their computers. The first ghost story I had published I had been rewriting for five years – I had seventeen versions of it in a folder. So I am relieved I continued with the new book, despite the time – it’s very very creepy. Following that, I have begun a third book, which began as a ghastly image of something I found when hiking in Wales. From that, the story is writing itself.

Often, the main problem with writing a novel, is not the story etc but the way it is being written. I remember Nicholas Shakespeare saying that there are a hundred ways to write a novel and only one of them is right. It’s good advice and a sound warning to the curious. I’ve started plenty of books with the wrong voice or in the wrong point-of-view, or with too great an authorial omniscience etc, or where the writing is flat, but I just go back and rewrite the same book in a different way until it works for me. Crap novels are often successful, but I’ve no ambition to write one of them. I’m not interested in money as a writer. A readership, yes, even if it is a modest one. What’s important is getting as close to the original vision for a book as possible. And that’s as good a purpose as any.

Q. You work in publishing.. do you think that has helped or hindered your road to publication?

A. Banquet had already been published in a limited edition hardback by P S Publishing in 2004, and was lucky enough to have been acclaimed, and I’d had another nine novels published before I came to work in publishing, so the work of getting published initially had already been done nearly a decade before I set foot in publishing. But it has certainly opened my eyes to the reality of publishing – I was pretty clueless before. I think writers increasingly need to adjust their expectations, not so much about getting published but about what it will lead to, and what publishers are able to do for most books.

Q. Would you like to see your book as a film, or do you feel that too much can be lost during the translation to screen?

A. I would love to see it as a film – I’m a huge fan of horror films – and Banquet has been optioned (though that often means nothing so I ain’t kidding myself). But the novel is written in the present tense and was visualised cinematically by me as I composed it, so it is suitable for a film or episodic television drama. And though I would welcome a good interpretation of Banquet, the chances of it being ruined, as most horror films are actually terrible, would be very high. What I worry about is not what is lost during translation, because a film can only be an interpretation of a novel, but I would worry about how many people could interfere on the long critical path from page to screen and gradually, incrementally, ruin it, until even the spirit of the original story is lost in some terrible, vapid rubbish. The best films are made by auteurs and I’d rather it went to a director/producer team with a single creative vision, rather than some dreadful committee made up of Soho media twats, corporate types wanting it to be a facsimile of another successful film aimed at 13 year old girls or something, and the usual raft of hustling wannabes looking to augment a CV by having a say in the film. I worked in TV for eight years, though not in production, but was near enough to sense that those with the best hustling skills tended to get their way and go far, though they were not necessarily the most talented or creative people. Just look at British TV – I think, these days, it is largely a creation of the mediocre. You see, I’m bitter already and it hasn’t even been scripted.

Q. Finally, what else to you enjoy reading, when you have a spare five minutes to yourself?

A. I read a lot, probably more than I write, which is one reason why it takes me so long to finish a book. But that is part of living a literary life, and continually learning as a writer, which a writer should be doing. And I read an enormous range of things from American literary fiction to quality horror to military history. I’m currently reading the last few Cormac McCarthy novels I haven’t yet read.

Official Site

]]> http://authorinterviews.wordpress.com/2008/09/05/adam-nevill-interview/feed/ 3 Michelle http://authorinterviews.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/kamilla-reid-interview/ http://authorinterviews.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/kamilla-reid-interview/#comments Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:10:06 +0000 Michelle http://authorinterviews.wordpress.com/?p=34 ]]>

Kamilla Reid is the author of an exciting new fantasy book, The Questory of Root Karbunkus (Reviewed), which although aimed at younger readers, will be enjoyed by adults too. The first book in the series is entitled ‘Item I: Miist’, and introduces us to the new and wonderful world of Dre’Amm.

Q. Let’s start with the most important part.. can you tell us a little more about your book?

A. Well, in a one-liner it’s sort of like the ultimate magical scavenger hunt. But here’s a bit more filler:

Young Root Karbunkulus gets an invitation to participate in ‘the coolest scavenger hunt of all time!’  Finally, her chance! She can escape the Aunts and prove once and for all there’s no stinkin’ “L” on her forehead! So what if she’s up against hundreds of other kids. It can’t be worse than murder ball. The rules say teams of three. Okay, okay her appointed team mates, Lian and Dwyn are screws-in-the-temples annoying…but livable…and really no worse than Goatface Kor or Hilly Punyun who, forget the panties, has a tiara for each day of the week. More rules: Can’t use magic on competitors. Doh! Oh well, at this point her magic is of the non-existent variety anyhow so…next! The first item up for grabs is the Miist of Kalliope, apparently some dead magician’s elixir. No prob. But wait. Out of hundreds of teams, there are only six of these Miists to be found? Leaving only six teams left to go after the next item? Then five, four, three, two…woah…this could get ugly….hmmm…compete and win…or go back to exfoliating those hard, crusted entities called Auntie Octavia’s feet?

Root Karbunkulus accepts the invitation. It will be a race of many, many hated things.  But it will also be a contest of courage, friendship and the rising of soul. Within it Root will learn the terrifying truth behind the mysterious items. She will also discover, to her horror that she is not a player in an innocent kid’s race but a pawn in a vicious adult game.

Q. Is writing something you’ve always enjoyed, or something you’ve started recently?

A. I have always loved to write and, in fact had a really cheesy short story published in a magazine when I was eight years old. But I took my writing into theatre for many years. And as much as I loved this medium, after awhile I just couldn’t treadmill out another budget conscious 6-person musical. I was also in a major life transition at the time. So everything was pointing me toward the new, exciting world of book writing. I’m so glad I did!

Q. Where did your ideas come from, for Dre’Amm, it’s various characters, and the Quest?

A. Oh, from all over. Sometimes I get ideas from part of a conversation or a picture or a song. I get many, many ideas from observing nature. And sometimes it can come from a TV show, like the entire premise of “The Questory”. It was when I caught a snippet of  “The Great Amazing Race” that I got the big “Aha! That’s it!” idea for the whole book.

Q. Obviously this is the first Quest, and there are more to come. Are you tackling one at a time, or have you already planned out the major arcs?

A. I absolutely have to work out the plot, all the plots ahead of time. So, before I even started book one I had to work out every major plot point and every main character’s arc for all six books first. Sometimes I have no idea what the event specifically will be, only that something has to occur that will plunge so-and-so into emotional turmoil or great joy or even death…that sort of thing.

Q. When can we expect to join in the second Quest?

A. I’m aiming for the fall …fingers crossed. Once I finish my book tour I’m going to really limit outside interactions and focus solidly on book 2. I will definitely keep you posted.

Q. You decided to start by publishing the book yourself.. where did that decision come from, and have you learnt a lot during the process?

A. I knew from the start that I wanted to go out on my own first. After years in live theatre where budgets dictated everything and, as I mentioned earlier I just couldn’t treadmill out another 6-person musical, I wanted complete freedom to explore this new field on my own. I wanted to write my book and have fun creating the book cover and I wanted to make an awesome website and book trailer. I wanted to do it all for the fun of it but also to learn the business of books. It was very worth it to me.

However, wearing that many hats, not to mention the Single Mum Crown began to take its toll. I was doing too much and getting burnt out. But the good thing is that I had managed a fair amount of success on my own, which was a great thing to bring to the tables of agents and traditional publishers.

Q. That process has included a impressive looking website and trailer.. can you tell us more about those?

A. For the website, I was very focussed on what I wanted so I researched a bunch of web designers. But most of them were just too corporate minded for me. They were more about ‘the commodity’ and they spoke way too jargon-y. Eventually I found 350 Designs, a couple of twenty year old, self-professed computer geeks who were like “Cool! This is awesome! We could do this and this and…” I knew right away they had the finger on the pulse I wanted to create.

As to the video, I had a bit of a film background and knew some of the low budget tricks like shooting lots of close-ups. I had a blast making the video and it really paid off for me, especially on my book tour. It was a great opener that the kids just loved.

You can find a pretty detailed “making of the video’ account of it on my blog.
http://rootkarbunkulus.com/blog/blog-entries/virtual-tour-day-two

Q. This feels like a story just waiting to be made into a film.. do you have ideas about who you would like to play various characters?

A. People say that all the time. I think I must write very visually. But, yeah, I would love to see it on the big screen! That’d be amazing! I have no idea who I’d like to play the kids’ roles but I would die to have Carol Burnett as one of the aunts. She was my idol growing up! And she’s coming to our city in the fall. I got fourth row tickets! Yaaayyy!

Q. Are you a reader yourself? What do you enjoy reading?

A. I have a mad, mad wonderful growing love affair with books! It runs the gamut. I’m currently reading yet another Terry Pratchett. And I finally got Coraline by Neil Gaiman, which I’m so excited to read! I also just picked up The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I loved Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. It goes on…and on…

Q. When you’re not busy writing, publishing or promoting, what else do you like to do?

A. That’s funny you ask because my blog today is all about that. I try to balance my writing (which can take over everything like a rebel weed!) with being a mum and a a friend, a runner of my household, a still newbie-ish gardener, a daughter, a happy single chick, a frustrated single chick…blah blah….all of which I think make me a better writer, which makes me a better “hey, let’s go camping!” mum, which makes me a better “I’m gonna attempt a soufflé” cook, which makes that glass of shiraz a perfect accompaniment, especially with a great friend….etc etc

Thank you so much for granting me this time to share with you and your readers. It was a real pleasure.

Visit the Official Site

UK readers.. a chance to win a signed copy!

Having loved The Stepmother, it was a pleasure to ask Carrie Adams the following questions..

Q. If we start at the beginning, have you always enjoyed writing, or is it something that you’ve started recently?

A. I wrote four crime novels under another name but it wasn’t until I wrote THE GODMOTHER that I feel I found my voice.

Q. Your first book, THE GODMOTHER, has been labelled ‘Chick Noir’. Can you tell us a little about what that means, and what makes this book different to ‘chick lit’?

A. A chick is a baby bird, I write for women, perhaps the publisher should have labelled it Hen Pen… Then again maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t work in marketing.

Q.Where did the character of Tessa come from.., is she based on you, or someone that you know?

A. She is a little part of almost every woman I know, we all have strengths and weaknesses, areas we excel and others where we fail.  She is me and she is the complete opposite of me… jeez women are complex!

Q. How about the other characters… do you tend to draw on people you know, or do they come from your imagination?

A. One character is taken completely from real life, the rest are made up, but I’m not telling you which one.

Q. Tessa’s story continues in THE STEPMOTHER… did you plan this from the beginning, or did it become obvious at the end of THE GODMOTHER that she had more to tell?

A. Actually, Tessa only made it into THE STEPMOTHER by the skin of her teeth.  Maybe she shouldn’t have. What was really important to me was that the reader sympathises with both women, the ex-wife (Bea) and the ‘new’ woman (Tessa), this is a story about what happens when your enemy could make the best alibi if only you’d let them.

Q. You tackle a lot of varying issues in your books, how do you ‘research’ these…do you draw on the experiences of friends, or find other people to talk to you.

A. For this book I needed the wisdom of hindsight, but hindsight can only be earned, so I talked to a lot of women who’d earned it.  The idea came a long time ago from a vicar I know who told me women burying elderly parents often ‘confessed’ that their inconsolable grief was really reserved for a secret loss many years previously – that may sound weird but I don’t want to give too much away.

Q. I could imagine your books as films… who would you like to see playing Tessa and Bea?

A. Helen McCory would be a good Bea, but she’d have to eat some buns. I’d like an unknown for Tessa, I went to some lengths to keep her physical details to a minimum so that the reader could transpose themselves on to her if they like.

Q. How long, on average, does each book take to write, starting from the initial idea?

A. Interesting question.  The publisher is always clambering for a book a year, but I think characters take more than that to solidify.  I throw out many ideas before the one that comes along so that I can see from end to end in an instant.

Q. Can you tell us a little about what you’re working on next? Are you carrying on the stories of any of these characters, or moving on to something different?

A. I’ll let you know when I know.

Q. Do you enjoy reading for relaxation? If so, which books and authors do you enjoy?

A. Reading combines my two other favourite things – bath oil and good wine, I get irritable if I don’t have a book on the go.  As for favourites, that is always such a hard question.  If I had to take a collection to a desert island Pat Conroy springs to mind, or John Irving, then again can’t go wrong with Jilly Cooper, then again I love THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, and TO KILL A MOCKINGBORD is a must… oh I don’t know, ask me one on sport.

Official Site

Having discovered this amazing author, I was very pleased to have her visit us as a Featured Author. These are just some of the highlights…

Q. Is writing something that you’ve always done? Did you write as a child, or was it something that came later in life?

A. suppose I have always written. I’ve certainly always made up stories in my head! I used to be a big letter writer too. I worked as a freelance journalist and as an actress so words have always been my thing.

I wrote my first novel many years ago when I had 2 small children and was quietly going mad at home (as you do). I tried to get that one published but after 2 years of rejection slips I gave up. I cringe now when I think how awful that novel probably was, but there were some interesting characters in it which I “recycled” in my 2nd novel, A LIFETIME BURNING. I think because I’d lived with those characters for about 18 years, it gave ALB a sense of depth and I was able to write about those lives in some detail. (ALB covers a period of 58 years in one family.)

I didn’t try for publication again until I’d turned 50. By then I’d abandoned a career as a primary teacher after a breakdown and long period of illness. I’d taken up writing fiction just as something to do – for pleasure and as a kind of therapy. The novel I began then eventually became EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY, my first published novel. I’d joined a writers’ e-group and they encouraged me to try to get an agent. I didn’t think I’d stand a chance because EG was such a quirky book and had a 47 year old romantic heroine and this was in the heyday of Chicklit, so I sent off the manuscript with no expectation of success. But I found an agent who loved it (actually I think she loved my hero ) and then we found a publisher. So I began my 5th career (if you count motherhood) at the age of 53 when my first novel was published. It’s never too late for a new start! (Which is one of the “messages” of EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY.)

Q. Do you get time to read for pleasure? and if so who are your favourite authors, genres etc?

A. I don’t read that much for pleasure for a variety of reasons and this is a source of great regret. I write fulltime and I tend to work long days. I like to watch DVDs to relax. Reading when you’re writing can be very distracting stylistically and I tend to read anything but the contemporary fiction I write. If it’s good you get depressed, if it’s bad you get depressed (“Why is this selling in shedloads and I’m not?!”). So I like to read historical fiction (esp. Dorothy Dunnett whom I re-read all the time) and biography (I loved M Forster’s biog. of Daphne du Maurier) because there’s no overlap with my own work.

The other kind of reading I do is for research and I will always have a stack of books sitting on a table which I dip into, eg I read 3 autobiographical books written by blind people when I was researching STAR GAZING. For the book I’ve just finished drafting I read a biography of Enid Blyton. (Fascinating!)

But I do read some contemporary stuff. I recently discovered Sophie Hannah whom I’d recommend if you like psychological thrillers. I really admired Stef Penney’s TENDERNESS OF WOLVES. My favourite read so far this year is MR PIP by Lloyd Jones which I thought was brilliant. I also loved the Victorian detective romp, SILENT IN THE GRAVE by Deanna Raybourn.

Q. A lot of writers seem to come from either a publishing environment or have worked as a journalist before, do you think your background as a journalist helped when it came to trying to find an agent and publisher?

A. Another good question! You’re right – a disproportionate number of authors are ex-journalists. Publishers like journalists. They have a proven track record, a writing CV. They are used to being edited. They understand marketing. They meet deadlines. They are full of ideas. Perhaps most importantly they know people, they listen and research for a living, so their work is likely to have a certain depth.

There is also the factor that journalists are social animals and will have made a lot of contacts and publishing is a small, incestuous, back-scratching world where networking is an essential part of getting on.

None of this applied to me however! I was a freelance living in East Anglia and was never on the London circuit even though I wrote a column for IDEAL HOME for 12 years. And when I was trying to find an agent and a publisher for my first novel I was living on the Isle of Skye, my current home, so there was no London/journalism factor operating in my favour then. But I think being a journalist taught me how to write concisely, how to edit and how to think about marketing myself and my books.

As a journalist you are trying to write so that the casual reader will read to the end of your article and not turn the page in search of something more interesting. You are constantly

As a writer of fiction I aim to make it almost impossible for you to put my books down. As a journalist I wanted your eye to travel smoothly on till it got to the end of the piece. It’s the same aim and you use some of the same techniques. aware of the need to entertain and inform. I think this training pays off when you come to write fiction. You know that you absolutely must not bore your reader which means you mustn’t waste words and you must maintain their interest.

Q. Linda, what kind of research did you do to write from a blind person’s perspective?

A. I didn’t do a lot of research, Michelle. I read some books written by blind people that were very helpful (though none of them was written by anyone congenitally blind which was what I’d decided to make my heroine.) I researched on the internet, but mostly I relied on my imagination. It was just a question of removing any visual element from my thinking and allowing the other senses to come to the fore. I did do a certain amount of walking around in the dark or with my eyes closed. (I even tried that in the streets when there was no one around I would bump into!)

Penelope Przekop has just published her first work of fiction, Aberrations and has already published a non-fiction book, Six Sigma for Business Excellence.

Q: What did you do before you started writing?

A: Before I began writing, I went through the birth process, and then spent time learning to read and write. In all seriousness, I’ve been writing my entire life, but I began writing novels when I was about twenty-four. Over the last eighteen years, I’ve written two novels and a non-fiction book while working in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, I was a Director at Johnson & Johnson with a focus on quality management and compliance. I have a BS degree in Biology and an MS degree in Quality Assurance/Systems.

Q: Have you always wanted to write fiction?

A: Yes, I used to write short stories as a kid. Once I was about twelve, I focused on poetry and intense journal writing. Interestingly, my years of poetry and journal writing were critical to developing my literary voice. I actually had a few poems published as a teenager. The day I wrote my first prose, I took out a poem and transformed it into prose. That was my start.

Q: Where did you get the inspiration to write Aberrations?

A: My inspiration came from my own need for mother, as well as my interest as a young adult in understanding how the choices I’d made up to that point had shaped my life. I also felt compelled to write about the South, and my own experience becoming pregnant as an unwed college senior. Of course, Aberrations is fiction but there are bits and pieces of my own story hidden between the lines.

Q: Is Angel, your heroine, modeled after yourself at all, or after someone you know?

A: Angel is a mix of specific aspects of myself and my imagination. Her struggle with narcolepsy and her intense need for her mother were a great avenue to channel some of my own conflicts. Of course, like many people, I’m an extremely complex individual. This enables me to be both the same but separate from Angel. There is a part of me in every character I create. I think that’s how, as a writer, you make them real. I believe that if you continuously strive to know yourself inside and out— all aspects of yourself, all your emotions, and all your experiences— you can use that knowledge to best understand others, their motivation, and their behaviors.

Q: How long did it take you to write Aberrations?

A: I wrote about 75% of the first draft in about a year back in 1998-99. Then I spent the next eight years or so writing the last 25% and editing. During that time, I set it aside for a three-year period to complete my MS degree. Then at another point, I set it aside for about a year to write, Six Sigma for Business Excellence (McGraw-Hill). It worked out well because I was struggling with the ending for awhile. Once I picked it back up after finishing the McGraw-Hill book, I knew what I wanted to do with the ending. I finished the last 25% and started the long process of finding an agent. Keep in mind that during this entire time period, I was working full time. I also had a baby in 1999 so that also slowed me down for awhile.

Q: What was the publishing process like? How long did it take you to find a publisher?

A: For Aberrations, it took about a year to find and sign with a good agent. However, soon after he began pitching the novel, he decided to take a position with a large entertainment law firm and leave his agent work behind. I was quite discouraged because I’d had a similar experience with my first (yet to be published) novel. My agent (back around 1997) had passed away shortly after beginning to pitch the book. She had no back-up, which left me to start all over again. I began writing Aberrations soon after that.

After my Aberrations agent was out of the picture, I decided to self-publish, something I never thought I’d consider. I’m so glad now that I did because doing so led me in a convoluted way to my current publisher. After the book was released as a self-published novel, it was picked up by Greenleaf Book Group. They have a unique model that keeps authors highly engaged in the publishing process so it’s been great!

Q: Is your family supportive of your writing career?

A: Yes, I’m lucky that my husband is somewhat of a renaissance man. Over the years, he’s managed his own high-pressure career, done the laundry, cooked, etc., so that I could focus on my career and my writing. Of course, we both parent our children. I do all the running. We have a pretty good system, but like everyone, we struggle with trying to do it all. My parents are great in that they seem to understand who I am and that I need to write. They are both brave people who realize my unique experiences growing up have super-fueled my creativity, and they don’t try to stop that process. That’s love.

Q: What do you like best about writing?

A: I love how writing allows me to express myself in a way that I often can’t verbally. I have good social skills; however, there are strong internal aspects of myself that, for some reason, have never quite fit with the various facets of the external picture I seem to create with my verbal communication, appearance, mannerisms, etc. There is a disconnect, a gap, that writing fills for me, and the part that comes out in the writing is the part of me I love the most, and want to be and express. I never want to lose that; I want to continue exploring it and perfecting it, but I also hope to find other ways to fill that gap.

Q: Do you enjoy the promotional side of writing, such as public appearances and interviews?

A: Yes. Of course this side is just beginning for me with regard to Aberrations. I’ve spoken at many conferences on topics related to my nonfiction book, Six Sigma for Business Excellence. I highly enjoy public speaking and hope to do more of it. I had my first radio interview a couple of weeks ago. It was a great experience and I’m looking forward to the other radio interviews that are coming up this month. I actually thought it would be fun to have my own radio show! That’s not likely to happen but I thought it would be cool to have a talk radio show based on my blog, Aberration Nation. I could interview people about their aberrations, and we could talk about how they’ve impacted their lives. Ok, maybe I’m getting carried away; not sure my voice is right for radio work! People often think I’m a kid when they get me on the phone.

Q: What has been the best moment for you since your book was accepted for publication?

A: There have been several high points so far. The day I got the call from Greenleaf was quite exciting. The day I went to NYC to have lunch with my publicist was an incredible experience. Lastly, reading all the recent reviews has absolutely taken my breath away! Your review, in particular, got me pumped up. I danced around the house with my 8-year-old. We screamed like Mary Murphy on So You Think You Can Dance, and yelled, “She’s on the hot tamale train!”

Q: Are you writing anything new, or are you planning a new book?

A: Yes!  I’m so excited about it and can’t wait to get further into it.  Right now I’m doing a little editing on my first, unpublished novel, currently titled, Jesus Wept.  (Publishers often change titles.)  If all goes well, Jesus Wept will be the next one on the shelves. Like Aberrations, it also includes numerous themes. It delves into the intense conflicts that can result from growing up in the Bible Belt while trying to relate to the tough realities of life. It’s not a religious novel but rather one that takes an honest look at the complex role that fundamentalist religion, in particular, can play as we struggle to find a reality we can believe in and embrace as young adults—which is what we all go through in some form or another. So, my third novel is the brand new one that I’m currently planning. I don’t have a title yet but I’ve completed the majority of the research and will soon be at it full speed.  I don’t want to say too much about it since it’s in such an early stage. I can tell you that there will be a southern character in New York City, and it will compare and contrast current corporate politics with the ideals of Ellis Island while packing in numerous universal themes. I’m excited about blending my southern background and my own corporate experience to tackle this one.

Karen lives in Georgia, in the US, and sets her books in the South. She has written eight books, with the latest being The Memory of Water.

Q. Could you start by telling us a little about your current book, The Memory of Water?

A. My book, The Memory of Water, is a book about two sister, Diana and Marnie Maitland, who have been raised by a mother with  bipolar Disorder.  This creates a close bond between the sisters until the night their mother takes them out on a sailboat during a storm and the mother drowns.  but each sister harbors a secret about that night, secrets that tear the sisters apart.  The book opens 10 years after the accident when the estranged sisters are reluctantly reunited when Diana’s ex-husband, Quinn asks Marnie to return to help him with his 9-year-old son, Gil, who was in a sailing accident with his mother but is now refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of their past to the surface.  And she must confront Diana, before they all go under.

Q. The main theme in the book is living with bipolar, and the effect it has on everyone. What made you decide to explore this, and how did you research it?

A. I got the idea for this story several years ago when I read an article in a woman’s magazine written by two adult sisters who’d been raised by a bipolar mother.  When they were as young as 6 and 8, they had to get themselves up, dressed and fed and make their own way to school.  It was as if their mother’s illness had made her abdicate her responsibilities and as a mother of two myself, this story haunted me.  I wanted to explore the far-reaching consequences on a family marked with mental illness, and the bonds it can either create or destroy.

I took an Abnormal Psychology class when I was in college and I used the textbooks to do some background research on Bipolar Disorder.  I also used the Internet to discover the newest ways to treat the disease as well as anything new in the areas of treatment and prevention.

Q. The two sisters in the book have a very close, if complex relationship. Is this based on your own experiences?

A. No, unfortunately.  As much as I always wished for a sister, I was raised with three brothers.  But I spent a lifetime studying the relationship of friends with sisters and also of my mother (who is the oldest of five girls) and her four.  My happiest childhood memories are of listening to my mother chatting with my aunts and her mother around my grandmother’s kitchen table.

Q. Sailing is a prominent feature, are you a sailor yourself?

A. Not at all!  The two sisters in the book, Marnie and Diana Maitland, were raised by the ocean and I figured it would be a logical step to make at least one of them an avid sailor.  I’m a firm believer in writing what you know—but I also like to add that you should also write about something you have an interest in.  Since I had never set foot on a sailboat before writing this book but have always found the subject interesting, I knew that this book would be research-intensive but rewarding, too.  I read a lot on the subject and took sailing lessons.  I still wouldn’t call myself a proficient sailor, but I learned enough to be able to write about sailing and the passion it inspires in my characters.

Q. Is writing something you’ve always enjoyed doing?

A. I have to laugh because sometimes—especially when I’m crunching towards a deadline—I don’t find anything enjoyable about writing!  Even though I was always told by my teachers from an early age that I should write. I hated the actual process of writing.  It wasn’t until I was a sophomore in high school and found that my fingers on a keyboard could keep up with my thoughts, that I truly began to enjoy writing.

Q. What else have you written, have you stayed in the same genre, or tried anything different?

A. I have written a time-travel, an historical romance, two contemporary romances and four women’s fiction novels.  I think it’s safe to say that I’ve tried different genres!  My November 2008 release, The House on Tradd Street is a sort of paranormal mystery set in Charleston, South Carolina—what I’m calling my ‘Sixth Sense Meets Moonlighting’ book.  However, despite the genre written on the spine of my books, I think my readers will recognize them all as a ‘Karen White’ book—a Southern-set family drama peopled with characters you care about who will make you laugh and make you cry, with a little bit of romance and a dash of mystery thrown in to spice it all up.

Q. Are your books all set in places that you personally know? If so, do you find this easier to write?

A. Only about half of my books have been set in actual places—and none of them settings I’ve lived in or have been overly familiar with.  The Color of Light and The Memory of Water were both set in the South Carolina Lowcountry—and area in which I vacation frequently and am enthralled with.  The other books are set around the South because that is the land and people I’m familiar with.  I love making up Southern towns and their inhabitants—it gives me a lot more leeway when I don’t have to follow maps and geographical restrictions when using a real location.

Q. You call your writing ‘grit lit’.. can you explain more about what you mean by that?

A. I borrowed the term ‘grit lit’ from Mary Kay Andrews.  I thought it was a nice turn on the ‘chick-lit’ phrase and basically means stories of and about the South.

Q. Can you tell us a little about what is next for you, what are you working on at the moment?

A. As I mentioned above, my next book, The House on Tradd Street will be released by New American Library in November, 2008.  Following that book, my next release will be The Lost Hours , which is set in Savannah, Georgia on a horse farm and will be published in May 2009.  That’s the book that I’m working on now and will (hopefully!) have finished by my deadline on September 1st.  And then in November 2009, the sequel to The House on Tradd Street will be released.  I have two more books contracted beyond that, but they’re only a twinkle in my eye at the moment. <g>

Q. Do you also enjoy reading for pleasure? Who are some of your favourite authors?

A. I couldn’t imagine being a writer without also being a reader!  I read constantly so I’ll throw out the names of some of my favorites but please know that there’s many more where this list came from!  Margaret Mitchell, Diana Gabaldon, Khaled Hosseini, Jodi Picoult, Nelson DeMille, Lauren Willig, Eloisa James, Mary Balogh, Susan Crandall, Julia Quinn and many, many, many more!

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