Author Interview: Athena

 I would like to welcome Athena to the blog! She is the author of the exciting novel Murder of Crows and I am thrilled to have her answer a few questions today.

1. When did you first know you wanted to write?

I first knew I wanted to be a storyteller when I was six. At the time I didn't know if it would be writing or acting, but I knew it would be something of the sort. I wrote a lot, and experimented with poetry. I tried to make my own book in fifth grade with a glue stick, construction paper and a hot iron. It ended badly. We shan't speak of it again, I'm sure. Thankfully, despite the small fire and melted pool of glue, I was not deterred from self-publishing in general. Then my first poem was published in a college literary magazine at age eleven and the final course was set for writing from then on.

2. Which authors inspire you the most?

When I was younger my favorite authors were Madeleine L’Engle, and Marguerite Henry. Then as I got a little older I fell into a V.C. Andrews phase followed by s swath of romance writers when I was fourteen or so. Eventually, I stumbled across Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman which led me down the fantasy fiction path and I haven’t looked back. Robert Jordan, Melanie Rawn, Elizabeth Moon, Terry Goodkind, R.A. Salvator, Sara Douglass, Jacqueline Carey, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Piers Anthony, David and Leigh Eddings, Tad Willaims, George R. R. Martin, Donna Gillespie, and Diana Gabaldon – to name a few.

3. How did you get the inspiration for your novel?

Inspiration comes from living in the world, really. It’s in everything. It’s in the food you eat, the conversations you have with people in your life, and what you pick up from all your daily adventures. It just so happens that much of when the idea for this series started coming to me, I was living in Alaska and the things that inspired me were mostly things I encountered in nature. Snowy mountains, eagles, whales, forests, ravens and landscapes so gloriously beautiful – it would have been impossible not to be inspired. Then I moved to the Portland metro area and suddenly I was in a whole different world. A city – but just as wild and strange as the backwoods of Alaska. So I put them together and got Aria.  

4. What is your favorite part about being an author?

My favorite part of being an author is the creation phase of the story. Plotting, developing and making something that lives in my head blossom into something that can be shared with a stranger. I love bringing folks into an entirely fictional world.

5. What is your least favorite part about being an author?

Editing the eighth draft for the second time. So tedious and yet necessary.

6. Could you write a bit about what your publication process was like?

My publication process was not at all like I imagined it would be. My first book, ‘Ghosts of Seattle’ was a simple contract and had a publisher before I even got started. So I imagined it would be pretty easy to get an editor or publisher for a cross-genre fantasy novel featuring a female cast and lead…I was obviously pretty naïve. After 80 rejections I finally decided to self-publish. The new self-publishing options were opening up by the day with new and exciting paths for writers to find their own audience. So I set up a Kickstarter to raise the funds for an editor and designer and launched the book myself. Never give up. Never surrender, right? I continued to send out queries even after the launch and to date I’ve amassed 102 rejections.

The most valuable lesson I’ve learned from this process is this: If you want to be a writer, a storyteller, and you’ve got a story you really believe in – don’t wait around for someone to give you permission to reach out to your audience. Do it anyway. We live in an amazing age where technology allows us to find the stories we need to hear, and for writers to discover whole new worlds of readers.

Ten people might read the story and maybe only a couple will like it. But at the end of the day, my job as a storyteller is to do justice to the story and let it have a life of its own, regardless of my own fear of failure or rejection.

7. When can we expect to see the sequel of Murder of Crows?

I hope to release the sequel to ‘Murder of Crows’ in the autumn of 2013. If all goes well, I’ll have a preview up by July 2013.

8. Describe in three or fewer sentences what makes your book unique and why a reader should buy it.

‘Murder of Crows’ is a book about magic and love and taking risks. It’s a story loaded with mythological creatures, near death experiences, aerial combat with Avians and dragons, adventure and difficult choices. It’s a fantastical escapism with some humor and grief and a desire to remind us all that we each have bit of wonder left in us which we never really outgrow.

Visit Athena's Website
Check out Murder of Crows on Amazon

My Review of Murder of Crows

Review: Transfer Day

Title: Transfer Day

Author: Sophie Schiller

Page Count: 327

My Rating: 4 TURTLES: A great read, I definitely recommend.

Description:

If you can imagine "Summer of My German Soldier" set on a Caribbean island replete with German spy characters, Old World Danish characters, colorful West Indian characters, blazing Luger pistols, a mad Voodoo Queen, and a brave and resourceful heroine, then you have a good picture of Spy Island.

When Abby Maduro is orphaned, she is sent off to live with her estranged aunt on St. Thomas Island. After witnessing a brutal murder at the hand of a German saboteur, she vows to devote her time to spy hunting. Soon after arriving she befriends Erich Seibold, a German deserter who teaches Abby that the world of spying is much more dangerous and complex than she could possibly imagine.

Review:

Transfer Day is an exciting adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Abby is spunky, yet innocent heroine with a big heart and a lot of guts. A cast of distinctive, wonderfully drawn minor characters adds their own, distinctive flavor to this tale as well. I love being immersed in the world of the Caribbean during World War I, I felt like I was looking into a snapshot of the past. This book is full of adventure, exciting twists, just when I thought I had the plot figured out, it would change again. I could not tell what would happen next, and kept turning the pages eager to find out.

The story is told in first person present tense from Abby’s point of view. This aided my suspense since I found out things as she did, but there were some areas where I found the narrative perspective distracting. The other main character is Erich Seibold, and he has many secrets at the beginning of the book. When he tells Abby the story of who he is and where he comes from, there are pages just of his dialogue as he tells his story. There is no change of point of view, but Erich’s story-telling sounds more like a chapter of switched perspective than a man telling a story. There were also instances where there was some tense disagreement that was briefly distracting, but didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the story.

Sophie Schiller’s book was highly entertaining, and I definitely recommend you check it out, especially if you love historical fiction and adventure. I would say that this book would fall somewhere between late Middle Grade and early Young Adult. There is some violence – fist-fights and gun shots- that would probably be the “worst” of it. There is a romance, but it is very tame and sweet. The descriptions, the characters, and the plot of this story all weave together into a tight package of fun that you do not want to miss.

Buy Transfer Day on Amazon

Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.

Blog Tour Stop: Spy Island Review

Title: Spy Island

Author: Sophie Schiller

Page Count: 327

My Rating: 4 TURTLES: A great read, I definitely recommend.

Author’s Blog

Author's Facebook

Description:

If you can imagine "Summer of My German Soldier" set on a Caribbean island replete with German spy characters, Old World Danish characters, colorful West Indian characters, blazing Luger pistols, a mad Voodoo Queen, and a brave and resourceful heroine, then you have a good picture of Spy Island.

When Abby Maduro is orphaned, she is sent off to live with her estranged aunt on St. Thomas Island. After witnessing a brutal murder at the hand of a German saboteur, she vows to devote her time to spy hunting. Soon after arriving she befriends Erich Seibold, a German deserter who teaches Abby that the world of spying is much more dangerous and complex than she could possibly imagine.

Review:

Spy Island is an exciting adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Abby is spunky, yet innocent heroine with a big heart and a lot of guts. A cast of distinctive, wonderfully drawn minor characters adds their own, distinctive flavor to this tale as well. I love being immersed in the world of the Caribbean during World War I, I felt like I was looking into a snapshot of the past. This book is full of adventure, exciting twists, just when I thought I had the plot figured out, it would change again. I could not tell what would happen next, and kept turning the pages eager to find out.

The story is told in first person present tense from Abby’s point of view. This aided my suspense since I found out things as she did, but there were some areas where I found the narrative perspective distracting. The other main character is Erich Seibold, and he has many secrets at the beginning of the book. When he tells Abby the story of who he is and where he comes from, there are pages just of his dialogue as he tells his story. There is no change of point of view, but Erich’s story-telling sounds more like a chapter of switched perspective than a man telling a story. There were also instances where there was some tense disagreement that was briefly distracting, but didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the story.

Sophie Schiller’s book was highly entertaining, and I definitely recommend you check it out, especially if you love historical fiction and adventure. I would say that this book would fall somewhere between late Middle Grad and early Young Adult. There is some violence – fist-fights and gun shots- that would probably be the “worst” of it. There is a romance, but it is very tame and sweet. The descriptions, the characters, and the plot of this story all weave together into a tight package of fun that you do not want to miss.

Author bio:

Sophie Schiller grew up in the West Indies amid aging pirates and retired German spies. She was educated at American University, Washington, D.C. and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Buy Spy Island on Amazon

Blog Tour Stop Guest Post: LARP: The Battle for Verona

Artists are “inspired” by other artists, which really just means that they saw something someone else did, and either totally ripped off the idea, or, they took the idea and reworked it in a way that made it their own. Twilight was inspired by Dracula. The Hunger Games was inspired by stories and activities from ancient Rome.

Click pic for Amazon

My novel, LARP: The Battle for Verona, was inspired by Jack Kerouac and Bruce Springsteen. If you don’t know, Kerouac was a prominent post-war writer who hitchhiked across America in the 1940’s, and wrote novels about his adventures. The novels are sort of a mix of fiction and autobiography, and in them, Kerouac mythologized his friends.

Most everyone reading this knows Bruce Springsteen, the great poet of New Jersey. He is similar to Kerouac in that he mythologized his experiences, and his hometown. Both Kerouac and Springsteen are romantics, in that they romanticize their existence and experiences.

Is Verona exactly the way I describe it? Nope, probably not. But, it’s how I see it, how I remember it. In my mind, it’s a Rockwellian, Mayberry place that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a small town where I saw the same people every day, doing the same thing. We grew up together in the grocery store and post office.

I wanted to capture my hometown of Verona, PA, to preserve it for myself in my later years. I’m only 36, but the last 20 years have gone by so fast, that I don’t want to lose, or forget, any of it when I’m too old to remember.

And I wanted to share it with you, the reader, in a way that would hopefully make you smile sweetly about your hometown, too. 

About the Author:

Justin Calderone is 35 years old, and has been writing stories as long as he’s been able to hold a pencil. Justin began to work actively on his writing in 1995 after reading Jack Kerouac’s novel, Desolation Angels. The freedom and spirituality of Kerouac’s prose struck a deep chord with Justin, and he has been defining and finding himself through his own writing ever since. Justin’s first book, the poetry novel Revolutions, was released in 2004, and is available at bookstores everywhere, and online.

Justin’s latest novel LARP: The Battle for Verona is scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2012.

Justin is a total music snob/obsessive, and hopes that the Yankees win their 28th World Championship this year. Follow him on Twitter @justincalderone

Author Website

Virtual Book Tour for Justin Calderone’s LARP: The Battle of Verona

Click pic to go to Amazon

Dennis and his friends have been LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) since high school. Now, in his 20s, Dennis is seriously considering giving up LARPing for good. He’s tired of dealing with his overzealous friend Mark; he’s tired of his older brother Brad’s constant put-downs; and he’s tired of the fact that he doesn’t have a girlfriend. Check that. Not a girlfriend, but the girlfriend.Alyssa—the one woman he’s been pining over for years. Dennis and his fellow LARPers have never been considered cool, in their small island community of Verona, located off the coast of Washington State. But all of that is about to change . . . While Dennis and his friends are attending a big LARP tournament on the mainland, a rogue terrorist group of Mongolians in medieval garb, led by an American madman, invade Verona and take its citizens hostage—including their families and friends. When the LARPers find out what’s happening in their home-town, they do what any dedicated LARPer would do: they put on their armor, strap on their swords, and fight their way home—LARP-style!

For More information:
Author's Website

Blog Tour Stop: Guest Post by Amalia Dillin, author of Forged By Fate

WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION FOR FORGED BY FATE?

The Origins of Forged by Fate

What if all the gods lived, and all mythology was true?

That’s where Forged by Fate started, from that big what if question I’ve been fighting with since childhood, when I asked my mother if the Olympians were the black sheep of God’s family – cousins and nieces and nephews, related distantly and never invited for dinner. (She said no, and I still remember feeling somehow disappointed. Sunday school was fine, but it would have been a lot more interesting with some Greek gods thrown into the mix.)

What if all the gods were real? What if all the different myths were just stories from other worlds, and what if all those different gods were brought together under one roof. After all, my inner-self argued, if ONE religion is true, if even ONE god actually exists, then that could mean there are others. That could mean they’re all out there, somewhere, arguing over who gets what and plotting to kick one another out if they don’t get their way.

But that wasn’t the only idea that made Forged by Fate what it is today. Distinct from this idea of mythology coming to life, there was another, pestering question in the back of my mind. What if there was a woman who lived, life after life, over and over again, witnessing history generation after generation.

How that woman became Eve, I don’t recall – only that she went through several (re)incarnations (ha!) before I settled there. But it was always a woman, not-quite-mortal, and the family she had claimed throughout history meeting her again in the present. And once that woman became Eve, in a world where all the gods lived, and all mythology was true, I couldn’t very well ignore Adam.

Forged by Fate is the result of a mish-mash of ideas that somehow, through no conscious intent of my own, all came together into this big, beautiful tapestry of all the things I loved most.

And really, if you’re going to write a book, why would you have it any other way?

Follow Friday

 Q: What is a book you didn’t like that all your friends raved about or what book did you love that
wasn’t popular?

 A: I would say the Matched Trilogy. I didn't hate it, but I felt very underwhelmed considering all the hype that went into it. I've read the first two and plan on reading the last one at some point, but I definitely did not feel all the love that other people are giving the books.

 What was you answer this week?

 Posts of Note:
My March Giveaway: signed copies of Spy Island and The Gypsy Thief
Review: Murder of Crows