Congratulations are in order to Jenna Greene for winning the Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. I asked Jenna some questions about her experience.
Which book won the award?
Reborn – a YA dystopian novel. (The first in a new series).
Can you tell us a little about the story and its characters?
This is a story about a girl named Lexil who is banished to slavery because of the marks on her skin. These marks state that she has lived previous lives and, as such, is to toil in service for those not fortunate enough to have multiple lives.
Why is this story important to you?
This story is important to me on many levels. One – it is a genuinely good story. I feel it is the best writing I’ve done so far. Two – I love the characters and the mythology. I kept the premise of the story simple, but the mythology is unique. Three – I wrote this book in a turbulent part of my life. This story will be forever connected to my mother, as I wrote the first half of it when she was sick and the second half of it after she passed away. And when you write a book about connection to past lives, and those who have lived before … there is no way to escape the fact that maybe those who love us never really leave.
When did you decide to submit this book for the award?
I’ve never submitted a book for an award before but, as mentioned, I feel very proud of this book and very connected too. It just felt okay, for once, to see if others thought it was worthy of recognition.
Where was the award ceremony held?
Traverse City, Michigan.
Can you tell us about the Moonbeam‘s Award – who can apply, who sponsors it etc.?
The Moonbeam Children’s Book Award has bronze, silver, and gold for various categories in Children’s Literature. My novel, Reborn, tied for gold in the YA science fiction and fantasy category. The awards are sponsored by the Jenkin’s Group.
How was your trip to the award ceremony?
Eventful, to say the least. I nearly didn’t make it, as traveling from Canada in winter isn’t exactly easy. Security scanners broke at the Calgary airport, delaying my traveling buddy and I in the line for two hours. We barely caught our flight to Chicago. Our connecting flight to Michigan couldn’t land because of snow, so we had to try again the next night. My luggage wasn’t lost, but it was inaccessible, so I spent 24 hours without it… and the list goes on. But travel adventures make good writing later!
Jenna Greene is the author of the acclaimed Young Adult Fantasy series, Imagine! She is a middle school teacher, dragon-boat coach, enthusiastic dancer, and semi-professional napper. She lives in Lethbridge, Alberta with her husband (Scott), daughter (Olivia), and dog (Thor, dog of thunder).
celeberrimous adj 1768 -1768
very or most highly celebrated
Her celeberrimous accomplishments were lauded by her colleagues.
krioboly n 1850 -1882
sacrifice of many rams; bath in blood of rams
Contrary to rumor, pagan rituals do not involve krioboly or baby-eating.
medioxumate adj 1723 -1723
of gods of intermediate rank between those of heaven and of hell
Medioxumate deities such as those of the Greek pantheon are rarely worshiped today.
nerterology n 1800 -1800
learning relating to the dead or the underworld
Her inquiries into nerterology were inspired by a youthful visit to a medieval crypt.
poliadic adj 1886 -1886
of the nature of a local or tutelary god
Respect for poliadic spirits and deities continued long after the region converted.
My sentence: Throughout the professors investigations, he was intrigued by the nerterology of poliadic, celeberrimous and medioxumate figures within the ancient religions. The krioboly however was distasteful to his way of thinking.
Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want.
Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.
Featuring all new work by Jane Yolen, Andrew Bud Adams, Laura Blackwood, Amanda Block, Scott Burtness, Virginia Carraway Stark, Amanda C. Davis, Megan Fennell, Kim Goldberg, Katherine Marzinsky, Craig Pay, Sara Puls, Holly Schofield, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.
Contents:
“Introduction” by Rhonda Parrish
“Scarecrow Hangs” by Jane Yolen
“Kakashi & Crow” by Megan Fennell
“The Roofnight” by Amanda C. Davis
“Skin Map” by Kim Goldberg
“A Fist Full of Straw” by Kristina Wojtaszek
“Judge & Jury” by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
“Waking from His Master’s Dream” by Katherine Marzinsky
“The Straw Samurai” by Andrew Bud Adams
“Black Birds” by Laura Blackwood
“Edith and I” by Virginia Carraway Stark
“Scarecrow Progressions (Rubber Duck Remix)” by Sara Puls
“Truth About Crows” by Craig Pay
“Two Steps Forward” by Holly Schofield
“Only the Land Remembers” by Amanda Block
“If I Only Had an Autogenic Cognitive Decision Matrix” by Scott Burtness
Direct library or bulk purchase available through World Weaver Press (contact publisher@worldweaverpress.com for rates).
BIOS
ANTHOLOGIST BIO:
Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for nearly eight years now (which is like forever in internet time) and is the editor of several anthologies including Fae, Corvidae, Scarecrow, and B is for Broken. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been in dozens of publications like Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast, Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012) and Mythic Delirium. Her website, updated weekly, is at rhondaparrish.com.
CONTRIBUTOR BIOS:
Andrew Bud Adams was raised by spider-men and turtle ninjas and ronin rabbits, who are now helping raise his own children. “The Straw Samurai,” inspired by them and the Japanese folk tale “The Tengu’s Magic Cloak,” is one of his first published retellings. When not wandering between fantasy villages or teaching college writing, he can be found on Twitter @andrewbudadams.
Whenever grownups asked young Laura Blackwood what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said “Published!” That dream finally came true—Black Birds is her first story to see print. Laura currently lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta, and tinkers with many more writing projects than is considered wise or healthy.
Amanda Block is a writer and ghostwriter based in Edinburgh, UK. A graduate of the Creative Writing Masters at the University of Edinburgh, she is often inspired by myths and fairy tales, frequently using them as a starting point to tell other stories. Amanda’s work has been featured in anthologies such as Modern Grimmoire, Stories for Homes, and World Weaver Press’ Fae. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Chapter One Promotions Short Story Competition. Amanda is currently working on her first novel. She can be found online at amandawritersblock.blogspot.co.uk.
Scott Burtness lives in Minnesota with his wife, Liz and their English Staffordshire-Boxer, Frank. He has it on good authority that he possesses all of the requisite parts to be considered human, and sincerely believes he’s taller when measured with the metric system. Scott’s debut novel, WISCONSIN VAMP, is available on Amazon.com. When not writing horror-comedy romps or sci-fi adventures, Scott enjoys bowling, karaoke, craft brews and afternoon naps. Follow him on Twitter (@SWBauthor). Don’t follow him down dark alleys.
Amanda C. Davis has an engineering degree and a fondness for baking, gardening, and low-budget horror films. Her work has appeared in Crossed Genres, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and others. She tweets enthusiastically as @davisac1. You can find out more about her and read more of her work at amandacdavis.com. Her collection of retold fairy tales with Megan Engelhardt, Wolves and Witches, is available from World Weaver Press.
Megan Fennell is a court clerk, cat owner, and writer of strange tales, currently living and working in Lethbridge, Alberta. Although loving magpies to the point of having two of them tattooed on her, it was the Danish myth of the Valravn that held her corvid-like attention span for this anthology. Her stories can also be found in Wrestling with Gods: Tesseracts 18, Tesseracts 17, OnSpec Magazine, and the charity anthology Help: Twelve Tales of Healing.
Kim Goldberg is an award-winning writer and author of six books. She is a winner of the Rannu Fund Poetry Prize for Speculative Literature and other distinctions. Her speculative tales and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Tesseracts 11, Zahir Tales, On Spec, Urban Green Man, Dark Mountain, Imaginarium, Here Be Monsters, Switched On Gutenberg and elsewhere. Her seventh book, Refugium, about people living with electrosensitivity, will be released in 2015. She lives in Nanaimo, BC, and online at PigSquashPress.com.
Katherine Marzinsky is a writer and student currently residing in New Jersey. She attends Kean University, where she is working toward an undergraduate degree with a major in English and a minor in Spanish. Her previous work has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, A Cappella Zoo, Cease, Cows, and The Inanimates I story anthology.
Craig Pay is a short story author and novelist. He writes speculative fiction (usually). His short stories have appeared with a number of different magazines and anthologies. He is represented by John Jarrold. Craig runs the successful Manchester Speculative Fiction writers’ group. He enjoys Chinese martial arts and many other hobbies. You can visit him at craigpay.com.
Sara Puls spends most of her time lawyering, researching, writing, and editing. Her dreams frequently involve strange mash-ups of typography, fairy creatures, courtrooms, and blood. Sara’s stories have been published in Daily Science Fiction, The Future Fire, GigaNotoSaurus, Penumbra, World Weaver Press’s Fae anthology, and elsewhere. She also co-edits Scigentasy, a gender- and identity-focused spec fic zine. On Twitter, she is @sarapuls.
Holly Schofield’s work has appeared in many publications including Lightspeed, Crossed Genres, and Tesseracts. For more of her work, see hollyschofield.wordpress.com.
Virginia Carraway Stark started her writing career with three successful screenplays and went on to write speculative fiction as well as writing plays and for various blogs. She has written for several anthologies and three novels as well. Her novel, Dalton’s Daughter is available now through Amazon and Starklight Press. Detachment’s Daughter and Carnival Fun are coming later this year. You can find her on Twitter @tweetsbyvc, on Facebook Facebook.com/virginiacarrawaystark.
LauraVanArendonk Baugh was born at a very early age and never looked back. She overcame childhood deficiencies of having been born without teeth or developed motor skills, and by the time she matured into a recognizable adult she had become a behavior analyst, an internationally-recognized animal trainer, a costumer/cosplayer, a dark chocolate addict, and a Pushcart Prize-nominated author with a following for her folklore-based stories and speculative fiction. Find her at LauraVanArendonkBaugh.com.
Kristina Wojtaszek grew up as a woodland sprite and mermaid, playing around the shores of Lake Michigan. At any given time she could be found with live snakes tangled in her hair and worn out shoes filled with sand. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Management as an excuse to spend her days lost in the woods with a book in hand. Now a mother of two little tricksters and their menagerie of small beasts, she continues to conjure bits of fantasy during the rare spell of silence. Her fairy tales, ghost stories, poems and YA fiction have been published by World Weaver Press (Opal, Fae, and Specter Spectacular), Far Off Places and Sucker Literary Magazine. Follow her @KristinaWojtasz or on her blog, Twice Upon a Time.
Mr. Yegpie the magpie, tweets as @YegMagpie on Twitter
Jane Yolen, often called “the Hans Christian Andersen of America”(Newsweek) is the author of well over 350 books, including OWL MOON, THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC, and HOW DO DINOSAURS SAY GOODNIGHT. Her books and stories have won an assortment of awards—two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic awards, two Christopher Medals, a nomination for the National Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award, among many others. She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is also the winner (for body of work) of the World Fantasy Assn. Lifetime Achievement Award, Science Fiction Poetry Association Grand Master Award, Catholic Library’s Regina Medal, Kerlan Medal from the University of Minnesota, the du Grummond Medal from Un. of Southern Missisippi, the Smith College Alumnae Medal, and New England Pubic Radio Arts and Humanities Award . Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates. Her website is: http://www.janeyolen.com.
As part of a blog tour, I am interviewing the authors and the editor/anthologist involved in the project anthology, Corvidae. Published through World Weaver Press. This will post as I am on vacation….Today I launch with the Pulbisher: Rhonda Parrish.
A flock of shiny stories!
Associated with life and death, disease and luck, corvids have long captured mankind’s attention, showing up in mythology as the companions or manifestations of deities, and starring in stories from Aesop to Poe and beyond.
In Corvidae birds are born of blood and pain, trickster ravens live up to their names, magpies take human form, blue jays battle evil forces, and choughs become prisoners of war. These stories will take you to the Great War, research facilities, frozen mountaintops, steam-powered worlds, remote forest homes, and deep into fairy tales. One thing is for certain, after reading this anthology, you’ll never look the same way at the corvid outside your window.
EXCERPTS:
See additional document in the PRESS KIT folder.
CONTENTS:
Edited by Rhonda Parrish
“Introduction” by Rhonda Parrish
“A Murder of Crows” by Jane Yolen
“Whistles and Trills” by Kat Otis
“The Valravn” by Megan Fennell
“A Mischief of Seven” by Leslie Van Zwol
“Visiting Hours” by Michael S. Pack
“The Rookery of Sainte-Mère-Église” by Tim Deal
“The Cruelest Team Will Win” by Mike Allen
“What Is Owed” by C.S.E. Cooney
“Raven No More” by Adria Laycraft
“The Tell-Tale Heart of Existence” by Michael M. Rader
“Sanctuary” by Laura VanArendonk Baugh
“Knife Collection, Blood Museum, Birds (Scarecrow Remix)” by Sara Puls
Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for nearly eight years now (which is like forever in internet time) and is the editor of several anthologies including Fae and B is for Broken. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been in dozens of publications like Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast, Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012) and Mythic Delirium. Her website, updated weekly, is at rhondaparrish.com.
What do you enjoy most about writing?
Sharing stories. I really like creating characters and scenarios and worlds and then sharing them with other people. It’s even better when the people I’m sharing with enjoy the story as much as I did and tell me so–I am not without an ego LOL
What do you enjoy most about editing?
I love coming up with a theme and then seeing all the amazing ways writers explore that theme. They always, always, always come up with things I never would have ever dreamed of. I also really enjoy working with writers to help make their amazing stories even stronger. It’s incredibly fulfilling to have someone trust you with their work and walk away feeling as though you not only justified that trust, but helped them make the story better. I will never get tired of that.
Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? What is it?
Um. No. I don’t think so.
What book are you reading now?
I just finished At the Water’s Edge: A Novel by Sara Gruen which was well-written and kept me up late turning the pages, and began reading The Toyminator by Robert Rankin. The Toyminator is the sequel to The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse which I really liked so I have high expectations for it J
Do you see writing as a career?
Absolutely. Writing and editing both, actually. Happily for me they work very well together and each feeds the other. What I mean is being an editor has definitely improved my writing, and being a writer has helped me as an editor. Win/win. If only I could turn off my inner editor while I’m writing first drafts…
Do you nibble as you write? If so what’s your favorite snack food?
Mostly I drink, and not what you’re thinking either LOL While I’m happy to indulge in an alcoholic drink or three sometimes in the evening I never drink alcohol when I’m writing. I don’t have a moral objection to it or anything, mostly the timelines don’t line up. Alcohol is an ‘in the evening’ thing and writing is a ‘during the day’ thing. However, when I’m writing there’s usually a Diet Dr. Pepper within reach or, if my focus has been especially lacking, sometimes a Red Bull.
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Probably right here… though hopefully with a few more titles on my ego shelf LOL I don’t know if I’ll still be editing Rhonda Parrish’s Magical Menageries anthology series ten years from now (though you never know LOL) but I’d definitely still like to be both writing and editing. Bonus marks for myself if I’ve got a couple/few novels out as well J
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
The first draft. Seriously. Oftentimes I get so twisted up in my own head that I become paralyzed and don’t write anything. It’s a serious problem. I’ve found tools for working around it and my strategy is basically ‘Do whatever you need to to get the words on the page’ but still… first drafts kick my butt every time.
What is your favorite book?
My favourite books (this week) are The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle and The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman but there are so many beautifully-written books and stories out there.
Why an anthology about corvids?
I’ve always loved corvids, their intelligence, beauty, playfulness… Once upon a time I wanted to write a single author collection of corvid stories but as time went on and I realised how many other people shared my love of all things corvidae I thought it would be even cooler to make an anthology.
Why scarecrows?
Scarecrows go with corvids like butter goes with popcorn. How could I not have a companion anthology to go with the corvidae? Besides, I’ve got a great deal of love for scarecrows–they hit exactly the right spot on the uncanny spectrum for me.
What genre is your next project? What is it about?
My next title in this anthology series is going to be Sirens (opening to submissions August 15th). Like the other anthologies in this series it will be speculative fiction, probably leaning closer to fantasy than science fiction given the subject matter, but you never know…
CORVIDAE, praise
“Smart and dark like the corvids themselves, this excellent collection of stories and poems will bring you a murder of chills, a tiding of intrigue, a band of the fantastic, and—most of all—an unkindness of sleepy mornings after you’ve stayed up too late reading it!”
— Karen Dudley, author of Kraken Bake
“Magic and corvids collide in this certain to intrigue anthology.”
— Joshua Klein, hacker and inventor of the crow vending machine
“A creepy, crazy kaleidoscope of corvids,Corvidae is what happens when you bring together ingenious writers and sagacious subjects. It’s nothing short of a thrill ride when this anthology takes flight.”
— Susan G. Friedman, Ph. D., Utah State University; behaviorworks.org.
“As sparkling and varied as a corvid’s hoard of treasures, Corvidae is by turns playful and somber, menacing and mischievous. From fairy tale to steampunk adventure, from field of war to scene of crime, these magical birds will take you to places beyond your wildest imaginings.”
— Jennifer Crow, poet and corvid-by-marriage
“Corvidae evokes the majesty and mischief of corvid mythologies worldwide—and beyond our world—in a collection that is fresh and thoroughly enjoyable.”
— Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger
Praise for the series RHONDA PARRISH’S MAGICAL MENAGERIE
“Delightfully refreshing! I should have known that editor Parrish (who also edits the cutting edge horror zine, Niteblade) would want to offer something quite unique. I found it difficult to stop reading as one story ended and another began – all fantastic work by gifted writers. Not for the faint of heart, by any means.”
— Marge Simon, multiple Bram Stoker® winner
“Stories of magical beings and the humans they encounter will enthrall and enlighten the reader about both the mundane and the otherworldly. I devoured it.”
— Kate Wolford, editor of Beyond the Glass Slipper, editor and publisher of Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine
“Seventeen tales… range in feel from horror to upbeat tales about homes where things go right, and are set everywhere from the modern day to mythical fantasy pasts. The best of these stories evoke things from real life – loves and values – and show characters making hard choices that reveal who they are and what they’re made of.”
— Tangent
“There’s no Disney-esque flutter and glitter to be found here — but there are chills and thrills aplenty.”
— Mike Allen, author of Unseaming and editor of Clockwork Phoenix
Authors to look out for are:
Laura VanArendonk, Angela Slatter, Mark Rapacz, Michael M. Rader, Sara Puls, Kat Otis, Adria Laycraft, L.D. Curelas, Megan Engelhardt, Tim Deal, C.S.E. Cooney, Mike Allen, Michael S. Pack, Jane Yolen, Megan Fennell, Leslie Van Zwol, Scott Burtness, Kristina Wojtaszek.
May I introduce N.M. Pondus, who wishes to keep his anonymity with an icon instead of a photo. His work is influenced by mythology and the standards of those era’s, which links to today’s word quite nicely. Probity – definition: honesty, uprightness.
a) Of the characters you have created or envisioned, which is your favorite & why? I definitely like my main character, Diomedes, the best. He was the inspiration for all my stories so far. I’ve always been a mythology and folklore nut and loved the heroes from Homer’s Odyssey, but we only hear about a few of them. The more I read and did research, the more I kept coming back to Diomedes, Son of Tydeus and King of Argos during the Trojan War. Most people never get beyond Achilles, but much more humble and just as capable was Diomedes, who, according to the stories was far more feared on the battlefield than any other Greek in the war. In fact, he is the only human ever to have wounded, not one, but two Immortals in battle—including Ares. He was fearless, and more importantly, incredibly intelligent on the battlefield, and he was the best fighter out there. He was also honorable and loyal.
Diomedes and Athena attacking Ares (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
His back story is awesome, too. At 15, he and a group of young men lead an army to restore the proper king to the throne of Thebes in the War of the Epigoni, the greatest war until Troy. They did what their fathers could not and it cemented his legacy. The coolest part of his story and the one that played best into the mythology of my stories is that he was so honorable in battle that Athena chose him as her champion at Troy and she granted him special abilities and powers to enable him to see and attack Immortals during battle. At the end of the war, Athena offered Diomedes immortality, but nothing is written much beyond some conflicting stories except he simply disappears over time. That was my cue: A human with the abilities to recognize non-human beings influencing and using humans for their own gains and strong enough to defend them. He’s also got a bit of me in him, too.
b) Do you favor one type of genre or do you dabble in more than one? No, I’m pretty much Urban Fantasy all the way. I love to read all kinds of stuff, but I still head there first when I look for something to read. I love the myths and tales, but I also find great inspiration from our modern, real world.
c) What do you enjoy most about writing? I love weaving a story and developing characters. I really like those times when I’m doing research and I find things that seem unrelated at first, but then figure out some way to tie them together. I seriously enjoy using mythological reasons to explain unexplained real world events. And developing characters allows you to live outside of yourself for a bit. It’s all fun.
d) Have you got a favorite place to write? You know I still write on a desktop-based computer so I write in my “office.” It’s actually a spare bedroom with a desk in it. I will say that I use my iPad to do all kinds of research though, which I will do when and wherever an idea strikes me.
e) Do you plan your stories, or are you a seat of the pants style writer? The basic story line and framework is planned, but most of the details are seat of the pants. I know where I want to go, but not necessarily how I want to get there. Again, I do lots and lots of research on stuff, so I constantly get ideas that I want to incorporate and sometimes a perfect opportunity presents itself as I’m writing. It keeps me thinking.
f) What inspires your stories? Partly my background and interests and partly pure imagination. Sometimes it’s more one than the other, but they all play a role. Originally, I was inspired by a crazy thought about creatures that could only be killed with specific weapons. Why wouldn’t a Barrett M107 firing Raufoss rounds not blow the living snot out of a vampire? It’d blow a hole through a cement wall at 1000 yards and still kill the guy on the other side of it. Simple physics would tell you that much energy would do some serious damage to anything, even if it didn’t kill it. Also, I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to myths and legends. I like things in their original forms, mostly because they were so much cooler. Now we change things to romanticize them or make them fit into a specific world, and we insist on using the same name for the creature. I’m sorry, but vampires just should not sparkle in the sunlight. I’m really big into accuracy and authenticity.
g) What are you currently reading? A few books. I’m re-reading the Hobbit and I’ve been desperately trying to get through The Naked Edge by David Morrell. I’ve got a big list of books I want to read, but just haven’t yet though. I constantly re-read a lot of classics, too.
h) Do you have any odd habits or childhood stories? I am an odd childhood story. My parents considered me the “good” one in the family. That’s odd enough. Other than my addiction to fly-fishing, I can’t think of any really bizarre stuff. I once threw up on our pizza at a Pizza Hut when I was little. In my defense, I was sick. I threw up on my younger brother, too. He slept below me in offset bunk beds.
i) Do you have any pets? Always. Right now, I have a cat and a dog. The dog is a Shiba Inu named Typhon that thinks he’s a Cu Sith. The cat is named Nyx. See, lots of mythology there… and each aptly named.
j) Do you belong to a writing group? If so which one? You know, I don’t. Writing to me is very private and painful at times and I choose to push through on my own. I have a small group of friends and family that support me and act as my Beta readers and I have an outstanding editor.k) What age did you start writing stories/poems? Technically, not until my late 30s. I wrote academically for scientific journals for years through graduate school and then for magazines, but I never wrote fiction until recently. As a kid, I used to come up with all kinds of stories in my head though.
l) Do you have a book published? If so what is it called & where can readers purchase it? Alas, not yet. I’m still in that search-for-a-publisher/agent phase, even though I’m just wrapping up my second story. You can still go to my website and read the first few chapters of the first book, Humanity’s Fist and see a description of the one I’m just finishing now, The Hanner Brid.
m) If you could meet one favorite author who would it be and why? I guess I would say Jim Butcher, author of Dresden Files series. His stories have been a major influence on me and he sounds much more fun and less uptight than so many other authors out there.
n) If you could live anywhere in the world – where would it be? Anywhere my wife is… but someplace warm, near water would be good, too.
o) What’s your favorite movie of all time? Oh, holy mackerel… a toss up between The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Jaws, The Count of Monte Cristo (the newer one), and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
p) Where can readers find you and your blog? My website is www.nmpondus.com and it has links to my blog on it, but it’s also at nmpondus.tumblr.com or on twitter at @nmpondus. https://twitter.com/NMPondus
q) Do you have plans or ideas for your next book? Of course! And even the one after that. I get so many ideas from so many weird places that I now keep track of them. It’ll stay in my same story line, with the same characters, just different problems and issues. The real world provides so much fodder for Urban Fantasy its almost unreal!
r) Who is your best supporter/mentor/encourager? Easy–my wife. I’d never have been able to do this if not for her support and encouragement.
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Mandy Eve-Barnett's Blog for Readers & Writers 