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What makes you happiest? Talking to kids who have read my book. Their enthusiasm is addictive, and they teach me more about my writing than all the adult critics and readers combined. Barring that, I’ll settle for chocolate. Dark chocolate. Or the smell of the Atlantic ocean along the New England coast. Who is your favorite author? Gah! Only one? I couldn’t possibly pick just one. Here’s the top of my list, though: 1) Jasper Fforde, author of the two insanely funny series Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes, both of which create alternate worlds out of existing literary ones; 2) Michael Chabon, author of the ridiculously brilliant, Pulitzer Prize winning The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; 3) Neil Gaiman, of course; and 4) Rick Yancey, especially for his Monstrumologist series. There are others, of course, but since you asked me for one and I gave you four, I should probably quit before you evict me.
What book genre of books do you adore? I’ve read pretty extensively in nearly every genre, thanks to my degrees in English Literature, though I was a very heavy reader to begin with. That said, I’ll always get warm fuzzies for SciFi and Fantasy, which is where I escaped to throughout my teen years. Within classic literature, I love the Victorian romantic novelists, especially Thomas Hardy, and early Gothic romance is also great to get the juices flowing. I read a lot of Czech (especially the Kapek brothers, Vaclav Havel, and expat Josef Skvorecky), Russian (especially Dostoyevky and Bulgakov) and Japanese fiction (including Mishima, Murakami, and Tanizaki), as well. There’s a strong absurdist/fantastic thread running through a lot of those authors, now that I look at it. I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone who has read my work.
Do you find it hard to share your work? Of course I do. I think everyone does, particularly if what you’ve written is personal or close to the heart. Working in marketing and internet publishing helped steel my nerves somewhat, but I’m still fairly skittish when it comes to my fiction. Luckily, I’ve got a great support network: my mom reads all of my first draft chapters as I write them, which alerts me to major issues that I need to address immediately, and I have a few close friends who I trust with early finished drafts. It really helps to have a network of readers you trust – not only do they help with proofreading and catch major plot and character issues, but they also give you a safe environment to slowly introduce your work to the world.
Do you plan to publish more books? Oh, yes! I’m working on the sequel to ROOT BOUND in the Emma & the Elemental series now. It’s called WATER WORKS, and it will include appearances by several of the ROOT BOUND characters, plus loads of new ones. There will be two more books after that (one for each element: earth, water, fire and air). After that, I’ve got a grown up book planned; it’s a historical fiction based loosely on my great-grandfather’s immigrant experiences in Boston in the early 1900s. I’ve been collecting information along the way, so hopefully I’ll have enough to work from by the time I finish the Emma series.
Genre - Middle Grade Fantasy Adventure
Rating – G (ages 10+)
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