Kahnee Interviews Carole McDonnell

My friend and fellow blogger Kahnee, over at Single & Blessed, recently had the chance to talk to Carole McDonnell about her debut book Wind Follower. I've picked a few of my favorite questions and answers but when you're done reading here you should follow the link and check out the rest of the interview.

Who are the two main characters in Wind Follower, and why do you think readers will love them?

Satha is the main female character. She’s a poor girl who finds herself suddenly betrothed one day to a rich kid. Very upsetting for her. But she does it. She’s practical and kind-hearted. Loic is the boy who suddenly decides he wants to marry her. He’s kind also, and he’s a typical petulant teenager who grows into manhood. Loic is not the regular hero. He’s got an illness. He’s been under the care of women who dote on him. He reads poetry, for heaven’s sake. Not epic poetry, love poetry. When Loic first sees Satha, what he likes about her is that she is caring and brave. Yes, she's beautiful - but he what matters is that she is kind.

They’re both good people. And lots of amazingly fantastic, triumphant, and heart-breaking things happen to them. What more can you ask for? The stories share a common plot but when the main characters are parted, Satha’s part becomes something like a slave narrative and Loic’s becomes a quest. Yes, Every African-American writer should write a slave narrative, don’t you think? It’s epic, and romance, and slave narrative. The reader should like it.

Where do you think speculative fiction is heading?

I really don’t know. Humans have always liked stories of the supernatural and the fantastic. As long as we’re fascinated with how the world works and with how different cultures work, we’ll love those stories. And, let’s face it, many stories are rooted in human sorrow. For instance, if we live in regret we think “what if I had done something differently?” Bingo, a time travel story is created. Writers who don’t like modern society might write a book in which history veered along a different path. Voila, an alternate history novel! A writer grieving for the loss of her dead child might do a novel on cloning. Science Fiction and Fantasy will always exist as long as writers and readers keep pondering the great “what if” of life. I think, though, that in the United States and Canada speculative fiction will become more multicultural. At least I hope so.

read the rest of the review here...

An Interview with Matthew Cook

Blood Magic is Matthew Cook’s debut and once I started reading I found myself unable to put the book down as Kirin’s past and present rushed toward each other in a story that simply demands to be read. Mr. Cook recently took the time to answer some of my burning questions about his new novel as well as his writing and publishing experiences.

What started you writing?

MC: I’ve been scribbling stories for almost as long as I can remember, actually. I remember showing some sort of Scooby Doo-esque monster whodunit to my grandfather when I was in grade school one time. He told me that he could see me being a writer one day and encouraged me to keep at it. He’s who I wrote Blood Magic's Dedication for (thanks again, Pops).

For years, I channeled my storytelling creativity into role-playing games instead of formal stories or novels. I’ve been in several regular gaming groups since college, some for years and years, generally always with me as the Game Master. This was very fun, of course, and fulfilled my urge to tell tales, but eventually decided that I wanted to actually say something that more than six or seven people could hear.

Eventually, I decided to take a chance and start writing an actual novel. It was insane: I was 35, a father of two with a full time job and countless creative "hobbies" on the side (photography, illustration, editing the PC games and hardware section for MyGamer.com) and there I was deciding to begin a writing career on top of everything else, not with short stories like most normal authors, but with a full-blown novel. Thinking back on it, it’s crazy that I ever got off the ground.

The story I decided to tell was one that I’d had rolling around in my head ever since I was an art student in Chicago. It was going to be a tale of a regular guy that ends up in the middle of a faerie war. Part of it was my missing the city: I still love Chicago and there’s a part of me that still wants to go back there one day. The mental imagery I have from that place is still so strange and unique and, well, magical, that I wanted to share it with others. I never finished that piece, but the three years that I worked on it taught me a tremendous amount about consistency and the work ethic that a novelist needs to have if they have any chance of completing a manuscript.

Since you work during the day, how and where do you find the time to work on your novel?

MC: That’s an excellent question, and it’s one that I hear quite often any time would-be writers start talking about the actual writing process. In my case, I tried several different methods of working before I hit on the one that works best for me.

I’m a night owl, so at first I tried working in the late evenings, after my family had gone to bed. It was nice and relaxing, but I found that I was too easily distracted by the web to remain focused. Often, I’d go off on a quest to do some online research and end up at 3:00 AM without a word written. I filled countless Word documents with facts that I planned to use in my writing, but very little in the way of the actual story. After a month or two of this, I’d become discouraged and abandon the story for weeks or months.

Then I read in several different author’s autobiographies or essays on writing that many of them began by getting up early, before their day jobs, to work on their fiction. Now, you have to understand: for an insomniac like me, getting up before I needed to was little different from pouring boiling oil down my pants, so I initially resisted the idea. Eventually, though, the pain of not writing exceeded the pain of getting up early, so I gave it a shot.

I think I wrote fewer than 10 pages that entire first month, all of which I ended up tossing since they were basically unreadable. But, the habit stuck. Now, I get up about 90 minutes early four to five days a week to write before work. I go to coffee places, wherever I can sit quietly and type. The swirl of people around me is actually a great distraction and seems to keep my mind limber. The deadline I have to honor if I’m to get to my job on time keeps me focused, and I can generally complete about five to seven pages every morning – that adds up week after week and month after month.

How can you not work from an outline? I always find myself getting lost without one.

MC: The answer is... I have no idea. I like to have a few pages written sketching out the overall flow of the story... This happens and then this other thing happens and somehow this last thing ends up happening as a result... that sort of thing. But I seldom know all the deeper connections until I start working. Most of the time, even I end up having those "Oh,... so that's why this guy was so hostile to my main character back in Chapter five!" moments. I like to think it's my subconscious playing shell games with my sanity.

Does that mean I never get lost? Hell no. I get lost all the time. Sometimes my little side trips lead to sub-plot swamps that I almost don't escape.... Sometimes that wastes my time while I backtrack, although I'm getting better with that the more I write. But it's so damn fun to see where the paths go that I think it's worth the extra effort. After all, if it stops being fun for me than I can't (or, more properly - won't) do it any more.

What has the publishing experience been like for you so far?

MC: So far it’s been absolutely wonderful. I feel so lucky that I ended up meeting Paula Guran from Juno Books at Context 2006, and that she decided to take a chance on my manuscript. Paula makes the entire process, from editing, to contracts, to PR, very easy for me and enjoyable. I don’t know what other people’s experiences with publishers has been, but I’m finding that so long as you remain professional and respectful of their time, working writers and editors are among the nicest people on the planet (even the curmudgeons, of which spec fiction has more than its share).

That’s not to say that it’s been easy. There’s an amazing amount of stress that a writer has to endure when they finally get to the point where they feel ready to start putting their work out into the world for consideration. If you’re not careful, you can get your ego seriously stomped into the mud. I think the thing that all writers have to remember, though, is that editors are not the enemy! Without a writer’s stories, an editor would have nothing to publish. No publishing means no money for the imprint or magazine. Editors are actively looking for new writers and new manuscripts, believe me, and most (if not all) of them got into genre editing not to strike it rich but because they love to read the kind of stories we write. Just remember to always be polite and respectful, write about things you’re genuinely excited about, and always… always… do everything you can to continuously polish your writing and one day you’ll probably sell.

When it comes to dark fantasy, since you just happening to be writing it, what do you recommend reading?

MC: Well, I’m a huge fan of urban fantasy authors like Emma Bull and Charles de Lint, and I’d recommend anything from either author. I’ve been very impressed with the work of Holly Black recently, as well – there’s definitely some dark themes happening there, if that’s your cup of tea.

Also, Juno Books (my publisher) put out a "Sneak Peek" booklet a few months back containing the first four chapters of my book, along with the first part of Silvia Kelso’s new novel Amberlight, and I have to say I was very, very impressed. Juno’s had some challenges getting Amberlight to market, but they seem to have worked through them, and I’ll definitely be picking up a copy when it’s released in November.

I think that in many ways the crime fiction genre goes well with fantasy, dark or otherwise – after all, the world portrayed in, say, a Dashiel Hammet novel is in many ways as "fantastic" as a modern fantasy. I’ve been reading a lot from James Swain recently as well, and find his Tony Valentine novels very entertaining. In this same vein, I just finished Warren Hammond’s first novel, KOP, which is a Sci-Fi, hard-boiled cop story. Not really "dark fantasy" but good stuff, nonetheless.

I also think that if you like it dark (so to speak) you really should look outside of the genre publishers - at authors like Joyce Carol Oates. Some of the stuff she writes about, both in her short fiction as well as in her novels is more chilling than practically anything I’ve read that’s been published specifically as "dark fantasy" or even "horror". Plus, she has a way of building images with words that is, quite literally, breathtaking. Chuck Palahniuk, the guy who wrote Fight Club (among other great novels) really has a way with imagery that’s at once startlingly lovely and equally disturbing as well, and I can’t recommend him enough.

As a male author did you find it hard to find your female protagonists' voice?

MC: You know, maybe it’s because I’m constantly living in my head and imagining what other people would say or do in a certain situation, but I don’t think it was terribly hard, no. I have to admit, though, that I was really terrified that my "voice" for Kirin (the main character in Blood Magic) would come off as sounding like a man trying to write like a woman, and would somehow sound false to a female reader. Add in the fact that I decided to write the whole thing in first person point-of-view, and that many of the issues that the character has to deal with are very specific to women (motherhood, enduring an abusive marriage, etc.), and basically I ended up petrified that what I was saying and writing would be a flop.

Luckily, I have a tremendous "alpha reader", Jen, that convinced me that I wasn’t totally off in left field with what I wanted to say (or how I wanted to say it), and any time that I was out of my depth, she was able to steer me back onto the right path. My wife, Kara, also has a really unique outlook on the world and possesses a tremendously strong personality, so it’s no wonder that I see a lot of her in Kirin as well. I guess I’m just lucky that I like strong women because I seem to surround myself with them. They inform so much of what I do.

Do you think that the non-traditional romance of the book will scare prospective readers away?

MC: God, I hope not. I mean, love is love, right? Who cares if that love is that of a man for a women or a women for a man, or something different like that of a women for another woman, etc.? What matters is the emotion, not the physical act (at least, to me).

In Blood Magic, though, the nature of Kirin and Lia’s relationship is more about friendship and loyalty than a more traditional "romance". Honestly, I wouldn’t know how to write a "romance novel" if I tried – I know that genre is just chock-full of talented writers and very specific themes and tropes. In Blood Magic, I just tried to show two people that get thrown into a stressful, life-threatening situation and turn to each other for support.

I should probably explain here that I generally "make it up as I go" when I sit down to write, and very seldom work from a formal outline, so often I find my characters doing or saying things that I hadn’t anticipated. It can be a lot of fun, but it can be a huge time waster, especially when one of their little side-plots doesn’t pan out, but that’s how I’m most comfortable working.

That being the case, when Kirin and Lia began to deepen their relationship, it sort of came as a shock to me. Initially, I thought of Lia as more of a youthful sidekick-type than the powerful, full partner she ended up becoming, so it was startling to me when she began to outgrow my own preconceived notions. I love it when that happens. It’s that friendship (in my opinion) that makes everything that happens to the two of them bearable.

The second book of your trilogy, Nights of Sin, has a release date for 2008. Can you share any hints of what Kirin and Lia might be up to next?

MC: Sure! In Book Two, Kirin and Lia travel to the Imperial City to continue their struggle against the Mor. My goal for the story was to answer some crucial questions that were only hinted at in the first book, specifically: why exactly are the Mor attacking humans and how does Kirin fit in?

Also, I really wanted to put a strain on their relationship. One of my favorite authors, Connie Willis, said in a discussion panel once that "in a story, things must always get worse" and that when a writer is stuck as to where to go in a plot, to torment the characters. I was never stuck on where to go in Book Two’s plot (a benefit of my "making it up as I go" process), but I took that advice to heart, and I think you’ll definitely see things getting tougher for Kirin and Lia as Book Two progresses.

I also really wanted to talk about deeper themes than I usually see in fantasy books, specifically the way that even good relationships are affected by mistrust, dishonesty and lies, and setting these all-too-human themes against the backdrop of a "fantasy zombie/ monster-invasion with a touch of courtly intrigue" story was oddly appealing to me. With a little luck, hopefully the readers will find it intriguing and entertaining, and maybe even a little chilling, as well.

Colleen Gleason on Books & Blogging

Last March I got the chance to talk to Colleen Gleason about her new series, The Gardella Vampire Chronicles, which kicked off with The Rest Falls Away. At that point her second book, Rises the Night, had not yet been released. Now with the first and second book on the shelves I am waiting for the third book, The Bleeding Dusk, to be released.

I once again had the opportunity to ask her some questions. From her latest read, her blogging experiences, and her newest book she took the time to share her thoughts with us and gives us just enough hints to make the wait for the third book nearly unbearable.

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I read on your blog, For All the World to See, that the Gardella Vampire Chronicles were picked up in Italy, and I loved the cover. How many countries have you been published in now? How does it feel?


I thought the Italian cover was really neat; and a very different concept than the American version. Very atmospheric and gothic (and a little bloody, too), to go along with the Italian title: The Vampire Hunter. The Italian version is being released in early November, and I expect the Spanish version will come out within the next six to eight months. There are other negotiations for foreign editions going on as I write this, and I hope within the next year, there will be more.

In addition, I’ve already heard of people seeing and buying the American version of the book in Scotland, Hong Kong, Australia, and South Korea, so it’s pretty exciting to know that people all over the world have seen and read The Rest Falls Away and Rises the Night. I get email from people from places like Brazil, Spain, and Belgium, too. It’s a wonderful experience to touch global readers.

I’ve noticed that besides the time that you must set aside to work on your novels you also blog every day, or almost every day. What do you like so much about blogging that it keeps you posting?

When I first started blogging, it was hard to come up with interesting or relevant things to write about, but I wanted to establish an Internet presence before my books were released as part of my marketing plan. I’ve made some great friends via my blog (and theirs) in the last year since I started blogging regularly, and it’s become a lot easier to maintain the blog — partly because I know who my audience is. I have regular fans who visit the blog, as well as other surfers who come by, but perhaps haven’t read the books or aren’t familiar with them.

I enjoy blogging because it gives me a chance to stay in touch with readers — to hear what they’re thinking, to find out what they’re interested in, to keep them up to date on my new releases, and to simply get to know them. The Internet has given authors the opportunity to interact with their readers in ways that we only dreamed of a decade ago, and I enjoy taking advantage of technology to do so. It’s really fun to get to know the people who read and enjoy my books, plus make friends along the way.

Authors who like to interact with their readers have Web sites, but that tends to be a one-way communication. That’s important, and of course, I have a Web site too, but I like blogging because it’s a two-way street. I don’t know that I’ll ever have message boards or an email list, so blogging is the next best thing. Plus that makes it open to anyone who happens along to my blog.

I try to make the blog an interactive place — I’m always asking for opinions, often holding contests, and I certainly do use it for self-promotion and updates. I’ve learned a lot, and solicited a lot of opinions from people over the year — from books to read, places to visit, opinions on movies, TV, and music, and other such topics. I had a Pay It Forward Contest on my blog last year, and got to see the best side of people when they posted about things they did to “pay it forward.”

Do you think that the blogs are a good place to get your book noticed?

I don’t think of my blog as a place that attracts people to my books, per se. I think my blog is a place that people find when they have already heard about my books. Either they get to it from my Web site, or from a link from another blog or site.

However, I absolutely love being interviewed or guest-posting on other peoples’ blogs! That’s one of the best ways I’ve found to get more name recognition, and to interest other people in my books — people who may not have heard about them, or who would normally not pick them up until they learn more about the books. I’m always extremely appreciative of anyone who offers to have me on their blog, or to allow me to guest-blog and answer questions about my books, being a writer, the publishing business, or anything else.

I do think that other blogs help to get my book noticed — I’ve seen it happen. Each blog has its own circle of influence, and any time one gets to be introduced to a new circle of readers, there’s a chance someone’s going to be interested. It’s the “I’ll tell two friends, they’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends….” (Was that Wella Balsam? I can never remember.)

Have you read anything good lately?

Oooh! Of course. I just finished reading Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors, which I adored. This was a novel about the building of the Taj Mahal, and the (fictional) love story of Shah Jahan’s daughter, whose mother was the reason the Taj was built. It was a fabulous historical fiction novel, rich with detail and setting and custom. I loved it.

I also just reread several Barbara Michaels books that I’d read about two decades ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long!) — contemporary gothic romances that I just adored: Be Buried in the Rain and Shattered Silk.

And I’m just starting to read The Road to Hell, written by my friend Jackie Kessler, about a succubus who runs away from Hell and comes to New York to be a strip artist.

I remember reading somewhere, and I’m not sure where, that you were surprised that your books had been categorized as paranormal romances. Do you consider your Gardella Vampire Chronicles paranormal or historical fantasy?

I don’t think I was ever surprised that my publisher decided to market the series as paranormal romances, because I knew about it once the decision was made — but what you probably saw was my reaction to that decision. The publisher had to decide how to position the series, and from the beginning, it was a great point of discussion.

The books are technically not romances because in a romance, there is some kind of happily ever after ending between a hero and a heroine. This doesn’t happen in my books; there is an ongoing lead character, Victoria Gardella Grantworth, whose story we follow over five (planned) books — and while part of her story is her intimate, love relationships with the men in her life, the other part is her character development and the tasks and events that occur in her life. Because her story isn’t “wrapped up” until the last book, the series doesn’t perfectly fit into the paranormal romance genre.

Most people who are familiar with urban fantasy consider my books historical urban fantasy because of this aspect, and I don’t disagree — but at the same time, I sort of try not to categorize the books too much. They really do straddle a multitude of genres: historical fiction, romance, horror, action-adventure, etc. There’s something for everyone in the books, and there’s not too much of any one thing.

Your third book in the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, The Bleeding Dusk, comes out February 5, 2008. You said originally that it was going to be a five-book installment with Victoria and then you would move onto a new character. Now that you are coming closer to the end of the story, do you think she will be a hard character to let go?

Victoria and all of her supporting cast — yes, they will be hard to say good-bye to. The ones that are alive anyway. ;-) But I’m also always letting other main characters perk in the back of my mind as I write Victoria’s story. One of the things I’ve always wanted to avoid doing is having everything happen to one character, which often happens in an ongoing series. Either that, or the character doesn’t grow and begins to stagnate.

I hope to avoid both of those what I consider pitfalls in a series by letting Victoria have her “happy ending” and then to move onto another female vampire hunter that I can torture — er, I mean write about.

I know it isn’t fair to ask but I have to — I’m just so desperate to know what the future holds for Victoria, Max, and Sebastian. Would you give us a hint about what happens in The Bleeding Dusk?


Hmmm…what can I tell you without giving anything big away? Well, let’s see. We find out more about Max’s background, and also about Sebastian’s other secret. Victoria takes over as the head of the Venators, and when she gets into a sticky situation, a special garment helps her to escape. Ladies Nilly and Winnie go vampire hunting. And we get to visit Lilith’s lair—twice.

How’s that for a tease?

Thank you so much Colleen for taking the time to answer some questions! I've really enjoyed getting the chance to talk to you again.

Thank you so much for having me! I always enjoy your questions, and enthusiasm about the books.

An Interview with Alma Alexander, Author of the Worldweavers Trilogy

I recently read Gift of the Unmage by Alma Alexander, the first book in her Worldweavers trilogy. Galethea Winthrop, Thea for short, is the main character in this great new young adult series about a girl who has lived her whole life under the shadow of magical expectations. But with the failure to come into her magical ability, whole new worlds open up for Thea. Ms. Alexander took the time to answer some questions about her series, writing, reading, and even the World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention.

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In a market that is dominated by fantasy books that have central characters who are powerful magic users you have created a character who is magic-less to an extent. What is Thea’s appeal?

My editor once said that she is EveryTeen. I think her appeal lies in the simple fact that she is not a superheroine from the word go. She is, on the contrary, a complete misfit in her world - or at least so it seems, on the surface. This is something that most kids will resonate to - there are times that even high school clique queens feel lonely and outcast, it is part of being a teenager, your moods and your hormones and your world views change with the moon (or so it appears to the outside world) and that's fine, it's normal, it's expected, it's all a part of growing up and growing into an adult personality and form. Thea doesn't get presented with her solutions on a silver platter -- she has to work to first understand her problems, and then on how best to make things better -- but although she is given help along the way it is she herself who eventually makes her own choices and solves her own problems. Sometimes being a powerful magic user just isn't enough - you have to learn something first, often something hard, before anything you do or think or feel has importance or weight or meaning.

In Worldweavers you have done such a wonderful job of weaving into your story Native American myths and legends. What drew you to those myths vs. the traditional European myths that most stories use for a base?

Few people know about them. I guess that's a double-edged sword because readers will instinctively gravitate to the familiar, and the well-trodden paths of European mythology are far easier to travel on than the thorny thickets of the unknown. But American kids are not European kids, and America has its own treasure box of mythology, and it's been barely cracked; and there are so many wonderful tales here, so many extraordinary characters, so much joy and drama and tragedy. All this is all the more powerful because it is so new and unknown - but also, there is the added bonus that these myths and legends are far more a part of an American young reader's heritage than Rumpelstiltskin is. Or they should be, anyway. This is what this country's mythological roots are.

Having said that, however, I do weave in a few Eastern European folk tales into these books towards the end, too. It is a big, wide, wonderful world out there, and it's full of stories.

How did you get started writing young adult fiction? Do you prefer it to adult?

These particular books had their start when I attended a YA panel at the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis. At the time I had no plans to enter the YA market, and certainly no ideas in that field, but the panel had several writers on it whom I really like reading and who do write YA fiction - Charles de Lint was one of them, and Jane Yolen another. Some five or ten minutes into the panel, someone from the audience brought up Harry Potter, and Jane Yolen sighed and said, "I was wondering how long it would be before that particular elephant walked into the room." She said she wasn't entirely happy about the way that the Potter books treated girls... and I was off and running. I didn't really hear the rest of that panel, I was too busy getting to know Thea in my head, and thinking about the Last Ditch School for the Incurably Incompetent to which she would be sent because she was not the Boy Who Lived but instead the Girl Who Couldn't.

My primary goal has always been story - and that doesn't change with the level of the intended reading audience. I believe that the YA readers deserve, and want, stories that are just as complex and layered as an "adult" book - and I believe that these young minds are quicker, more agile, and far better equipped to actually deal with a certain amount of complexity. I have no interest in providing something simplistic, or characters who have only two dimensions and would flap in the wind like so many flags. I want real characters, real people. The fact that I have magic in my story doesn't make my characters any less real, it just gives them a different set of problems.

I don't prefer either genre to the other. They complement each other, rather than square off as antagonists.

What was one of your favorite books growing up? Do you think that it has affected your writing?

One of my favourite books? ONE of? That's hardly fair, asking a question like that of someone who spent her formative years buried between book covers of many many MANY books. I'd have to put Tolkien's Lord of the Rings up there - but then I'd have to ignore authors like Ursula le Guin, and Madeleine L'Engle, and Lloyd Alexander, and CS Lewis, and... look, see what you've done now?...

Reading has affected my writing, the fact that I read a lot and widely and that I am completely, wholly and incurably in love with language and with story. Reading told me early on that I wanted to write, too, because I wanted to create more of these worlds which held me so spellbound when they flowed from other minds and other visions. Reading a lot and reading widely is probably the best basic education that a child can get. God bless libraries everywhere.

I know that recently you were in Japan for the World Science Fiction Convention. What was that like?

Japan was weird and wonderful and I came back with 800+ photographs, ranging from the bizarre to the astonishingly beautiful; I'd highly recommend going to a truly alien place at least once in a person's lifetime, it definitely stretches your horizons.

There are parts of Europe that are staggering under the weight of their history, and the same is true in Japan, where you wander around temples and palaces built not hundreds but thousands of years ago, and the idea that there were once these people so far removed from us in time who lived and loved and worked and fought and played within these walls and in these gardens is eerie, enigmatic, and one that fills me with awe and curiosity. One of the gardens I was in had in it a weirdly-shaped pine that once been a Shogun's cherished bonsai and which had been planted into the ground some 600 or so years before when the Shogun died - it's quite a feeling, watching this centuries-old tree and wondering what tales it could tell if only it could talk...

Modern Japan is utterly confounding - it was the first time I had ever been to a country where I was functionally illiterate without benefit of translation or at least transliteration on signposts and information boards, and that was disconcerting. But the Japanese are resigned to wandering foreigners who look lost and bewildered and somehow knowing how to say "hello" and "thank you" and a lot of sign language gets you almost everything you need without any major dramas. And people bow to each other. A lot. And it's catching; upon our return home, a friend I was traveling with informed me that she had given that formal little Japanese bow to a completely astonished British bank teller, and I offered one of my own to the quietly amused passport checkpoint official when I stepped off my flight on my return to the United States.

The second book in the Worldweavers trilogy hits stores March 2008. Can you give us a little hint about Spellspam and what the future holds for our favorite characters?

What happens if the spam that hits your inbox on a regular basis isn't just annoying - but carries live and potentially dangerous magic spells which affect you if you so much as read the spam message? What happens if the spam message offering you "the clearest skin you could ever imagine" turned your skin... transparent? (Well, actually, that's the first scene in Spellspam - when you read the book, you'll find out exactly what transpires...)

An epidemic of such spellspam sweeps Thea's world, affecting the one thing that has been thought until then to be completely impervious to magic - the computers. And since Thea seemed to be the first person ever to have been able to actually use computers in her own magic (something that's explored in Gift of the Unmage), she now needs to find out where this spellspam is coming from because it can only mean that there is someone else out there who is not that much different from herself. There are some hard choices for Thea to make in the course of this book, which takes her further along the road of discovering who she really is, and how truly extraordinary her gifts are. But where this road will ultimately take her... is another story, one which concludes the Worldweavers trilogy, and which will follow Spellspam in the spring of 2009.

The future is wide open for Thea, actually. There are far more things that begin to be possible for her now than she has ever dreamed of. These stories may yet be told, if she finds friends who want to know more about her.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions!