Many of us know people who have written — or threatened to write — books, but then those books never seem to materialize in a final form. Even after we started Paper Angel Press, and positioned it as an author-friendly platform for getting your written creations read, we still experienced the same hesitation among writers, even those with whom we had good working relationships. Why was this happening?, we wondered. So, last fall we ran a survey with two different audiences in order to try to understand why writers don't complete or submit their books. We also sought to understand...
Interview: J Dark, author of Broken Bridge
How did you get the idea for Broken Bridge? The idea came late in the writing. The first few chapters were the characters establishing themselves. The antagonist’s trap came as a surprise to me. I could feel something, I just didn't have the real understanding what the character was up to until later in the book. It honestly felt like when you see a great movie and someone decides there has to be a sequel to it. That's how the first few chapters felt. Once I got into the story, things started clicking and the puzzle pieces fell in place....
Interview: Flavia Idà, author of Children of the Wrong Time
Children of the Wrong Time has a very thoughtful story, and at the same time, it feels that it is a warning. What brought about the idea for this book? The original “Ha ha!” moment was a line from the movie Parenthood. Not a particularly memorable movie, but this line struck me as the perfect summing up of a topic I’d been mulling over for a while. The line is: “You need a license to drive, you need a license to fish, you need a license to own a dog, but any moron can become a parent.” It got me...
Interview: L. A. Jacob, author of Grimaulkin
The first question I'd like to ask is about the book in general. If I remember correctly, Grimaulkin is written for Young Adults? Yes, mostly in the high-school plus range. The main character is 18 years old. Did you find that focusing on that particular age range influenced the style of your writing? Oh, definitely. My first draft, the one I wrote when I wasn't paying attention to words, had a lot more detail and swear words than the final version did. Since the time period is in the year 2000, I didn't have to worry about modern lingo and...
Interview: Leah RS Braun, author of Sex on Fire
This is probably one the most common question asked of authors: What made you decide to become an author? After working for 23+ years in the fitness/yoga/wellness industries, I had decided to write a book about creating a career in those areas. I had begun that project when Sex on Fire demanded to be written. You book is a very intense self-exploration of how trauma is begun and perpetuated over time. How did you step from recognition to writing? I had struggled a lot with elements of shame in my trauma experience, and it took me years of different therapy...
Interview: J Dark, author of Best Intentions
By your own admission, you say that you came late to the writing game. What prompted you to start and want to get published? I was having a rough go of it back in 2006 when, on a whim, I got into the online game City of Heroes. When I joined, this group called “Futura Force” that had these players, “Kill Favored”, and “Electroidium” that got me interested in posting short little stories on the forums. Then both of those players started talking about “National Novel Writing Month”, and how they were going to participate because they liked writing. I’d...
Interview: Lisa Jacob, author of Homecoming (A War Mage Story)
What inspired you to get into writing? I was always a voracious reader. I had been surrounded by books since childhood, and my mother was always a big reader. In junior high, I started reading “adult” authors like Stephen King and Sidney Sheldon, books my mom read. I finished The Shining and I thought to myself, I can write like this. So I started writing fan fiction for a few TV shows—this was way before fan fiction was a “thing.” My first original novel was written during the summer from 8th to 9th grade, and really improved my typing skills....
Interview: Flavia Idà, author of The Iron and The Loom and The Names of Heaven
Where did you get the idea for the The Iron and the Loom? I'm an inveterate daydreamer. It doesn't take much for me to withdraw into my inner world, to the exclusion of everything else. I also love history and I grew up in Italy, which has more history that anybody knows what to do with it, you look around and there it is. So daydreaming about a favorite period of Italian history and writing a novel set in it for me was an inevitable combination. Every author seems to have a different way of developing a story. Did you...
Interview: The Unruly Woman interviews Steven Radecki, author of Building Baby Brother
When the guy who makes your book dreams come true publishes his first book, you read it. So I did. I read a science fiction book, my first ever science fiction book! And I shocked myself by loving it. I asked Steven Radecki to let me interview him so I could drag other people into my excitement about Building Baby Brother. He said, "YES!". So I did my first Unruly Books interview and it is here for your listening pleasure (http://goo.gl/92HTqM). [powerpress]
Interview: Steven Radecki, Father of Building Baby Brother
Where did you get the idea for Building Baby Brother? To be honest, I don’t remember where the actual idea for the plot came from. The story itself started as part of an exercise that, well, kind of got out hand. My son’s charter had planned to sponsor an event to help foster reading and writing skills by asking students and willing family members to write a short story and then read it out loud at this event. Always willing to write, particularly for a good cause such as that one, I started pondering possible story ideas. I knew I...