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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Author Interview with Michelle Goddard

20 Monday May 2019

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Thanks again for supporting The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with Michelle F Goddard, who contributed the short story “The Lake Cottage.” Enjoy!

 

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

This is a heck of an opening statement to make. I’ll preface it by saying that I love exploring the extraordinary in the ordinary, doorways that open between worlds and open us to the strange or let the strange come for a visit. Authors like Neil Gaiman and Stephen King accomplish this in spades and I’d include Joss Whedon and his many television shows as well. George RR Martin has managed to bring dragons and magic into a story that is fundamentally about people and their relationship with power. I greatly admire that skill to tap into real issues while dealing with the fantastic. I try my best to explore that as well.

What attracted you to writing?

I think most, if not all writers were and are avid readers. I was one of those read at the dinner table kids, eyes riveted to the page, blind to all else. Even my mom remembers my reaction when I first readThe Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, excitedly telling her all about the children and the magic wardrobe and how whenever I would find a wardrobe, I would check it thoroughly, not wanting to miss out on an opportunity for an adventure. So I suppose, as years went by I figured, if I wasn’t going to find Narnia, I’d create one myself. But truth be told, I still look at the back of wardrobes… just in case.

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle—Author Interview with Frank Saverio

10 Friday May 2019

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Thanks for supporting The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with Frank Saverio, who contributed the short story, “To Find a Peach”. Enjoy!

 

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

The obvious answer is good old G.R.R. Martin. But if you like my crime fiction as Frank Zafiro, I think you’ll see some similarity in this story.

What attracted you to writing?

Tough question… it’s always been there. I equate it to a musician being attracted to music. It’s an almost instinctual draw.

How did you get to this point in your writing? Did you take classes, or intensively study particular authors, or simply do a lot of writing and learn as you go? All of the above?

I think I took one class in college. I would say I am mostly self-taught, but that is a term that belies what really goes on. I’ve learned from all the authors I’ve read, and those I’ve worked with directly, as well as my own trial and error and subsequent growth.

Are there particular themes that run through your writing?

I try to be real, so my stories are sometimes a little bit of a downer. But one of my favorite songwriters is Bruce Springsteen, and a lot of his songs are downer songs (some are super upbeat, too, but those aren’t my favorites). Despite the darkness in many of these songs, there’s always an underlying sense of hope, or at least resiliency. Since much of what I’ve written has been crime fiction, I’ve found it useful to follow this same philosophy. I think readers will see it in my short story for this collection, too.

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Interview with Elana Gomel

08 Wednesday May 2019

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Thanks for supporting The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with author Elana Gomel, who contributed the short story “The Dragon Detector.” Enjoy!

 

What attracted you to writing?

When I was five or six years old, I had an incredibly vivid dream about an infinite house. The house went up and down forever and if you fell off a balcony, you’d fly for an eternity. The dream was so compelling that for a while I was sure I was actually living in this house and my everyday life was a dream. Now the infinite house exists in my award-winning story “In the Moment”. I can share my dream with a multitude of people. This is what writing is for me: creating shared worlds out of private imagination.

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

Before I was a writer, I was a reader; and since I am also an academic, writing about other people’s books, I have quite a long list of personal favorites and role models. I love generic hybrids: sci-fi and horror; mystery and fantasy. I appreciate vivid imagination and unsettling details. So if you like Clive Barker, China Mieville, Tim Lebbon and Tony Ballantyne, you might like my writing. My two recent novels, The Cryptids and The Hungry Ones have been compared to Barker and Mieville respectively.

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Interview with Marion Deeds

06 Monday May 2019

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Thanks for supporting the Kickstarter campaign for The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Today’s interview is with author Marion Deeds, contributor of the short story “Bellwethers Know Best.” Enjoy!

 

If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you’ll like mine,” who would you pick?

What an interesting question! I couldn’t really think of anyone at first, so I asked some friends, and the responses were eye-opening.

People have suggested Seanan McGuire. I assume they mean her contemporary fantasy Incryptid series. I do see some similarities there, and with Tanya Huff, who was another suggestion. Both writers deal with an everyday world that incorporates magic, and characters who struggle, not only with the supernatural, but with universal issues; family, relationships, jobs.

Writers I would love to be compared to? I’d have to say Mary Robinette Kowal, especially in her short fiction. There are two San Francisco Bay Area short story writers whose work I greatly admire. Laura Blackwell has a story called “An Accidental Coven.” Laura Pearlman is published a variety of places, and her work seems light and humorous at first but soon you realize that there is more happening beneath the surface. I think I write in a similar vein.

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Interview with W.O. Hemsath

03 Friday May 2019

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Thanks for following our campaign as we launch The Hand that Rocks the Cradle! In our quest to help you get to know our authors better, today we will be interviewing W.O. Hemsath, author of the short story “Coffee Break.” Enjoy!

What attracted you to writing?

I don’t have the skills to draw or sketch, and that’s always made me a bit sad. But I loved to read and I loved to talk, so I developed a big vocabulary when I was little. When I learned I could paint with words to create art the way others paint with lines and colors, I realized I had a medium that allowed me to transfer the ideas in my head into someone else’s. From that point on, I was hooked. I’ve been writing stories and telling stories ever since.

How did you get to this point in your writing? Did you take classes, or intensively study particular authors, or simply do a lot of writing and learn as you go? All of the above?

When I was in grade school, I wrote for fun—short stories, poems, song lyrics, choose-your-own-adventure serial pieces for a friend’s on-line magazine, anything I could find. In college, I went to film school and got my degree in screenwriting. After that, I took off about ten years to serve a mission for my church, get married, have kids, etc. I dabbled with writing here and there during that decade, kept a journal of all the story ideas that kept popping up, but didn’t write much. I did start a Master’s program in Creative Writing during that time, but I quit towards the end of the first semester. I wasn’t learning enough from it to justify the commitment at the time.

In late 2016 I got serious about my writing again and was at a point in my life where I could dedicate some time to it. I joined a writing group, went to writing conferences, read various craft books and blogs, watched Brandon Sanderson’s online lectures, listened to podcasts on writing—anything writing related I could get my hands on, really.

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle—Author Insights from Misha Burnett

01 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in Better Fantasy, Lagrange Books, Writing

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Thanks for visiting the campaign for The Wand that Rocks the Cradle: Magical Stories of Family! Today, we’re presenting author Misha Burnett, who will introduce you to his fantasy setting, Dracoheim. Enjoy!

Forget it, Jake, it’s Dracoheim

The publication of The Wand That Rocks The Cradle will include my third story (and fourth, for those of you pledging at the Bonus Stories level!) set in the city of Dracoheim, and I’d like to take a moment to talk about the city and how it came to be.

One thing that it is easy for modern readers of fantasy classics to overlook is that while the settings seem exotic and strange to readers born in the late 20th Century, the writers of those stories chose those settings because they were mundane and prosaic to the readers of the time.

Tolkien wrote about the Shire because that’s where he grew up. The name of Bilbo’s home, Bag End, was taken from the name of his aunt’s house in Africa. L. Frank Baum put a magical scarecrow in The Wizard Of Oz because scarecrows were such ordinary objects for his readers, something that children of his era would routinely pass by on their walk home from school. C. S. Lewis put Narnia in a wardrobe because he had one in his bedroom growing up…

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The Wand that Rocks the Cradle—Author Interview with Joanna Hoyt

29 Monday Apr 2019

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Thanks for checking out The Wand that Rocks the Cradle! Periodically, we will be publishing author interviews or essays to help you get to know them better. Today, we are joined by author Joanna Hoyt, who contributed the short story “Legacy.'”

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If you had to tell someone, “If you like this person’s stories, you would like mine too,” who would you pick?

That’s a hard question.  I think my short stories share some common features with the writings of Elizabeth Goudge, Edith Pargeter, and Ursula Le Guin…but when I say this, a rather loud voice in the back of my mind says “Well! Giving ourselves airs, aren’t we?” and a quieter voice suggests that Le Guin and Goudge might not have approved of each other, though I am not at all sure they might not have liked each other.  But if someone liked all three of those authors, I think they’d find something to like in my stories as well.

What attracted you to writing?

The same thing that attracted me to breathing, I think.  I craved stories as far back as I can remember—I wanted to hear them, read them, tell them. I wrote my first story when I was three. After illustrating the first page I realized I had completely misunderstood my main character…

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