Joshua Palmatier

Today we have an interview with Harry Connolly, author of multiple fantasy books, including the new trilogy The Great Way. I've asked him a few questions about himself and the book below. Check it out, and then go check out his books!





1. First, introduce yourself!

I’m Harry Connolly. My debut novel, Child of Fire, was published
by Del Rey and made Publishers Weekly’s Best 100 Books of 2009.

My followup epic fantasy, THE GREAT WAY, was funded through Kickstarter.
As I type this, it’s the ninth-most-funded Kickstarter campaign in the
Fiction category. Book one, The Way Into Chaos, came out in
December, 2014. The Way Into Magic came out in January, 2015. The
final book of the trilogy, The Way Into Darkness, came out last week.

I was born and raised in Philly but I’ve spent most of my life in
Seattle, where I’m a stay-at-home, homeschooling parent.


2. Now give us the Hollywood pitch version of your new book/project.
Two sentences max. Something along the lines of "[Book Title] is
Harry Potter crossed with Aliens, with a touching twist of Knocked Up
humor!"

Wow, I suck at this part. Let me try this: "THE GREAT WAY is about a
sentient curse that causes the collapse of an empire."


3. Give us an expanded description of the book/project. What makes
this project different and worth checking out? What sets it apart from
everything else in the field?

One of the most common tropes in epic fantasy is the Fallen Empire.
Essentially, somewhere in the past there was a continent-spanning empire
that collapsed, leaving nothing behind but a common language, a bunch of
ruins for the characters to explore, and stories of lost art and
technology. George RR Martin’s Valyria (and its Valyrian steel) is a
good example of this.

I thought it would be interesting to show the collapse of an empire like
that.

Not only did this give me a chance to break out of the typical Medieval
setting by drawing on much earlier models, it gave me the opportunity to
write about empire itself, and the way that people find themselves
identifying with power, even if they believe they’re opposed to it.


4. What part of the writing process for this book/project did you
struggle with the most? Why was that particularly difficult? What did
it teach you about the writing process (if anything)?

I have two point of view characters for this trilogy: a middle-aged male
soldier and a teenaged female spell-caster. Being a middle-aged man
myself, capturing the voice of the soldier wasn’t too difficult (even
though we’re nothing alike), but that fifteen-year-old girl required
extra care. Too many adult male authors sound like creeps when they try
to write teenage girls.

Obviously, I needed to draw on my own experiences of my youth, back in
the misty dawn of time, to capture that fierce loyalty to friends and
the tendency toward strong emotional response that every teenager feels.
Also, I decided I was not going to write a romance plot for her;
frankly, too many female characters of every age are defined by who
wants to kiss them. In these books, there’s attraction, but the
main focus is on a small group of female friends. I also tried to make
her character as specific as possible. Readers will sometimes see a
female character as a stand-in for all women and girls, usually because
the female character is the ONLY one. So, not only did I try to make her
situation specific to her, I made sure to include a bunch of female
characters who are just as specific.

Finally, I sought out and read a few online journals written by young women.

Did I mention creepiness above? I felt a little creepy doing that, but I
made sure I was looking only at public accounts and I didn’t interact
with the writers in any way. I looked at the things they shared with the
world and how they talked about it, and I went away.

Based on early responses, it seems to have worked out pretty well.


5. What was your favorite part of writing this book/project? What
gave you chills when you wrote it and made you think, "Oh, this is
GOOD!"?

The climactic confrontation in the second to last chapter of the last book.

I’m not going to spoil it, obviously, but I will say that with the way I
work, I do a fairly detailed outline of the beginning and middle of the
book, then I’ll start on the first draft—well, it’s really the second
draft, since any outline is basically an abbreviated first draft.
Usually, I don’t know what the ending is going to be.

When it suddenly occurred to me how the trilogy should end—how it
had to end, honestly—I was startled and delighted.

Which is perfectly normal for me. I’ve found time and again that, if I
don’t know what the end of a book is going to be, I can trust that the
beginning and middle will provide one. A few books, like my upcoming
pacifist urban fantasy A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark, come
with an ending already attached. That’s less fun, but every creative
choice an author puts into their work is a resource to be used later,
esp when the ending is needed.

That’s how I work, anyway. It keeps things lively.



Readers interested in learning more about The Great Way, ("Epic Fantasy
that reads like a Thriller" — Kat Richardson) can find out more about
book one, The

Way Into Chaos here, and I offer sample

chapters on my blog.

Hey, all! Today we have an interview with Mindy Klasky, here to promote the start of her new series Diamond Brides with the book Perfect Pitch. I asked her to answer a few interview questions. But first, here's a brief description of the book and the cover art!





Cover Copy: Reigning beauty queen Samantha Winger is launching her pet project, a music program for kids. All she has to do is follow the pageant's rules—no smoking, drinking, or "cavorting" in public.

That's fine, until D.J. Thomas—God's gift to baseball—throws her a wild pitch. He slams her in an interview, and the video goes viral. Sam's no shrinking violet. She parlays D.J.'s apology into a national T.V. appearance—and a very unexpected, very public kiss.

Soon, paparazzi catch the couple in a steamy make-out session, and Sam's music program is on the block. The blazing hot relationship is threatened even more when D.J.'s son begs to trade in Little League for music class.

Can Sam and D.J. sizzle past the sour notes and find their perfect pitch?





Author Bio: Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere through stories. As a writer, Mindy has traveled through various genres, including hot contemporary romance. In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts, and tries to tame her to-be-read shelf.

Link to where to buy the book!

And now the interview:

1. First, introduce yourself!

I'm Mindy Klasky. Once upon a time, I was a lawyer, and then I was a librarian. Now I write books full time.

I've changed genres almost as often as I've changed careers. I started out writing traditional fantasy (e.g., The Glasswrights Series) and then I wrote light paranormal romance about a librarian who finds out she's a witch (The Jane Madison Series.) After that, I took a spin through category romance. I've written for several traditional publishers and I've published works independently through Book View Café, an author-owned publishing cooperative.

2. Now give us the Hollywood pitch version of your new book/project. Two sentences max. Something along the lines of "[Book Title] is Harry Potter crossed with Aliens, with a touching twist of Knocked Up humor!"

Perfect Pitch is Bull Durham crossed with old-fashioned category romance, with a hot splash of Fifty Shades of Gray (for the heat of the love scenes not the, ahem, writing style.) It's the first of nine short, hot contemporary romance novels in the Diamond Brides Series.

3. Give us an expanded description of the book/project. What makes this project different and worth checking out? What sets it apart from everything else in the field?

Perfect Pitch (and the other Diamond Brides books) are perfect summer reads. They're short--around 150 pages each--and they're fun. Each book tells the story of a different player on the (imaginary) Raleigh Rockets baseball team.

Perfect Pitch is different from most of my books, because there isn't a hint of anything magical or paranormal in the story. Also, each book is narrated from two third-person points of view--the hero's and the heroine's--which is different from the first person narration of my Jane Madison Series and the As You Wish Series.

(Savvy readers will probably realize they're reading a Klasky book, though. I couldn't get away from the descriptions of food that mark my writing. And I had to keep a strong line of humor running through the books!)

Oh! And the books aren't just for baseball fans. They're for anyone who enjoys reading hot stories about men and women who are smart, confident professionals. Each one stands on its own, telling a complete love story that just happens to have a baseball stadium as its backdrop.


4. What part of the writing process for this book/project did you struggle with the most? Why was that particularly difficult? What did it teach you about the writing process (if anything)?

The Diamond Brides Series is hitting the market on a rapid release schedule--nine complete novels in eight months. (Perfect Pitch launched on March 31, Opening Day for Major League Baseball. Catching Hell hits stores on April 13, and Reaching First will be out on May 4. After that, each book will launch on the first Sunday of the month, through November 2.)

Although the books are self-contained, they all involve the same baseball team, and there are many recurring characters, along with a number of common places (Artie's Steakhouse, the Club Joe coffee shop, etc.) In order to manage the massive number of details that anchor the series, I needed to change my writing process. Instead of keeping each novel in a separate "Project" on Scrivener (my preferred writing software), I kept all nine in one massive Project.

That single huge Project allowed me to cross-reference details. For example, I could make a global change to a character's name and be confident that I'd made the adjustment in every book. Along the way, I discovered that the single Project also allowed me to track writing tics. I discovered that far too many of my characters used certain phrases ("one hundred percent certain" was a particularly glaring one), and way too many characters shared actions and reactions. (At one point, I had more than ten different people "offering a mock salute" at various points in the series!)

Ultimately, juggling these nine stories has taught me a lot about my writing "defaults," the words and phrases I fall back on without thinking. I've learned to recognize many of my weaknesses, even correcting a number of them in the drafting stage, instead of waiting for edits.

5. What was your favorite part of writing this book/project? What gave you chills when you wrote it and made you think, "Oh, this is GOOD!"?

Many of my books have had romantic storylines, and several of my characters have ultimately found their true loves. Perfect Pitch, though, was the first of my books to have a flat-out, not-behind-a-closed-door love scene, in quite graphic detail.

And I found, while writing that scene (and ones in the other Diamond Brides books) that it's fun to write sex! Especially when there's the added challenge of making each scene different from the others, true to the specific characters, and inventive enough to entertain readers of the entire series. A good love scene isn't just a graphic description of body parts and what they're doing. It's also a revelation of character--it shows who the hero and heroine truly are, what they value, what they believe. (In that respect, a good sex scene is like a good battle scene--the careful blocking reveals far more than the unadorned events.)

I've had a wonderful time writing Perfect Pitch and the other books in the series. And I hope you'll have a great time reading them!

Thanks, Joshua, for the chance to stop by and talk to your readers!

Today we have a special author interview with D.B. Jackson (aka David B. Coe)! His latest novel, Thieves' Quarry--a historical urban fantasy--is the second book in the Thieftaker Chronicles and is already on bookshelves, released last week. The first book, Thieftaker, is now out in paperback. I sent David a few questions to answer regarding the series, his writing, and some general "get to the know the author better" questions as well. He's traveling today, but he said that if you have any questions for him regarding the books to ask them in the comments section and he'll be checking back off and on throughout the day to answer them. So what would YOU like to know about the series of D.B. Jackson? Ask away!






1. Introduce yourself and give us a brief summary of your new book, Thieves’ Quarry.

Introduce myself? Hmmm. Okay. [Waves.] Hi, everyone. I am D.B. Jackson, a.k.a. David B. Coe. I’m the author of fourteen published novels -- most of them fantasy -- and a number of short stories -- some fantasy and some science fiction. I have a Ph.D. in history, which, I suppose, gives me some small qualification to write historical urban fantasy. That’s what I’m working on these days.

Thieves’ Quarry is the second book in what I call the Thieftaker Chronicles, a series of stand alone murder mysteries, set in pre-Revolutionary Boston, with a touch of magic thrown in for good measure. The Thieftaker books follow the adventures of Ethan Kaille, a conjurer and thieftaker (sort of the 18th century equivalent of a private detective). In this book, which takes place in 1768, as the British occupation of Boston is just beginning, Ethan is hired by agents of the Crown to investigate the seemingly inexplicable deaths of every man aboard the HMS Graystone, a British naval vessel anchored in Boston Harbor as part of the occupying fleet. His inquiry soon entangles him in colonial politics, in a search for a cache of smuggled pearls, and in a deadly struggle with a powerful conjuring force.


2. Thieves' Quarry is the second book in the current series. Did you find writing this book more or less difficult than the first? What made it harder to write than the first? What was easier?

Well, as your question anticipates, there were ways in which it was much easier, and ways in which it was more challenging. It was easier because I began with a far better understanding of my setting, of my core characters, of my magic system, and of the history I was attempting to weave into the narrative. I was building on groundwork I had put down in Thieftaker, the first book in the sequence, and so I was able to delve deeper into certain elements of my story. In that first book, I was just trying to tell my story and to make certain that my readers understood enough of the background -- both of character and setting -- to enable them to follow along. And at the same time, I was learning, too. I was trying to get comfortable with my point of view character, with the voice and tone I wanted to establish not only for that book, but for the larger series. So, this time around I was able to relax a little more, play with things I had already figured out in book one.

By the same token though, there are challenges to a second book -- or a third or fourth or fifth -- that I didn’t have to worry about in Thieftaker. The biggest of these was the seemingly simple task of keeping characters and themes fresh. The last thing I wanted to do was just write Thieftaker again, but with a few cosmetic changes. I wanted this to be an entirely different book, one that would have certain familiar elements -- recurring characters, Ethan’s longstanding rivalry with the lovely and dangerous Sephira Pryce, the historical setting -- while going in very different directions. I learned that it is far more difficult to re-introduce characters than it is to bring them on stage the first time. Because I had to point my readers to the same qualities and attributes, but I had to do so in new ways.

The result, though, is a book that is, in my opinion, even stronger than the first, and probably better than anything I’ve written before. Those new elements I mention blend nicely with the familiar stuff, and my comfort with the material shows in the flow of the storyline and the leanness and clarity of the prose. I’m very pleased with this book.

3. You're using the pseudonym D.B. Jackson for this series, although you have published under the name David B. Coe. Why use a pseudonym? Was it your idea, or the publisher's?

The idea of using a pseudonym for this series came originally from my publisher, but it was, quite honestly, something to which I was open to from the start. Their reasoning, which made lots of sense to me, was that David B. Coe books had certain qualities -- they were alternate world fantasies, with lots of castle intrigue and high magic; they had many point of view characters and plot threads; and they tended to be extended story arcs, meaning that they took a few volumes to tell one overarching story. The Thieftaker books are different. These are urban fantasies, set in our world in that historical setting I’ve mentioned. Ethan is the lone point of view character. Each book is a stand-alone mystery, with a lean style and a noir tone. Put another way, it was an issue of author branding, of keeping David B. Coe books separate from D.B. Jackson books.

At least that’s what I tell people. The truth is, I’ve been with the Feds in the witness protection program for a number of years now. My real name is David “Mugsy the Keyboard Tickler” Gold. I turned State’s evidence a few years ago in the great Reserves Against Returns Scandal of the late eighties and early nineties, and have been on the run ever since. But don’t tell anyone . . .

4. What sets this series apart from the others? What kinds of challenges did you face writing a series so different than your other series?

Some of the differences are quite obvious: the historical stuff, the fact that it’s urban fantasy instead of epic fantasy, etc. But the thing that really sets this series apart from my previous work is my lead character, Ethan Kaille. And I mean that in a couple of ways. First of all, as I mentioned, he is the only point of view character for the series. Everything that my readers experience comes through him: through his senses, his intellect, his emotions. So, far more than in anything else I’ve written, I am dependent on the strength of my work in developing one character. He has to be someone my readers like and trust implicitly. And yet he also needs to be interesting enough to sustain the narrative and hold my readers’ attention chapter after chapter, book after book.

The real challenge, therefore, was creating a character rich and textured enough to bear all that responsibility. Ethan is, far and away, the most complex, intriguing character I’ve ever created. He is older than most fantasy heroes -- late-thirties, early-forties, which believe me, I know is not old in today’s world. But for a colonial setting and a fantasy novel, he’s a bit older than most protagonists. He has been a sailor in the British Navy, second mate aboard a privateering vessel, a participant in a mutiny, a convict laboring on a sugar plantation in Barbados. He is broken in many ways -- he lost part of his foot to infection during his time as a prisoner, and so he walks with a limp. He lost his future, his first love, his reputation, and is now trying to rebuild a life for himself. And, of course, he is a conjurer living in an age that conflates conjuring with witchcraft and condemns witches to death. So he lives much of his life in fear of having his spellmaking abilities discovered. The level of detail I’ve devoted to developing his character goes way beyond what I’ve done before. All of this, I believe, serves to make him an effective point of view character for the books.

5. Since this series is historical in nature, what comments do you have regarding the research involved as its background? Do you love the research? Despise it, even though it's necessary? Or did you just say, "To Hell with history!" and write what you wanted to write?

I mentioned that I have a Ph.D. in history, which is really a fancy way of saying that I’m a total history geek. I LOVED doing the research for this series and I was meticulous about trying to get stuff right. Of course there are fictional elements to the story -- the magic, the majority of my characters, the murder mysteries that Ethan has to solve, even that idea that there were thieftakers in 1760s Boston (there weren’t -- thieftakers did exist in London and other European cities in the 1700s, and briefly in the New World in the early 1800s, but they weren’t in Boston in the pre-Revolutionary era). But when I use historical events as a backdrop to my narratives, as I do with the 1765 Stamp Act riots in Thieftaker, and with the 1768 occupation of Boston in Thieves’ Quarry, I do everything in my power to be accurate with those details.

Why would I expend so much energy getting the little things right when so much of the story is made up? Because I want my readers to be transported back in time when they open the books. I want them to feel that they have gone back to a Boston that could have been. Nothing ruins my reading experiences faster than feeling that the author has gotten something wrong. Certain mistakes can be jarring, and can yank a reader right out of the narrative experience. I want to be sure that my readers won’t have that experience.

6. Give us the Hollywood elevator pitch for this novel (something like "Star Wars crossed with Harry Potter, angsty teenagers at University in space but waving lightsabers instead of wands!"). Who would play your lead characters?

Well, for fans of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, the pitch has been “Harry Dresden meets Samuel Adams.” For those who aren’t familiar with Butcher’s work, I would say that it’s “Sam Spade meets Samuel Adams with a dash of magic thrown in.” I would like Mark Wahlberg to play Ethan, and maybe Mischa Barton as Sephira Pryce.

7. Coffee, tea . . . or something stronger? What keeps you writing?

Forgive me for this answer, because it is going to sound so, so holier than thou, but the thing that keeps me writing is exercise and a smoothie. I work out at the gym of the local university (where my wife teaches) every morning for about an hour. Then I come home and have a fruit and yogurt smoothie. And then I get to work. I’m not a coffee drinker at all. I love the taste of it, but I cannot take the caffeine. I’m hyper enough without it. And I tend to drink herbal teas only in the winter or when I’m sick. But the exercise and smoothie make me feel okay about spending hours sitting in front of my computer. Writing is a rather sedentary profession, at least physically, so that active and healthy start to the day is really important to me.

Now, in the evening, when I’ve stopped writing, then I like wine (Australian Shiraz and New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs), dark beer, single malt Scotch, and small-batch bourbon. Usually not all in one night . . .

8. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Are we talking originals or franchises? I love the first Star Wars trilogy (the Luke Skywalker/Darth Vadar ones) from the 1970s and 80s. And I never really enjoyed the original Star Trek with Shatner, Nimoy, and the rest. Too campy for me.

But I have not enjoyed the subsequent Star Wars movies, and I love the more recent Star Trek stuff, starting with The Next Generation, and continuing through Deep Space 9, Voyager, and the new movies with Chris Pine and Zachary Quintos. So, I guess my cop-out answer would be “It depends,” or “I like them both.”

*****

D.B. Jackson is also David B. Coe, the award-winning author of more than a dozen fantasy novels. His first book as D.B. Jackson, the Revolutionary War era urban fantasy, Thieftaker, volume I of the Thieftaker Chronicles, came out in 2012 and is now available in paperback. The second volume, Thieves’ Quarry, has just been released by Tor Books. D.B. lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two teenaged daughters. They’re all smarter and prettier than he is, but they keep him around because he makes a mean vegetarian fajita. When he’s not writing he likes to hike, play guitar, and stalk the perfect image with his camera.

D.B. Jackson's webpage
D.B. Jackson's blog
D.B. Jackson's Facebook
D.B. Jackson's Twitter
D.B. Jackson on Goodreads
D.B. Jackson on Amazon.com

A day or so ago, I posted an interview with Gini Koch, author of the Alien series (including Touched by an Alien and Alien Tango) up at the DAW Books blog (dawbooks). Check it out here. You can find out how she and I met, how we sold our first novels to DAW, and other assorted fun facts. *grin*