Nancy Christie Interviewed Me

Is that your final answer, Mr. McCandless?

Maybe this will remove some of the mystique from being a published author, but here we go.

Interviews are interesting things. Most interviews you read aren’t conducted face-to-face, but rather email-to-email. A series of questions are sent by the interviewer, and then the interviewee has a certain deadline to send their responses. The closest I’ve come to the interviews shown on TV and movies are online podcasts, like this excellent one with Hank Garner.

So if you’re reading an interview with a writer, chances are neither participant heard the other’s voice.

For novelists, this is both wonderful and horrifying. On the one hand, we’re writers, so writing answers should be a cake walk. On the other, we’re long form, and packaging ideas in short, witty, and interesting ways isn’t generally our bag.

I’ve done a good number of written interviews over the past five years since I was published. One of my favorites was with Nathan Hall, because that was more of an Ask Me Anything where we chatted through Facebook’s messenger. It was still a written responses, but it seemed a lot more spontaneous, and I felt I found my interviewing voice.

Nancy Christie offered to interview me, and I have to say it was one of the most interesting experiences of my life. She provided one of the most comprehensive set of questions I’ve ever responded to. We delved into so many aspects of genre, writing, and background. This is the first of a four part series of interviews that we did.

Tell me a little about yourself. What type of writing do you do? If you do more than one kind or prefer one genre over another, what type is your favorite or most satisfying?

I was born at a very young age, but grew rapidly from there. I’ve always been interested in writing. In grade school, when we were assigned vocabulary words to write into sentences, I used the opportunity to tell a full story.

I’ve been writing in multiple sub-genres, starting with fantasy, but also urban fantasy and steampunk. I’ve dabbled in a few others, writing some science fiction and horror shorts, but mostly I find that I prefer my main genres.

I find it most satisfying to create a world that is at once fantastic and believable. I appreciate any reader who is willing to suspend their disbelief long enough for me to tell the whole story.

The remaining three parts will release on June 10^th, 17^th, and 24^th respectively.

Read The Rest Here.