1) Can you start by telling readers a little about yourself?
A: I’m in my early 30’s and living with my two
children and my daughter’s service cat Lightning. My son was diagnosed with
autism very young and my daughter recently found out that she is allergic to
wheat and a protein very specific to cow dairy, which has resulted in changing
her entire diet and trying to get my son to eat the same diet. Getting him on a
wheat and cow-dairy free diet is not always successful. He’s not very fond of
goat and sheep cheese, and definitely does not appreciate goats milk!
I’m also a student at the American Public
University System looking forward to the last semester or two of my
International Relations Bachelors Degree program specializing in Asian Studies.
The next step there will be going for a Masters and then a Doctorate since I
want to be a university professor when I ‘grow up’.
Geology and specifically volcanology
have been lifetime loves along with skiing and writing, and I still collect
rock samples. Agates are a favourite as there are so many varieties. I also
help administer and write quests for the online role playing game Dragon
Hearts, edit for both UK and American English, do a little artwork, publish,
and write into the wee hours of the night. I play text based role play games
with my long-distance mate when I’m not writing, wrangling children’s schedules
and my schoolwork, and trying to spend fun time with the kids. What white hairs
I’ve got I’ve earned, especially as a few years ago my kids almost lost me to
some weird health problems.
2) Can you tell us how you got into writing?
A: I don’t remember how I got into
writing. When I was around two my parents and foster/adoptive (on dad’s side)
grandparents kept me entertained by giving me pads of paper and pens. That
probably kicked off my love of both art and writing.
My grandparents and dad used to tell me
about the different countries they had visited, and if there was no book around
it was torture. Everywhere I went, someone had a book. I started getting
serious about wanting to be an author and poet in middle school. My classmates
can probably tell stories about all the scribbling in class I did on up through
high school.
I can remember classmates reading over
my shoulder, sometimes to find really crummy stream of consciousness poems,
art, and at other times bits of The Shadow Chronicles (still not ready) in pink
ink. Right now though I’m taking a break from the Dragon Shaman series and the
O’Drake/MountainChild families to write Selkies’ Skins and the Makay family
adventures for my mate.
3) Can you tell us about your book. What's it
about?
A: Dragon Shaman’s story is actually going to be spanning several books;
I originally thought the story likely to cover around eight books. The series
will be following Blowing Wind’s multicultural family and their involvement
with the worlds of spirits and of magic intersecting the mundane world, so
there are several plots that have to be covered.
The first book introduces us to Blowing Wind, who is half Apache and
half Irish, and expects to pursue a career in environmental geography to serve
her local spirits, mankind, and satisfy her shamanic roots. Her spirit guide
meets an untimely end, or so one would think, but in following him after that we
actually get to explore spirits and the possibilities for reincarnation, and
starts Blowing Wind on her quest for healing and to fulfil a destiny that she’s
not quite sure of. The next books explore how she came to be and the
overlapping life missions of her family while also following her growth as a
human and as a shaman.
The first book is currently going through the
process of having a new cover made. Victoria Davis did the artwork for Dragon
Shaman Book Two: The Smoky Mirror, so she is doing the new cover for Dragon
Shaman: Taming the Blowing Wind so that the art and branding will match. I’m
sitting on the new cover’s lineart as I’d like to release that along with the
new cover in full at the same time. I will say that the new cover is already
looking far better than the acrylic painting that I did back in the 2000’s.
4) What inspired you to write a story like this?
Are the characters based on anyone you know?
A: My father grew up adopted but unaware of that fact until he was 17 or
18 and ran away, taking back his birth surname. After this and a few tours of
Asia in the army he wanted to reconnect with his family and his roots.
His time in Asia gave him a high respect for the Asian religions,
especially as expressed in Japan, and during a tour on Okinawa he got to help
with a torii reconstruction, and this is partly responsible for my interest in
Shinto and Okinawa even though I was not born then.
Dad’s interest in reconnecting with all aspects of his heritage and in
opening access to the heritage that came to my brother and I through my
mother’s side led into a lot of trips in my youth to various places of Native
American importance and several reservations.
I got my first dream catcher from an old Sioux. I
still wonder if he was really Coyote. As I grew and explored spirituality of the
world religions I noted a lot of similarities between Native American and Asian
spirituality and shamanism.
I have my theories about why, and that’s something
I plan to work into the storyline of the series. It also helps that I grew up
near Mt Lassen and Mt Shasta, and that the hot spring across from my childhood
home once attracted several tribes to that valley for their summer camping and
for religious and healing purposes. It was an honour to grow up where I did and
to receive some of the dreams I did and to speak to various elders. I’m still
very attached to that land.
5) Is there anything that you are working on at the
moment and can you tell us a little bit about it?
A: Selkies’ Skins ties in just slightly with the Dragon Shaman series,
since the O’Drakes are a known factor in that world. The Makay family is the
product of a mating between a selkie and a fisherman with magical ability back
in a very distant past. The most usual version of selkie tales has ended with the
selkie wife gaining her skin back and running home to the sea.
In my version Marsali never did, and the desire/need for skins of their
own has passed down through her children. Mara, a sea goddess, and her sister
(who has lost her name...it must eventually be found to restore her) make use
of this unexpected turn in their own experiments with the evolution of their
children in order to bridge a gap and fill a service for some of their Hidden
Children.
Through the ages the clan has had its ups and downs, of course, and the
story itself focuses on Etain Makay and her services to her goddesses, and her
daughter Kirsty (Kirsten) Makay who must gain her sealskin to become a full
member of the selkie race and fulfil her to-be-inherited positions. Kirsty
is... let’s say less than happy that she can’t choose for herself what to
become and so plans to at least have some control over how she fills her role.
There are a few other complications for her and she’s going to have to figure
out how to balance some things.
That story is actually based in part on some role
play games between my mate. There was a large gap that just begged for a story
to explain how some things happened between certain points in time and to
explain the character changes.
I am influenced by many areas: mythology, folklore,
modern fiction, and classic fiction. Influences are impossible to avoid,
especially with how much I love to read, and some of the mythology and folklore
I am taking artistic license with, but the story is one that I’ve been waiting
to tell but needed the right setting and inspiration to finally get out.
My poor mate probably had no idea what he was
unleashing considering I was overloaded at the time by schoolwork and it had
been very negatively impacting my progress with the third book for Dragon
Shaman. He’s reading along as I serialize the tale. I just wish that I could
see the expression on his face when this first book of Kirsty’s adventure is
done.
Thank you for the interview. :) It was a fun experience.
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