As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up? I always knew I wanted to become a writer of some type. I grew up in a household filled with books, magazines, and newspapers, and as a result, I have been interested in reading and writing since I was very young. I started writing poetry when I was in elementary school. I won awards for reading the most books during the summer break. I was a devoted visitor to the Los Angeles Public Library branch near my home in Woodland Hills. By high school and college, my focus had shifted to non-fiction and journalism. My professors in college were quite vexed because my fiction read like literary journalism, and my reporting was too flowery. My first job out of college was on the business desk of a local newspaper. Eventually, I went to Washington, DC, to work in politics and wrote for a trade newsletter covering federal legislation. After a few years, I returned to San Francisco with my husband and started working in public relations. In 1999, I founded a PR firm with another woman and lost my connection to writing. I realized I missed writing a few years later and decided to start again. I wrote my first novel about San Francisco politics, which remains in a box; I may resurrect it someday. Since then, I’ve written four more novels – with a few years off here and there – to raise my daughter and care for aging parents.
Does writing energize or exhaust you? Or both? Both, without question. The research and preliminary work of preparing to write a novel is exhilarating. There is so much to learn and think about. I love the preparation of creating the characters and pulling together the initial details to help frame the story. What is exhausting is the middle work. The demanding hours of honing the story, getting the details right to ensure the character comes and leaves through the same door, or their cup of coffee stays coffee and doesn’t morph into tea five pages later. I just finished the third and final book in The Council Trilogy and focused on maintaining consistency between the three installments; the details matter because readers will notice if you reverse course or change important attributes of the story.
Have you ever traveled to research for your book? Absolutely. For THE GIFT, the second book in The Council Trilogy, I asked my family to visit Serbia and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe with me. We lived in Belgrade in the dead of winter, and the experience makes the book more believable. Whenever I travel, I always carry a notebook and keep track of fantastic locations or interesting things I see because I never know when a detail will be helpful for something I’m writing.
Have you used an app to borrow ebooks or audiobooks from the library? I use the Libby app on my iPad regularly to check out e-books! As a side note, in my professional life, I have made it my mission to support libraries, helping run campaigns to build new branch locations or create permanent funding sources. Fact: all of my novels feature librarians.
If you were to write a spin-off about a side character, which would you pick? I have two ideas in mind. The first would be a prequel about Elsa from The Others and how she became a time walker- maybe a novella rather than an entire novel…but I would like to explore her journey. Josef, one of the vampires in The Council Trilogy, is a character who should have a series of his own. I’m playing around with a concept to give him his own investigation agency that searches for lost or stolen magical objects.
Name an underappreciated novel that you love. My first pick would be The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, a brilliant historical fiction centered around Vlad the Impaler – otherwise known as Dracula. It’s crazy that the book is almost twenty years old. A runner-up would be The Coffee Trader by Daniel Liss.
What are your favorite series or series authors? I have too many choices to answer this question, but Starlight’s Shadow Trilogy by Jesse Mihalik is a good first pick. I was immediately drawn to the premise of Hunt the Stars, which features a great ensemble cast of characters led by a former soldier who now commands her own ship. Short on cash, she takes an assignment from the very man who tried to kill her — a general from an alien army that can crush humans with their minds. The two sides team up to solve a mysterious kidnapping, setting the stage for the trilogy. I’m also a big fan of the Consortium Rebellion series. Set in a galaxy far, far away, Mihalik has created a space opera featuring a set of daring siblings with superhuman powers who must battle to survive the cutthroat culture connected to their social status and the machinations of their power-hungry father who is always looking for advantageous alliances, regardless of the consequences.
What are the essential characteristics of a hero you can root for? I’ve obviously thought about this as I have to create characters – heroes – that a reader wants to dig into. What appeals to me is someone who is flawed but maintains their humanity. Someone who has a sense of humor and can recognize their limitations, even if it takes some time. I like heroes who have to grow and stretch to accomplish their goals or don’t even know they’re heroes until someone tells them. I like characters who undergo transformations and, in doing so, surprise themselves and the people who love them.
What do you think is the best way to improve writing skills? The best way to improve is to keep writing, read a lot, and observe other good forms of art. Read writers you admire whose prose is tight and light but evocative. Notice the writers who draw you into their story and how they do it. When you watch a captivating movie, what draws you in? Is it the dialogue or the scenery? Make note of everything around you and why it moves you. Hire a good editor to push you to stretch yourself and your writing. Join a writer’s group to get feedback if you think it would be helpful. The best way to improve, though, is to keep writing – it’s a muscle that only gets stronger if you use it, but the observational feedback of understanding what others do to be successful is also important.
What, to you, are the most important elements of good writing? I’m sure there are a lot of academic answers to this, but to me, this is a fundamentally easy question to answer. Good writing is entertaining. Good writing is captivating. Good writing is what makes you stay up all night when you should be going to bed to finish the book. Good writing is what makes you think about the story and its characters when you’re supposed to do something else. Good writing is a long, slender finger, crooked upwards, drawing you into the story.
