Interview Roulette: Leslie E. Owen

Please welcome Leslie E. Owen!

  1. Pick one of your characters. What are the last three tweets he or she sent?

Character is Sir Hugh Ross, MC of The Mortal Part:

@sirhughdross The Queen of England made me an honest man today.

@sirhughdross (picture included) Jonno took me sailing.  I saw harbor seals! @jonathancweir

@sirhughdross Tickets for Man of La Mancha Benefit Gala on sale now. Helen Hayes Theatre October 18 & 20. #BandsForKids

  1. Pick a politician and give him or her one piece of really good advice.

Mr Trump:  Resign.

  1. Which of your characters would send you screaming out into the blizzard before the week was up?

Probably Sir Francis Chisholm, Hughie Ross’s best friend.  He’s a little arch for me.  Best to take him in small doses.  Still, he’s been good to Hughie since Jonno died.

  1. What were your favorite childhood books?

The Long Secret, the sequel to Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh.

National Velvet, Enid Bagnold.

The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico.

The Kitchen Madonna, Rumer Godden.

The Ark, by Margot Benary Isbert.

5. Describe your ideal writing environment.

My family home in Friendship, Maine, out on the porch, overlooking Friendship Long Island and Friendship Harbor.  The fog’s rolling in.  My grandfather’s in the kitchen, making Manhattans.  My grandmother’s in her wicker chair, reading the NY Times.  I’m at the table, writing….

6. What’s one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring author?

Don’t listen to any of the silly advice given to you on the internet or by internet writer’s groups.  Write the book you want to write.  Use the words you need to use.

7. What is your superpower?

The power of observation.  I see and hear everything.  It comes out in my stories.

8. What is your worst habit? Your best one?

Not taking my anti-anxiety medication.

I clean up after myself.  Always.

Book blurb:

From 1985-1995, Scottish stage and film actor, Hugh Ross, starred in the multi-million dollar television fantasy series, The Fallen, which made him a household name and opened the doors to life as a celebrity. In 2000, an actor from the spinoff series to The Fallen “outed” the decade-long romance that Hugh had with his married and presumably straight co-star, Jonathan Weir, and in 2004, Hugh and Jonathan become one of the first celebrity couples to marry in Massachusetts….They live in New York; Hugh continues to work in film and on stage; Jonathan directs and has a supporting role in a TV series, and occasionally returns to musical theatre where his career began.

At 72, having survived one mild heart attack, Hugh has no illusions about their life together. Jonathan is fourteen years younger. Hugh accepts that as he ages Jonathan’s role will be that of the caretaking spouse, and of course, Hugh will die first. After all, that’s the natural order of things.

But on October 22, 2012, Hugh leaves their flat early for the gym and the market, and when he returns, he finds Jonathan has died in his sleep, aged 58.

What do you do, when your much younger spouse dies? How do you go on, when you are 72 and alone? Do you even bother? There are plenty of ways that our society acknowledges a husband’s loss of his wife — but what about a husband’s loss of his husband?

The Mortal Part follows the life of Sir Hugh Ross through that first year of mourning in Jewish culture, from sitting shiva to the unveiling.

 

 

Book buy links: (the latest one is with my agent.)  My children’s book, Pacific Tree Frogs, published by Tradewind Books (Vancouver, London, Sydney), is sometimes available on Amazon, but it is OP.  Illustrated by George Juhascz, published in 2003.  It was published by Crocodile Books in the US in 2004.

 

Author bio:

Leslie E Owen is a literary agent, writer, journalist, and teacher who has been a fan of Star Trek since September 8, 1966, when she was eight years old and sitting in front of the family television in Milford, Connecticut.  She started writing professionally at sixteen as a sports stringer for three Connecticut newspapers, but started university as a physics major before graduating from the University of Arizona in 1980 with a degree in Creative Writing and English Lit.  In her career in publishing, which has spanned three decades, she has been an agent, an editor, a director of foreign rights, an international publishing representative, a film scout, and a trade reviewer and journalist, having published articles in Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, etc.  She began teaching creative writing at Duke University in 1989, and has taught various writing courses and seminars in the US and Canada.  Her children’s science book, Pacific Tree Frogs, was published by Tradewind Books (Vancouver, London, Sydney) in 2003, and was a Top Ten Pick in Canada; it was published by Crocodile Books in the US in 2004.  Currently she is the agent/owner of the Leslie E Owen Literary Agency while continuing to teach high school exceptional education students.  She has been writing as a journalist about the world that is Star Trek for the past four years.  She is the cohost, with film producer Troy Bernier, of the livestreaming radio show Tribbles and Trilobites.  Her recent publications include a flash fiction piece, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” in Queer SF’s anthology Renewal, the short story, “Act of Subversion,” to be published in the Emerald Coast Review, and a one-act play, On the Doorstep, which will be performed May 2018 in Pensacola, Florida.  She has just completed her first literary novel, The Mortal Part.

 

Author contacts:

  • Website: http://www.leslieeowenagency.com/
  • Blog: http://www.leslieeowenagency.com/
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1114255875266303/
  • Twitter: @simeyowen
  • Email: miloowen@yahoo.com

Interview Roulette: K.C. Faelan

Play along with K.C. Faelan!

  1. You can eat only one ice cream flavor for the rest of your life. Which is it?

I love dark chocolate ice cream, but I’d have to choose French Vanilla only because it would go best with various toppings. If I mixed enough chocolate syrup and chocolate chunks with it, I’d end up with chocolate ice cream anyway!

  1. What was your favorite school subject? Least favorite?

Science/Biology was my favorite. I majored in Life Science in junior college but switched to a different major for my four-year degree. I disliked History the most. Maybe because the teachers didn’t make history interesting. I found it boring and dry, and in college, I often fell asleep in class. I still passed because the professor taught directly from the text so I really didn’t have to pay attention.

  1. A genie pops up and offers to grant you one talent. What do you choose and why?

Perfect health for myself, and my husband, for the rest of our lives. Why? Because health problems can interfere in the smallest life events. Take a simple thing like allergies. I’m guessing most people have allergies so they can relate. This year has been a very bad year for allergies where I live because of the large amount of rain we received. With allergies, people deal with headaches, ear and sinus infections, sniffling, sneezing, and allergies exacerbate asthma in the people who have it. They can’t go camping or hiking if their breathing is severely affected. That is just one example of how one small health problem can escalate into something larger and then go on to curtail a person’s ability to enjoy life to the fullest.

  1. Write a haiku poem about your favorite beverage.

Here you go:

Lush, bright, strong,

Tea exhilarates

My senses.

  1. Which house did the sorting hat put you in?

This is a great question. I’m a big Harry Potter fan and belonged to an online group that sorted members with a long questionnaire. Other members would go over the answers and decide which house they thought the person belonged in. They sorted me into Ravenclaw. However, when I joined Pottermore, I took JKR’s quiz and was sorted into Slytherin. I was surprised, but after thinking about it, I wasn’t that surprised. When I was in the online HP group, the group held fun quarterly events and often the Snakes said I really belonged in Slytherin even though they knew I was in Ravenclaw. I don’t know if that means a Slytherin is better at spotting other snakes or the other houses are bad at it. Whatever reason, I think I’m a mixture of both, a Slytherclaw, but if I had to pick one absolute house, I’m probably more of a Ravenclaw.

  1. What is the oddest thing on your music playlist?

That’s a hard one because I hardly ever listen to music. Probably something humorous, like the Chipmunks singing The Christmas Song. I love Christmas music, that’s the one type of music I could play all year long.

  1. Are you a nerd and/or a geek? Provide evidence to support your answer.

Geek for sure. I tend to get absorbed in the enjoyment of projects or items. Currently my interest is Pokemon. But, I don’t pay attention to the stats, fighting moves, etc, which means I’m not a nerd. Geeks are supposed to be more outgoing and I’m not. That’s where I tend to fall into the nerd category, I like to spend time alone, with small doses of people interaction.

  1. Which of your characters would send you screaming out into the blizzard before the week was up?

The most obnoxious character I wrote was Mr. Trant, the hotel manager of the Astraea, in my novel, Top Floor. He’s a conniving brown-noser who’d happily stab a person in the back if he could gain anything from it. However, now that I think about it, I’d more likely try to find a way for him to get stranded outside in a blizzard rather than running outside myself.

I wrote Top Floor to a prompt for Goodreads 2015 Love is an Open Road event. It’s the first novel I wrote and I’m quite proud of it. The story came to me instantly with only a few scenes missing, I just had to write flesh it out. Top Floor is available free as a Goodreads download, however, I’m currently making extensive edits to it so a better version will be out early next year, at least that’s what I’m aiming for. I’ve learned a lot about writing since I wrote the story so I’m going back and polishing it up. No scenes will be added or changed, it’ll still be the same story, but better. Once I finish, I’ll send it on to my betas and once completed offer the ebook for free. I also plan to have print copies made available once I’m finished with everything.

Book:

Aligning North

 

Book blurb:

Blake Manning spends his summers in his favorite national park, Yosemite. He runs an outdoor adventure company with three friends. This year he and his BFF/business partner, Ali, will serve as guides for a hike over the Grand Traverse Trail. Blake will find it’s not nature or the wildlife that are most hazardous, but traversing the uncharted waters of a potential relationship with one of the hikers, Zac North, who doesn’t appear all that happy about being the object of Blake’s attention.

Stormy weather and stormier tempers keep all the hikers on their toes as Yosemite tests them, bringing some closer together…and breaking others apart.

Part of “Summer Bigger Than Others – A Summer Anthology” from Beaten Track Publishing.

 

Book buy links:

Aligning North

https://www.amazon.com/Aligning-North-K-C-Faelan-ebook/dp/B0103625CQ

http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/?n1=publications&id=161

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/552708

 

Author books-

Beaten Track Publishing: http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/?n1=authors&id=62

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/K.C.-Faelan/e/B00PCLXUDQ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/kcfaelan

 

Author bio:

KC is a writer of M/M and LGBT Fiction. Her stories are character driven, with a touch of humor, romance, and all the fun that entails. She believes in HEAs, or at least a strong HFN, where the characters in her stories must work for their HEA, but in the end get their love match. KC loves food and will often incorporate scenes of cooking or eating in the stories she writes. She enjoys relaxing with a good book, her favorite genre being M/M, but she reads many others, such as: Fantasy, Paranormal and Sci-Fi.

KC lives in Northern California with her husband and two rescue birds.

Beaten Track Publishing: http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com/?n1=authors&id=62

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8147151.K_C_Faelan

Author contacts:

  • Website
  • Blog- https://kcfaelan.wordpress.com/
  • Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/KC-Faelan-658723390912190/
  • Twitter – https://twitter.com/kcfaelan

Mini update among chaos

I am putting the finishing touches on the first draft of my 22nd novel right now. Woohoo! And I’m trying to get my older daughter ready to move away to college and the younger daughter ready to start high school. And I have to get myself ready to teach my fall classes. Plus I seem to have launched myself into some kind of dental hell involving repeated visits to multiple dental professionals for me and my kids.

But there are a few things going on I wanted to mention.

As you can see, The Pillar is a monthly Kindle deal. You can get it for the discounted price at Amazon or from Dreamspinner. If you already own it, check out the other fantastic books on sale.

Rattlesnake releases in Italian next week. You can preorder it now.

If you missed it the other day, Amy Lane interviewed me as part of the blog tour for her wonderful new book.

And I’m trying to make swag decisions for GayRomLit. Ack.

Interview Roulette: J.S. Fields

Today J.S Fields joins us!

  1. Shopping—love it or leave it? I would rather lose a foot than go on an extended shopping trip. I have about a half an hour patience window, tops. Unless there is food. If you bring snacks and they are delicious, I will follow you around like a puppy for hours.
  2. You’ve just met an alien from a planet where there’s no such thing as fiction writing. Explain to him/her/it/them why humans read made-up stories. Fiction is lying done well enough that people want to hear more, even though they know you are lying. It can be nice to get lost in a lie, because it can be nicer than your life, or give you clues or tools to use in your life. Or teach you to lie. Whatever works for you.
  3. Are you a nerd and/or a geek? Provide evidence to support your answer.Yes to all. I was weaned on Star Trek, cut my teeth on Star Wars (movies and expanded universe and NO, it will never not be cannon. ‘Legends’. BAH!), and had my heart stolen by Babylon Five (or rather, a certain second in command on Babylon Five). Today I am a scientist, writing science fiction. Full circle.
  4. Describe a memorable dream—or nightmare!  Any dream I can remember is XXX rated and not suitable for general audiences. I have a filthy, filthy mind.
  5. Are you a nervous cleaner? (And if you are, will you come hang out at my house?) I’m a bored cleaner, and also a procrastination cleaner. With a three year old at home, those things don’t seem to happen much anymore.
  6. Pick any place in the world to spend the next 6 months. Where is it and why? I really miss living in Toronto. I want to have enough money to move into an apartment above the Manulife Center on Bloor, eat Scaccia every day for lunch, and then spend lazy afternoons in the Indigo bookstore. Screw six months, can I live there forever?
  7. Which of your characters should run for US President?  Yeah, pin your hopes on Nicholas, world. He’s the only one in there with a shred of responsibility. OMG please none of them. My current books are the Ardulum series, and while I love my characters, they are, hrm… not the best people. I could see Nicholas maybe being decent at president in about twenty years, but Neek? Negotiations with foreign lands would end up as shooting matches. Emn would just burn everything to the ground, and Yorden, well, we’d never get Yorden into a suit long enough to do anything.
  8. If you were on a cruise ship for a week, what would you spend your time doing? Puking. Ships and I do not get along. I don’t care if it’s a canoe or a giant cruise ship. Even a hint of motion, on ship, car, or plane, and I’m white as a sheet and wishing I were dead. There isn’t enough Dramamine in the world for me.

Book blurb:

Ardulum.

The planet that vanishes. The planet that sleeps.

Neek makes a living piloting the dilapidated tramp transport, Mercy’s Pledge, and smuggling questionable goods across systems blessed with peace and prosperity. She gets by—but only just. In her dreams, she is still haunted by thoughts of Ardulum, the traveling planet that, long ago, visited her homeworld. The Ardulans brought with them agriculture, art, interstellar technology…and then disappeared without a trace, leaving Neek’s people to worship them as gods. Neek does not believe—and has paid dearly for it with an exile from her home for her heretical views. Yet, when the crew stumbles into an armed confrontation between the sheriffs of the Charted Systems and an unknown species, fate deals Neek an unexpected hand in the form of a slave girl—a child whose ability to telepathically manipulate cellulose is reminiscent of that of an Ardulan god. Forced to reconcile her beliefs, Neek chooses to protect her, but is the child the key to her salvation, or will she lead them all to their deaths?

 

Book buy links:

Ninestar Press: https://ninestarpress.com/product/ardulum-first-don/

Amazon print: https://www.amazon.com/Ardulum-First-J-S-Fields/dp/1945952652/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497913965&sr=8-1&keywords=Ardulum

Amazon ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Ardulum-First-Don-J-S-Fields-ebook/dp/B06VSQM3BB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1497913965&sr=8-1

Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ardulum-First-Don-J-S-Fields-ebook/dp/B06VSQM3BB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497914253&sr=8-1&keywords=Ardulum

Amazon.com.au: https://www.amazon.com.au/Ardulum-First-Don-J-S-Fields-ebook/dp/B06VSQM3BB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498073678&sr=8-1&keywords=Ardulum

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ardulum-js-fields/1125775361?ean=2940154008171

 

Author bio:

J.S. Fields is a scientist who has perhaps spent too much time around organic solvents. She enjoys roller derby, woodturning, making chainmail by hand, and cultivating fungi in the backs of minivans. Nonbinary, but prefers female pronouns Always up for a Twitter chat.

Author contacts:

  • Website: jsfieldsbooks.com
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/Galactoglucoman
  • Email: Chlorociboria@gmail.com