Q&A with Anne Mather, A Forbidden Temptation

What’s your favorite love story? Fiction or non-fiction.

I have dozens of favourite love stories, but GREEN DARKNESS and KATHERINE by Anya Seton are high on my list.

Is anything in A Forbidden Temptation based on real life experiences or purely all imagination?

No, A FORBIDDEN TEMPTATION is not based on any real life experiences, but I can say that the Northumbrian Coast is one of the most beautiful coastlines in the UK and incidentally, I do believe in ghosts.

You get a brilliant phrase/idea/thought at an inappropriate time (while driving, drifting off to sleep/in the shower). What do you do?

I always make a note of any ideas I have, and in consequence I have a notebook full of them!

What’s your favorite line from any movie?

I love the film, DIRTY DANCING, and there are many lines from that script I could nominate, not least the most famous 'nobody puts Baby in the corner.'

If you were to create a slogan for your life, what would it be?

The only slogan for life I believe is Charles Darwin's 'IT IS NOT THE STRONGEST OF THE SPECIES THAT SURVIVES, NOR THE MOST INTELLIGENT, BUT THE ONE MOST RESPONSIVE TO CHANGE'.

If you could live anywhere on this planet, and take everything that you love with you, where would you choose to live? Tell us about your choice.

I love where I live now, and although I enjoy travelling and seeing different places, I wouldn't choose to live anywhere else.

What was your favorite scene to write in A Forbidden Temptation? Why?

I think one of my favourite scenes was when Sean was confronted by Lisa's ghost.  I really wanted Sean to meet his match.

What did you find most useful in learning to write?  What was least useful or most destructive?

I don't remember having to learn to write.  I started scribbling in exercise books as soon as I could write and my stories grew as I did.  There's nothing destructive about writing.  It's the best job in the world.

What are five words that describe your writing process? 

Time, time, discipline, discipline, satisfaction.

What are you working on now? What is your next project?

I'm in the process of writing my next book for Harlequin Presents.  I'm also working on an ebook, SILENT ECHO,  that is coming out with Kindle later this year.

The Inspiration for Joe Goldberg by Caroline Kepnes

When someone asks about my inspiration for Joe Goldberg, I always pause.

There are always three ways for me to answer this question. There is the personal truth about my life. I lost my father in November of 2012. He was a powerful force in my life. His voice and his contagious passion for all creations in literature and TV, song and film, Tolkien and Led Zeppelin, Stephen King and Sex and the City. He was a huge influence. Towards the end, when cancer was winning, he was on YouTube, finding new bands, raising his voice in song, going to Monterey Pop.

Someone like that slips away, and there is a hole in your world. Anyone who’s ever lost anyone knows about this. You try to remember the basic rules of life, which is, first and foremost, as my dad always said, that it’s for the living. My mom was right when she said that I should write something. (Moms: Why do they get to be right so much?) And I wanted to pour myself into something new, a creative adventure. I wanted to keep that passion for the arts alive, thriving in my mind, in my work. This is where Joe was, from inception, someone who loved his books and his movies, someone who felt it all.

The other answer to this question is more analytical, about my passion for cultural shifts, the way my heart beats when I read about some new study on how social media impacts our brains, our hearts, the impossibility of knowing how children will be different from growing up with iPads.

It’s timeless and timely because every generation deals with social evolution. But you know, when it’s your world, at your time, it’s yours.

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Here I was, participating more and more in social media. I quit smoking and it was comforting to hear so much encouragement online. I was a journalist and now it wasn’t enough to write an article. You had to tweet it. Social media was important in every domain of my life. I was aware of the dark side, the limitations of a Like-it-or-Don’t-Like approach to interaction, a disintegration of grey areas.

I was also enamored with the beauty of all this connection. You talk to people online you wouldn’t see in the real world.

And then again, I was shattered by the price we pay for that connection. It robs us of reunions. The mystery produced by distance. You go to your high school reunion, you don’t learn anything. You knew that guy had those kids. You knew she cut her hair. We don’t drift apart. We stalk. We keep tabs.

Social media is of course good and bad, like any rich territory for the world of a novel. I wanted to explore modern communication through Beck and Joe, someone who is deeply invested in social media, to her detriment, and someone who is antisocial, to his detriment.

And in the end, there is the simple, overwhelming truth of what I always set out to do when I write. To activate empathy, in both of us, you and me, and that doesn’t mean that you love Joe or hate Joe, it only means that you’re experiencing life from his perspective.

About Caroline Kepnes

Caroline Kepnes is a native of Cape Cod and the author of many published short stories. She has covered pop culture for Entertainment Weekly, Tiger Beat, E! Online, and Yahoo. She has also written for television shows, including 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Her directorial debut short film, Miles Away, premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festival. Caroline is a Brown University graduate now residing in Los Angeles in the same building that the Hillside Strangler once called home. She spends a lot of time on Cape Cod.

Where the Weirdness Comes From by David S. Atkinson

When you like to slip absurd elements into stories like I do in Not Quite so Stories, the first question people seem interested in asking is where I get all the weird ideas. It's one of my favorite questions, but it's also one of the hardest to answer completely. Like I think good weird fun should, everything comes from a different place.

To pick a story from the collection, "Cents of Wonder Rhymes With Orange" originates from a brochure I saw when I was somewhere around seven. My parents used to take long road trips throughout the Western states: the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado, California, and so on. On those trips, my sister and I were always raiding the racks of tourist trap brochures in hopes of talking our parents into stopping. We didn't usually have much success.

One I remember clearly we picked up somewhere near Wall Drug. It advertised a mystery house, a place where the laws of physics did not apply. The pamphlet suggested all kinds of weirdness, but I specifically remember a claim of a room where objects rolled uphill.

Now, I'm sure I knew even then that it was most likely a trick. Surely the room was constructed in such a way as to appear that downhill was actually up, an optical illusion. Still, what was wrong with that? It would have been cool. The idea of a place where such things actually happened intrigued me even more.

Of course, I didn't get to go.

Still, I remember that brochure even all these years later. My brain latched onto it and never let go. While I was working on this collection, my mind went back to that. I started thinking of that downhill/uphill rolling room. More interestingly to me now, I started thinking of all the different reactions people had to it. It was supposed to invoke a sense of wonder, but too many people let the wonder drain out of life…or drive it out deliberately. I decided to start playing around with that.

"Cents of Wonder Rhymes With Orange" is the result of that. The other stories each have similar, though widely different backstories.

About the Author

David S. Atkinson is the author of "Not Quite so Stories" ("Literary Wanderlust" 2016), "The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes" (2015 National Indie Excellence Awards finalist in humor), and "Bones Buried in the Dirt" (2014 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist, First Novel <80K). His writing appears in "Bartleby Snopes," "Grey Sparrow Journal," "Atticus Review," and others. His writing website is http://davidsatkinsonwriting.com/ and he spends his non-literary time working as a patent attorney in Denver.

Connect with David: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Q&A with Laurie Woodward

Who or what inspired you to be an author?

I have always created imagined worlds in my mind writing poetry and short stories from the time I was in elementary school. I knew that something inside of me flowed through words. I’d loved to read and used to think of authors as these magical people that had words that just sizzled from their fingertips. But then I saw a book titled, The Weekend Novelist at Barnes and Noble. I picked it up and began leafing through the pages. Here was a step-by-step instruction manual on novel writing. I doubted myself at first but then the idea of seeing the stories I dream is come alive on the page took root. So I began the exercises and one page at a time I created Forest Secrets. It was rough, and not ready for the world so I put it away. Wrote Artania 1. Artania 2. Dean and JoJo. That’s when I remembered that  first story and got out the old files and began revising.  When people call me author I feel like that unique part of me, my inner voice is being recognized. And it feels wonderful.

Growing up, our biggest inspirations were our teachers. What do you love about teaching?

I love that moment of a-ha from students, when the spark becomes a flame. When a child who had been saying, “I can’t,” does the impossible. I love the warmth we share in my  classroom, the community. I love feeling like my life has meaning because I have helped set a child on an easier path.

You were involved in a collaboration involving the subject of anti-bullying, what advice do you have for teaching facing the same issues in their classrooms? What would you say to students and parents? Empower and trust children to make good choices. Given the right tools, children are very powerful. I’ve seen kids from diverse backgrounds come together in support of eachother. I’ve had students from gang families, foster care, and abusive homes volunteer as friend mediators. Tell them they have the power to make change if only they seek win-win solutions.

What inspired The Artania Chronicles? Is there a takeaway that you want young readers to have after reading?

I want children to realize that we all have a magical place inside of us, our creative self, that is absolutely unique. No one can draw, write, dance, sing, or swing a baseball bat exactly the same as another. But everyone can rejoice in their own talent.  Every time a human sketches, sculpts, or paints a beautiful being is birthed in Artania but when children turn away from their true selves it gives power to an evil race of beings.

Being an educator & writer for a younger audience, with kids being influenced by technology, do you find it hard for kids to want to pick up a book?

Not at all! Kids seem to know that there is something unique about reading that technology cannot match. And they get pretty proud when others see them reading big books.

Do you see yourself expanding into other genres?

I collaborated with naturalist Dean Bernal on his adult memoir, an amazing experience where I felt like I was the young man swimming with a wild dolphin. I’ve also dabbled in play writing. In addition to writing the Artania fantasy series I recently started a YA novel. My science fiction short story won an award in the L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest.

If you were only allowed one book, what would it be and why?

Stranger in a Strange Land because I love its optimism.

What advice would you have for aspiring writers?

Read. A lot. Write. A lot. Know that like everything it takes time. Don’t worry about fame and fortune.  Find joy in the process and the journey will be pretty freaking amazing.

About the Author

Laurie Woodward is a school teacher and the author of the fantasy books: The Artania Chronicles. Her Artania: The Pharaohs’ Cry is the first children’s book in the series. Laurie is also a collaborator on the award-winning Dean and JoJo anti-bullying DVD Resolutions. The European published version of Dean and JoJo for which she was the ghost writer was translated by Jochen Lehner who has also translated books for the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra, In addition to writing, Ms. Woodward is an award winning peace consultant who helps other educators teach children how to stop bullying, avoid arguments, and maintain healthy friendships. Laurie writes her novels in the coastal towns of California.

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Love Grows Where You Find It, or Setting in Romance by Jennifer Allis Provost

They say that there are two kinds of authors out there, plotters and pantsers. I fall firmly into the latter category; my characters have so much free will it’s a wonder I get anything written at all! As much as I like to let the characters develop their own voices, one thing I do plot and research extensively is setting, especially settings in contemporary romance.

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The main reason for this is so I don’t get any details wrong. I mean, I can’t have someone hop in a cab in Queens, and get out in the Bronx ten minutes later. But beyond having a solid understanding of the huts and bolts of a location, the setting needs to fit the story.
In my contemporary romance Changing Teams, the bulk of the action takes place in New York City. Our heroine, Britt, comes off as rather naïve, and we learn that she isn’t a native New Yorker. She’s a small town girl with dreams of being an artist. Of course, becoming a working artist is easier said than done, so Britt’s been picking up a few modeling gigs to pay the rent. Our hero, Sam, relocated from Iowa to pursue a career in photography. They meet at a photo shoot, and one of the first things Britt notices about Sam is his sweet Midwestern charm.

Both Britt and Sam relocated to New York for the same reasons: they wanted to be where the action is. They both have some pretty solid dreams of what they want to do with their lives, though Sam is far more organized than Britt. The city provides an exciting backdrop for their relationship, as they hit up tapas bars, bodegas, and the Statue of Liberty.  What better place to fall in love than the city that never sleeps.

About the Author

Jennifer Allis Provost writes books about faeries, orcs and elves. Zombies too. She grew up in the wilds of Western Massachusetts and had read every book in the local library by age twelve. (It was a small library). An early love of mythology and folklore led to her epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Parthalan, and her day job as a cubicle monkey helped shape her urban fantasy, Copper Girl. Changing Teams, the first in a new contemporary series, was released November 10, 2015 from Limitless Publishing. The second book, Changing Scenes, made its debut onJanuary 5, 2015.

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Q&A with Tim Quigley

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a writer?

I first aspired to write in my teenage years when I really developed a love for reading on my own, aside from school assignments. I devoured all of Stephen King’s early works and lo ved the horror, mystery, and suspense genres.  However, I was introduced to the classics as part of my studies, and the masters of the short story really caught my attention: O’Henry, Jackson, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc.  I was enthralled by these slices of life, captured like poignant Polaroid snap shots that, despite their brevity, immersed the reader in captivating tales with remarkably complex characters.

As a writer who has been praised for your short stories, what do you think makes a good one?

A good story is one that takes the reader somewhere they have never been, even if that is only a glimpse beneath the surface of a place with which they are quite familiar.  Perhaps this is a peek into the mind of a person who is contemplating something we have all thought or of which we are already aware, but the writer brings us to another level of awareness.

Tell me about your latest, Kissing the Hag? I've read you are currently working on a film adaption?

Hag actually came from two short stories that I was working on: one was about this kid who was living in the city and there was an old alcoholic woman who lived in the neighborhood whom everyone regarded as crazy because she was always talking about angels, and to them when she was drunk and on the streets.  He was fascinated, and would talk to her, and about her angels, all the time…  Then there was another story with this guy who was working the graveyard shift at a shelter.  His life had come to a standstill via some existential crisis, I wasn’t sure what, and he got it moving again through his experience on one particular night.  Both stories were at a crossroads and lacked something, so I made the old alcoholic woman a bag lady at the shelter.  I still needed the crisis, and I ruminated over a divorce or death of a parent, but neither had ever happened to me.  My brother had taken his life but I felt that using that would be exploiting something that was deeply personal and painful, until another more experienced and wiser writer told me to “Exploit with a vengeance!  It’s what writers do.  We use what know.  Exploit away, my friend.”  But I did not want it to be an autobiography, either, so I had the protagonist learn lessons that I already knew.  I didn’t do anything that he does in the book such as leaving his job and cutting himself off from friends and family, but I did work the nightshift in a shelter when I was in undergrad in the 1980’s, and my brother did kill himself.  But my life did not come to a standstill at that time.  Instead, I was catapulted forward.  And this also gave me distance from him as a character, and a wider perspective.

Everyone has a story. Are your stories personally inspired or if not, what inspires each one written?

Usually, my stories are rooted in some sort of actual observation or experience.  I am moved by a particular event or internal response that speaks to me as a revelation of sorts.  These always seem to tap me on the shoulder and beg to be turned into a “moment’ in fiction: one of those times when the surface is lifted and we get a peak beneath…

Who is your favorite author and what is it that strikes you about their work?

I have too many to name a favorite, but gravitate toward literary fiction.  Aside from some of the classic writers I mentioned earlier, I am a big fan of Michael Cunningham, David Leavitt, and David Sedaris.  They are all of my generation.   The first two simply write exceptionally well; Cunningham is a magician with prose, and Leavitt is a master at lifting back that proverbial curtain on average American lives.   Sedaris is so very talented as well, but he makes me laugh out loud wherever I am reading his work. 

What do you like to read when you aren't writing?

Pretty much the same, though I am a news junkie.  I used to subscribe to a few magazines and newspapers, but now I get everything online and on my smartphone.

What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Write.  Just write.  And share your work with other writers instead of sticking it in a folder and wondering for months, or even years, if it is any good.  It is important for writers to listen to every reader, but other writers are paramount for the caliber of feedback to take back to your desk for revisions.   And remember that revising your work is not a punishment, but part of the process.  The best ideas usually come from revision.  

About the Author

Timothy Quigley’s award-winning stories have appeared in the Chariton Review, Line Zero Journal of Art and Literature, La Ostra Magazine, Writer’s World as well as online publications. He is a script writer for CIDLabs LLC and is currently working on two short films: one animated, and the other a live action adapted from his short fiction. His novella, Kissing the Hag, was released by Pixel Hall Press in November 2015.

He lives in Salem, Massachusetts and teaches writing at Salem State University and Wentworth Institute in Boston

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