When writing a trilogy, it’s easy to forget that the middle book needs to add something to the story, not just the thing that connects the beginning of the end.
It’s something writer Marina Lostetter clearly thought about while writing her fantasy with a dash of horror novel The Cage Of Dark Hours (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), the middle piece of The Five Penalties trilogy…or the following email interview about it.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And sometimes an equally epic story begins with a single image. Take Jean Louise’s fantasy novel Waking Fire (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook). In the following email interview, she discusses what inspired and influenced this story — the first in a duology — including the single image that began this journey.
Sometimes called the Abominable Snowman, occasionally mistaken for Bigfoot, and still suing the makers of coolers for copyright infringement, the yeti is a simian-like humanoid who lives in the mountains of Asia.
Well, usually.
In Aaron Rosenberg’s comedic urban fantasy novel Yeti Left Home (paperback, Kindle), he lives in the wilderness of Minnesota until he’s forced to move to the Twin Cities.
In the following email interview, Rosenberg discusses what inspired and influenced this furry fish out of water story.
It’s been ten years since we last heard from Tiger and Del, the titular characters of Jennifer Roberson’s romantic fantasy series. In the following email interview, Roberson discusses their return in the new novel Sword-Bearer (paperback, Kindle), including why fans won’t have to wait another ten years for their next adventure.
If you’ve ever read a book or seen a movie, you’ve undoubtably experienced the phrase, “Something doesn’t smell right.” But in Michael B. Fletcher’s new fantasy novel Masters Of Scent (paperback, Kindle), something not smelling right could be an actual problem since, as he explains in the following email interview, this story is set in a world where smells are magic.
Keith Anthony Baird isn’t the first person to write their own version of a fairy tale. But as he explains in the following email interview about his grimdark fantasy horror novella In The Grimdark Strands Of The Spinneret (paperback, Kindle), he didn’t just want to tell a fairy tale, he wanted it to “…come across like a fable” as well.
While they’ve previously explored their fictional world the Birdverse in novellas and a novel, writer R.B. Lemberg has also penned a number of short stories and poems that are set in this realm as well. Now they’re collecting nearly a dozen of them in the new compilation Geometries Of Belonging: Stories & Poems From The Birdverse (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Lemberg discusses what inspired and influenced these stories, and how they connect to those novellas and the novel, as well as the larger world.
For the last few years, writer Andrew Rowe has been exploring the fictional realm of Venaya through the novels in his Arcane Ascension series. But with Crystal Awakening (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), he’s getting some help from fellow fantasy writer Kayleigh Nicol. In the following email interview, Rowe and Nicol discuss how this collaboration came to be, what inspired and influenced this progression fantasy saga, and their plans for expanding the world of Venaya even further.