Sandra Griffith Interview - One Beautiful Year of Normal

Photo Credit: Ric Griffith 

Sandra Griffith is a doctorate-level psychologist with extensive clinical and forensic experience, the owner of a large behavioral health agency and an adjunct professor for Marshall University’s Doctoral of Psychology program. One Beautiful Year of Normal is her first novel.

       

  

What is your favorite book and why? What is your favorite book outside your
genre?
I’m showing my age with this one. Boys Life by Robert McCammon has been my favorite book since 1991 when it was first published. It is a beautiful, Southern Gothic, coming of age story with a touch of mystery and magic realism. It’s the only book I’ve read more than twice. My favorite book outside my genre is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It’s also a Southern Gothic but is based on an actual murder that took place in Savannah, Georgia in 1981. The book is considered non-fiction, but the writing is so lyrical and interesting it reads like a novel. The thing I love most about it though is how it manages to make the city itself the main character.

Greatest thing you learned in school.
The more you learn the more you realize how little you know.

What were your inspirations for your characters development?
I’ve been a psychologist for over thirty years and have worked with both children and adults who experience severe psychological issues, some of which present in unusual ways. The mother-daughter relationship in the story was largely based on this.

What chapter was the most memorable to write and why?
I think anyone who reads a lot knows how important Chapter One is, so with that in mind, I rewrote that opening pages so many times I can now recite it word for word without looking.

When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?
I think most people who become avid readers always secretly dream of writing. I can’t remember a time when that wasn’t my biggest dream and I’m still not sure what kept me from trying it sooner.

TWO OF MY FAVORITE QUOTES/SCENES

One Beautiful Year of Normal are ones that take place with the main character as an adult coming to terms with her mother’s mental illness but still quietly questioning why no one intervened
sooner when it was obvious she had basically been left on her own. The two quotes are:

“The reality of our situation was stark: She rarely left our house, and by the time Helen came to fetch me, my mother wouldn’t even come out of her bedroom. If anyone had seen her curled into fetal position on her bed, it might have made a difference. Or it might not have mattered at all. The delicate mask my mother wore was so beautiful even I hadn’t always been able to see how much damage was hidden behind it.”

“Although my mother did not choose this terrible illness, I’ve always suspected there is a part of her that doesn’t want to get better. She would see this as a betrayal of my father. She lived. He died. She split the difference.”

What was your first job?
My first job was an Avon Saleslady at the age of 15! My only customers were friends of my mom, and she had to drive me around to deliver their orders, but I loved it!

What’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
What it was like to sleep in a bed without dogs piled on me.

What is your most memorable travel experience?
A trip to Italy several years ago. I wanted to squeeze as much as I could into ten days and ended up overbooking tours of different cities. I overestimated my physical ability to walk hundreds of miles, run to catch trains and function with less than five hours of sleep a night.

Name one thing you miss about being a kid.
The ability to jump off something from a high distance without getting hurt.

Best date you’ve ever had.
The best date I’ve ever had, or at least the most memorable, was on my 13 th wedding anniversary. We left a historic inn in Winchester, Virginia and headed to a resort in Charlottsville when our new car broke down. We called a tow truck, and the driver drove us two hours to a car dealership in Charlottsville. From there we took a cab to the resort. After checking in, we were driven from the front office via trolley and taken to a smaller area with golf carts that we then used to get to our room. We needed a way to get home the next morning so after dinner we did same trip in reverse to a bus that took us to a car rental place. So….the date involved riding in a car, tow truck, cab, trolley, golf cart, bus and a huge rental van because that was the only vehicle that was available to rent.

A must-read for fans of character-driven suspense like Liz Moore’s Long Bright River and A. J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window, One Beautiful Year of Normal is a gripping psychological thriller about a woman’s dangerous decision to unearth her family’s darkest secrets.

Some memories protect you. Others imprison you.

When August Caine receives a phone call from a Savannah attorney, she is blindsided by the news—her Aunt Helen has passed away. But how can that be, when August’s mother insisted Helen died in a car accident fifteen years ago? Determined to uncover the truth, August returns to the deep South, where the ghosts of her past—both real and imagined—await her.

Plagued by a memory splintered by her father’s unsolved murder when she was a child and further tangled by psychiatric treatments for the debilitating depression she struggles with, August realizes her survival depends on unraveling the mystery surrounding her father’s death. This means returning to the one safe place she remembers from the childhood she has mostly locked away inside her mind: Aunt Helen’s home, and the ghost tours they created together.

A chilling exploration of mental illness, mother-daughter bonds, and generational secrets, One Beautiful Year of Normal follows August as she pieces together the long-buried truths that shaped her family’s tragic past and confronts the question that has haunted her for years: Can the truth set her free, or will it unravel everything she thought she knew?

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Thank you SANDRA for making this giveaway possible.

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Lauren J.A. Bear Interview - Mother of Rome

Photo Content from Lauren

Lauren was born in Boston and raised in Long Beach, CA. After studying English at UCLA and Education at LMU, she taught middle-school Humanities for over a decade — and survived! She is a teaching fellow for the Holocaust Center for Humanity, and lives in Seattle with her husband and three young children. She likes crossword puzzles and being on or near the water without getting wet.

        

   

Greatest thing you learned at school.
Brevity and clarity! My eleventh-grade teacher at Long Beach Poly lived by this credo, and I passed it on to my own students when I was teaching middle school Humanities. It’s on par with the Ernest Hemingway/iceberg theory of writing, and it has always served me well.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
Absolutely every single note, post, email, fan art, handwritten letter I’ve received for Medusa’s Sisters. I read them all. Each one is beautiful and humbling (even the criticisms, lol). One reader told me of her plans to get a Stheno tattoo, and I was so touched I couldn’t stop crying!
Also, being invited to Comic-Cons has made me kinda cool with my kids and their friends. I have met the nicest people there!

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
Read poetry. Take classes with poets. Stand near them and soak up their lyrical genius through osmosis. A poet’s attention to every word on the page – and the blank spaces, as well – will change the way you put together sentences as a prose writer. And collect words like Pokémon. I love discovering unusual, archaic, esoteric words. I keep a list on my phone.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us?
Connection! I think the pandemic reinforced the truth that we need each other. Especially in this world of screens and AI, genuine human communion is essential. And what is a story if not, what Kazuo Ishiguro says, a conversation between two humans saying, “Does it feel like this to you, too?”

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
I wrote a book about motherhood, but being a mother was definitely the greatest day-to-day distraction. I have three children, (currently) nine years old and younger, so every day is laundry and lunches, homework and tears and cuddles and sports.
They are my inspiration, but my goodness, they require a lot of attention!

TEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MOTHER OF ROME

• ⦁ I am mortified to admit this now, but the original inspiration for Antho was Raquel from Vanderpump Rules. After Scandoval, I could no longer abide a doe-eyed passive character. She kept the physical characteristics, but otherwise evolved into a woman of independence and agency.
• Numitor’s three royal children are loosely based on my own. My daughter rests in the middle of the two boys, and I call her my “middle diamond.” Also, like Rhea, she has amazing hair.
• There is a Jane Eyre/”Reader, I married him” allusion hidden in the text. See if you can find it!
• I also included a Medusa’s Sisters/Gorgon reference.
• While the relationship between Numitor and Amulius is Hamlet-esque, I began to picture Amulius as Professor Snape because I was reading the Harry Potter books aloud to my kids while drafting the novel.
• I spent way too long calculating the distance/times a wolf could run on my ancient map of Latium to ensure my plotting was accurate.
• I would cast Pedro Pascal in every male role if I could – Leandros, Mars, and Tiberinus!
• I grew up on sword and sandal epics, but always felt the female characters were too one dimensional (whores or virgins). Writing Mother of Rome was my response to this egregious oversight.
• When Leandros tells Antho, “I will always love you more,” I was referencing the vows from my best friend’s wedding.
• Just like Antho and Rhea, my cousin and I are a year and days apart and our sons are a year and days apart.

What is the first job you have had?
In high school, I worked afterschool at a French/German bakery in the Bixby Knolls/Cal Heights neighborhood of Long Beach, California. I used to help design wedding cakes! I highly recommend anything and everything with cream cheese frosting.

What is your happiest childhood memory?
Family reunions on Martha’s Vineyard with my mom and brother. Watching classic Hollywood movies after everyone else went to bed with my dad.

If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you had “no regrets” what would it be?
Oh, I would have loved myself far earlier! Girls are too hard on themselves in every way. Am I smart enough, am I capable, skinny, pretty? Bullsh*t. We are all enough, exactly the way we are.

First Love?
My college sweetheart, Dan Bear. He’s my husband now, my North Star and lifeline. I feel super lucky.

What is one unique thing are you afraid of?
I hate being in water where I can’t see the ground. My imagination is way too vivid. The oceans are terrifying. Squids? Sharks? Nope. Over 80% of the ocean is unexplored. That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.

What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?
I think taxidermy is *so* weird. My best friend from childhood and I used to hang our bras from the antlers of her dad’s taxidermized deer head.

A powerful and fierce reimagining of the earliest Roman legend: the twins, Romulus and Remus, mythical founders of history’s greatest empire, and the woman whose sacrifice made it all possible.

The names Romulus and Remus may be immortalized in map and stone and chronicle, but their mother exists only as a preface to her sons’ journey, the princess turned oath-breaking priestess, condemned to death alongside her children.

But she did not die; she survived. And so does her story.

Beautiful, royal, rich: Rhea has it all—until her father loses his kingdom in a treacherous coup, and she is sent to the order of the Vestal Virgins to ensure she will never produce an heir.

Except when mortals scheme, gods laugh.

Rhea becomes pregnant, and human society turns against her. Abandoned, ostracized, and facing the gravest punishment, Rhea forges a dangerous deal with the divine, one that will forever change the trajectory of her life…and her beloved land.

To save her sons and reclaim their birthright, Rhea must summon nature’s mightiest force – a mother’s love – and fight.

All roads may lead to Rome, but they began with Rhea Silvia.

You can purchase Mother of Rome at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you LAUREN for making this giveaway possible.

Winner will receive a Copy of Mother of Rome by Lauren J.A. Bear.

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Tim Facciola Interview - The Scales of Balance

Photo Content from Tim Facciola

TIM FACCIOLA: When Tim isn’t writing epic fantasy, he can often be found in his garage-gym or in the mountains where he lives. A virtual fitness professional by trade, he integrates his creative passions into movement, training with maces, clubs, staves, and swords to unlock his inner gladiator. 

More than writing, reading, gaming, playing music, hiking, and paddle-boarding, Tim loves story. If he’s not working on his own story, he’s helping others develop theirs as an author coach. 

Living in Arizona with his wife, Colleen, Tim continues writing epic fantasy novels while exploring different storytelling mediums so he can inspire others to hope. To live. And to believe. 

        

   

Greatest thing you learned at school:
My degree is in Exercise Physiology. If you can imagine, many classes and labs were dedicated to the anatomy of the human body—the form and function of muscles, connective tissues, organs and organ systems, etc. One might suspect that this field of study might not translate all that well to the craft of writing, but learning how and why things work the way they work, the means by which they fulfill their individual roles while interconnecting with the system as a whole—this was the perfect prerequisite course to helping me learn story structure. While I didn’t study story structure in school, I felt like my past academic ventures helped prepare me to identify trends in stories and pinpoint the differences that made certain stories resonate with their audiences while others flopped. Better yet, such an analytical vantage point prepared me to construct my own stories filled with the catharsis that readers love.

What chapter was the most memorable to write and why?
Undoubtedly Chapter 52. Entitled: Double-Edged Sword, the chapter is the culmination of a character’s failure that results in tragedy. Tragedies in general are difficult to write because, subliminally, you know what’s coming; you just don’t know the details of how and when. This tragic point in the story is a heavy turning point in the narrative that changes the futures for several characters, not just for this novel, but the rest of the trilogy to come. This was a chapter that after I finished, I needed a break from writing. So much heart and emotion went into writing it. So many memories of my personal experiences and failings came to the surface. Yet through that vulnerability, I believe there was an intimacy placed on the page that few readers can flip past without feelings being evoked. One of my beta-readers described this scene as the threw-my-kindle-and-cried chapter.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us?
The arts have a way of bypassing people’s heads and actually connecting with that thing that beats in their chest. Stories, and fantasy stories in particular, simply have the ability to lower our inhibitions, allowing us to put aside our natural biases and real world prejudices so we can truly open up our minds. Stories allow us to walk in the shoes of and gain insight from people we may not have the privilege to interact with on a day to day basis. In a world where everything seems to be “spun,” stories can offer unobtrusive and unassuming growth opportunities, even for people disinterested in learning about xyz. Not to mention, our brains are wired for story; it allows us to make meaning of topics and commit them to memory. It’s one of the most powerful modalities of communication.

Can you tell us when you started THE SCALES OF BALANCE, how that came about?
I was fresh out of college, working 70-80 hours/week in the fitness industry in Midtown Manhattan. My band had recently broken up so I wasn’t writing music much, if at all. No lyrics, no melodies, no riffs. In that time, I was having crazy dreams. I told a client about them and she had suggested finding a new creative outlet. At that time I was listening to the audiobook of A Song of Ice and Fire and rewatching Spartacus on Starz for the zillionth time. Spartacus’s fight for freedom and equality, and GRRM’s intricate web of world-building and political intrigue were the first seeds of what became A Vengeful Realm. That was around ten years ago. This project became my baby; I kept working on it until finally, it all came together in the trilogy now being released!

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
I set out with the specific intention that I would not base the characters on anyone in my life (I had tried in a different project and hated the process). Yet over the years of their development, throughout redrafts, revisions, and the editing process as a whole, it became abundantly clear to me that each of them in part were in fact a facet of me. Whether they be ingrained parts of me like my sense of principle (Zephyrus), my stubborn pride (Laeden), or my sometimes dangerous single-track mind (Fenyx), or interpersonal relationships that shaped how I see the world, all of the characters in some way shape or form seemed to reflect a mirror back at me despite my intentions toward the contrary.

Your Journey to Publication
The journey through the writing and publication process is seldom the same for any two writers. Both involve distinctly different skill sets and relationships to navigate effectively and efficiently. Tough questions need answering. Some of them frankly don’t matter; there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong way, but everyone needs to find their own process. Plotting or pantsing? Traditional Publishing vs. Self Publishing? If only it were that simple…

Here’s how A Vengeful Realm survived the perils of the writing journey en route to publication.

Once upon a time I attempted to outline my story. I knew I wanted to include mythology, gladiators, a scarcity for fresh water, and an encroaching super-natural dread, but outside of those big-picture ideas, I had nothing. I wrote out seven or eight pages of notes for character concepts, different settings, scenes I wanted to see play out, etc. and eventually, I felt confident enough to start actually writing my novel. I sat down. Put proverbial pen to paper on my laptop. AND… I began my story twenty years before the events of my proposed outline. Undeterred, I forged forward, blindly navigating my lack of knowledge for storytelling and writing craft. I fumbled and faltered for maybe 20,000 words before I had written myself into enough corners that I decided to turn back and actually plot out my novel.

Instead of a page of notes, I made an excel notebook with each sheet dedicated to a different part of the story. A page for history, a page for geography, a page for religions, myths, and legends. A page for the Great Houses and prominent families of my world, a page for all the POV characters I wanted to include with detailed dossiers, a page for all the secondary characters to flesh out the vast world I’d created, a blank back-log for the tertiary characters who would eventually come up. I made a sheet for individual character moments I wanted them to have, laid them out, matched them up chronologically, then put them in the order in which I wanted to tell them as a chapter by chapter outline. And finally. FINALLY! I was ready to write again.

Working 60+ hours a week as a fitness business owner, I dedicated my free time to writing. I don’t remember how long it took to finish the first draft. If I had to guess— between all the planning, the starting, stopping, starting over, and actually writing it—maybe I’d say three-ish years? Well after three-ish years, book one of the first draft of A Vengeful Realm came in at 278,000 words. It was a wild, untameable mustang that I was trying to ride without a saddle or reins, but I didn’t know that at the time…

Then I asked the age-old question of “What now?” This was when everything started coming together. I searched for an editor via Reedsy and on March 31st of 2017 I met and began working with someone who has become a dear friend. Chersti Nieveen of Writer Therapy was instrumental in my development as a writer and storyteller. Somehow, she was able to wade through my craftless drudgery and actually believed in my story despite its oh so many flaws. She became a mentor of sorts, providing me with resources to study story structure and craft techniques. I ate it up. I couldn’t get enough. Finally, between all the “cool ideas” I had, I was able to tame that mustang of a story into a well-trained warhorse. I was able to cut through the noise, find the compelling throughlines, the narrative voice, and thematic resonance I wanted my story to have.

So I asked myself the next logical question, “What now?” I’d finally figured out my writing process, but the publishing process was an entirely new beast. I realized I needed a community to help me navigate. I started a writing group. We shared our stories, helped each other put pitch packages together, entered the query trenches together… Then I received interest. An offer of publication. I can remember sitting on the floor in my bedroom in December of 2020. Life was on lockdown in my one bedroom apartment in Montclair, NJ, but I had realized my dream! I was going to be a published author… right?

After reading the contract and deliberating, I realized I wasn’t ready to give up the rights. I wasn’t ready to sign away the next two books in the trilogy. I wasn’t ready to release book 1 before book 3 was even written. What if I (not to name names…) wrote a book everyone loved but I couldn’t figure out what needed to happen next? What if I couldn’t bring it all together in a way that befit the passion I’d put into the first book?

I turned down the offer. I spent the next year writing a different story as sort of a palate cleanser. Then in February of 2022 I decided that I was going to finish the full trilogy. Then once it was all done, then and only then would I release it to the world. In 2022 I wrote the next two books. I went back and edited them all, giving them fresh coats of paint. Since book one wasn’t published, I could go back and plant little seeds, little easter eggs for my readers. I could give it the attention to detail that I wanted that no publishing house would have afforded me.

Now here in quarter four of 2023, it has been a blur of navigating all the steps included in self-publishing and recording the audiobooks. But A Vengeful Realm: The Scales of Balance is now out. Book two, The Breaker of Chains is planned to be released in January of ‘24, and the final installment, The Age of the End is set to launch in April of ‘24. I couldn’t be happier with how they’ve come out. It has not been an easy journey, but it has been the right journey for me.

In a world where blood is a short resolution for rebellion, Zephryus only knows two things: he is prophesied to bring peace and balance to the world, and he doesn’t remember anything before his life as an enslaved gladiator. With the fragmented shards of his memory, he is bought by the prince to fight in the gladiator ring, and spy on the queen’s bloody rebellion against the king. Fighting as a gladiator means fighting for his life, and as he faces the prince’s foes and thwarts the queen’s plans, he also discovers that there is more injustice in this world than he imagined. Will Zephyrus be able to stay alive long enough to enact his revenge? Or will the vengeful plot within this royal family keep him from fulfilling his destiny?

You can purchase The Scales of Balance at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you TIM FACCIOLA for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive a Copy of The Scales of Balance by Tim Facciola.

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Tiana Smith Interview - Mr. Nice Spy

Photo Credit: ©Pepperfox Photos

Tiana Smith is a web designer turned novelist who grew up in the Rocky Mountains. She graduated from Westminster University with double degrees in Honors and English with a focus in creative writing. In her spare time she’s learning sign language with her hard of hearing husband and she volunteers with special needs individuals attending the bi-weekly activities for Utah County’s SNAP program.

        

   

Greatest thing you learned at school.
The greatest thing I learned in school was how to be a perpetual student. Rather than memorizing facts or getting easy answers, I find that I’m always inquisitive and interested in learning more. I know how to find information and am constantly learning new hobbies because I love learning new things.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
I think my favorite thing is when I get emails from people who have read and loved my books. It makes my day to read these notes and see what people thought of the worlds and characters I’ve created.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?
Keep at it! Your odds increase if you don’t give up. Read all the books on honing your craft, keep reading, and soon enough you’ll make it.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?
I have chronic migraines. While I was writing MR. NICE SPY, my neurologist put me on a new medication that made it incredibly hard to focus. It changed my entire writing process because I couldn’t even write a whole sentence from start to end. I had to learn how to bounce around within a scene and write out of order, all while having the memory of a goldfish. I’m super glad to be off that medication now!

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?
I always do a lot of research for my books (when your characters are hackers and CIA agents, there’s a lot to learn!) For MR. NICE SPY I learned a lot about how fireworks are made because my main character Andee is a pyrotechnic engineer. I also learned how to recognize a two-way mirror from a regular one. Hopefully I never need to use that tidbit of info.

Your Favorite Quotes/Scenes from MR. NICE SPY
Was I sure that I could trust him? Definitely not. But did I think I’d enjoy kissing him if he were to close the final inches between us? Definitely yes.

The first decent guy to pop up in my life in the past year and I’d repaid him by … getting him kidnapped?

Why was I trying to build a rapport with one of Holt’s henchmen? Henchwomen?
I didn’t have a good answer for that. I just knew I wanted her to like me. Here I was, the lone average girl, adrift in a sea of secret agents and edgy supervillains, and I simply wanted to be one of the cool kids for once.
Maybe I needed to buy a leather jacket.

Play along, play nice, play pretend.
Stay alive.

Here I was in a place where the possibility of death was around every corner, and I was the most alive I’d felt in months. Thousands of people were buried in the catacombs of Paris. Holt kept adding to that body count. But every touch from Chan was like a defibrillator that brought me back from flatlining.

In movies, the coolest characters never look directly at an explosion. They always walk away like they’ve seen it all before. But trust me, in real life, everybody looks.

When a pyrotechnic engineer discovers her biological father is an international criminal, she must work with a sexy CIA agent to take him down in this thrilling adventure rom-com.

Andee Paxton knows she’s good at her job as a fireworks designer. What she doesn’t know is that her biological father is Holt, a dangerous arms dealer who has escaped prison. And now he’s searching for his long-lost daughter-dearest.

After the CIA surprises her with this news, they drop another bombshell: they want to use Andee as bait to capture Holt once and for all. But before the CIA can even attempt to spring their trap, she’s kidnapped along with the very hot Officer Adam Chan—all because they were too busy flirting to worry about silly things like “safety protocol.”

A fake relationship—for their protection, of course—and just a few explosions bring Andee and Chan closer, but there’s more than their growing connection at stake. If Holt’s plan succeeds, the world will be brought to its knees. Andee and Chan must rely on each other to stop him…or else everything (including their feelings for each other) might just blow up in their faces.

You can purchase Mr. Nice Spy at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you TIANA SMITH for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive a Copy of Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith.

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Seressia Glass Interview - Game On

Photo Content from Chelsea

Seressia Glass is an award-winning author of more than twenty-five contemporary and paranormal romance and urban fantasy stories. Her paranormal series, (Shadowchasers, Sons of Anubis) are steeped in Egyptian mythology. Her most recent release is THE LOVE CON, a story about a plus-sized nerd in a cosplaying reality show competition. She lives south of Atlanta with her guitar-wielding husband, gamer son, and two attack poodles. When not writing, she’s at her day job as an instructional designer or watching K-dramas.

Seressia has always been a voracious reader and turned to writing at an early age, using her fantastical tales for extra credit in school. Her proudest writing moment remains winning the first Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday “Living the Dream” essay contest as a high school senior and getting to meet Coretta Scott King and read her essay to the King family. Since then, she’s gone on to write a motley crew of characters and creatures including witches, werewolves, djinn, demons, Egyptian deities and jackal shapeshifters with a few humans thrown into the mix. No matter who or what she’s writing about, Seressia weaves in the universal themes of acceptance and being comfortable in one’s own skin.

        

   

Greatest thing you learned at school.
When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill? The first bell rang in elementary school, when my Halloween short story was turned into a PTA play. The second bell rang as a senior in high school , when I won the MLK,JR. Living the Dream city-wide essay contest and got to meet Coretta Scott King. Realizing I could move people with the power of my words was an incandescent experience.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published. 

I’m still gobsmacked when someone emails or tags me and tells me how much they enjoyed my book. I mean, someone read my book! Knowing that someone found my book, read my book, and liked my book strongly enough to tell me, that’s treasure, and I hoard it like a dragon.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing? 

Read. Anything and everything that interests you. Read in your own genre until it’s time to write your story. Find a group to connect/commiserate with, online or IRL. Reward yourself more than you beat yourself up. Give yourself grace.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book? 

Other than my brain? My Viki Pass. Reading subtitles on K-dramas while trying to write? The dramas won every time. I finally took the batteries out of the remote so I couldn’t turn the TV on.

What chapter was the most memorable to write and why? 

I think the gala at the Georgian Terrace was my favorite because we get to see Samara interacting with Aron and his family, and Aron and Samara’s deepening desire. Second favorite is their first confrontation at the beginning of the book. I love their banter, and I think this chapter show it off perfectly.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us? 

I think storytelling began when communication began, but really took off when our ancestors tamed fire. There’s something about sitting around a fire, safe and full, that just begs for stories or songs to accompany the crackling of the flames.
Storytelling draws us in and connects us. Storytelling opens us to new worlds, new ideas and ideals, new people. It comforts us, motivates us, and yes, enrages us. Storytelling makes the teller and the listener better people for having experienced the story.

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters? 

Even though I’ve created them, it still takes a while to get to know them

What were your inspirations for the character development? 

The character of Benjy was inspired by my youngest nephew. All three of my nephews are on the spectrum to varying degrees, but the youngest is nonverbal. Quite a lot of Benjy’s mannerisms and communication style are based on my nephew.
The main characters’ names, Samara Reynolds and Aron Galanis, were inspired by real-life couple Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian. I don’t know either of them, so any similarities beyond the names is purely accidental, other than I wanted Samara and Aron to be successful in their chosen professions.

Writing Behind the Scenes
I still have a day job, so during the week I usually give myself Monday and Wednesday evenings off. Otherwise, I transition with dinner, washing up, then Farm Heroes until I’m out of lives. These days, I’m pulling up heroic symphonic music on YouTube, rubbing Success oil onto my hands, then start typing or writing longhand if I’m desperate to hit a flow. Lately I’ve given myself permission to write a crappy first draft, which has been freeing since I’m normally a slow pantser who needs a perfect first draft.

What is the first job you have had? 

Cashier at McDonald’s

What is your happiest childhood memory? 

Eating my grandmother’s cold fried chicken as we road-tripped to places like Carowinds or Calloway Gardens

Name one thing you miss about being a kid. 

Not having random aches and pains appear out of nowhere.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? 

Why does my back hurt so bad?

What do you usually think about right before falling asleep? 

I put on a sleep app and an eye mask with headphones, so it’s either Binaural beats or a sleep meditation.

If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you had “no regrets” what would it be? 

I’d abolish the Electoral College, or make it so that it wasn’t part of out voting process.

If you could go back in time to one point in your life, where would you go? 

I’d keep my college self from getting credit cards and tell her to spend her time writing instead.

Most horrifying dream you have ever had? 

A dream about taking an elevator to hell and hearing the screams as I passed each level. A world-ending dream from an alien invasion and one from an enemy invasion.

What is your greatest adventure? 

Living. Makin it through each day is the biggest adventure of all.

What is one unique thing are you afraid of? 

Anything that crawls—spiders, ants (sat on an ants’ nest once), babies

When was the last time you told someone you loved them? 

I tell my husband every day when we talk on the phone during his lunch break.

What were you doing the last time you really had a good laugh? 

Hanging out with a bunch of writer friends at a retreat in Orlando.

What is your most memorable travel experience? 

Going to Chichen Itza in 2012 with my husband and some friends. We suggested to the hotel staff that it was our honeymoon, and they did all kinds of nice stuff for us.

What's your most missed memory? 

I miss watching World Championship Wrestling with my grandmother.

Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heart break or have never loved before? 

I haven’t experienced heartbreak, so I think I’d go with true love. Going through life alone is ok, but going through life lonely is torture.

What was your favorite subject when you were in school and why? 

My least favorite was English. While I liked putting words together, I HATED learning the technical stuff. Ironically enough, my favorite was French because I got to read stories in French.
What decade during the last century would you have chosen to be a kid? The 80’s Saturday morning cartoons and Froot Loops, no active shooter drills, drinking from water hoses, staying out all day until sundown.

When an unexpected Player Two enters her life, a gamer must decide if their relationship is worth leveling up in this new romance from the author of The Love Con.

Samara Reynolds has built a large following as a gamer under an anonymous screen name, and uses her skills as a DEIA consultant to advocate for equal representation in video games. When she posted a video critiquing the popular game Legendsfall, she knew she’d get a reaction from her fans, but the video leads to hundreds of female gamers critiquing the game and its company, Artemis Games. The only thing more unexpected than starting an online movement is getting a job offer from the handsome CEO of Artemis.

Aron Galanis has been on a mission to get his company certified to create gaming content for people with disabilities. When he sees Artemis trending online for all the wrong reasons, he’s determined to right his wrongs and offers the originator a mea culpa, as well as a job offer to overhaul the character options in Legendsfall.

Working together turns Aron and Samara from adversaries into allies, allies into friends, and after that—something more. But once their relationship goes public, will Aron and Samara be able to weather the storm and fight for their happy ending, or is it game over?

You can purchase Game On  at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you SERESSIA GLASS for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive a Copy of Game On by Seressia Glass.

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