Author Interview- Jeff Chapman

1) What inspired you to write?

I have a strong desire to craft stories. Where does that desire come from? I don’t know, but it’s been a part of me since my youth. Maybe all the time I spent at the library during summer vacations had something to do with it. The inspiration for particular stories is easier to pin down. For example, the Merliss Tales were inspired by a cat that my family adopted off the street. Smokey arrived at our house one day begging for food. She was sick and starving. After a trip to the vet, we had a new cat. Smokey possessed several old battle scars. One of her ears was notched and two of her four canines were missing. This gave me the idea for a character based on an old soul in a cat’s body. Merliss was born.

2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?

Definitely! I read and listen to audiobooks. Some of my favorite writers include Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Neil Gaiman, Brandon Sanderson, Robert E. Howard, Franz Kafka, Charles Todd, Ann Cleeves, and Michael Connelly. I could list many more. I read from a variety of genres. I’ve yet to find a writer who doesn’t have something to teach me.

3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?

My most recent novel is The Sniggard’s Revenge. This is a YA-fantasy about a young man’s quest to win a girl’s heart using an item he found in a haunted barrow. The Sniggard—the ancient guardian of the barrow—wants the item back. Events go from bad to worse to far worse. Blood is shed and the protagonist makes a couple trips to Faerie, a place filled with strange people and many dangers. I had intended The Sniggard’s Revenge to be a standalone but there’s more to the story, so a sequel is in the planning.

I’m at work on a novel in my Merliss Tales fantasy series. Merliss is the spirit of a young woman who has been trapped inside the body of a gray cat. She had been training to become a healer/shaman, so she retains some magical abilities, but she lives as a cat. The magic which transferred her spirit to the cat gives her physical body an unusually long life. We’re talking thousands of years. Merliss aids her human companions in their battles with disease and supernatural threats. I’ve written two novels in the series (The Great Contagion and Cat Sidhe) and a short story “The Water Wight.” My work in progress is The Breath of the Sea, which is set several centuries in the future from the first two novels. The story revolves around an injured mermaid and a dying girl who befriends the mermaid. Merliss is drawn into events to protect the mermaid.

4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?

Don’t get discouraged, don’t give up, and read more books. Study the writing craft to learn what goes into a good story. The only failed writer is one who stops writing.

5) What influenced you as a writer?

I remember some story writing assignments from grade school but those were derivative. I was probably sixteen when I started creating my own stories. These were Edgar Allan Poe-inspired stories of the weird and macabre. Fortunately, none of those early attempts have survived, but my initial interest in the macabre lingers in the darker elements of my fantasy tales. I’ve written in other genres, but I always come back to dark themes and fantastic worlds.

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