no inspiration, it’s a need for me. I need to write to survive.
2)Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?
of course, I’m a reader, you can’t be a writer without reading lots of books. My favorite books are: A Game of Thrones, The Winter King, The Bourne Identity, A Place of Execution.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?
I’m currently waiting on a proofreader to find the last mistakes my editor might have missed in my fourth novel. The future is my fifth novel, so to speak.
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?
Read, good books and bad books, most books are bad, and once you understand why, you’ll be able to spot your own screw ups much easier. Don’t go on Facebook and post excerpts or even original prose. People will not be honest with you, they’ll just lavish you with praise, and make you think you’re perfect. It will make you ignore and reject well-meant criticism, which in turn will result in more heartbreak when actual readers tear your work apart.
1) I think I have a creative imagination and am a decent story teller.
2) I am a reader. I’ve read hundreds of books. James A. Michener was a great writer. In the crime genre, Joseph Wambaugh
3) Murder at Mardi Gras is available now and I’m working on another novel now
4) Anyone can write, but to be successful know the subject you’re writing about. If you expect to be financially successful, know what you audience wants.
5) I’ve loved reading since elementary school. After retiring, I decided to give it a try.
1/ An American woman I never met except on line allowed me to borrow one of her ideas and 8 and one half books later here I am!
2/ So many favorites! but if I had to choose it would be ‘Sir Nigel’ and ‘The White Company’ by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle.
3/ My latest published work was book 8 in the ‘Extra knot’ series and my work in progress is ‘Mr Donaldson’s Company’ A gang of ex Army Glasgow criminals hunt Nazi war criminals in a world where a different WW2 happened. I’m having a lot of fun with it!
4/ I’m not an indie author, I have a publisher based in the U.K [I’m in NZ] but my advice would be the same. Read and write, be only a little self critical and never give in!
5/ what has influenced me as a writer is the people I have met, the life I have lived and the strange urge to write which has been with me from childhood.
I am inspired in two ways. One is my general creativity. I am always thinking of stories and wondering “what would happen if…” and just looking at the world around me creatively. The other way I’m inspired is by consuming various forms of media. I’m always watching tv shows or movies that help fill my creative well.
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?
I am an avid reader! Because of my work/life schedule I read almost exclusively audiobooks. Some of my favorite authors are Brandon Sanderson, Michael Sullivan, Anthony Ryan, Peter V Brett, George R.R. Martin, Brian Staveley, J.R.R. Tolkien, and SO MANY MORE.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?
I just finished my first complete series, the Ascent Archives. There are 5 books in the series, four of them follow the main storyline while book 5 is a collection of short stories in the world following some side characters we meet throughout. While this series is complete, I’ll be publishing a complete boxset soon. Outside of that, I have started writing a spin-off series. It is set in the same world, and follows some characters we’ve already met. I can’t say too much about it yet, but it is scheduled for publishing in Spring 2023.
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?
No two author journeys are the same. The best thing to do is find a writing speed that works for you, and a publishing schedule that works for you. Once you have that, stick to it. Set goals in your calendar, reminders on your phone, whatever you have to do to keep you on track.
5) What influenced you as a writer?
I really wanted to prove to myself that I could write, and publish, an entire series. I was never viewed as a “good” writer while in school, but I’ve always been a storyteller. I had this idea for a story building in my mind, and I wanted to challenge myself to writing and publishing it. From the beginning I have said that I published the book for me, and that if even one person enjoyed reading my books that would be a success.
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.
1) What inspired you to write? I’ve always been creative. I remember taking a liking to reading and writing in school but I think it became a passion for me in the 6th grade. I lost sight of that for a while but then my brother, Shannon, and my high school creative writing teacher, Ms. Jean, helped reignite that passion strongly. I was also the only kid I knew who’d craft elaborate longform stories in multiple formats with my toys. I had 4 or so different episodic “shows” with vastly different power sets, settings, and plots which all often used the same action figures but playing different roles depending on the “show” and character they were. In one show a figure was a professional wrestler, in another a giant robot, and yet in the next they be an intergalactic space warrior. That’s really where it started.
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites? I am, though I don’t read as much as I want. Hell House by Richard Matteson is a recent fave as is Darksiders: The Abomination Vault. My favorite series includes the Harry Potter books and A Song of Ice and Fire.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future? Hell’s Glitch Volume 1: Into a Dark Adventure is my newest release and now has an audiobook as well. Afterwards there will be Hell’s Glitch Volume 2: The Glitch Fiends followed by Hell’s Glitch Volume 3: Brotherhood and IMMORtAL_Kalika Episode 2, along with another Psy-Hunters book. I also have some free content that’ll be available on Wattpad, Dreame, Royal Road, and other story platforms. 4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors? Always write. Never stop writing. And always challenge yourself and better your craft. That always comes first.
5) What influenced you as a writer? Loads of great fiction from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s along with an eventful childhood. And writers such as JK Rowling, George RR Martin, Roald Dahl, Yoshihiro Togashi, Akira Toriyama, Paul Dini, and Bruce Timm have had the biggest impact on me as a writer along with plenty more that I can’t think of. R.I.P. to Kentaro Miura.
My primary inspiration stemmed from my love of natural historyand paleontology. I felt there was a lack of diversity in how dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals are portrayed in popular media, and I wanted to bring a different, more up to date perspective to the world.
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?
I am indeed! I grew up reading Steven King and Philip Pullman, and Douglas Adams is probably my favourite author of all time. Recently I’ve found myself reading a lot of indie authors and there are some amazingly talented emerging writers.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?
My newest work is a science-fiction novel called The Lazarus Taxa. It’s set in the present day and follows the first scientific expedition through time. Time travel, being a new technology, is rugged and imperfect and large stretched of time are required between time jumps; as such out protagonists are isolated in the Late Cretaceous, some 68 million years ago, for a whole six months.
The book follows how this group of characters who, for the most part, don’t know one another—and often don’t especially like one another—manage to rely on one another to survive. It’s a story of mystery with a dark conspiracy slowly revealing itself over the course of the book. Of course, dinosaurs are a prominent feature and I have tried to present a modern take on some famous animals while also introducing he reader to all new ones.
My next book is quite the departure from my first—hopping genres from sci-fi to fantasy. The Heart of Pangaea follows a young girl on a quest through a world within her subconscious to find a cure for her sick mother. This is an emotional story, but it’s also quirky and fun—I’ve really tried to inject a good dose of humour to balance things out.
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?
My best piece of advice is definitely to hire an editor—particularly for a first-time writer you will be blown away by how much better it makes your story.
5) What influenced you as a writer?
I draw influences from a wide array of sources. Obviously, authors, such as those mentioned above, but also history, movies, science—I find inspiration in all of those. Crucially, not all influences for my story writing are necessarily stories. There are plenty of real-life places and events which can be incorporated into wonderful tales.
Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been dreaming up fantasy stories. It started with expanding on the stories I loved as a kid—imagining what it might be like if some characters from a favorite video game were allies instead of enemies, for example. As I grew up and drank in more narratives, I became more certain that I was born to tell stories. At this point, it’s really an existential need. If I’m not writing, I’m not doing well. Even on those days when it’s difficult to write, I feel better having written than not.
Writing is essential to who I am because I think humans really are the storytelling creature—narrative is how we make sense of the world, how we understand ourselves and others, how we live. For me, it’s a matter of maximal importance.
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?
I most certainly am. If I had to name a few favorites, I’d start with Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. I’m not sure I could point to a more literarily rich fantasy novel—such deep psychology, allusions, mysteries…if I can ever achieve just a fraction of Wolfe’s mastery as a writer, I’ll be more than satisfied! Another favorite is Guy Gavriel Kay’s Under Heaven. I love the way he weaves Tang dynasty Chinese history into a book that so quintessentially bears his own fingerprints. His prose is lyrical, the mood is melancholic and powerful, and it fully transports you to the setting. I can practically see the rolling plains, feel the brocade textiles—Kay is in a class all his own.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?
My newest work is The Imperial Adept series. Right now there are two books available—book one, The Empire’s Lion, which is available as an ebook or papberack from these stores: https://books2read.com/u/3n2GLP; and the prequel Adept Initiate, which all nathantudor.com newsletter subscribers get for free.
Set in a world inspired by the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, The Imperial Adept follows Reiva, a young woman blessed with incredible magical power. Conjuring flames from her fingertips, she serves the Lazarran Empire in their ongoing campaigns for conquest.
But when she makes a devastating mistake in the field that leaves her half-dead amidst a heap of massacred allies, the Empire gives her just one chance to redeem herself. She must conquer the land of her birth—and standing in her way is an assassin hell-bent on killing her with his cursed blade.
Adept Initiate covered Reiva’s training, The Empire’s Lion showed the beginning of her career as a full-fledged Adept—and now I’m at work on the next book, which will look at the world-shaking consequences of Reiva’s choices in The Empire’s Lion. Not only will she have to go deeper into her study of fire magic, she’ll need to decide just who she is willing to stand with, and what she is willing to fight for.
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?
Develop a strong, regular writing practice. Even just a little bit every day will add up quickly, and before you know it, you’ll have a full draft. If you can build a circle of likeminded authors and artists, that will go a long way to helping you persevere.
5) What influenced you as a writer?
The writers I mentioned above, as well as so many more. Dostoyevsky’s deep plumbing of psychological and moral questions.Steven Erikson’s rich world and complex characters. Ancient mythologies’ archetypal explorations of reality and meaning. What I want is to tell stories that both entertain and inspire. Stories that leave people believing there really is something true and significant in life.
1) What inspired you to write? I’m inspired by a lot of things, and each of my books are different. Dylan for instance was inspired by the wonderful people I met while driving an ACCESS bus (transportation for the developmentally impaired). Cho Nisi was inspired by a human predicament…my own…having made errors in my life, not because I’m bad but because I’m human and I wanted to show the journey one young woman takes to redeem herself and fight for her goals. Ian’s Realm was inspired by my grandsons who were raised without fathers…that they could be the man they wished their father had been for them…so I told of Ian and his struggles to fight that dragon that kept him down. Darkness Holds the Son is inspired by today’s society and the need for parents to keep fighting to protect their children regardless of the influences in this world that would steal their children’s minds and bodies. Inspiration is everywhere.
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites? Yes, I love to read. I’ve loved books by Joe Abercrombie (The Shattered Seas series), by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn), some of the classics like Pride and Prejudice, Through the Looking Glass, there are so many I couldn’t name them all. I love immersing myself in a good book.
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future? Darkness Holds the Son is my newest, just released April 14 th . I have plans to release another spin-off novel to the Sword of Cho Nisi series, and I’m playing around with maybe doing some Vella stories that spin off from that saga as well.
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors? Keep studying, reading, and honing your craft. Most importantly write what you love, the passion is catching. 5) What influenced you as a writer? Authors like Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Lewis Carroll have influenced my writing, but there have been literary works I read even as a youngster that have influenced me. Shakespeare, Poe, Mark Twain. I just wish I had started novel writing earlier!
I was inspired to write by my own love of stories! I have always wanted to dive into writing, but it wasn’t until I got back into reading that I decided I was ready to put the pen to paper. When I first started I didn’t think I would ever finish a whole book, but here I am nine months later with six completed drafts!
2) Are you a reader? What are some of your favorites?
I’m mostly an audiobook listener, but I really love any type of fantasy romance, especially retold fairy tales! Anything by Kenley Davidson, Melanie Cellier, or Camille Peters are usually my favorites!
3) What is your newest work, and what is going to happen in the future?
I just recently released my third book, Framed in Florals: A Retelling of Cinderella! This is book three out of a series of five, and as of today I have completed the edits for book four and book five is going through a round of beta readers! I am already working on both my second and third series, so there’s lots more books on the way!
4) Do you have advice or tips for Indie Authors?
Don’t compare your victories to anyone else! Every milestone should be celebrated and you should take great pride in even the first strides.
5) What influenced you as a writer?
Definitely my job! I’m a nanny, so I take a lot of inspiration from the incredible imagination of the children of the kiddos I watch. I also write fairy tale retellings, so a lot of their children’s books give me ideas for fresh stories!
Samantha Evans--Author 