Interview Time with Keira Andrews! @keiraandrews

Hello, lovely readers! Today I want to introduce you to the fantastic Keira Andrews. She writes M/M romance (male/male, for those who aren't familiar), and she does it well. She's one of my favorite authors. 


Hi, Keira! Thanks for stopping by my blog. Can you tell everyone about yourself and how you got started writing?

Thanks so much for having me, Sarah! When I was a kid, I’d always make up elaborate stories for my favorite soap characters. I was writing fanfic and didn’t realize it! As an adult, I wrote more fic for various shows, and then branched out into publishing original novels in 2006 with Love Match, about two male pro tennis players who fall in love.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

Now that I’m able to write full time for a living, my fave part is the freedom to set my own schedule and work from anywhere I can bring my laptop. I also love bringing the stories in my head to life. The worst part is all the sitting I do. I really want to get a treadmill desk.

Ooh, that's a good idea! I have to set a timer so I make sure to get up every so often when I'm working.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Take criticism and learn from it. Never stop learning.

Do you prefer silence or to have music on when you’re writing? What kind?

I write in silence or to the soothing drone of my white noise machine, depending on how noisy my neighbor is being.

Your books are very sexy and extremely moving, and the characters are fleshed out and relatable. How did you find such a great voice in M/M romance?

Thank you so much! I think part of it is that there’s more freedom in M/M to break gender stereotypes that are often present in M/F romance. I also really love the themes of coming out and the struggle for acceptance and freedom. Not all my characters are initially closeted, but obviously the fight for LGBT acceptance around the world is ongoing. I love giving gay characters their happy endings after all the years of tragedy in gay books and movies.

Is there any advice you’d give to M/M authors specifically?

Be respectful of the LGBT community, of course. I think just make your characters as real and relatable as possible. I suppose that goes for all genres!

Torrance Coombs as David

I have a friend who writes Amish romance, but I think yours is the first I’ve seen in the M/M subgenre. How’d you get the idea for A Forbidden Rumspringa?

I was chatting with Jay, who runs the Joyfully Jay M/M review site, and she mentioned that she got a lot of search hits for “sexy Amish men.” We joked that there was an underserved demographic out there! But then I thought about how tough it would be to be gay in the super restrictive Amish world, and Isaac and David’s story blossomed from there.

I just have to fangirl for a moment—right after I finished A Forbidden Rumspringa, I immediately bought A Clean Break and A Way Home. David and Isaac’s story kept me coming back for more, and I found myself rooting for them. Their families (both in the English and Amish worlds) make for a great supporting cast too. Okay, now a real question: Who did you picture as David and Isaac?

I’m so glad you enjoyed David and Isaac! Thank you. In my head, Dylan O’Brien from Teen Wolf and Maze Runner was Isaac, and Torrance Coombs from Reign was David. Dylan’s hair is darker than Isaac’s, but he was the inspiration. And Torrance has those killer blue eyes.

Great casting! That's part of the fun of writing, I think. 

I just finished Valor on the Move and really enjoyed it! Part of why your books (including the GAR series) are so engrossing is the amount of research that goes into them. I picture you spending hours looking up details on Amish life and what it’s like to live in the White House. What’s your research process really like?

Pretty much exactly like that! Taking out a ton of books from the library, googling, and watching documentaries and movies.

Dylan O'Brien as Isaac

What are you working on right now?

My new book, If Only in My Dreams, is out November 19. It’s a new adult Christmas romance about two former BFFs who haven’t spoken in years but are forced to drive cross country to make it home for the holidays. I just started an untitled novel about a boy bander who quits a world tour in Australia and rents a private jet to fly home. Of course it crashed on a desert island, and he and the pilot must join forces to survive. They also just find themselves strangely attracted to each other!

I can't wait to pick those up!

Where can we find you on the interwebs?

Website: http://www.keiraandrews.com

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/2Z-G5

Twitter: https://twitter.com/keiraandrews

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/keira.andrews.author

Where can we find your books?

Website: http://www.keiraandrews.com

Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/keiraandrews

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1366040.Keira_Andrews

Here's the blurb for A Forbidden Rumspringa, the first in Keira's Gay Amish Romance series! 

When two young Amish men find love, will they risk losing everything?

In a world where every detail of life—down to the width of a hat brim—is dictated by God and the all-powerful rules of the community, two men dare to imagine a different way. At 18, Isaac Byler knows little outside the strict Amish settlement of Zebulon, Minnesota, where there is no rumspringa for exploration beyond the boundaries of their insular world. Isaac knows he’ll have to officially join the church and find a wife before too long, but he yearns for something else—something he can’t name.

Dark tragedy has left carpenter David Lantz alone to support his mother and sisters, and he can’t put off joining the church any longer. But when he takes on Isaac as an apprentice, their attraction grows amid the sweat and sawdust. David shares his sinful secrets, and he and Isaac struggle to reconcile their shocking desires with their commitment to faith, family and community.

Now that they’ve found each other, are they willing to lose it all?

************************************************************

Thank you so much for stopping by, Keira! Everyone, go check out her books--they're all awesome!

xoxo Sarah

Women of Color in Romance with Rebekah Weatherspoon @WOCInRomance @rebekahwsm

Hey, everyone! Some of you may recognize Rebekah Weatherspoon's name from when I interviewed her last year.  Since then, she's published a few more awesome books (seriously, go read the FIT trilogy--hot!) and has been hard at work on a social media presence designed to help promote women of color in romance writing.

I'll stop chatting now and let her tell you a bit about it!

First off, congrats on finishing the FIT Trilogy and on the well-deserved awards it’s won. Sated was a fantastic book, and a fitting end. I loved the little bonus scene with Grant at the end, too. Woo!  *fans self*

How did you come to start WOC in Romance--the FB page, Twitter, tumblr, etc.?

I was seeing a lot of pushes and promo for diverse YA books, but I wasn’t seeing any place that was specifically set up for Authors of Color. I wanted to create that space.

Do you run the sites by yourself, or do you have help? If you’re looking for help running them, where should people contact you?

It’s 100% me. At this point I just need book recommendations and books to promo so if you know of WOC who’s books I should know about TELL ME!

Do the WOC in Romance sites promote other authors/works? Can people promote their own diverse romance books? How does the process work in case a reader wants to promote a book by a WOC in Romance?

Again the focus of WOC in Romance is to highlight romance novels by Women of Color. Anyone can suggest a book to me via email, twitter, facebook, or tumblr. The only criteria are that the author be a Woman of Color. The site is trans inclusive and open to non-binary and gender fluid folks as well.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to authors of color? Or WOC authors of romantic fiction specifically?  

Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing.

What does “diverse romance” mean to you? Does it just include authors of color and/or stories including people of color, or are LGBTQ authors and stories included in the definition? (Just curious! I’d love to hear your take on this.)

I actually can’t stand the world diverse because it centers everything on certain groups that aren’t even the global majority, but since we live in the Western world, I believe it encompasses all that are marginalized due to their races, gender, sexual orientation, sex, and physical capabilities.

That's a great point!

Why do you believe diverse romance stories are so important? 

Because people die over these differences and it’s our responsibilities as members of the media to portray a wide variety of characters to readers.

You just returned from RWA 2015—how was the experience?

I had a great time. It was like finally going into the office after working from home for 2 years. Except your office is a bar and you love all of your coworkers.

I can certainly agree with you!

Where can we find WOC in Romance on the interwebs?

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WOCInRomance

Tumblr: http://wocinromance.tumblr.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WOCInRomance

Email : wocinromance@gmail.com

Readers: you heard Rebekah! If you know of WOC who's books need to be promoted, let her know by contacting her at one of the links above. 

xoxo Sarah

Interview Time with Patricia Leever

Hello, everyone! Today we have the lovely Patricia Leever with us, but you can call her Patty. ;-)

Hello, my dear! Tell everyone about yourself.  

Okay, let’s see, I’m the wife of one, the mom of four skin kids (who are all dang near grown) and the caretaker of one really old, smelly dog and one little black lunatic of a cat. I believe wearing your “weird” on your sleeve is what brings happiness so I fly my freak flag high and proud. I love zombies, science fiction and tacos. I haven’t seen my natural hair color in many, many moons and I’m quite alright with that. I laugh a LOT, mostly at myself because I also believe that laughter frees the mind and heals the soul.

And now I want tacos. Thanks for that, haha.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

My favorite part is getting all the people running around in my head out of my head and onto the page so I don’t go completely bonkers. My least favorite part is trying to translate what they are saying inside my head into words that other people with understand. Does that make sense? I mean, I love writing, but if I could just plug my brain into my laptop and download all the crap in there it would be so much easier.

Oh, you have no idea how much I agree with you about all of that. We need to invent the brain-to-computer tool for writers ASAP.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Have a thick skin. Like seriously, rhinoceros skin. Not everyone is going to love your work and that’s okay, not everyone HAS to love it. Some people say that you shouldn’t look at reviews, especially the bad ones. I say look at the bad review and see if there is anything you can learn from it, but don’t take what they say personally.

Do you prefer silence or to have music on when you’re writing? What kind?

That really all depends on what I’m writing. If I’m writing something serious I like to have silence, which is hard in my house. But if I’m writing a fight scene I like to have some really rocking music. 2Cellos are my “go-to” for fight scenes, they rock but I don’t have the distraction of lyrics because sometimes I find the lyrics of a song can take me out of the scene. However, writing the third book in the Divinity series, I listened almost exclusively to the Black Veil Brides album, Wretched and Divine. I found their lyrics to really match the tone of what I was writing and it really spoke to me in a way that it almost felt like that album was written as a soundtrack for the book.

How’d you get the idea for Divinity (Divinity series, Book 1)? How about for the series as a whole?

I know it sounds certifiable, but it all started as voices in my head. Not voices in the literal sense, but that’s the best way to describe it. Evie, the main character in Divinity, started niggling at me, poking my brain and demanding to be heard. That’s how my ideas start. There are always ideas rolling around in my head about one character or another and then one of them gets really loud and I have to, for lack of a better term, let them out. Evie started as a short story, just a little chapter to get her out, sometimes that’s all it takes to purge the “voice” from my head. But she wasn’t having that, she wouldn’t stop poking and prodding until I gave her a book of her own.

Characters love to do that!

Will there be more books in the Divinity series? 

There is a second book, Entity, which is out now and I’m working on the third and final book, Fidelity. Oh wow, I don’t think I’ve ever shared the title of that one yet.

Yay! I'm honored you shared that! Super excited!

And what are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on Fidelity. I’ve written the bulk of it but I was going about it in a completely different way that I had with the other two. I didn’t have a formal outline this time, I just sort of sat down and wrote what came to me. It was quite freeing actually.

What genres do you write in? What have your experiences been like?

I’ve written in both historical romance with Cat O’ Nine Tails and in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance/new adult with the Divinity Series. The big difference, at least for me, is that Cat O’ Nine Tails is written in third person narrative where as the Divinity Series is written in first person. It’s a different mindset to write in third person than in first person. Naturally, you have a broader spectrum in the third person because you have an overview of everything that’s happening and that can be a smoother writing experience. First person can be challenging because you are only looking through one set of eyes, if something is happening and that person isn’t seeing it, you can’t use it so that can be tough. I’m not going to lie, there were times, especially when writing the second and third books in the Divinity Series that I thought to myself, why oh why did I start writing this in first person?

What was your favorite scene to write?

I absolutely love, love, LOVE writing a fight scene! There is something so cathartic about vanquishing a bad guy or just beating the crap out of them.

What scene gave you the most trouble?

Oh goodness, I think that would be one a scene in Entity, near the end that I can’t talk about because, you know, spoilers and stuff. I will say that I struggled like crazy trying to get that part out and I have no idea why, I just couldn’t get into the right mindset for it, not matter what I did. Then one night, I had taken my son to school across town and on the way home a song came on the radio and the scene came to me in a flood of emotion and imagery that I couldn’t get home fast enough to get it down. The emotion was so strong that I can’t even listen to that song anymore without bursting into tears like a weirdo.

That's awesome, though! Sometimes the best stuff comes out of the blue like that.

Where can we find you on the interwebs?

You can find me on the Facebooks in two places:

Author page: https://www.facebook.com/PatriciaLeever

Personal page: https://www.facebook.com/patty.leever

I’m on the Instagrams: https://instagram.com/pattyleever/

The Tweets: https://twitter.com/Patricia_Leever

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5051193.Patricia_Leever

And my website: http://patricialeever.com/

Where can we find your books?

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Patricia-Leever/e/B00AR0V0V6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1433873277&sr=8-1

Simon and Schuster: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Patricia-Leever/508720756

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/patricia-leever

Interview Time with Laurel Wanrow

Today we have one of my fellow Maryland Romance Writers, Laurel Wanrow! Her debut novel, The Unraveling, is out now!

Hi, Laurel! Congrats on your book birthday! Tell everyone about yourself.

I’ve always loved nature. Since my dad was a naturalist working for the National Park Service, I had lots of early exposure to outdoor recreation through volunteering at the parks, so that’s what I went into to. I met my husband in an astronomy club. He’s a geologist, so we share the same love of the outdoors. I worked at a variety of parks until well after I had kids. When they were small, I wrote a story about a kid avoiding poison ivy at summer camp, but put it aside when our basement flooded. I pulled it out while homeschooling my youngest, finished it and went on to write a novel, then several more… Clearly, I love writing. *Grins* We are still very much an outdoor family: hiking, camping, fossil hunting, gardening…

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

I love creating the worlds and figuring out my characters’ lives and problems, and of course the magic. The magic is really my favorite. For least favorite…things that take me away from writing, like the paperwork and scheduling.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Persevere. Early in my writing journey I heard Jo Ann Ferguson give a keynote speech during a Beau Monde mini-conference in San Francisco. Her quote from Galaxy Quest really has motivated me: ‘Never give up. Never surrender.’

That is a great quote. When you're writing, do you prefer silence or to have music on?

I’m a silence person, but my husband loves public radio with classical music. It is so much a part of our household, I often forget it’s on until the hourly newsbreaks.

How’d you get the idea for The Unraveling?

A dream, but also I’d recently read Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series and Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices series. So while working out what that girl in the dream was doing on a farm, I knew I had to make her story a steampunk. Because I’d not read any steampunk stories with rural settings, I could make all the ideas for the machinery my own!

Awesome! Steampunk fascinates me--you must have to have a good imagination to write it. And will The Unraveling be part of a series?

The Unraveling is actually part of a serialized novel—the complete story is called The Luminated Threads. It’s told in three parts, following the same characters, a proper city artist and the shapeshifter she comes to love, and the agricultural magnate who is determined to recruit them into his plans.

So there's lots more to look forward to! Yay! What are you working on right now?

Look at this gorgeous cover!

I’m finalizing the edits for The Twisting, Volume Two of The Luminated Threads. It releases this fall. For a short break at the start of June, I took a Master Plotting class taught by Cherry Adair and spent a weekend working on the outline of two stories in a futuristic duet…also with shapeshifters. J

What genres do you write in? What have your experiences been like? If you write in multiple genres, how is the experience different from one to another?

I write fantasy, but it never seems to be pure fantasy, the kind with a hero on a quest, running into elves, or trolls, rescuing a princess… My settings have that thread of magic, but also one of reality. I’ve used contemporary settings, some futuristic and this set of novels takes place in the past. Since my worlds aren’t completely made up, I always end up researching something. Luckily, I do love learning new things.

The Unraveling started out in a made-up land, but I so wanted the atmosphere to be the Victorian period. It came out English enough a plotting partner said it confused her it wasn’t the UK. With the help of a British friend, I selected Derby. I wrote happily away, looking up historical dress and food and transportation and…let’s be honest: I had to research a lot. The final things to trip me up were simple exclamations! Here’s one: Shoot. Sounds like something a lady might say instead of a real curse, right? Not until 1934. On the flip side, the expression bloody hell is very English and from the correct time period, yet it was considered a terribly extreme expression. So I used it once.

What was your favorite scene to write?

Ah, I don’t want to spoil anything, but this is a fun question! Annmar, the heroine, arrives at her last train station and runs into a bit of trouble with the stationmaster. She’s used to handling difficult clients and remains polite, yet she’s come all this way and doesn’t want to miss her connection. After a drawn-out series of questions that are getting her no closer to having a ticket in hand, it finally becomes clear the elderly man wants to ask a favor of her, a visiting artist, and she has to offer her services.

What scene gave you the most trouble?

Ohmygosh—the first scene! Always the first scene. I must write it a dozen times. I do write it almost first, and that seems to be my problem: I want to tell so many things, too many details, too many new terms. For The Unraveling, I originally had Annmar winding her way through Derby, including waiting for a steam trolley to pass. Then the mechanical feature became a walking carriage that she stops to draw. Finally, I just got her to the steam factory…and new readers complained there wasn’t enough setting. I believe the final-final opening scene has a good mix of setting, machines and Annmar’s dilemma.

Where can we find you on the interwebs?

Website: https://laurelwanrow.wordpress.com/

 (Also gets there with just www.laurelwanrow.com  )

To be notified of new releases sign up for Laurel's Newsletter

 (actual link is: http://eepurl.com/17xRH  )

Twitter:  @laurelwanrow : https://twitter.com/laurelwanrow

Author Facebook Page: Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/laurelwanrowauthor

Goodreads: Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/laurelwanrow

Pinterest: Pinterest  : https://www.pinterest.com/laurelwanrow/

Amazon Author central: https://www.amazon.com/author/laurelwanrow

Where can we find your books?

The Unraveling will be on sale for .99 through June 30^th, at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XGY8QIK

And the trade paperback, 360 pages, is available at Createspace (link still needed but definitely should have in a week!)

 Laurel Wanrow loves misty mornings, the smell of freshly dug earth, petting long-haired guinea pigs and staring at the stars. She sees magic in nature and loves to photograph it.

Before kids, she studied and worked as a naturalist—someone who leads wildflower and other nature walks. During a stint of homeschooling, she turned her writing skills to fiction to share her love of the land, magical characters and fantastical settings.

When not living in her fantasy worlds, Laurel camps, hunts fossils and argues with her husband and two new adult kids over whose turn it is to clean house. Though they live on the East Coast, a cherished family cabin in the Colorado Rockies holds Laurel’s heart.

Visit her online at www.laurelwanrow.com.

Thank you so much for stopping by, Laurel! 

xoxo Sarah