In this topic you will see the interviews i have with Writers i love, but arent born in a dutch speaking countrey. Im really happy with this topic and i hope you will all enjoy this!
Jaye Wells
I love her books. They are published by Urban Books in The Netherlands. Really cool that i got the chance to interview her! Read all about her:
I Would love it, if you could tell something about your books.
I have several series, and all feature female protagonists and are urban fantasy (sometimes mixed with other things like crime fiction or apocalyptic themes). The main ones are The Sabina Kane series, the Prospero’s War series, and Meridian Six. Readers can visit my web site at www.jayewells.com to find out about all of them.
Birthdate/place/Pets…..
I was born in Missouri but grew up in Texas. I am married and have one son, and we have two dogs.
where do you live?
I live in Texas.
Your fave place in the World?
Tuscany, Scotland, New Orleans, and the Napa Valley
Which non-excisting place would you like to visit ?
Narnia-_I’m always looking for doorways to get me there.
Your fave books and fave author?
Too hard to pick just one! I’m a big fan of Anne Rice, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Moore and Stephen King.
Where do you write your books?
I write all over. Usually I work in my office, but I also like to write in cafes. Airplanes are also really great for writing because there are not many distractions.
Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I always listen to music when I write. I create special playlists for my novels, but I do some of my best writing to electronic music (techno, industrial, etc) since it doesn’t have words to distract me. Otherwise, I have really eclectic music taste so I listen to lots of different stuff.
What inspires you?
I find inspiration all over the place. A lot of my ideas come from researching random things I find interesting, like strange stories about the arcane or strange crime stories. I also pay attention to people a lot. Overheard conversations or situations can be a great source of story ideas.
When you write, do you picture your characters in your mind (or creatures)?
Yes, I’m a very visual writer. I usually try to find an actor that looks like what I picture as inspiration.
What is your fave Genre in books?
I love to read everything. My favorites are probably horror, crime fiction, romance, and, of course, urban fantasy.
Do you have any plans for a new book?
I’m always working on a new book.
Tell us something about your hobbies and interests?
I love to cook. Travel is my other big interest. I love to go to new places and explore.
Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional character?
I love smart, funny and fearless women like Dolly Parton, Elizabeth Gilbert, Tina Fey, and Leslie Jones.
Is there a character in your books, that you feel close to?
I always have a soft spot for my main characters, like Sabina Kane and Kate Prospero. My books also have lots of fun, quirky side characters like Little Man and Giguhl who are so, so fun to write.
Do you also put in autobiographic aspects in your books?
Mostly no, but there are some details that are similar. For example, Kate Prospero is a cop who is a single parent and so was my mom. She was an officer for a few years when I was quite young.
A message to the readers of the page:
I am so thankful for all of my readers. It is so fun to write stories for you, and I hope to keep doing it for many years to come. If you haven’t tried out my books, you should expect a fun ride. They are full of action, creative worlds, humor, and interesting characters.
Julian Sedgwick
I Would love it, if you could say something about your books.
Mysterium, my first trilogy, is the story of a boy called Danny Woo who is born and bred in an alternative circus company. Danny thinks his world of travelling and performace is a perfect childhood – surrounded by intersting misfits who do extraordinary things, touring from city to city. When his parents are killed in a caravan fire everyone tells Danny it is was an accident. But Danny can’t belive that – his dad was an escape artist, his mother a high-wire walker – how could they have been killed by something as mundane as a fire?
Danny has to use his half-learnt circus skills to find out who killed his parents – and why – and survive the sinister group who are now out to get him. Book 1 The Black Dragon takes Danny to Hong Kong, his mother’s birthplace. In book 2 – The Palace of Memory – he heads for Barcelona to rejoin the Mysterium company – and is stalked by a terrifying assassin. Finally in book 3 – The Wheel of Life and Death – the mystery is solved in a snowy Berlin. The books are fast paced thrillers – but it is Danny’s emotional journey, breaking free from the grief and shock of losing his parents – that is the trilogy’s heart.
In Ghosts of Shanghai, my latest series for young people, we travel back to the 1920s and to a city of gangsters, spies, civil war, neon light – and ghosts… Ruby Harkner grows up speaking Chinese, at home on the city’s vibrant but dangerous streets. When her younger brother dies she starts to see and hear strange things. Faced with trouble in this world and trouble in the next – what will she believe?
When her young friend Fei is kidnapped by the Green Hand gangsters, Ruby must travel 1000 miles up the great river Yangtze, struggling past bandits, whirpools, and dangerous spirits to rescue her. Soons he realises she is not on the real river at all, but the Shadow of the Yangtze.
I have also written a couple of books jointly with my brother Marcus, including a graphic novel : Dark Satanic Mills. The cover for that book, and the cover for Shadow for the Yangtze are probably my favourites…
About Julian :
Birthdate/place/ family:
Born in East Kent England in 1966. Married and have two boys. My brother is also a children’s author…
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Where do you live? And where did you grow up?
I live in the flat Fenland of East Anglia now. Much of it drained and engineered by Dutch engineers! Before that I lived in Cambridge and before that in Wales. Much hillier!
This is the family house.
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Your fave place in the World ?
I have been drawn to East Asia all my life. I particularly love Japan and have travelled widely there. My favourite place on earth is a hot spring village on the Izu Peninsula…
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Which non-excisting place would you like to visit (for me thats middle earth)?
Well, it’s a kind of cheat answer – but doesn’t exist anymore: Old Shanghai in the 1920s. Apart from my books I have researched it for a couple of films. Would love to visit but now long gone! After that – probably Middle Earth like you.
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Your fave books and fave author?
Something I read over and over again: Chekhov short stories. He is the master! And as a man he was a real hero – writer, doctor, family carer, school founder, well digger…
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Where do you write your books?
In my very small and cluttered study. But when I have a deadline I go to my Mother’s house in Wales. No wifi, no mobile signal = total concentration.
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Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
Generally in silence, so that I can ‘hear’ the characters. If all going well I might use music that echoes the mood of the chapter. For example for Shanghai I used the soundtrack to Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution – also set in Shanghai. Also a lot of Philip Glass to zone out and dream.
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What inspires you?
My father. He gave his whole life to using the arts in general to help people understand each other, get informed – and be alive!
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When you write, do you picture your caracters in your mind (or creatures)?
I sometimes borrow a face from family, friends or news to help me in the first place. Then I let them develop. But I think I feel them more than see them.
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What is your fave Genre in books?
Anything written with real heart.
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Do you have any plans for a new book?
I have just handed in the third part of my Ghosts of Shanghai trilogy. And a new book taking shape in my notebooks. Something topical!
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Tell us something about your hobbies and interests?
I play guitar badly, draw and paint whenever I can, juggle to relax. Also sit Zen meditation as often as possible to de-clutter my mind. A lot of cinema too.
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Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional caracter?
See answer to question 8! Dad died a long time ago but still a huge influence. Also: William Blake, Van Gogh – anyone who was brave enough to do things their own way. In music I really admire PJ Harvey for the same reason…
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Is there a caracter in your books, that you feel close too?
In Mysterium trilogy, Danny’s dad is a curious mixture of my father and me as a dad. Feel close to him – and Danny!
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Do you also put in autobiografic aspects in your books? Yes? Which ones?
Very much. I’m not good at inventing stuff! A lot of Mysterium is autobiographical – but very changed. I felt – like Danny – that I lived in an almost perfect childhood – and then it was ripped away from me. It took me years to work out how to deal with that. Danny has to do it more quickly and dramatically!
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Tell us, what you want to tell us;-) A message to the readers of the page?
I hope my books make people want to find out more about other lives and worlds. That is the best hope for society, to be interested in the other. I also hope that all my enthusiams and passions come across in the writing. Also: Most of my books are about trying to work out how not to be afraid…
C.M. Chang
My book, published by Luitingh Sijthoff in the Netherlands, is a YA science fiction thriller:
- Offworlder: The Boy From Cell Town (English)
- Offworlder: De Jongen uit Celstad (Dutch translation)
I also have short stories published in anthologies. Links to those can be found at my website: cmchang.net.
Here’s a synopsis of Offworlder:
A deadly game against an offworlder. Who will win?
It’s 2150AD and NamJu, a 17-year-old Eurasian boy, is chosen to play an offworlder’s game with three challenges. The offworlder, who takes the form of a cheeky Asian girl and goes by the name, ‘Hui,’ promises him a wish if he finishes her game. For anything. He doesn’t take her seriously so Hui tortures him and threatens to kill everyone he cares about.
When Hui reveals the first challenge—learn to fly the SL 3000, the first superluminal spacecraft—NamJu thinks she must be out of her mind. How’s a poor, uneducated Cell Townie going to get his hands on one of those? To keep him focused, Hui puts Mia, the girl he has a secret crush on, into a coma.
As NamJu struggles to complete the first challenge, life as he knows it is over. Before Hui, everything was simple: having enough to eat and playing DeathZone, a virtual co-operative fighting game where the pain is part of the experience. Now a good day is one where no one is harmed.
And there’s still challenge number two and three.
Questions & Facts
* My parents are from South Korea and moved to the USA for their postgraduate studies. They decided to remain in the States and I was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the cheese state of the USA. I’m now married with two children. The pets (2 fat goldfish) belong to my husband and children; I want nothing to do with them!
*I now live in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I grew up mostly in Michigan. Before I moved to Amsterdam, I lived in New York City.
*This might sound lame, but my favorite place is our home. It’s comfortable, squeaky clean and I know where everything is. Home is where I’m truly relaxed and happy. Yes, it’s boring, but there it is.
*Which non-existing place would you like to visit ?
For me it’s not a place, but a time. I’d love to visit the far future to see how far technology goes and whether humanity finally gets its act together. I hope we do!
*Your fave books and fave authors?
Difficult because there are so many! Books that stick out for me include The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester and I adore pretty much all of the books by Robin Hobb, Jacqueline Carey, Suzanne Collins, JK Rowling and Pierce Brown.
*Where do you write your books?
Wherever, whenever I can. If I were only able to write in a quiet cabin in the woods, I would never get down a single word. Some of my best first-draft writing is while standing on the platform waiting for the train, typing madly with tons of typos on my smartphone. I prefer to write alone; all those people in a cafe or library setting would distract me.
*Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I rarely listen to music when I write. When I write, I try to immerse myself in the scene so in a way I’m ‘hearing’ everything in the story. My preference is some kind of background noise even if it’s just street life outside. Ideally I’d like one of those white noise machines.
*What inspires you?
Life in general, whether it be at work or home or pretty much anywhere. I often get ideas while walking, in nature or even on the treadmill. I draw ideas from my own personal experiences too. I often utilize the problems I see in the world and incorporate them into my writing.
*When you write, do you picture your characters in your mind (or creatures)?
Absolutely. I know how every character looks, how they sound, how they move, how they dress.
*What is your fave Genre in books?
Science fiction and fantasy. Always was. Always will be.
Do you have any plans for a new book?
I have three projects going on. One is the sequel to Offworlder. The second is a fantasy/SF series called FISH; it’s set in a matriarchal society with evil mermaids. The third is a fantasy that I’m co-writing with Leslie Lee. I’ve already co-written a science fiction story with Leslie—‘Cloud Monsters’—which was published in an anthology.
*Tell us something about your hobbies and interests.
I’m a geek. If I had more time, I’d be playing video games and sewing. Yeah, you heard that right. Sewing. I wish I didn’t need to sleep. There are too many cool, geeky things I’d like to be doing.
*Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional character?
Pretty much anyone who shows courage or helps others in need.
*Is there a character in your books you feel close to?
Tana Vanaard from Offworlder. I can relate to her the most: the smart girl and nerdy outsider. Tana is ostracized for her appearance as a result of Renz virus while I had to deal with a lot of racial prejudice growing up in middle-America at a time when there was no internet and when globalization and diversity were nonexistent terms. Tana develops a tough skin from her experiences, but inside she is very vulnerable. She’s also a task master, with ideas that she is determined to implement. We’re a lot alike.
*Do you also put in autobiographical aspects in your books? Yes? Which ones?
. NamJu, the main character in Offworlder, has a father who is tough on him, almost never satisfied with whatever he does. I took my own real life experiences with ‘tiger’ parents who were pushy and often quite negative and judgmental. Many of the things NamJu’s father said to him were actual words from my own parents. And Mia and Ian who are brother and sister in Offworlder are modeled a bit after my own children.
A note to your readers:
Writing saved me. I was nearing a serious burnout some seven years ago and I realized I missed having something creative in my life. I was only giving, giving, giving and needed to do something for me. If you are a creative person and you have no creative outlet, it’s like a slow death. I always loved science fiction & fantasy books, so I decided why not try writing them? I began with workshops, followed by intensive writing classes and writing groups. The whole time everyone told me not to expect anything out of it and ‘just do it as a hobby.’ I’m not a person that does something 50%. When I go for something, it’s all or nothing. And now I have a book out by the biggest publisher in the Netherlands in the science fiction & fantasy genre. Not bad, eh? So, don’t let people squash your dreams and passions. Do what makes you happy, even if it is as a part-time job or a hobby, and you will get there.
David Wellington
The first book i got from David was MonsterEiland (Monster Island). I was hooked from the beginning. Zombies!!!!!! As a horror-fan, this is a must read. He wrote more books and they’re all great! I am very happy i got to ask him some questions!!!! Here we go:
Hi, I’m David Wellington, the author of more than twenty books. I’m best known for my Monster Island trilogy (zombies), 13 Bullets series (vampires) and my latest book, Positive (back to zombies). Here’s the full list:
Monster Island
Monster Nation
Monster Planet
13 Bullets
99 Coffins
Vampire Zero
23 Hours
32 Fangs
Frostbite
Overwinter
Den of Thieves (as David Chandler)
A Thief in the Night (as David Chandler)
Honor Among Thieves (as David Chandler)
Pass/Fail (ebook only)
Rivals (ebook only)
Plague Zone (ebook only)
Chimera
The Hydra Protocol
The Cyclops Initiative
Positive
My favorite covers are the covers for the 13 Bullets books, because they’re incredibly creepy!
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Birthdate/place/
I was born on 23 April, 1971, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is the city where George Romero made all of his zombie films.
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Where do you live? And where did you grow up?
I grew up in Pennsylvania, then went to college in Syracuse, New York. I lived in Denver, Colorado for six years, and now I live in New York City.
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Your fave place in the World ?
There are lots of places I’ve been that I’ve loved, but Edinburgh, Scotland is probably my favorite city. It’s like something out of a fantasy novel.
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Which non-excisting place would you like to visit ?
Other planets—I’ve always loved science fiction and the idea of traveling to distant worlds, meeting the people there and seeing the sights of space!
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Your fave books and fave author?
I’m a huge fan of early 20th century horror, fantasy, and science fiction. H.G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Machen. My favorite is probably G.K. Chesterton, and his book The Man Who Was Thursday.
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Where do you write your books?
I have an office in my apartment, which is mostly just a couch and a coffee table. I have a laptop I write on—I can take it pretty much anywhere.
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- Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I write in silence. I’ve tried writing with music, but I found if it isn’t instrumental I have a problem—I tend to write the lyrics into whatever I’m writing!
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What inspires you?
All kinds of things inspire me. I’ll see something out of a train window, or read about something online and it gets my brain working, putting things together. It’s a continuous process—I think about books all day.
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When you write, do you picture your caracters in your mind (or creatures)?
I do, but I try to be very careful when describing characters (and creatures) in the books. I want the reader to make their own decision about what the characters look like.
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What is your fave Genre in books?
All of them! I can read any kind of book and love it. It’s about how good the writing is.
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Do you have any plans for a new book?
I’m working right now on a science fiction trilogy, under the pseudonym D. Nolan Clark. The first book is called Forsaken Skies, and it’s coming out (in the US) this autumn.
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Tell us something about your hobbies and interests?
I don’t have a lot of free time—most days I spend writing. I like to draw, though I’m not any good at it.
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Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional caracter?
There are lots of people I admire, but none of them are particularly famous. I admire teachers the most, and anyone whose job helps other people (especially nurses).
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Is there a caracter in your books, that you feel close too?
Laura Caxton, from my 13 Bullets book. That was my longest-running series, and so I worked with her for years. She even makes a brief appearance in Positive, my most recent book, because I couldn’t bear the idea of never writing about her again.
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Do you also put in autobiografic aspects in your books? Yes? Which ones?
I don’t think you can write a book and not put yourself in there, somewhere. I never try to do this, but details just sneak in. Specifically, my 13 Bullets series is set in Pennsylvania, near where I grew up, and I definitely used that knowledge to describe the setting.
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A message to the readers of the page:
I have two things to say. One is just—thank you! I really appreciate hearing from my readers, about the books they liked (and the ones they didn’t), about how my writing has affected them. I want to thank all my readers. I’ve been making a living at writing for over ten years now, and it would never have been possible without readers who enjoyed my books recommending them to their friends and online. It’s made all the difference.
The second thing is, I want to tell everyone to take a risk on a book. If you’re a science fiction fan, try reading a horror novel. If you like fantasy, go and find a mystery novel and see what you think. You may not like it, but really, what’s the worst that can happen? You’ll still have read a book, and that’s never a bad thing.
Di Toft
She wrote the Wolven (Wolfling) series, wich i L-O-V-E!!!!!!!
I Really love her books and the Bookcovers are gorgeous! They are a bit 3D. If you move them you see a boy changing into a Wolf. I really love that! I love the fact that Di is very active on facebook. She loves dogs and one of her dogs looked like a wolf;-)
(This article is written by me & Di Toft)
Di: The books are about a boy called Nat and his ‘dog’ Woody, who turns out to be a legendary shapeshifting Wolf whose ancestors fought alongside Richard the Lionheart in the Crusades. We learn that a corrupt government agency is hunting Woody to fuse his special Wolven DNA with that of a werewolf, to create indestructible fighting machines for 21st century wars.
Di:OK, so I was born just outside London in 1958, and now I live on the north Somerset coast. I’m married with two lovely kids and I’m a granny!!! I used to have a white German Shepherd called Dave (who was the model for Woody) Sadly, I lost Dave last year from old age.I now have a very naughty poodle cross called Dorothy.
Me: Di toft lives in Portishead, England
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Me: Your fave place in the World ?
Di: Whitby in Yorkshire, because of the wild coastline, ruined abbey and connections to Dracula.
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Me: Di would love to visit Narnia!!!!!!!!!
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More questions:
Your fave books and fave author?
My favourite book ever is Dracula by Bram Stoker, and my fave author is Stephen King.
Where do you write your books?
In my spare bedroom.
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Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I have to write in silence or else I get distracted. If I did listen to music it would probably be David Bowie or Led Zep.
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What inspires you?
The outdoors, creepy woodland and old spooky houses.
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When you write, do you picture your caracters in your mind (or creatures)?
Yeah, I view it like a film, in scenes. It’s like I have a camera in my head. I can see it unfold.
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What is your fave Genre in books?
Fantasy, horror and police thrillers.
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Do you have any plans for a new book?
Currently writing a book about an alien, and a commision for a hospital project about a tomaker and a mechanical swan (very steampunk!!)
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Tell us something about your hobbies and interests?
I love the cinema, live music, walking, playing with the dog and of course reading and writing.
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Is there a person you admire? Celebrity?
Kate Bush. Or a fictional caracter? Ripley in Alien
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Is there a caracter in your books, that you feel close too?
Probably Nat’s gran, Apple
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Do you also put in autobiografic aspects in your books?
I think a lot of the exciting bits where Nat and Woody are up against the world, I imagined happening to me when I was young! I grew up in the dame sort of small town as Temple Gurney and I was bulied sometimes too.
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Tell us, what you want to tell us;-)
I’d like to thank you Tazzy, for taking an interest in my work. I’d also like to tell you about a book called Cat Magick that I wrote last year. It’s only available on Amazon in English at the moment, but it’s a cracking tale of cats, witches, and hellcats in 17th century England. It’s funny, scary and exciting, I’m very proud of it. In the meantime, thanks all for reading this, and hopefully, there’ll be another book out soon. I try to keep my writing as entertaining as possible, I figure that if I have fun writing something (and occasionally get frightened if if writing at the dead of night and my imagination runs away with me) then my rradders wll enjoy it too. And maybe just get a little bit freaked out.
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Darren Shan
I really love his books, so i was very happy to ask him some questions!
Birthyear/ Place/ Married/ Children
born in 1972, London, 1 wife, 1 son.
Where do you live? And where did you grow up?
Limerick, in Ireland. I’ve lived there since I was 6 years old.
Your fave place in the World?
I’ve been lucky, and I’ve got to travel to some amazing places. I love Petra
in Jordan… New Zealand… Japan… New York… and of course there’s
nowhere like home! But if there was only one place that I could visit for
the rest of my life, it would be London — I’ve never tired of exploring it.
Which non-excisting place would you like to visit? Hell;-)
Your fave books and fave author?
Stephen King is my favourite author, and has been for about 30 years.
Where do you write your books?
I write on a PC, in an office in my house.
Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I always have music playing in the background, rock and pop.
When you write, do you picture your caracters in your mind (or
creatures)?
Not really, no. Maybe it’s because I’m not any good at drawing, but my
characters are almost always vague to me.
What is your fave Genre in books?
Horror, although I like reading widely, lots of different types of books.
Do you have any plans for a new book?
Yes, I’m working on a new Darren Shan series at the moment, though I can’t
say anything about it. I also write books for adults, under the name of
Darren Dash — www.darrendashbooks.com — and I’m hoping to release another
of those later this year.
Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional caracter?
I have huge respect for Stephen King, not just for the quality of his
stories, but his work ethic, and the way he’s pushed himself so hard to
create an immense body of work. He’s a great role model for young authors.
Is there a caracter in your books, that you feel close too?
Darren Shan!!! 🙂 But, really, I feel close to all my main characters.
Maybe the one I’m most similar to is a character called Kernel Fleck, in my
Demonata series.
Do you also put in autobiografic aspects in your books? Yes? Which ones?
I include bits and pieces from my real life, including naming lots of
characters after friends and family members, but my books are rarely
directly autobiographical.
A message from Darren Shan:
I’m not as scary-looking as many fans assume I am — some are disappointed
when they meet me, because I seem to affable and normal — but that’s
because I wear my darkness on the inside.
Best,
Darren.
Warren Fahy
-Tell us something about your books and the title and covers-
I’ve written 5 novels (Fragment, Pandemonium, Crimson, The Kor, and Escaping America). There are lots of covers for them out there, especially Fragment, which was published in 19 languages. When you combine hardback and paperback, large print, book club, and audiobook covers, that book alone has about 30 covers. Of those, I really like the Japanese cover, which folds out into a panoramic poster of the Henders Island jungle. The Brazilian edition has flip-book animations of the spiger and disk-ant (creatures on the island) in the margins, which is really cool.
Fragment and Pandemonium, which really read like one very large book when combined, are basically about fragmented ecosystems isolated from the rest of the world for hundreds of millions of years, resulting in completely different biospheres populated by some very scary species. “Lost World” books, starting with Arthur Conan Doyle’s, usually are about a “land that time forgot” where species from bygone epochs of life on Earth have remained untouched. Another trope is the mad scientist who creates bizarre creatures (The Island of Dr. Moreau or Jurassic Park which combines both scenarios, or Jeremy Robinson’s Island 731, for example). Yet another involves mutated animals that have spawned after some form of toxic waste has polluted the environment. The one that had not been done as far as I could tell was one that I think is actually most possible according to our modern scientific understanding of evolution. When species are isolated they don’t stay frozen in time but start to drift into unique forms. The longer they are isolated the further they drift, and no scientists or nuclear radiation is necessary to create astonishing new life forms. The Movile cave in Romania, for example, sealed for 5 million years, was found to contain 18 species completely unknown to science. What if they had been isolated for 50 million? Or 500 million years, as in my novel Fragment? That’s the basis for both of my thrillers, Fragment and Pandemonium.
Crimson is an epic fantasy, a very different cup of tea, with giant monsters haunting a sea and guarding a king from rescue by his valiant subjects who must battle there way through them to save him and their kingdom. The Kor is set on a different world among a stone age people who must discover their past in order to find their future. And Escaping America is a teenaged 1984.
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Birthdate/place/ (family/kids isnt a must) /Pets…..
I was born in Hollywood, California, and my twin sister five minutes later. My pug of 19 years just passed away this last year. Long live Caesar.
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Where do you live? And where did you grow up?
I live in San Diego, and grew up in both Hollywood and a suburb of Los Angeles.
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Your is your fave place in the World ?
Kauai
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Which non-excisting place would you like to visit ?
Probably Immurtia from The Kor.
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Your fave books and fave author?
Oh, that’s so hard. I love such a wide spectrum and all so different. I love Chandler, Orwell, Bukowski, Tolkien, Flaubert, Hugo, Asimov, Heinlein, Conan Doyle, Fante, Shakespeare, Conroy, Twain, King, Crichton, Amis, Shelley (Mary), Shirley Jackson…
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Where do you write your books?
In my cave.
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Do you write in Total silence, or listen to Music?
I listen to music or have the TV on in the background. They are passive and non-intrusive ambient background stimulation. Different music for different things. If I’m writing fantasy, classical. If I’m writing something set in the ’30s, tunes from that era or soundtracks from movies from that era. For thrillers, soundtracks are great – Jurassic Park, Jaws, James Bond, etc. When I have to work something out that is a total blank in my mind and is extremely tricky, total silence. I often write for 20 hours straight or more. Once inside the world of the book it’s best to stay there and cover as much ground as possible before returning to the distraction of this world.
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What inspires you?
I’m constantly dialoguing with myself about everything I see and take in, connecting it to everything else I know, and sometimes surprising connections, some of them worthy of a sentence, an observation, or even an entire novel are sparked by this process. I am not inspired by other people’s work artistically but only as a fan, though one learns a lot stylistically, a lot of it subconsciously, from great works by others.
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When you write, do you picture your caracters in your mind (or creatures)?
Yes. I have to have the whole thing vividly pictured in my mind in order to pick out the details that will fill in the picture for readers.
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What is your fave Genre in books?
I love science thrillers, but they are few and far between. I love gumshoe detective stories by great stylists like Cain, Hammet and Chandler. And I love science fiction by great authors with a soaring optimism. While I might admire the style of authors with a more bleak point of view, it’s not where my heart really lives.
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Do you have any plans for a new book?
At least 10 right now, LOL!
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Tell us something about your hobbies and interests?
I sculpt, love aquariums, and dabble in evolutionary science. One theory of mine (on longevity, from Fragment) is currently being worked on by scientists for publication in a science journal.
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Is there a person you admire? Celebrity? Or a fictional caracter?
Too many to list!
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Is there a caracter in your books, that you feel close too?
Sure. I have to feel close to my characters because I AM those characters every time I write a word into their mouths. But most of all, I say Rory, Ellen and Jonathan from Escaping America, Zen from The Kor, Trevin, Neuvia and Nil from Crimson, Sasha from Pandemonium… I really am broken up when one of them is wounded in some way, or dies…
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Do you also put in autobiografic aspects in your books? Yes? Which ones?
Again, so many, mixed into everything I write, that it would be easier to list what isn’t autobiographical. Probably the closest to me in real life, however, is Rory in Escaping America.
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Tell us, what you want to tell us;-) A message to the readers of the page. Somethng we have to know about you etc….
There are so many authors today who, in order to defy convention, opt for the apocalyptic and tragic, the unhappy ending, and a horrific and negative view of the human race, that it has become conventional now. I believe it is far more difficult, and desireable, to portray “good guys” in art who aren’t comic book superheroes but real. I think the next generation of humans cannot and should not be fed a steady diet of anti-human art or else it will result in a dangerous and destructive nihilism. (It’s also not realistic.) That nihilism in art, born of pessimism, usually ends one place: totalitarianism. If humans can’t be trusted because they’re no damned good, then they must be caged and controlled from on high… ironically by other humans who are presumably just as rotten. I hope to stand against this prevailing wind and hold up an optimistic view of human potential and the human mind when free of political or religious control, and a respect for the good that individuals can achieve when they can pursue their lives without the pessimism of oppression and the oppression of pessimism. This is a central theme in all of my books. And while many might say it is old-fashioned, it’s far from easy to do in a world that has largely lost faith in being human. I suppose this is the one thing, the common denominator, in my work.
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Warren Thank You for your time and this great interview! You can find Warren on Facebook. I really love his posts of Face of the Day. Wonderfull animals are passing by every day! And read his books! In English or on Dutch.
ik hou van horror, fantasy en spanning 