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Author Interview Series #77 – Kelley Armstrong

New York Times Bestselling Author Kelley Armstrong is a born storyteller, one of those kids that invariably dismayed her teachers. “If asked for a story about girls and dolls, mine would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls,” she says. All efforts to make her produce “normal” stories failed. Even now, today, she is locked away in her writing dungeon, spinning tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves. You know, the fun stuff. With four books, three novels and an anthology, being released in 2014, she is cranking out the word count, and still found time to talk to us.

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Author Interview Series #76 – Mignon Fogarty

I first heard of Grammar Girl via her podcast some years ago. As an English geek, I immediately took to its straightforward explanations mixed with her engaging, entertaining style. Since those early days, Grammar Girl has become a New York Times best-seller. Grammar Girl was created by Mignon Fogarty, a magazine writer, technical writer, and entrepreneur. She has served as a senior editor and producer at a number of health and science web sites and has a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in Seattle and an M.S. in biology from Stanford University. Mignon believes that learning isContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #76 – Mignon Fogarty

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Author Interview Series #75 – Lori Handeland

Lori Handeland is a New York Times, USA Today, Waldenbooks and Bookscan Bestselling Author and the recipient of many industry awards, including two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal (BLUE MOON) and Best Long Contemporary Romance (THE MOMMY QUEST), a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A SOLDIER’S QUEST), the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, the Write Touch Readers Award, the National Readers Choice Award and the Prism Award. Her published genres include–historical, contemporary, series and paranormal romance, as well as urban fantasy and historical fantasy, and her publishers are a Who’s Who ofContinue readingAuthor Interview Series #75 – Lori Handeland

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Author Interview Series # 74 – Jeanne Stein

Jeanne Stein’s writing epitomizes the urban fantasy genre. Her character, Anna Strong, is that iconic butt-kicking, powerful female that has come be associated with what we call urban fantasy nowadays, and now, seven books along in the series, they’re as popular as ever. She has shared anthology pages with other luminaries of genre: Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, and Kelley Armstrong. And on top of all that, she is an exceedingly gracious lady. How far will Anna Strong go? That remains to be seen, but if you corner her at a convention, she might confide that she wants to write moreContinue readingAuthor Interview Series # 74 – Jeanne Stein

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Author Interview Series #73 – Aaron Michael Ritchey

I met Aaron Michael Ritchey at Mile Hi Con in 2012, in one of those author mixer venues. At a room party at the con, there were about half a dozen writers standing around drinking and conversing, and the topic of conversation went toward religion and spirituality. In a world that bears the odiousness of the Taliban, the Westboro Baptist Church, and the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, it was easy for most of us to get pretty snarky on the subject of religion. And then Aaron asked the question of all of us: “Do you think religion has, cumulatively,Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #73 – Aaron Michael Ritchey

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Author Interview Series #72 – Quincy Allen

Quincy Allen is one of those writers whose persona follows him around conventions. You’re just as likely to see him in full steampunk regalia, complete with mohawk and monocle, as in leather sport jacket and looking almost normal. The bottom line, however, is still all about the hard work, and here’s a guy who works hard. With one novel under his belt, and several short stories, he’s still near the beginning of his career, but I suspect he’s going to be around for a while. I also happen to know he’s not a bad poker player.

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Author Interview Series #71 – Piers Anthony

One of the long-standing luminaries of the fantasy genre is Piers Anthony. With forty Xanth novels under his belt, plus several other series, short stories and novellas, collaborations, Anthony has assembled a prolific body of work, and new stuff is coming out as we speak. Even with that much going on, he graciously took the time out to chat with us about the writing life, and what led him to it.

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Author Interview Series #69 – Sam Knight

Sam Knight is an author from the Colorado Front Range, and he experiments with all sorts of genres, from SF to horror to weird tales to children’s books. I met Sam soon after I moved to the Denver area myself, and found an incredibly rich community of working professional fiction writers at various stages of their careers, from a few early sales to established pros. The number of areas that rival the Colorado Front Range in sheer number of writers could probably be counted on one hand. Sam is an active, friendly part of that community.

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Author Interview Series #68 – Bryan Young

Do you remember what I said last week about meeting other authors at conventions. I served on a couple of panels at Denver Comic Con a few weeks ago with Bryan Young, an up and upcoming writer from the Salt Lake City area. He has creative irons in a number of fires, as you’ll see below, from fiction to film-making to screenplays to editing to journalism.

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Author Interview Series #67 – Christopher M. Salas

As so often happens in this line of work, I met Christopher M. Salas at a convention. In this case, the convention was COSINE 2013, a local science fiction convention in Colorado Springs. Christopher Salas writes horror and science fiction from the Colorado Front Range area.  He is also a volunteer firefighter, martial artist, and purveyor of comic books. If that doesn’t pique your interest, I dunno what will.

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Author Interview Series #66 – James Kahn

Oh, the power of social networking. A couple of weeks ago, I was attending the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold writers’ conference, learning about things like social networking, promotion, etc. Since I launched into the Twitterverse and punched the ion engines back in March, I’ve been getting a steady, daily stream of new followers. That’s just how it works. So I was monitoring my incoming followers between panels at the conference, and then I see James Kahn come through as new follower. When I was twelve, I read the novelization of Poltergeist. It scared the crap out of me.Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #66 – James Kahn

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Author Interview Series #65 – Nick Mamatas

A couple of years ago I was attending the World Fantasy Convention, and at such events, amidst streams of late-night alcohol springs, a person can chance to meet quite a number of interesting people. Why do you think I go to conventions? At just such a party I encountered Nick Mamatas, discovered his first published novel, Move Under Ground, was Cthulhu meets Kerouac, and I was intrigued. From there, it’s obvious that he is a busy guy. Aside from two novels, he has also edited or co-edited Clarkesworld magazine and several anthologies. His book Starve Better is a collection of witty,Continue readingAuthor Interview Series #65 – Nick Mamatas