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1. Please tell us a little about yourself – how long have you been writing, and an overview of the UF books or series you’ve written.
I have been writing almost all of my life. The first story I remember writing was in a school exercise book on the left side of the page which was where we weren’t suppose to write anything because that’s where the teacher was supposed to write their comments. It was a story about a group of kids who go into a haunted house and encounter a vampire, a werewolf, a mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, and a gorilla because I thought gorillas were scary. Even then I was drawn to the fantastical in fiction, to the strange, to the speculative. I use that thinking when I approach any of the UA themes and I especially like putting the strange and fantastical into everyday life.
Most of my stories for UA have been separate stories although I did start the Crossroad City Tales with my story “Tear Away” in the Spells Gone Awry issue. That is a series of short stories about Maeve Hemlock, a faerie detective in the Spells and Misdemeanours Bureau. So far there are five stories about Maeve, with more to tell, I’m sure!
“Winging It” from the Fabulous Familiars issue is also set in the same world as my short story “Cauldron Bubbles” about witch Malinda Hazelthorn.
I really like the world in my story “Borrowed Magic” from the Warlocks issue and would like to explore it more in the future.
2. What’s your writing process, and has it changed over time? For fans who also write, do you have any favorite bits of writing advice you’d like to share?
I use to outline, not all the way, but a little ways ahead but then I found that my stories were veering completely away from any outline. Even when I tried to realign my outline, the story would go off on its own. So now, I just make notes of thoughts or ideas of things that might happen in a story but I don’t try to force it.One of the best ideas about writing that worked for me was the idea of things get worse, keeping making it worse for the main character and let them find their way out. Having everything going well might be nice in life but it’s really boring in fiction. We read to experience the tension of the problems and challenges and to feel the triumph of the character’s win. But they can’t win if things don’t get worse.
3. Why do you write Urban Fantasy? What are some of your favorite UF tropes and settings?
I really enjoy adding the fantastic to the mundane, to see how the normal world and the magical world interact. I’m also a big mystery fan so that gets mixed up a lot in my fiction which is how I came up with a faerie detective.But more than that, I just like taking normal people and having them confront something fantastical, something they can’t explain, and see how they react and adapt.
4. Who are some of your favorite authors in the genre and why?
Other than the other Uncollected Anthology authors, I enjoyed the early Anita Blake novels, and Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. I enjoy the set-up of the worlds and the similarities to mystery novels.
5. What do you enjoy the most about writing stories for UA?
I love the challenge of writing for themes that I might not have considered otherwise. For instance, we have the Urban Western theme coming up and I’ve never written westerns before. I’ve read them before but never thought of writing one. Having this opportunity to take that theme and put my own spin on it, especially putting the fantastical into the everyday which I love, is to much fun for me.
6. Has writing short stories for UA helped to inspire other projects or novels? Please tell us more about these spin-off projects.
My story “Tear Away” inspired the Crossroad City Tales about faerie detective Maeve Hemlock. She has a total of five short story adventures so far, with more to come.I haven’t done so yet, but I really like the world of Borrowed Magic and I’d like to explore that a little more in the future.
7. What new releases or writing news do you have to share?
On December 6th, I launched The Claus Connection, the third book in the Noel Kringle Chronicles. The Noel Kringle Chronicles are the tales of Noel Kringle, second son of Santa Claus who leaves the North Pole to become a private detective in Toronto where he solves mysteries that are strange and fantastical.
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