Janni Lee Simner lives in the Arizona desert, where the plants really do know how to bite. She’s the author of three young adult fantasy novels: Bones of Faerie, Faerie Winter, and Thief Eyes. She’s also published four books for younger readers and more than more than 30 short stories, including one in the recent Welcome to Bordertown anthology.

1.  Your first YA offering, the dark and twisted post-apocalyptic “Bones of Faerie” had me completely intoxicated and entranced by the world. “Faerie Winter” left me even more addicted. You’ve said one of the reasons you continue to write is to visit all the places haven’t got to in person –or haven’t figured out yet to get to, especially the magic ones. Has the idea of magic and mythical lands something you have always felt drawn to?

Thanks so much for the good words about Bones of Faerie and Faerie Winter! I really have always been drawn to magic. As a kid, I spent a lot of time looking for that doorway through the mist to someplace else–some other, more magical world than my own. It was a journey I took seriously enough that once I found fellow seekers-after-magic, we vowed to each other that if we ever found our way through to one of those places, we’d be sure to let each other know before we left this world, so that we could all get there. The desire to call back that feeling of magic that’s almost real enough and near enough to touch is one of the reasons I write.

2. You also have a third YA novel released, the contemporary fantasy “Thief Eyes” set in Iceland and teeming with magic and mystery. Can you tell us a little about what we can expect when we enter Haley’s world?

When I first visited Iceland, I became fascinated with the Icelandic sagas, especially as I walked through some of the same places their characters had walked a thousand years ago–something that gave me the shivery feeling that the past just might be breathing over my shoulder. Hallgerd from Njal’s Saga was especially intriguing to me. When she was a child, her uncle said she had the eyes of a thief; as an adult, she became infamous for refusing her husband two locks of her hair to restring his bow in battle. I wanted to understand Hallgerd better, so I wove her story into the present-day story of one of her descendants, Haley, who gets caught up in a spell Hallgerd casts.

Along the way there are shape-shifting polar bear boys, companionable arctic foxes, and dangerous ravens. (Well, okay, only one of each.) There’s also Iceland’s own moss-covered volcanic landscape, which is pretty magical to me all by itself, and which in Thief Eyes is in danger of pulling apart as the result of Hallgerd’s spell. Haley struggles to save both herself and that land as she tries to get free of the spell and find her way home again.

3. Not only do you write for the YA market, you’re also an accomplished Children’s author. Do you find that your style and process change significantly along with the intended audience?

I don’t, really. The ages of my protagonists change, and because of that their concerns change, but the process of writing the stories doesn’t. Mostly, I’m just telling the stories I most want to tell and writing them as well as I can, and while the audience changes, the storytelling and writing craft doesn’t.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

Liza from the Faerie books, with her fears and her courage, her practical matter-of-factness in what to us would be an impractical world, her longing to protect those she cares for and her unwillingness to ever give up. I just turned in the third and final Faerie book from Liza’s point of view (working title, Faerie After), and I know that once I finish my editorial revisions, it’s going to be strange to let her go. I sold Bones of Faerie five years ago, but I started writing fragments if Liza’s story a decade before that. We’ve been through a lot together, and I’m going to miss her.

Janni Lee Simner’s website

Ben lives mostly in worlds of his own creation but occasionally misses the real world and comes home to Adelaide. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Flinders University, where he occasionally teaches Creative Writing and English Literature, and has published academic work on popular culture, video game narrative theory, Japanese heroism, anime & manga, and creative writing pedagogy. In 2010 he was awarded the Colin Thiele Creative Writing Scholarship from Carclew Youth Arts Board and was a finalist in the Channel 9 SA Young Achiever Awards. Ben loves heroes, villains, comic books, and video games, and believes you can learn more from watching cartoons than you can from the news. Like all fantasy writers, Ben has a cat. His cat is named Loki. It’s possible Loki is the reincarnation of the Norse God of Mischief, but Ben hopes this is just a flight of his fancy

1.”Quillblade” and “Beastchild” are set in a high stakes world that has a steampunk feel as well as containing a quest of epic proportions. What was it about dragons that piqued your imagination to the point of creating a whole new world surrounding them?

I have always loved dragons. Always. They come in so many shapes, sizes, forms, and from so many different places. They symbolise, for me, the unlimited scope of human imagination. Just about every society in the world has some form of dragon lore, and this is what drew me to base my world around dragons. The idea is that you can have a particular type of dragon, such as a dragon who brings rain or storms, or anything like that, and there will be a corresponding dragon or god in another culture. Raikō is a good example of that. There are Thunder or Lightning Birds in many different religions and cultures all over the world. Even Raikō’s name has an obscure link to a Japanese deity who brings thunder and lightning. Then there is the Roc, and, well, I don’t want to explain it to death, but I’m really looking at the connections we share as people, in our imaginative headspace, even though we’re all so vastly different. That’s a large part of the world in which Quillblade and Beast Child are set – the idea that you could have this small group of dragon gods, who are the real gods, and people just worship them differently in different places, giving rise to many different religions and cultures.

2. You have a PhD in Creative Writing and apart from teaching and your own fiction work; you have also had work published in a variety of topics surrounding popular culture. How important has your academic background been in developing you career as an author?

The connection is very important, for me. All writers research, I believe, at least to some extent. I sort of take that a step further and produce formal research papers and book chapters on the subjects that interest me. It allows me to really get to know the things that support and inform my work. I truly believe the best writers all do this anyway, but they may not necessarily take the time to write their research up into a formal essay. In a way, my creative writing is an expression of that research, but it’s a chicken / egg relationship. Neither comes first, and both are tasty in their own unique ways.

Academic work has also helped me become a better writer. Academic writing is vastly different to creative writing, but they each share a necessity for clarity and, to a certain extent, brevity. It’s all about communicating your ‘message’, by which I mean argument (for academic writing) or story (for creative writing) to the reader in the best possible way. Writing formal academic work gets you thinking about the logic behind writing, and that feeds into my creative work. I always say you need to take fantasy seriously. If there are logic holes in your story, or the world you’re building, or the magic system, or anything like that, you won’t convince your reader that the world is real. In a way, my academic writing has trained me to build better worlds.

3. Which authors have been your biggest influences?

Gosh, so many. Tolkien, of course. All fantasy writers need to list him as an influence. They’re either learning from him or deliberately trying not to. No one can ignore him. David Eddings, who is one of the best storytellers of the past hundred years. Robin Hobb. I’ve said this before, but her Farseer books are the best first person fantasy books ever written. Anne Rice, for doing such a wonderful job of putting the demon in the protagonist’s role. Michael Ende, for The Neverending Story. Holly Black and Scott Westerfeld, for really teaching me what YA was before I really knew it existed. Michael Pryor, for some of my favourite twists on the fantasy genre. I should add Poe, and Wodehouse, and Stevenson, and . . . I could go on, and on, and on . . . I read a lot. All writers should. All great writers do.

4.  Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind, and why?

Tough question! I’m told you should never ask a parent which is their favourite child, because they probably have one but it would be rude to make them admit it! Having said that, I have a special place in my heart for Abe, whom you haven’t met yet. He’s the protagonist of a new book I’m working on, but from my published work?

Hmmm . . . okay, if you promise not to tell any of the others, it would have to be Yami. It’s a bit ironic that the character who burns brightest for me is the one who lives mostly in the dark. Each of my characters has a rich history, particularly those aboard the Hiryū. As much as I love them all, Yami’s story is the one I’ve given the most thought to actually telling outside of the Voyages books. I love the twins, and these books belong to them, but I know that, one day, I will tell Yami’s story in full, whether as a graphic novel, novella, full-blown novel, or even a video game – I haven’t decided which yet. There’s a lot of pain in his past. There’s loss, and tragedy, but there’s also a bit of comedy, and love, and as much trust as there is betrayal. He’s a broken man, a divided man, but it took a lot to actually get him to that point. He also has to literally share his body with a ghost from the past, and a foreign one at that. To me, he represents the duality in all of us. Light and dark. Duty and desire. He’s also seeking redemption for something he can never atone for, and he has a long way to go, a long way, before he can find any sort of peace. But, ultimately, what makes him burn brightest for me is that he is there for the twins, and Lenis in particular.

The captain shares a special bond with the twins too, everyone on the crew does to a certain extent, but Yami’s different. The others all have conflicting motivations, different things that drive them, but Yami’s sole responsibility is to protect the twins. He becomes Lenis’s shadow, in a sense, always there for him, and he sees a chance at redemption in keeping Lenis safe. I do some interesting things with that in book three, where we’ll be seeing much more of that other soul inhabiting Yami’s body, but I don’t want to give anything away just yet! Also, Yami is a kick-ass swordsman whose blade takes on the attributes of its wielder, which in Yami’s case means it can sever the chi in your body without even scratching your skin, and he’s almost as good at remaining unseen as Atrum. How cool is that?

Read our reviews of [intlink id=”3349″ type=”post”]Quillblade[/intlink] and [intlink id=”7042″ type=”post”]Beast Child[/intlink].

Lani Woodland has been an avid reader since elementary school when she first discovered the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley Twins series. In sixth grade she began writing plays and recruiting (with force when necessary) her friends to act them out. Most of these early works were inspired by She-Ra, the epitome of girl power to her young self.

She graduated from BYU with a BS in Family Science. Lani has always loved scary stories, and has a hard time enjoying any book without at least a little romance in it. She lives in Southern California with her husband, their two children and a large collection of board games. She has worked as a spot-welder, babysitter, janitor, photographer, gymnastics coach, and movie extra. She enjoys bonfires at the beach, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, speed talking, chocolate as a cure-all, and the word “precisely”.

1.       Our reviewer, Krista, absolutely loved the first two instalments of your Yara Silva trilogy, mentioning that they’re becoming ‘darker and more intense’. For readers who are waiting to get their hands on a copy of Indelible (book 2), can you tell us a bit about Yara’s character development, and her relationship with Brent?

I’m so happy Krista liked them! Yay!  Yara is trying to avoid becoming like the women in her family. She doesn’t want to be a Waker (someone who can see and talk to ghosts). However in Intrinsical she learns she can’t run from who she is. In Indelible she has come to terms with being a Waker but she hasn’t really embraced it. She still longs to be normal. The series so far has been about her becoming okay with the hand she has been dealt. I think her relationship with Brent is fairly realistic (aside from the paranormal problems). Neither one of them are perfect. They are both growing into the people they are going to become and they are attempting to do that together.

2.      You’ve said that you enjoy beach bonfires and ‘hole-in-the-wall’ restaurants, among many others things. What’s your favourite setting to write in? Do you need quiet and solitude, or do you thrive in busy, populated environments, where you can people-watch (or even eavesdrop)?

I like to write alone in the quiet. I don’t have a laptop so I write at home in my living room. I love to write when the room is clean. If I had a laptop I have several places I would love to write. Down the street from my house is this beautiful fountain. I think that would be a great place to write. I have a family and it is hard to write with them around. Mainly because I can be working really well and it all screeches to a halt when my kids need help with something. I create best alone. When I am editing though I work well with my friend Melonie and my husband Evan. It is great bouncing ideas off them.

3.      The final book in the trilogy, Inevitable, has a tantalising name, perhaps hinting at destiny. Can you give us a teaser? How important are the themes of fate and destiny in your work and are these themes that you enjoy in other fiction?
The third book will be tying together all the loose threads I created in Indelible. I love reading about fate but I don’t think my books have fate in them. I feel like there are certain things Yara has to deal with because of who she is but she is free to choose whatever life she wants. Well, she will still have to deal with ghosts, but it is up to her whether or not she decides to help them.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

I think Sophia burns the brightest. She was a very memorable character. I feel like she had a lot of hidden depth that was hidden behind a whole lot of anger. She was also my most ghostly ghost to date.

Lani Online:

Intrinsical book website.

Lani’s blog.

Lani’s website.

Twitter.

Connect on Facebook.

Angela Corbett graduated from Westminster College with a double major in communication and sociology. She started working for her hometown newspaper when she was sixteen and won awards for feature, news, and editorial writing. She has also worked as a freelance writer. Angela lives in Utah with her extremely supportive husband, Dan, and their five-pound Pomeranian, Pippin, whose following of fangirls could rival Justin Bieber’s.

1. Your forthcoming novel, Eternal Starling, offers readers a world of soul mates, suspense, and romance. Do you believe in soul mates? Who are your favourite literary lovers and why?

I absolutely believe in soul mates! There are a lot of different theories surrounding the idea of soul mates and I think they’re all fascinating. There’s something so romantic about the idea! I really like strong female characters, and some of my favorite literary lovers have female characters like that. Yelena and Valek from the Study series, by Maria V, Snyder; Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins; and Katsa and Po from Graceling, by Kristin Cashore.

2. Angela, you’ve studied communication and sociology, and have written in both journalistic and marketing environments. How has your study and non-fiction writing contributed to your career as an author?

There are different sets of rules for every type of writing: journalism, professional, technical, marketing, etc. I learned something from each of these types of writing. I believe any time you’re writing, it improves your skills, regardless of the writing you do. My journalism experience definitely helps when I’m doing interviews or events. My marketing experience played more of a part than I thought it would, especially when I was trying to sell Eternal Starling to a publisher. Writing a query letter is similar to writing advertising copy.

3. On your blog, you’ve generously shared your writing process with aspiring writers. How do you balance your time between writing and your self-generated marketing/publicity? How important is it to devote time to the latter?

I had some wonderful mentors when I started querying Eternal Starling, and wouldn’t be where I am without those people and their advice. I really wanted to pay it forward and put my experiences out there because every author’s path to publication is different. Finding time to write and still have time for marketing and publicity is really a balancing act. I set aside a time every night to spend on the business part of being an author. I also try to make myself available on Twitter, Facebook, and my blog as often as possible.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind, and why?

It’s so hard to choose just one! Eternal Starling is a love story, but the heart of the book is my heroine, Evie Starling. I love her stubbornness, her humor, and the fact that she accepts herself and her flaws. I also love where her story is going. So, I would say the character that burns brightest in Eternal Starling is Evie.

Visit Angela’s blog here!

George is a Melbourne author and stay-at-home dad. He has written over 50 books for kids and teens, including novels, chapter books, school readers, reference books and even a short story collection. Gamers’ Quest, a teen, sci-fi, action/adventure set entirely within an elaborate computer game, won a 2010 Chronos award. The sequel, Gamers’ Challenge is to be published by Ford Street Publishing in September this year.

George drinks too much coffee and eats too much chocolate. Aside from that, he tries to live a balanced life. His two daughters and one wife put up with him, while his two cats constantly demand to be fed. Sometimes he wonders how he actually finds the time to write.

1. You’ve written more than 50 books (!!), some of which have appeared on the Vic & NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge booklists, and one of which (Gamers’ Quest) was awarded a 2010 Chronos Award for spec fiction. Phew! As a kid, were you always writing stories and engaging in creative pursuits? What’s the secret to maintaining those energy levels?

I was a reluctant reader during early primary school, until I discovered science fiction about mid-way through. That turned my life around as I suddenly found myself willingly diving into the world of books. I didn’t discover I enjoyed writing until somewhere during high school. And even then, I didn’t do a huge amount of it beyond schoolwork. At that stage I was much more interested in reading. It was during my final year at high school and during my university years that I really started to get into writing. I wrote a lot of stuff for amateur publications during that time… some of it during my lectures. J

I don’t know that there’s any secret to maintaining the energy levels. It’s simply a case of loving what I do. I’d be writing even if I wasn’t getting paid for it. Getting paid for it simply means that I can spend more time doing it. So, as well as writing teen novels like Gamers’ Challenge, I’m also writing school readers, chapter books and short reference books, as well as stories and articles for mags and anthologies. And I’m loving every minute of it.

2    The sequel to Gamers’ Quest, Gamers’ Challenge, is due for release in September. When you’re writing a series, how far in advance do you plan your story line? And do you prefer to plot carefully, or just take an idea and run with it?

The Gamers books weren’t originally planned as a series. I wrote Gamers’ Quest to be a stand-alone novel. It was not until Ford Street Publishing suggested that a sequel might be a good idea that I even considered I could go beyond that first book. Of course, once I started thinking about it, I couldn’t stop… to the extent that while I was writing Gamers’ Challenge, I was coming up with ideas for a third book. Now I’ve just got to hope that book two does well enough to warrant a third.

In terms of the actual writing process for the books, I did carefully plot out each of them before starting the writing. But then things evolved as I was writing them. No matter how carefully I plot, the characters will always end up doing something that surprises me.

3.   I love your concept of this computer game world. Are you a keen gamer yourself? What inspired you to create a techno universe?

I was a very keen gamer when I was a teenager — back in the days when Space Invaders was the height of sophisticated game play. 😉 These days I don’t play as often and when I do, it’s usually with my eldest daughter. Rayman Raving Rabbids is a favourite on Wii. But I suck big-time at Force Unleashed. And I do still indulge in Space Invaders Extreme on the DS every now and then. I also like watching others play — the way people get so immersed in the games is fascinating.

I wrote the Gamers novels to be the books that I would have loved reading as a 13-year-old. Full of action and adventure, of weird characters and bizarre situations — cramming in all the things that interested me as a teen. So over the course of two novels you get everything from a droll dragon to a relentless cyborg, from warrior monks to invading centurions, from a giant robot spider to a homicidal computer virus, from a space battle to combat in an enclosed light-grid. Everything that I would have wanted at that age, all wrapped up in a computer game package.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

Difficult choice! The characters I tend to love the most are those that I’m writing at any given time. But, looking back at the two Gamers books, if I absolutely had to choose…

Edgar the dragon, who is thoroughly sick of people coming along to challenge him for his bag of gold, and his wife Vera, who literally married her husband for his body (certain dragon body parts being rather valuable commodities). They were, simply, a lot of fun to write. They feature in Gamers’ Quest. I desperately wanted to include them in Gamers’ Challenge as well… but that would have been self-indulgent on my part and would not have served the story. Sometimes, no matter how much you love certain characters, it’s better for the story to not include them. But that’s okay, because I got to create a whole bunch of new characters. And really, they all burn bright in my mind — otherwise they would never have made it into the books.

Now check out the new Gamers’ Challenge & Gamers’ Quest trailers!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPQc32qn2_E

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCC-l34Fgo

Check out George’s webiste here!

Visit the official Gamers website here!