Category: books

Hi everyone, we’re back with some new interviews this week! Today I’m chatting with Eclectica Bundle author (and curator!), A. L. (Alex) Butcher.

Sherry: Hi Alex, and thanks for stopping by for a chat! To begin, would you tell us a little about the story/book you have in the current bundle?

A. L.: “Tears and Crimson Velvet” is a short historical fiction based on characters from Phantom of the Opera; set in 19th century France the story follows Madam Giry and Erik (the phantom). She first meets him when he is a performer forced to sing and humiliate himself for the paying public in a travelling fair. They then meet again later, and Erik is in a desperate situation. Giry is the first person to show the confused and disfigured young man kindness, and he never forgets it. This is her story, and their story.

Sherry: That sounds like a fascinating exploration. Do you remember what sparked the idea for this story? What was it?

A. L.: I’ve been a Phantom fan since I was 11. My mother took me to see the stage show in London and I was enchanted. The original book, by Gaston Leroux is a masterpiece of tragic horror/mystery. There are dozens of adaptations of the story – some better than others. Madam Giry is an important character in a few, but a rather comical figure in the Leroux original. I wondered what if – what if she had met Erik before? What was she like as a young woman? What made her the lonely widow we meet? That was the basis of the story. I also have another ‘Legacy of the Mask’ Tale featuring Raoul De Chagny set twelve years after the events at the opera house. It’s sad, haunting and lyrical.

Sherry: I love how you’ve spun so much from this one theme. :) Now, imagine you’ve been kidnapped or trapped by a natural disaster. Which of your own characters (from any work) would you want to rescue you? Why?

A. L.: My Archmage Lord Archos. He’s a powerful sorcerer, and handy to have around in a crisis.

Sherry: Yes, I expect he would be! Why do you write short fiction? Love, necessity, marketability, or something else?

A. L.: I write novels, poetry and short fiction. It depends on the stories wanting to be told. Some start as shorts and grow and some reach their peak as shorts. I like reading short stories, and they are fun to write, but in many ways more challenging than a novel. The author only has a short word count to introduce characters, build or describe the world, and get the adventure done.

Sherry: Do you belong to any writer’s groups or communities? Do you think these types of social interactions are important for writers?

A. L.: Lots! The indie author community is, for the most part, supportive and welcoming. Every author is different, and his or her work is different and many of us don’t have a broad skillset. There are some great writers out their who know nothing about marketing, or networking, for example. Or have the talent but not necessarily the technical skills. Communities and groups can offer support, ideas and teach a new (and experienced) writer some of the skills he or she doesn’t have. Networking is really important – you might have written a great book but if no one knows it’s there then no one will buy it. You may not know the proper genre, or key words, or how to source or make a suitable cover. You may not know that a particular group of readers is really keen on this genre or that.

I’ve made tons of friends, not just people I follow on FB. People I chat to, we share ideas and likes and dislikes, we compare sob stories and successes and we support it other.

Sherry: I have to say I love the collaborative idea behing BundleRabbit and these bundles, and the chance to meet and interact with other writers, as we’re doing now.

Have you had to deal with bad reviews? How do you manage them?

A. L.: Yes. I’d say most writers have at least one bad review. It happens. At the time I was upset – but now I am not that bothered. I have good reviews as well. Not everyone likes my work – and that is fine. I don’t like every book I read either. I may not necessarily agree with what a reviewer says or thinks but arguing over it is NOT going to help, if anything it will make things worse. It happens. Move on.

Sherry: Agreed. Do you think there were early influences as a reader that have guided the stories you create as a writer? What were they?

A. L.: Oh yes. I loved to read, and still do. My father and grandmother would make up stories to tell us, and I think that was a huge influence.

I think CS Lewis – Chronicles of Narnia helped to fuel my love of fantasy, and the classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights gave me the darkness of my own books. Not to mention Phantom – that has been a huge influence on my life – not least a ten-year career working in theatre after I worked on that tour.

Reading to children and story telling is so important. Kids have a vivid imagination and it is great if they are allowed to indulge that.

Sherry: Tell us about your other works, projects, publications, and what’s on the horizon next. This is the shameless self-promotion portion of the interview. ;)

A. L.: Let me see: I have the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles series (currently three novels and working on a fourth.) These are fantasy/fantasy romance with a touch of erotica (i.e. sexy scenes), they are dark – elves are slaves, and magic is illegal so my female lead who is an elven sorceress is in big trouble. Elves have no rights, women have few rights, mages have no rights. The land of Erana is run under martial law by the feared Order of Witch-Hunters and my gang have to avoid their machinations and heavies, whilst trying to bring some good – albeit beyond the law. It’s a dark world.

I also have several short stories set in Erana – the Tales of Erana series; a collection of short family-friendly fantasy stories; a book of poetry, two Legacy of the Mask Tales, and historical fantasy novellas in Heroika: Dragon Eaters and Lovers in Hell from Perseid Press.

I curate bundles too – so I have work in half a dozen bundles and curator only for a few more.

What is next? I am working on a story for Perseid Press, book 4 of the Chronicles and several short stories.

Sherry: Thanks so much for chatting, Alex! I look forward to reading more of your stories!

British-born A. L. Butcher is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as ‘evocative’.  She writes with a sure and sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but could be.

Alex is the author of the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles and the Tales of Erana lyrical fantasy series. She also has several short stories in the fantasy, fantasy romance genres with occasional forays into gothic style horror, including the Legacy of the Mask series. With a background in politics, classical studies, ancient history and myth, her affinities bring an eclectic and unique flavour in her work, mixing reality and dream in alchemical proportions that bring her characters and worlds to life.

She also curates for a number of speculative fiction themed book bundles on BundleRabbit.

Her short novella Outside the Walls, co-written with Diana L. Wicker received a Chill with a Book Reader’s Award in 2017 and The Kitchen Imps won best fantasy for 2018 on NN Light Book Heaven. Alex is also proud to be a writer for Perseid Press where her work features in Heroika: Dragon Eaters; and Lovers in Hell – part of the acclaimed Heroes in Hell series. http://www.theperseidpress.com/

Remember to grab the Eclectica Bundle while you can for stories from all these great authors!

Welcome back, everyone! Today I’m welcoming Thea Hutcheson, one of the authors from BundleRabbit’s Eclectica Bundle, to the blog for a chat.

Sherry: Hi, Thea, and welcome! To start, please tell us a little about the story/book you have in Eclectica.

Thea: When Megan moves into her new house, things begin to disappear. Weird things like socks, and decorative pins, and a cheap class ring. Things she just saw recently and don’t have a lot of value, but she misses them all the same. She can’t decide whether to blame it on her cheating ex or a klepto ghost. When her best friend sends a geeky ghost hunter her way, Megan finds a new chance for romance and something she never expected in her wildest dreams.

Sherry: That sounds like a lot of fun (and I love that cover)! What’s your current writing project? How do you feel about it right this minute?

Thea: My current WiP is a lesbian urban fairy tale. I love fairy tales. I love to play with them. This one is the second in a series. It is based on the Crystal Orb, the story of a young man, part of triplets whose mother went mad and thought they were trying to steal her power. She had banished two of them and the third got away. He goes on an adventure, meets, giants, acquires a magic hat that takes him anywhere he wants and meets an enchanted princess.

In my story the boy who gets away is a teenage girl and she spends the next thirteen years trying to find a spell to cure her mother’s madness and break the banishing spell that keeps her from her brothers. There’s magic and love and more magic in it.

Sherry: Do you remember what sparked the idea for your story/book in this bundle? What was it?

Thea: I wrote a story a long time ago as an answer to a fellow writer’s claim that no one could make a story about laundry interesting. I flipped the idea and flapped silly thing about, and it became “Fishing”, a story postulating one idea about what happens to the socks in the laundry. It was also my very first professional SF sale. Jim Baen’s Universe published it and then included it in the first Best of Jim Baen’s Universe.

So, I thought it was time to flip that story again and look at it from the other side and came up with “Sock and Pins and Aliens”.

I will have you know, I never lose socks in the laundry anymore as I use these super fancy clips to keep them together. Except that there was this one pair I really like, lacy and slinky, that I never did find after I put them in the washing machine.

Sherry: I also love writing stories in answer to a challenge. :)  And I’m always fascinated by where we get our ideas. Do you remember what sparked the idea for another of your stories?

Thea: Oliver Sacks was a great neurologist and a super cool dude. He wrote a ton of books that, among other things, were full of fascinating anecdotes about people with brain diseases and injuries. He was a wonderful speaker and a frequent guest on Science Friday on NPR. One time, right before he died of cancer (I think or at least they aired it before he died), he told this marvelous story about tripping on acid when he was younger. He was sitting on the floor of his apartment facing a blank wall. “Show me indigo,” he commanded his tripping self. And it appeared on the wall.

After that episode, I wondered what it would be like to have that blob of indigo show up and then walk through it. Where would it lead? That became the kernel of “Seeing Indigo”. I always call it my homage to Oliver Sacks story, even though the only part that relates is the color indigo. But I loved him and I like to think he would have approved.

Sherry: What’s the most perfect short story you’ve ever read?

Thea: There was this story by Kit Reed. I looked for it online, but couldn’t find the collection it was in. It was a perfect set up story. She always had such a wicked sense of humor and timing. I think it was called The Nest. I loved her work. Also, anything by Robert Sheckley. He is wickedly sharp. I wish I could do wicked sharp. Or “At the Rialto” by Connie Willis. I adore her sense of humor and I love to talk politics with her. She is just about the most well-read human I know.

Sherry: I adore Connie Willis!  I wish I could write with the fun and complexity of her humorous stories, and the depth of character of tales like Blackout and All Clear.

So speaking of interactions with other writers, do you belong to any writer’s groups or communities? Do you think these types of social interactions are important for writers?

Thea: I belong to Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and a couple of critique groups. I have a lot of writer friends. I think they are critical. Look, we spend hours in a room by ourselves, making shit up. Our writer friends can help us improve that shit and understand what we go through to get to that golden shit. Plus, they understand, or at least overlook, those weird little foibles we have.

Sherry: Agreed! I treasure my writer friends. Looking back even further, do you think there were early influences as a reader that have guided the stories you create as a writer? What were they?

Thea: Oh, Andre Norton for sure. I loved her books. The librarians would hold them for me and give me a new stack when I came each week. I collected them for a long time. Mary Stewart was another. I loved her books. Danny Dunn books too. I never cared that he was a boy. I took the message that I could do all that stuff myself and so my characters do, too.

Sherry: Do you prefer music, silence, or some other noise in the background when you write? If music, what kind?

Thea: Music. I love music, especially love songs when I work. I am especially into Yacht Rock on Amazon Music right now. Great station. Blast from the past and all that.

Sherry: I’m always interested in other writers’ workspaces, too. Do you keep a tidy desk/workspace, or a messy one? Do you think one or the other helps your creativity?

Thea: I have a sign in my office that says, “Tidy people don’t make the kinds of discoveries I do.” I think that says it well.

Sherry: I know what you mean. When I tidy up, I take a picture so I can remember what it looked like. ;) Apart from keeping a messy desk, do you have any writing “rituals”? What are they (if you’re willing to share)?

Thea: I use The War of Art by Steven Pressfield like an AA Big Book, opening it at random now to get a reminder of how creative people combat Resistance.

Sherry: Great idea! So one more question: many writers also put their creativity to use in ways other than writing. Do you consider yourself a “creative person?” What other creative outlets do you have?

Thea: I am creative. I love to fool around with recycled materials. I make petroglyphs from rocks that I get on road trips. My boyfriend is so well trained that he just pulls over now when there are interesting rocks on the side of the road. I often grind up the rocks and mix them with glue and use them to fill in the lines in the petroglyphs. Beautiful stuff, even if I do say so myself.

Sherry: Thea, thanks so much for stopping by to chat; this was fun.

Thea Hutcheson explores far away lands full of magic and science with one hand holding hope and the other full of wonder.  Lois Tilton of Locus called her work “sensual, fertile, with seed quickening on every page. Well done…” Her work has appeared in such places as Hot Blood XI, Fatal Attractions, M-Brane Issue 12, Baen’s Universe Issue 4, Vol. 1, the Beauty and the Beast Issue of The Enchanted Conversation, Realms of Fantasy’s 100th issue, and Fiction River’s Recycled Pulp anthology.  September 2016 will see her latest story, “Hoarding” appear in Fiction River’s Haunted anthology. She lives in an economically depressed, unscenic, nearly historic small city in Colorado with four semi-feral cats, 1000 books, and an understanding partner.  She’s a factotum when she’s filling the time between bouts at the computer. You can find Thea online at her website, theahutcheson.com on Twitter, and on Facebook.