Hello, everyone, we’re back with another author interview from the Eclectica Bundle, this time with Felicia Fredlund.
Sherry: Welcome, Felicia! To start, tell us a little about the story/book you have in the Eclectica bundle.
Felicia: The story is called “Dear Brother” and is about a young man who is trying to come to terms with his grief over the loss of his brother.
Sherry: Do you remember what sparked the idea for “Dear Brother”? What was it?
Felicia: I lost my mother when I was young, only six years old. When I became a teenager that loss hit me again as if it happened just then. I guess I finally understood she was gone. At that point I wondered how I could ever move on. I eventually had a moment that helped me move on. That moment was the inspiration for this story.
Sherry: Wow, that’s a very powerful motivation for a story. Thanks for sharing that with us.
Do you remember the first story you wrote? Tell us about it.
Felicia: I can’t be completely sure it is the first story I ever wrote, but it comes close. It was somewhere in first to third grade, I don’t know which because I didn’t write a date anywhere. But it was a picture book, and looked kind of like a book with a laminated cover and very simply sewed binding.
It was about a frog who lived in a shoe, and then one day his shoe was gone, so he had to go looking for a new home.
Sherry: That sounds adorable! Do you think there are certain themes that keep coming up in your work? If so, is it intentional, or something that just happens?
Felicia: I fairly recently noticed that almost all my main characters only have one parent left or they have one parent that doesn’t want to be a parent or who is absent in some other way. As I mentioned earlier, I lost my mother young, so I have a feeling that is where it came from. An unconscious bias I now always check for. Not that I always change it (if one parent is gone), but sometimes I do.
Sherry: It’s so interesting how we can do these things as writers and not always realize it right away. Do you think there were also early influences as a reader that have guided the stories you create as a writer? What were they?
Felicia: Absolutely. The first book I remember liking, in fact the book that made me like (and later love) reading was Alanna – The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce. Before reading that book, reading was a chore school forced me to do; after reading it, I devoured every fantasy book I could find. I love fantasy, but most of it I read growing up had male main characters (I don’t have anything against that, in fact my story in the bundle has two male main characters), except for Tamora Pierce. (I’m sure there were fantasy with more women/girls, but I wasn’t finding it.)
That fact, that so much epic fantasy (which is what I mostly read back then) tended to have mostly boys or men as main characters (and sidekicks), have made me always check what gender I’m making characters because I have unconscious biases from all I’ve read. If I don’t think about it, all bit-part characters tend to fall into gender stereotypes (healers are women, inn/shop keepers are men, etc.) and I would like to more consciously decide their gender.
Sherry: I completely understand that–I have to do the same thing. What we read when we’re young really imprints on us, I think.
Now, to more practical matters: do you keep a tidy desk/workspace, or a messy one? ;) Do you think one or the other helps your creativity?
Felicia: I do everything better with a tidy desk, but I tend to let it get very messy before I do anything about it and then I bonk myself on the head and wonder why I didn’t tidy up days ago. Hehe.
Sherry: I can sooooo relate to that! 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. :)
Felicia: I mostly write fantasy and a bit of science fiction, but since I have a contemporary story in this bundle, let me point you to another contemporary short story: “At the Traffic Lights.” And if you lean modern, I also have urban fantasy, currently you can find “A Soul Calling,” but I have at least one more urban short story coming sometime this year. If you skew funny in your fantasy “You Can’t Walk Your Rabbit Without a Leash” would be up your alley. The darker side of fantasy comes out in the short story series Sorceress Islands.
Later this year a couple of fantasy novellas will come out, and I’m currently writing several short stories and longer works in a new series that I hope will start being published this year too.
Sherry: Thanks so much for dropping by to chat, Felicia! I’ve really enjoyed it.
Felicia Fredlund writes fiction about entertaining adventures and emotional journeys of interesting people. She currently lives in Japan after a period of traveling.
She writes one series, a dark fantasy series called Sorceress Islands. Her short stories have appeared in several Fiction Rivers.
She also edits. She edited Fiction River: Last Stand with Dean Wesley Smith.
Learn more about her on her website FeliciaFredlund.com, and join her newsletter for up-to-date information about all her books.
And don’t forget to grab the Eclectica Bundle while you can to read “Dear Brother” and many other tales!
Hey everyone, we’re back today with another author interview from the 
Kari: “Wicked Bone” is an Appalachian folktale or tall tale, but it’s one I made up. We start with a rather self-possessed black cat (aren’t they all?), her new-to-cats owner, and the things cats leave as “gifts” for the ones they love.
Kari: I have several series characters in all lengths of fiction, from short stories to novellas to novels. A few star in all three lengths, and I’ll be doing more of that. I enjoy seeing how the characters change and grow with each new situation, and with the different people they interact with. Even in different genres sometimes, like when characters from a mystery short story series recently encountered a pair from a contemporary fantasy short story series.
Kari: Thank you! I write all over the place as far as genre and story length. Various kinds of fantasy, science fiction, a bit of horror, and even contemporary fiction and romance lately. My twentieth indie title will come out on April 20th of this year. And my first professional short story should be out in Fiction River anthology magazine in September.
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.
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.
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: So I guess the answer to this question is at least partly answered: do you prefer music, silence, or some other noise in the background when you write? If music, what kind?
Sherry: I always say my two favourite words to type are “the end.” ;) Do you remember what sparked the idea for your story in Cat Tales? What was it?
Sherry: 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?
If you’re into sci-fi/fantasy, you’ll wanna keep an eye out for my science-fantasy Steel City, Veiled Kingdom. I’m determined to publish it this year ‘cuz I’m WAY excited for people to finally meet the fantastic characters I’ve come to love and see all the craziness in it (including teleporting rabbits… and Hawai’i in space?!).
Donald: I’ve written more than fifty published stories over the years, many of them for themed anthologies by DAW or other companies. Since I write in multiple genres, once rights revert I publish the stories in small groups by genre or setting. These are all steampunk or historical fiction pieces.
Sherry: As someone with a long publishing history, have you had to deal with bad reviews? How do you manage them?
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. :)
Bonnie: “Familiar Trouble” was a short I wrote for a Halloween themed call. I have cats and blogged as my cat for years so I have a fan base that are all about cats, so I wanted something that featured a feline. This was from the cat’s point of view and has become one of my most popular stories. It’s got it all—a feline familiar who is the hero of a Halloween tale that could end in disaster.
Bonnie: I lived in the Pacific Northwest for over 20 years. Whisper is set there. I love the landscape, the mountains and trees and that influences a lot of what I write. When I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, my next door neighbor was from a small town near Hickory, North Carolina. She loves my writing and as we talked, another contemporary fantasy was born set in that part of Appalachia. I like setting things in the Appalachians because I tend to write contemporary fantasy and there is something about those old mountains that lends itself both to that and to a kind of Gothic suspense that I also enjoy writing.
Bonnie: I write mostly contemporary fantasy. The Whisper series is currently at nine volumes, and yes, there’s a cat in it—well, sort of. Zari A looks like a cat and mostly acts like one, but she’s actually an alien who was studying our world. Her mistake was that she thought cats were the apex species. Oops. At any rate, she’s telepathic and helps out with all sorts of odd mysteries because nothing is quite what it seems in Whisper. I’m currently working on book ten and hopefully by June I’ll have it to the editor. It’s slow going as I’m also in the process of moving yet again (hopefully for the last time for a good many years!). I also have The Appalachian Souls Duology and two standalone contemporary Gothic novels.
Barbara: The Hooded Man is set in my fantasy world of Silvery Earth, in the southern kingdoms inspired by India and Persia. There isn’t much magic, since at this time the Magical Races are hiding from Humans. This novella won Honorable Mention at Writers of the Future Contest and is now being produced as audio book as well.
Barbara: Oh yeah. “The Glass World,” summer of 1978. It was even illustrated by yours truly, handwritten on a yellow notebook. I recycled it in two of my fantasy novels. I tried to keep the style through the translation. Half is in 
Barbara: I have four main series and 
Joslyn: Death of a Muse introduces David Peeler, an up-and-coming sculptor who loses his career, his fiancée, and everything else that matters to him with the slice of a surgeon’s knife. The procedure to remove a small, benign tumor in his frontal lobe leaves him with a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury, which changes his personality such that he doesn’t know how to live with himself anymore. And doesn’t want to. In a last ditch effort to regain some semblance of his former life, he visits an artist retreat. While there, he becomes involved in a murder investigation and discovers aspects of the new David Peeler that may reignite his spark for life.
Sherry: Oh, wow, I used to devour those mystery magazines! Their influence definitely shows up in how often I integrate mysteries into other genres. :) But back to you…are you a planner/outliner/architect or a pantser/gardener/discovery writer?
Joslyn: I’m currently working on two projects scheduled for release in 2019. I’m very excited about Steadman’s Blind, which is a paraquel to my thriller, 
