– ‘The Magic of Wor(l)ds’ blog is a hobby, reviews and other bookish stuff on this site are done for free. –
Today I’m on the ‘The Bridge’ blogtour, organized by Meerkat Press.
To promote this book I have a Q&As post, but before I let you read it first some ‘basic’ information.
About the Author :
J.S. Breukelaar is the author of Collision: Stories, a 2019 Shirley Jackson Award finalist, and winner of the 2019 Aurealis and Ditmar Awards. Previous novels include Aletheia and American Monster. Her short fiction has appeared in the Dark Magazine, Tiny Nightmares, Black Static, Gamut, Unnerving, Lightspeed, Lamplight, Juked, in Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy 2019 and elsewhere. She currently lives in Sydney, Australia, where she teaches writing and literature, and is at work on a new collection of short stories and a novella.
Synopsis :
Meera and her twin sister Kai are Mades—part human and part not—bred in the Blood Temple cult, which only the teenage Meera will survive. Racked with grief and guilt, she lives in hiding with her mysterious rescuer, Narn—part witch and part not—who has lost a sister too, a connection that follows them to Meera’s enrollment years later in a college Redress Program. There she is recruited by Regulars for a starring role in a notorious reading series and is soon the darling of the lit set, finally whole, finally free of the idea that she should have died so Kai could have lived. Maybe Meera can be re-made after all, her life redressed. But the Regulars are not all they seem and there is a price to pay for belonging to something that you don’t understand. Time is closing in on all Meera holds dear—she stands afraid, not just for but of herself, on the bridge between worlds—fearful of what waits on the other side and of the cost of knowing what she truly is.
Meerkat Press | Indiebound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Q&A :
Hi
First of all thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions, I really appreciate it. Here we go! 🙂
Can you, for those who don’t know you already, tell something about yourself and how you became an author?
I’m an American-Australian author living in Sydney Australia with my family. I was always a writer and I became an author, writing feature articles, around the time of the birth of my daughter, and then took a long break to concentrate on whatever it took to pay the bills, returning to it when my kids were in high school. I began to write stories and poetry, some of which were published, and got a PhD. I practiced and did online writing class and went to writers workshops and began to get stories picked up soon after that, after 2010. “Union Falls,” picked up by Fantasy Magazine was my break-through story.
Which books did/do you love to read as a child/now as a grown-up?
So many. Poe and Ray Bradbury and Ursula LeGuin and Shirley Jackson and the Brontes and fairy tales and Joe Landsdale growing up and pretty much the same now. I’m loving the diversity of directions people are taking dark fantasy and weird fiction–Brian Evenson, Sarah Read, Kaaron Warren, Angela Slatter, Helen Marshall, John Langan, Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron. These are some of the books I love to read and I look forward to catching up with new works by these authors and more.
Is there a writer whose brain you would love to pick for advice? Who would that be and why?
Is there? So many! Let’s just go with Ray Bradbury for now. Because he did three things brilliantly and I want to know how: quality, quantity and variety. And a fourth thing, maybe the most important. He seemed to be enjoying himself while he did it.
If you could, which fictional character (from your own book(s) or someone else’s) would you like to invite for tea and why?
Don Quixote. Because… Don Quixote.
Do you have some rituals or habits whilst writing?
Coffee of course. That’s pretty much it.
Where do you come up with your idea(s)? Do people in your life need to be worried?
Everywhere – my head is teeming with them. The world is teeming with stories. The people in my life are worried.
Are you a plotter or do you go with the flow, as a pantser?
I plot and I pants. And then I plot some more and then pants again. It’s exhausting. I go through a lot of pants.
Can you give novice writers some tips (do’s/don’ts)?
Don’t stop.
Practice really works.
What are your futureplans as an author?
To keep getting better at what I do.
Last, but not least : Can you give my readers one teaser from your book, which is featured here on my blog, please?
No one sees me lurk weeping at the edge of the playground where a little girl waits behind the bins, a girl I never see in the bunkroom or in class. She is lank-haired and red-eyed. I watch her lick her lips like I am what she’s waiting for. She has a snake around her neck and another around her waist and holds a bunch of them in her hands like a bouquet (or a cat-o’-nine-tails) and she smiles as one by one, she bites their heads off—blood running down her chin. Chew, swallow, repeat.
She speaks to me, this headless snake girl, and I am lonely enough to listen. Of course it’s not a hiss. That would be something that someone with no imagination would come up with. By now I am tortured by the guilty secret that my brain does not work within the same constraints as the other Mades. I have imagination to spare. The headless snake girl smiles a pointed-toothed smile at me and she says in a baby-raven voice, “Truth or dead.”
Isn’t that a great reason to pick up this book and to find out more?!
Thanks once again for this lovely interview, Keith Rosson.
Giveaway :
$50 Book Shopping Spree!
The Magic of Wor(l)ds
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P.S. Are you an author (or publisher) who also wants a FREE interview like this? You can always contact me via e-mail!
New York Times Bestselling author Kat Martin, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, currently resides in Missoula, Montana with Western-author husband, L. J. Martin. More than seventeen million copies of Kat’s books are in print, and she has been published in twenty foreign countries. Fifteen of her recent novels have taken top-ten spots on the New York Times Bestseller List, and her novel, BEYOND REASON, was recently optioned for a feature film.
The eldest of the three wealthy Garrett brothers, Reese Garrett is in the middle of a major purchase for his multimillion-dollar oil and gas company, Garrett Resources. The Poseidon offshore drilling platform venture will greatly enhance the company’s value.
Beth Merwood is from the south of England. The Five Things is her debut novel.
For nine-year-old Wendy, the summer of 1969 will never be forgotten.
Danielle M Orsino, destined to be a writer from a young age, was working as a nurse and treating a patient who needed some distractions during long I.V. Treatment sessions. So, Orsino reached back to a forgotten skill, A childhood dream. Danielle had wanted to be a writer and so she decided to tell a story. Little did she know the seed would grow into a fantastically epic adventure of heartbreak, hope and rebirth — Birth of Fae: Locked Out of Heaven. Drawing from her passion for comic books, Cosplay and fantasy along with her expert martial arts expertise, Orsino brings forth an electric and hopeful debut.
Ride on the backs of fire breathing dragons with the Dark Fae and watch the Light Fae play in the shadows of primitive humanity as they build their magical world. 
Natalie’s passion for reading became a compulsion to write when she attended a ten-week course in creative writing some sixteen or so years ago. She takes delight in creating short stories of which more than forty have been published, but it was her lifelong love of Regency romance that led her to turn from contemporary romantic fiction to try her hand at her favourite genre. Raised on a diet of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, she is never happier than when immersed in an age of etiquette and manners, fashion and intrigue, all combined into a romping good tale. She lives on the London/Kent border, close to the capital’s plethora of museums and galleries which she uses for research as well as pleasure. A perfect day though is when she heads out of town to enjoy lunch by a pub on the river, any river, in company with her husband and friends. 
Sophie is plagued by the shadows of the past…
Adrian Goldsworthy studied at Oxford, where his doctoral thesis examined the Roman army. He went on to become an acclaimed historian of Ancient Rome. He is the author of numerous works of non fiction, including Caesar, Pax Romana, Hadrian’s Wall and Philip and Alexander. He is also the author of the Vindolanda series, set in Roman Britain, which first introduced readers to Flavius Ferox.
AD 105: DACIA
Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humour, before embarking on their first historical mystery. They are the authors of the fabulous Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s.
Summer flowers, warm sunshine, a maypole dance and… is that another murder? A tricky case is afoot for Lady Swift!
I was born in Lancashire and started my career by training as a State Registered general nurse. Later, I joined the army and became an officer in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps. On a posting to Malaya, now Malaysia, I found my true love. This was an ideal setting for a marriage with young children, and now my memories are a wonderfully rich source of material for my writing.
It is the year 1847 in the elegant city of Bath where 18yr old Genevre Stratton is treated more as a servant than a daughter in the elegant house where bills are not paid, and the rent is in arrears. Appalled by the dishonesty and overriding social ambition beneath her parents’ veneer of respectability, only her love for her younger brother and sisters keeps her there. Left to cope alone when their false world falls apart, she fights to keep her siblings together, until poverty forces her to yield them to the care of their half-brother, George Coleman. Handsome, wealthy and charismatic, he is the enemy who becomes her lover. To surrender all to her passionate desire for him, or to keep the independence of a new-found musical career on the London stage? This is her is her choice to make, until an unexpected call of duty takes her to Paris. Must the old, dark secrets she discovers there alter the course of her life forever?
Michael Webb lives in Dallas, GA in the United States. He works full time as a purchasing manager for a wholesale distribution company. Recently, he took up writing and fell in love with it. The Last Shadow Knight is his debut work and will soon be joined by books 2 and 3 of the planned trilogy.
David green is a writer of fiction, published multiple times on a variety of platforms.
The Banished have returned, and they will have their revenge.