I’m very pleased to welcome this week’s Blog Ring of Power guest, Barbara Ann Wright. She writes fantasy and science fiction novels and short stories when not adding to her enormous book collection or ranting on her blog. Her short fiction has appeared twice in Crossed Genres Magazine and once made Tangent Online’s recommended reading list. She is a member of Broad Universe and the Outer Alliance and helped create Writer’s Ink in Houston. The Pyramid Waltz is her first novel.

She is married, has an army of pets, and lives in Texas. Her writing career can be boiled down to two points: when her mother bought her a typewriter in the sixth grade and when she took second place in the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing in 2004. One gave her the means to write and the other gave her the confidence to keep going. Believing in oneself, in her opinion, is the most important thing a person can do.

Don’t miss the rest of her interview:

Part 1 @ Terri – Wednesday, September 19

Part 3 @ Emily (http://emlabonte.blogspot.com), Friday, September 21

Part 4 @ Sandra (http://ulbrichalmazan.blogspot.com), Monday, September 24

Part 5 @ Dean (http://deanswritingtime.blogspot.com), Tuesday, September 25

PART 2: THE WRITING LIFE

BRoP: What is your writing process? Do you follow a regular routine? Do you use pen and paper or computer? Work at home or at the library/Starbucks, etc.

Barbara: I write anywhere the muse takes hold of me. I usually make notes with pen and paper so I can use my massive pen collection, then I work from my laptop. My only routine is that I try to write every day that I’m not mired in something mundane, like taking care of myself.

I love the creative synergy that comes from working with other people. I feed on their creativity like a big ol’ vampire. I’ve heard that I make a good writing buddy because I write for long stretches, making others feel guilty until they get some quality writing done. What can I say? I love to help.

BRoP: How do you balance writing with other aspects of your life?

Barbara: Most people who know me know that writing is very important to me. Thus, I don’t usually get interrupted when I’m in my groove. But I’ll always put family and friends first. I would definitely save them from a burning building at the same time I’m saving my laptop.

BRoP: What has been the most surprising reaction to something you’ve written?

Barbara: I’ll never forget the first time a friend told me he’d stayed up all night because he had to finish my novel. That one blew me away. Hands down, one of the proudest moments of my writing life. I’ll also never forget the first time strangers came to my blog and liked it. My critique groups have usually been people I’ve known, so people I’ve never met liking something I wrote was quite a kick.

BRoP: Other than your family, what has been your greatest source of support?

Barbara: Online communities like Critters, Broad Universe, and the Outer Alliance. I’ve met some fabulous people through each, and I’ve made some friends that I’ll keep all my life. Each time I’ve gone to them seeking support, I’ve been overwhelmed by the warmth and affection they’ve shown me. I’ve also received tremendous support from my publisher, Bold Strokes Books. They’ve had a lot of experience calming first-time authors, and it shows in the number of times they’ve been willing to talk me off a ledge.

BRoP: How do you deal with rejection and/or negative reviews?

Barbara: Brush ’em off! I don’t keep rejection letters, never saw the point of it. I haven’t had a review yet, so hopefully, I’ll feel the same way about any negative ones. The one thing I’ll never ignore is feedback. The few times I’ve gotten actual feedback in a rejection letter (real feedback, not “it’s not for me”) I’ve taken a good hard look at what I’ve submitted and thought of ways I could change it. If I get negative reviews that point out ways in which I could honestly improve, you can bet that I’ll listen.

BRoP: What format is your book(s) available in (print, e-book, audio book, etc.)

Barbara: It is available in print and e-book.

THE PYRAMID WALTZ: To most, Princess Katya Nar Umbriel is a rogue and a layabout; she parties, she hunts and she breaks women’s hearts. But when the festival lights go down and the palace slumbers, Katya chases traitors to the crown and protects the kingdom’s greatest secret: the royal Umbriels are part Fiend. When Katya thwarts an attempt to expose the king’s monstrous side, she uncovers a plot to let the Fiends out to play.

Starbride has no interest in being a courtier. Ignoring her mother’s order to snare an influential spouse, she comes to court only to study law. But a flirtatious rake of a princess proves hard to resist, and Starbride is pulled into a world of secrets that leaves little room for honesty or love, a world neither woman may survive.

BRoP: Please let us know where your readers can stalk you:

Website: www.barbaraannwright.com

Blog: http://barbaraannwright.wordpress.com/

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Barbara-Ann-Wright/214899301886781

Goodreads author page: http://www.goodreads.com/BarbaraAnnWright

Twitter: @zendragandt

Amazon: amazon.com/author/barbaraannwright

Submit your request by Oct. 9 for one of five ebook copies of ZERO TIME I’m offering on Library Thing. Although I’ve never sent ebooks outside the USA, I’m willing to try it, so this giveaway is open to more countries.

Check out my debut historical fantasy novel ZERO TIME and other giveaways at Library Thing!

I’m guest blogging at Clarion’s blog, Writer’s Craft, about “Writing Is a Team Sport.”

I met the Clarion blogger, Lynda Williams, through Broad Universe. She’s the author of 10 novels set in the Okal Rel Universe.

Thanks, Lynda!

Go To: Clarion’s WRITER’S CRAFT

As the end of the Maya calendar nears, an expedition to Earth has zero time to save its race from extinction.

Only Keihla Benton can save two worlds from the powers of Darkness. But first she must unlock the secrets of Machu Picchu and her own past.

Giveaway dates: Sep 09-Oct 13, 2012

ENTER TO WIN

Enter on Tuesday, Sept. 11, before midnight!

Forever After Pitch Contest – submit a 20-word pitch for your manuscript and Erin Lale, Acquisitions Editor of Eternal Press, will pick the winner!

Get the details at Pineapple Lightning.

Reprinted from Broad Universe:

Greetings and welcome to the September edition of the BroadPod with your host, Justine Graykin, writer and free-lance philosopher.   As we slide from the lazy abundance of summer towards  the transformations of autumn’s chill, we offer for your listening pleasure stories of the natural world and those closest to it, our animal kin.

Click to hear the podcast!

The colors of flowers take on a life beyond life in the work of our first reader, Anne E. Johnson.  ‘Beyond Rainbow’, is a speculative flash story about physical nature being expanded by or blurred into the metaphysical. The result is transformational, both in the destructive and the creative sense. It is also never-ending.

Nancy Jane Moore’s chilling gem, “The Dog at the End of the World,” was originally inspired when she heard that school children should be taught not to begin a story with “I have a dog.” But it is not a dog story that most children would write.

Vonnie Winslow Crist reads an excerpt from “On A Midwinter’s Eve,” the first story in her book, “Owl Light.” It’s a dark tale of magic and Faerie about a hunter who stumbles across a blue-faced woman and her animals at twilight in the dead of winter.

Last in the line-up, a breath-taking battle between two horses, one brave and mortal, one fearful and fey, as Trisha Wooldridge shares a tempting teaser from her upcoming release, “Kelpie”, from Spencer Hill Press.

Reprinted from Broadly Speaking:

Are the boundaries that define genre fiction constructs of publishers’ marketing departments?  Created by readers’ demands?  Or reflections of important storytelling traditions?  What happens when writers and readers travel to the dangerous and exciting spaces in-between?  As changes in publishing and social media offer more options for the ways in which stories are told and consumed, what will the next generation of SF/F literature look like?

Click to listen to this month’s Broadly Speaking podcast:

Larissa N. Niec is author of The Sky Seekers novels Shorn (Mercury Retrograde Press, 2008) and Cael’s Shadow (Mercury Retrograde Press, May 2013). Currently, she serves as president for the Board of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. In addition to her work in the world of art and literature, Larissa is a clinical child psychologist, a professor of psychology and the director of the Parent-Child Interaction Therapy Clinic and Research Center in the middle of Michigan. Although her writing may not always be interstitial, Larissa is herself an interstitial writer living in the fertile borderlands between academia and fiction, psychology and fantasy. Find Larissa online at www.LarissaNiec.com.

Julia Rios writes, hosts the Outer Alliance Podcast (celebrating QUILTBAG speculative fiction), and is part of the fiction editing team at Strange Horizons. She’s half-Mexican, but her (fairly dreadful) French is better than her Spanish. Visit her online at www.juliarios.com.

Catherine Lundoff is the award-winning author of Silver Moon: A Women of Wolf’s Point Novel (Lethe Press, 2012) as well as the short story collections Night’s Kiss (Lethe Press, 2009), Crave (Lethe Press, 2007) and A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011). She is the editor of Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008) and the co-editor, with JoSelle Vanderhooft, of the anthology Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic (Lethe Press, 2011). In her other lives, she’s a professional computer geek, the spouse of her fabulous wife and an occasional teacher of writing classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. Website: www.catherinelundoff.com

Kristen McDermott is a Professor of English Literature at Central Michigan University, specializing in Early Modern Drama and Theater History. She has dedicated her teaching to bridging the gap between scholarly research and an appreciation for the living arts of drama, music, and storytelling. Dr. McDermott is the co-author, with her husband, Prof. Ari Berk, of an interactive book for young readers, The Life and Times of William Shakespeare (Templar Books 2010), and the editor of Masques of Difference: Four Court Masques by Ben Jonson (Manchester University Press, 2007). She has published articles on Early Modern Drama in the G.K. Hall anthology Critical Essays on Ben Jonson, Early Theatre, Renaissance Papers, Shakespeare Magazine, and The Language Arts Journal of Michigan. She has also written a series of articles on drama, fantasy literature, and folk traditions for Realms of Fantasy Magazine, and served on the Board of the Interstitial Arts Foundation from 2006-2008.

To my writer friends:

Dagan Books is looking for speculative fiction novellas (17,5000-40,000 words), particularly science fiction.

http://daganbooks.com/current-projects/submissions-novellas/