"THE NEXT BIG THING"

Writing my meta-novel tends to be a solitary process.  So when Melissa McPhail, author of "A Pattern of Shadow & Light," series invited me to "The Next Big Thing," it was an honor and a pleasure.

The first novel in the series by Melissa McPhail, Cephrael's Hand, is a monumental achievement of epic fantasy world-building, which recently evolved into book 2: The Dagger of Adendigaeth.

Ms. McPhail, who lives in Oregon, was tagged by Clive Eaton of Norfolk, England ~ sci-fi based, mystery-thriller author of The Pyramid Legacy, which has attained a #1 ranking on GoodReads.

These invitations beyond borders, link international writers with a common passion for their works-in-progress.  All are considering this same 10 question interview. Here are my own 10 questions answered:

1. What is the working title of your next book?  

A DISTANCE TRAVELED

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was tapped on the shoulder by a searching character with something crucial to consider; I listened to his energetic ranting for a good long time, trying to understand his potential.  He led me through an underground of fringe eccentrics much like himself.  I thought this was "his thing."  Once I thought I knew what he wanted, I created the matrix for his world to express themes he felt I'd be compelled by as a novelist...until he made an unexpected choice.

AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR MELISSA MCPHAIL

Author Bio: MELISSA MCPHAIL is a classically trained pianist, violinist and composer, a Vinyasa yoga instructor, and an avid fantasy reader. A long-time student of philosophy, she is passionate about the Fantasy genre because of its inherent philosophical explorations. Her work reflects an understanding of human motivations, and adventures into the age-old question of good versus evil as modified by context, viewpoint and time.

Ms. McPhail lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, their twin daughters, and two very large cats.

CEPHRAEL'S HAND is the award-winning first book in her series, "A Pattern of Shadow & Light."

M.M.:  Thank you so much, Andre.  It was a great honor to explore these thoughtful questions.

1.  Would you share several societal, cultural, or "random" influences from when you were growing up, that have made you into who you essentially are today?

M.M.:  It's such an interesting question to look at the experiences that we believe have defined and shaped us and try to determine if we would be different without them.  My love of Fantasy started with The Chronicles of Narnia, when my grandmother read the series to me as a child.  The idea that magic might be all around us, that we might find talking animals and nymphs living in the trees if we but look for them--this is what I took away most from those stories.  This idea is more valuable than one might think on first glance.  Our lives are only as beautiful as we conceive them to be.

AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR R.P. KRAUL

Author Bio:  R.P. KRAUL (@Rpkraul) was born in Pennslyvania in the late sixties, when the last fumes of the Vietnam War were still present.  He distinctly remembers bandanas, kerchiefs, glow-in-the-dark monster models, and Cadillacs the size of cruise ships.

As a teenager, he began writing horror stories based mostly on the vast array of horror films he’d seen.  Additionally, he took interest in both Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, both of whom became influences.  

It was at this time that MIRRORS OF ANGUISH first started taking form.  At the time, however, the story was called THE DUNKIRK HORROR.  He later changed the name when he realized readers closely associated “Dunkirk” with the seaport in France.  He has nothing against France, but the ubiquitous question fatigued him.  Just for the record--and to clear any ambiguity--Belcorte,  the town in which Mirrors is set,  is not in France.  If there is a Belcorte in France, or for that matter, Europe, it is purely by mistake.

He frequently locks himself in his dark, clandestine laboratory, (read: converted pantry.  He comes out of this lair only to use the restroom, check for the Apocalypse, and fetch more Belgian beer (though Belcorte is not in Belgium, either).  Occasionally his wife takes pity on him and slides a piece of toast under the door.  He likes toast.   Mostly, he listens to operatic death metal, contemplates the meaning of life, and creates the dark characters who inhabit your nightmares.

MIRRORS OF ANGUISH by R.P. Kraul

Author's Creative Brand:
"Mirrors of Anguish"
Genre: Modern Classic Horror Noir
Length: 281 Pages
Immortal Ink Publishing 

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:
1.  World's Immersion:
Readers are transported like Jill, the writer protagonist of "Mirrors of Anguish," as fish-out-of-water' into the secluded town of Belcorte, nestled away in the Southern Catskills or Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania. A deliberate isolation like this, ought to be indication enough, that Readers are in for an especially tasty, macabre-odd ride.

The Author further isolates world elements to completely surround Readers in his own conjured mood of a throw-back, old-school haunting:  the snaking Indianhead River, the mythic Townsend House, the 'relic' county precinct, a chrome greasy-spoon known as Lila's Diner, Mount Nessler with the Jarvings' looming Georgian-style estate, or up to bleak Chelsing Asylum.  Readers will wander, clamber, shiver and soak, within all sorts of creepy environments.

The main world of our involvement, is inside of Jill's mystery-drenched, Victorian mansion, once owned by her infamous grandfather. In fact, events as they are unveiled, become quick realization to Readers, that this stage is set at ground-zero of a legendary, most monstrous dismemberment imaginable, to any human spirit...

AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR ERIKA ROBUCK

Author Bio:  ERIKA ROBUCK (@ErikaRobuck) is an avid reader and a book blogger specializing in Historical Fiction. She self-published her first novel RECEIVE ME FALLING.  Her novel HEMINGWAY'S GIRL was just released by NAL/Penguin, and will be followed by CALL ME ZELDA in 2013.  She is a member of The Hemingway Society and the Historical Novel Society.

1.  What was the galvanizing "Aha" or process in conceptualizing RECEIVE ME FALLING.  What compelled you to choose this one, as your debut novel?

E.R.:  It was a series of consecutive discoveries that compelled me to write this novel first.  I'd long been interested in the relationship of slavery to the present day, and was emotionally stirred by such works as Frederick Douglass' NARRATIVE IN THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN SLAVE and Toni Morrison's BELOVED. When planning a trip to the Caribbean I started to research some of the "plantation inns" and was saddened that I didn't know more about slavery in the Caribbean, where so many men and women passed through on their way to the United States. I wanted to show readers that aspect of the terrible past of slavery, and explore its relevance to the present day.

RECEIVE ME FALLING by Erika Robuck

Author's Creative Brand:
"Receive Me Falling" 
Genre: Historical Fiction / Mystery / Literature
Length: 280 Pages
Elysian Fields Press 

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:

1.  World's Immersion:
“Nature is still in command here.” Erika Robuck uses a present-day frame for her first novel, to place Readers in a familiar world of modern Annapolis, Maryland, USA...but only as the jump-off point into the deep-end of a wilder journey. We are transported across an ocean of both physical space and historical Time to the island of Nevis, in the Caribbean, circa: early 1830's.

This present day journey arrives at an immense plantation once called Eden, and the ghost of a plantation house, standing mightily against the tropical majesty of its exotic backdrop.  This house, formerly owned by the Dalls who once ran the plantation, is now over-run by emerald vines which have grown in densely through the windows, completely overtaking the dining room walls, among other unknown spaces within.  Architectural cultivation dragged backward into a context of wild, organic imposition. “The night was never silent in Nevis.”  

The plantation house, as setting to our central story, has not been ransacked by the local culture which is collectively superstitious of disrupting ghosts of the past.  We, the Readers, are left with this delicious opening into a pristine, historical mystery of a time-capsule...and timeless issues of a deep, human gravity.

THE PORTRAIT OF ALATIEL SALAZAR by Steven Katriel

Author's Creative Brand: 
"The Portrait of Alatiel Salazar"
Genre: Gothic Revisionist Horror Literature
Length:  60 Pages
Immortal Ink Publishing

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations

1. World's Immersion: 
Readers will enter Katriel's gothic-styled 1800's world through the frame of reading a journal...discovered and being read by initially unknown eyes, left behind by the disappearance of a woman, evidenced only in her body's blood-stained outline. Thus begins a haunted search, through an association of twisted souls, dark beliefs, lost beliefs, and the ghosts that find no rest.

"The Decorative Poor" are the beautiful but utterly lost muses...destitute human inspirations, discovered by a circle of bohemian artists...painters, poets, want-to-be novelists...with lusty, obsessive appetites.  This decadent bunch becomes the artisan road-map to Hell, through which Readers track the bloody wake of ALATIEL. What draws one in deeper, is this promise of unveiling the darker appetites, and unspeakable prices exacted, for reveling in ecstasy of Darkness' desolate promises. At the furthest end of this hall-of-mirrors journey, awaits House Salvacio, with a godless cemetery for a moat, and abode to illusory, painted dimensions...the arena of flesh-chilling depravity.