Interview with author Laura Bickle

I'm so happy to welcome Laura Bickle to the blog today.  she's going to tell us about herself and her books.

Feel free to post any comments and/or questions you have for Laura Bickle in the comments.

 

 

 

Author bio

Laura Bickle (a.k.a. Alayna Williams) has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She lives in the Midwestern U.S. with her chief muse, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats. Writing as Laura Bickle, she's the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket - Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she's the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE. More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: www.salamanderstales.com

 

 

Thanks so much for hosting me! I'm very excited to meet you and your readers!

If you could visit anywhere (real or fictional), were would you go?　
I would love to visit ancient Egypt. I have a persistent dream about napping in the sunshine on the roof of a building, surrounded by cats. Plus, the library at Alexandria...irresistible.　

Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?　
I hope that I am doing much the same thing: sitting in the sunshine with a cat at my feet, enjoying far too much of my husband's excellent pasta, and telling stories.
I'm also very fortunate in that my day job is in a library. So I'm able to spend time with books wherever I am.

What does the word “home” mean to you?　
Home is where the people who love you are. I don't know that it's necessarily a geographic space. But as long as I feel loved, I always feel at home. Sort of like a turtle, who takes her home on her back, wherever she goes.

For people who have yet to read your series can you describe the Anya Kalinczyk series in three sentences?　
By day, Anya Kalinczyk is an investigator with the Detroit Fire Department. By night, she pursues malicious spirits with an eccentric team of ghost hunters and her fire salamander familiar. Anya must stop an attractive arsonist intent on summoning an ancient entity that will leave Detroit in cinders

Will you mention 5 words about Anya Kalinczyk?　
Five words that come immediately to mind are: outsider, exorcist, seething, intense, and solitary.

You also write books under the name Alayna Williams will you tell us a little about your Oracle series?　
Tara Sheridan swore off criminal profiling after narrowly escaping a serial killer who left her scarred for life. By combining Tarot card divination with her own intuition, she must help an intense federal agent find a missing scientist who has unlocked the destructive secrets of dark energy. The agent, Harry Li, draws her out of her self-imposed exile and back into the world.

If you had the chance to meet any character from one of your books in real life, who would it be and why?　
Definitely Sparky the fire salamander from EMBERS and SPARKS. My favorite character is, hands down, Sparky the fire salamander. There's a scene in which Anya has crawled into bed and is fretting about her investigation. Sparky ignores the dog bed she's purchased for him, crawls into bed, and snuggles up with Anya and his Glow-Worm toy. He reminds me a lot of unconditional love...as people, we can fail and make wrong choices. But I wanted Anya to have a sense of that unconditional love, even when she screws up.



This may be a hard question but can you quote something from one of your books that defines you as a writer?　
The first two lines of EMBERS are lines that really resonated with me:
"Truth burned.
"It always burned, even in the cold, dark hours of the morning when nearly everyone slept."
For me, writing is a lot about exploring ideas and truths, even if they aren't always pleasant. Every once in awhile, I think it's good to go rooting around in the dirt of my fears for story fodder. We all have things that scare us and tend to linger. Maybe it's a childhood terror, a phobia, a bit of something inexplicable that boils up once in blue moon in a recurring dream. Every so often, I take my shovel to the forgotten stuff in the back of my brain and see what I can unearth. Things like what happens when one gets to close to evil - does it act like a contagion? Like feeling isolated. Like Chernobyl. About knowing the future and being powerless to change it.
Because things scare me, I have to write about them.

What are you working on now?　
I'm working on a couple of fantasy projects. Like my other books, they involve female protagonists. Somehow, my heroines always wind up with pets...be they cats, salamanders, or other familiars.

Which books are sitting at the top of your TBR pile?　
My TBR pile is completely out of control! At the top are: Yvonne Navarro's CONCRETE SAVIOR, Phillipa Ballantine's SPECTYR, Jenna Black's DARK DESCENDENT, Julie Kagawa's THE IRON KING, Jeri Smith-Ready's SHIFT, and Ann Aguirre's KILLBOX.

Thanks very much for chatting with me! I had a lot of fun.

Thank you so much Laura for stopping by, it's been an absolute pleasure and I really enjoyed reading yout answers to the questions.
I wish you good luck with all your future books and I hope to see you here on Mysteriouesbooks again some other time.

Find Laura on the web:
Website
Blogs here and here
Facebook
Twitter
Livejournal