Kindling the Moon
Summoning the Night
Leashing the Tempest (ebook original novella)
Binding the Shadows
Website: www.jennbennett.net
> What is your Arcadia Bell series about?
Arcadia
"Cady" Bell is a mage who runs a Tiki bar in Central
California. She's been living under an alias because her family is
wanted by the FBI for allegedly murdering the leaders of several
occult organizations. She also has the rare ability to identify
Earthbound demons—humans on the outside, demons on the inside—which
leads her to partner with an Earthbound demon named Lon Butler.
>
You were born in Germany and have lived and travelled to a number of
places and now live in the U.S. What's the coolest place you've
been and why?
Probably
Hong Kong. It's dense and energetic, easy for English speakers to
navigate, and surrounded by lush beauty.
>
Have your travels influenced your writing at all?
Absolutely.
Traveling not only opens you up to a variety of locales, but a
variety of people and experiences, as well. You can't get
falling-down drunk in a Taipei karaoke bar surrounded by drag queens
and "working girls" with rooms in the back without some of
that leeching into your well of inspiration.
>
What made you want to be a writer?
My
college background is in art and painting, but I ended up doing the
9-to-5 corporate office thing (marketing and product development),
which made me ridiculously unhappy. One day, my then-boss asked me
what I'd do if I wasn't working there. I immediately blurted out,
"I'd write a novel." I'd never really thought seriously
about writing before that moment. A few months later, I gave into
temptation and wrote my first book.
Urban
fantasy already had its fair share of detectives, bounty hunters, and
generic monster slayers. I suppose I wanted to do something a little
outside the box. I've always had a fascination with the occult, and
I’m rather fond of the retro kitsch vibe of the Tiki scene. But the
heart of my series is the characters and their relationships—not
the setting or the world building.
>
What were your literary influences for the Arcadia Bell
series?
Neil
Gaiman, the Brothers Grimm, Diana Gabaldon, Anaïs Nin, Philip
Pullman, Laura Kinsale, Loretta Chase, Mary Shelley.
>
What are you working on now?
I
have a new paranormal romance series set in 1920s San Francisco
coming from Berkley/Penguin in January 2014: bootlegging, fog,
ghosts, Chinatown, magical hexes, bawdy humor, and steamy romance.
Huzzah!
>
What's the first novel (published or unpublished) that you wrote and
how long did it take to write it?
The
first novel I wrote centered on portals into a fantasy realm. It was
awful. I had zero idea what I was doing—I just flailed around in
the dark and hammered it out in a month. KINDLING THE MOON was
the third book I wrote. It snagged me a literary agent, who sold it
to one of the Big 6 New York publishing houses in five weeks. From
the time I wrote my first word until I sold my first book: 1 1/2
years. That was two years ago. I’ve since sold six books and one
novella.
>
What was the hardest scene for you to write?
The
final two scenes in BINDING THE SHADOWS. I shed a few tears
putting those words together. I knew that they were scenes that had
to be written, because that was the story that needed to be told, but
it was physically painful to do it.
Surrounded
by clutter in my home office. I write best when there are no
distractions: either in the middle of the night when everyone's
asleep, or really early in the morning when everyone's asleep.
Basically, as long as everyone else is sleeping (including my pugs),
I'm good to go!
>
What’s the best/worst thing about writing?
Best?
Creating characters than readers love. Worst? The famously s-l-o-w
machine that is the traditional publishing house. By the time a book
comes out, I’ve already written three more.
>
Do you have any advice for hopeful authors?
Learn
how to do things the right way (grammar, plotting, page count, genre
expectations), then have the guts to break a few rules and forge your
own path.
>
Any tips against writers block?
Walk
around outside. Take a drive in a place you don't visit often. Play a
video game. Read a book in a new-to-you genre. Do something that
flexes your mental muscles in a way that isn't explicitly related to
writing—one that requires you to look at things differently.
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