INTERVIEW by Ginny: Gwen Hayes author of “Ours is Just a Little Sorrow” – Released today & an E-Book GIVEAWAY! (@gwenhayes )
Never thought you’d be reading the headline “Interview by Ginny”? Well I never thought I’d be writing it so I guess that makes us even. After reading “Ours is Just a Little Sorrow” though, I was totally amped to get to know it’s author just a little bit better. The story is fantastic, combining romance and a creep factor that still has me shuddering in a futuristic steam punk setting. How could you not want to crack open the brain of the woman who created that world and poke around for a bit?
Not that I would do that…
We should get on with the interview…
Ginny Lurcock [Ginny]: Ok, I feel the need to start things off with a standard interview question or two. So, for starters, when did you start writing stories you knew you wanted to publish?
Gwen Hayes [Gwen]: I began writing in 2007. I had thought as a child I would be a writer, and wrote some short stories as a teen, but as an adult, it was one of those ideas that just hung out in the back of my mind. At 37, something just made me say, “I’m ready now.”
[Ginny]: If you could have a tea party (on the ceiling) with any authors, living or dead, who would they be?
[Gwen]: Oh, what a feeling, having tea on the ceiling. Sorry…Lionel Ritchie flashback.
I have so many author friends that I never get to see that I’d love to have them ALL over for tea on the ceiling. And I’d invite Madeleine L ‘Engle and the Bronte sisters to join us. And Rob Lowe. Because I still have a crush and he wrote a book.
[Ginny]:I know that you write mainly YA. What made you decide to write an adult novel this time around?
[Gwen]: I have finally accepted that I cannot control the voices in my head. Sometimes they are grown ups. In this case, I think SORROW can be classified as a New Adult, which excites me because it’s the the missing life stage in fiction. You do so much changing in the years after you become legal . It’s a fun age to explore.
[Ginny]: I loved the New Geneva setting. Any intentions on writing more stories set there? Min’s story perhaps?
[Gwen]: I think I would love to write Min’s story. And I don’t think I’m done with New Geneva either. The ribaldery needs a revisit.
[Ginny]:What are you working on right now? (I know I read a tweet about brand names somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can find it now.)
[Gwen]: I’m spending some time on a contemporary YA Jane Austen adaptation right now.
[Ginny]: What is your super secret book guilty pleasure? That one book that you don’t really want anyone knowing you like but are for some reason going to tell me about…
[Gwen]: I do not have secret guilty book pleasures. I am unapologetically romantic. TV shows are another matter entirely. *hides Netflix queue”
[Ginny]: I hear so many horror stories that the “book business” is now my number one bogeyman. Was it horrible, trying to get an agent and a publishing house?
[Gwen]: Not even a little bit horrible. It’s certainly no fun to be rejected, I won’t sugarcoat that. But the experience of submitting your work makes you a better author, I promise. There is something to learn from every rejection–even if what you learn gives you growing pains.
[Ginny]: Any advice for authors just starting out?
[Gwen]: Read a lot. And hang out with positive people.
[Ginny]: I feel like I need an absurd question to end the interview with… Err… A pack (flock? Herd?) of Velociraptors and Robot Abraham Lincoln are dropped into an abandoned warehouse to fight, Thunderdome style. Who wins, and why?
[Gwen]: Robot Abraham Lincoln of course. He has laser eyes. Everyone knows that.
Check out my review of “Ours is Just a Little Sorrow” here!
And because Gwen Hayes is so super-d-duper awesome, she’s also agreed to give away an E-Book copy of her book!
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.
