7 QUESTIONS WITH DAYNA HART
Author
of the Month :: FAITH HUNTER
When did you decide to be a writer?
I had no talent when I was growing up, an unhappy tomboy who didn’t fit in anywhere. Couldn’t draw, sing, dance, flirt, and if it had been today, I’d likely have been on antidepressants. And this sounds sooo freaking depressing! I have to say I wasn’t miserable. I had friends and found solace, calm and joy in the woods out back of my house, near the creek that ran through the most amazing rock formation. I’d hug a tree and talk to it, as if it were God; I was a tree hugger when that wasn’t cool! Trees gave me peace. And then a tenth grade writing teacher told me that I had writing talent and that I should direct my future toward a life as a writer—and my life took a turn that brought a lot more joy than bark under my cheek! No insult to trees, but pouring angst into a story is so much more satisfying.
How long were you writing before you got The Call, and what was that experience like?
I wrote from tenth grade through technical school, through several years working in a hospital lab …um… seemed like a long time! But that call… Well, back-story first. I had written a book and shopped it around for years. I had a stack of rejection letters tall enough to paper my bedroom and then some. While shopping that one, I met a cop named Gary in the ER at 2 a.m. He wanted to write, I wasn’t having any luck, so we tried it together. It took us a while to finish that book (hence the time to shop the first one) but when we did it went out to my dream list of editors at 8 different companies on a Monday. Yes, unagented. It was 1989, the last days of the slush-pile reader, and a brand new editor was working in Warner Books. He took it home with a pile of others that Friday. He called me the following Monday morning. Seven days after the novel went out. Yeah. Still is a shock. That doesn’t happen, right? Never has since, but that one time….
I was in bed after working a 16 hour afternoon and graveyard shift during the weekend-from-hell at the hospital. I had just gotten to sleep. This man calls and asks if I am Gwen Hunter. I was so rude. Then what he said penetrated my sleep- and stress-clogged brain. He wanted to publish my book. I broke out into a hot sweat. When the call was over I screamed. Then the phone calls started. And *no one answered*. No one! I hopped into my car and raced to moms and stood in the yard jumping up and down like frog screaming, “I sold a book! An editor called! I sold a book! Come to the house! I have a call in to Gary! Can’t stay. I sold a book!” Still makes me smile. Hugely!
We sold that book, a police procedural, under the name Gary Hunter. Then followed 13 thrillers and mysteries under my first name, Gwen Hunter, www.gwenhunter.com , then the fantasy books under my middle name, Faith Hunter www.faithhunter.net .
What authors have had the most influence on your writing, and on your career?
A. I love the big thrillers and mysteries like Harlan Coban and Dean Koontz and Stephen Coontz and the romances by Lavyrle Spencer and Nora Roberts and others, and of course, Anne Rice. I read her Interview with the Vampire and Cry to Heaven and her AKA’s Anne Rampling’s Belinda a dozen times. Belinda was a stunning, spectacular, work. From them I learned that a gifted writer could create suspense and make a reader suspend belief. And by reading with highlighters in hand I learned how they did it!
You had lunch with Katherine Kurtz? How did that happen? Were you coherent?
It was amazing! I was standing in the hallway and talking to David B. Coe and Misty Massey (Read their work. It is grand!) and I was whining, “You had lunch without me? But I’m starving!” And I felt this tap on my shoulder and this sweet soft voice said, “Did you say you want to get something to eat? I’m hungry.” I turned and *there she was!!!!!* I nearly peed my pants. (laughing) All through the meal I was a pile of mush! I was shaking so badly I couldn’t hold my fork. Fortunately it was Mexican and I had a reason to use my fingers. I am sure she was amused, but she was so nice!
You have been truly blessed with some amazing covers. When you saw them, did you bounce up and down like a little girl?
I have had some awful covers as Gwen Hunter. Really truly awful. If you want to see *bad* take a gander at http://gwenhunter.com/bodyofwork.htm and scan down to Deadly Remedy. It looks like a mental hospital from the 50s, on fire, with a calm psycho walking out. Horrid. Totally horrid.
So when I saw my first Faith Hunter novel I squealed like little girl and did the frog jump I did on my first sale. It’s pitiful, really. Enough to make you not read my work! Thank God no one had a camera.
For someone who hasn't read the books, tell us a little about them. (links to excerpts are fabulous)
I have two series going, the Rogue Mage series and the Jane Yellowrock series. First the Jane Yellowrock series, which first novel will be out July 8!
First, the Skinwalker series, which has a KILLER cover! http://www.faithhunter.net/wp/books/skinwalker/
A year ago Jane nearly lost her life taking down an entire blood family of deadly rogue vampires that preyed on the helpless local populace of an Appalachian town. Now, after months of recuperation, she’s back and ready to fight again. Except this time, she’s hired by those she’s trained to kill—vampires…
Jane Yellowrock is the last of her kind—a skinwalker of Cherokee descent who can turn into any creature she desires and hunts vampires for a living. Back from hiatus, she’s hired by Katherine Fontaneau, one of the oldest vampires in New Orleans and the madam of Katies’s Ladies, to hunt a powerful rogue vampire who’s killing other vamps.
Amidst a bordello full of real “ladies of the night,” and a hot Cajun biker with a panther tattoo who stirs her carnal desire, Jane must stay focused and complete her mission—or else the next skin she’ll need to save just may be her own… For an excerpt:
http://www.faithhunter.net/skinwalker-excerpt.html
Then, the Rogue Mage series:
It is a near-future world, caught in the throes of an ambiguous apocalypse, where a woman with everything to hide finds her destiny revealed….
No one thought the apocalypse would be like this. The world didn’t end. And the appearance of seraphs heralded three plagues and a devastating war between the forces of good and evil. Over a hundred years later, the earth has plunged into an ice age, and seraphs and demons fight a never-ending battle while religious strife rages among the surviving humans.
Thorn St. Croix is no ordinary neomage. All the others of her kind, mages who can twist leftover creation energy to their will, were gathered together into Enclaves long ago; and there they live in luxurious confinement, isolated from other humans and exploited for their magic. When her powers nearly drive her insane, she escapes—and now she lives as a fugitive, disguised as a human, channeling her gifts for war into stone-magery and the pacific tasks of jewelry making. But when Thaddeus Bartholomew, a dangerously attractive policeman, shows up on her doorstep and accuses her of kidnapping her ex-husband, she retrieves her weapons and risks revealing her identity to find him. And for Thorn, the punishment for revelation is death….
For an excerpt of the first novel in the series, Bloodring:
http://www.faithhunter.net/bloodring-excerpt.html
A bit of background for the series: The end of the world came, with winged beings and three plagues and war and destruction; human population was decimated, leaving alive only 1 in 20. It was a war between the Dragons and the Seraphs, the Darkness and the Light. Wars and starvation resulted. Society was ripped apart. But no god appeared. But the world changed in other ways too. Human women who were pregnant in the first trimester, who survived the plagues, birthed beautiful; babies capable of seeing and twisting leftover creation energy in what looks like magic. and the Mages are kept locked away from humans in Enclaves for their mutual protection, allowed out only with a license (slang for a work Visa) to do contract work for the humans. It has been 105 years since the start of the Last War. And still there is no peace. For more on the world:
http://www.faithhunter.net/wp/the-rogue-mage-series/world-of-the-rogue-mage-series/
There are four books so far, and I wonder: Are you a plotter? Do you have a plan for the entire series, or does each book evolve naturally from where the last left off?
Ditto on the worldbuilding...it's huge! Do you have a worldbuilding bible to keep it all straight?
Absolutely on the bible. For the Rogue Mage books it is totally essential to have the bible to keep up with it all. I created an entire culture and large numbers of characters (though I use only a few in the series). It is all in files on the PC and backed up on the flashdrive. And I still make mistakes. Oy…
The first three novels were pretty fluid, one following the other, but the forth will take Thorn out of her beloved mountains and to New Orleans, a place that is vastly different from the N.O. we know. It is a city I love and I am exploring it for the setting of the Jane Yellowrock novel, Skinwalker and its sequel Blood Cross. The bible on that series is still large, but with only two books written so far, and the timeline pretty much even with our own, the historic details don’t have to be addressed.
Your website is hugely interactive and full of neat-stuff for readers (and writers). What is your favorite part of it?
Oh man! It is sweet, isn’t it! The webmaster, Mike Pruette, did a bang-up job! I am not the most computer savvy gal, (okay, I’m a compu-dunce) and yet I wanted something I could update daily on my own, something I could blog on, get reader replies on, add pics with ease, and be simple to update if he had to do it for me. Best part is the blog. No, wait, the pics… Oh, I don’t know! I love it!
How is it, being so accessible to your readers?
I started in this business when the only way to access a writer was to write out a letter, put stamp on it and on a SASE (self addressed stamped envelope) inside with the letter and wait. And wait. It took forever for the fan to get a reply simply because of the mail, and some of that came on mail-boats from, and back to, foreign countries. Nowadays, if someone has a question, it is sent to me and I get it right away. Even if I am on a river paddling in a gorge somewhere, I’ll get it when I motor out and the reply will never be more than a couple of days. That is the very best part of being writer today! I’m also on Facebook (which I adore) and MySpace, with links on my site. Oh, yeah, the other thing I am nutso-passionate about is paddling—hard-boating down Class II – IV rivers. I learned for researching a Gwen-book, Rapid Descent, and fell head-over-heels in love with it!
For now, facebook links:
http://www.facebook.com/people/faithhunter#/profile.php?id=1564775184
and http://www.facebook.com/people/gwenhunter#/profile.php?id=1197155387
If you friend me on both names, you can see my schizoid selves talking to one another. Gwen and Faith, two brains, one body. Some watch the carnage. (smiles)
Skinwalker, by Faith Hunter, will be out on July ’09, By ROC.
For more on FAITH, visit her online at http://www.faithhunter.net
