When I opened the email that contained an invitation to be interviewed on The Authors Show (after I submitted an application), I had a flash of memory. Back in 2019, after the release of my first novel, Glory Bishop, I was interviewed by the host, Don McCauley. I went digging through old emails and docs and found the old set of pre-supplied questions. For that interview, done via Skype, I’d sat at my dining room table and tried desperately not to sound like I was reading from a script. I kinda failed. Here’s the ad from the 2019 interview - notice the throwback cover of Glory Bishop:
This time around, Don sent me a preliminary request: “Answer these 7 questions to help me plan your interview, and send me 10 questions you might want me to ask you.” So I worked to answer his questions and then pulled the list of Paula Rizzo’s 10 Media Questions Every Fiction Author Needs to Answer. I asked my sisters, my friends in writing groups, my kids, anybody… everybody! Damn, did I agonize over the answers to all 17 of those questions!
A week or so later, I receive the final list of the actual interview questions. The list contains NOT A SINGLE ONE of the questions I’d already practiced the answers to! Okaaay… I take the questions back to my council of wise people and start answering again. This time around, after having answered 17 really hard questions, I’m a little better prepared and we breeze through the 20 questions… in about 2 weeks.
Like I said, the last interview was via Skype, and it was…okay. This time around, we used a podcasting platform, and I was in a professional sound studio (courtesy of Fountaindale Library Studio 300) with professional equipment. At the suggestion of my afternoon writing group, I had turned my long written-out answers into bullet points. Yes, I was scared, but Mommi always told me “Do it scared!”
The whole process took about 45 minutes, allowing for technical difficulties, beginning protocols, and pauses and such, but he went straight down the list in order and I only made one terrible mistake. If you’ve read my books, you’ll probably notice it, but I fixed it in the transcript.
While I would have liked to feature my entire series, the interview mainly focused on the third book, Mary Not Broken. I can say, I’m no longer terrified of doing interviews, and I think I know the answers to a few hard questions (as long as I can just remember them).
So yeah… hit me up… let’s chat!
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