Noahan Author Issue #16

It’s been a long time since the last issue of Noahan Author. I published two new novels of my own at the end of July, and had to focus on my own work for a while. But lately I have been feeling a little removed from the work of my peers. The stack of books I have been meaning to read on my Kindle is… Hmm… well maybe books don’t actually stack on a Kindle and those hypothetical stacks would lack the three-dimensionality to actually get high… but the list has been getting far too long. I feel like I need to pay better attention to what is going on around me. This is my attempt to do something about it!

For those of you joining us for the first time, when I interview authors I do actually read at least the free preview of their books and I base my questions on their text. I only invite authors whose previews I have read and enjoyed to be a part of this. In many cases, I cannot vouch for the rest of their books, but they do at least start out great!

Now, I know that most of you tuning in today will have come to read about an author whose work you already know and enjoy. I will be sharing interviews with three different authors each week and I hope you will take the time to read all three. Maybe you’ll discover someone new?

Noahan Author Interview – Elizabeth Sharp

Noahan Author: Please tell us a little about yourself.

Elizabeth Sharp: My older sister taught me to read at a very young age. I went to my first day of kindergarten reading Little House on the Prairie. I’ve always been a storyteller, so it was no surprise when I started writing. I never got anywhere with my writing though because I would get part of the way through and start editing, tearing it apart and dismissing it as garbage. It wasn’t until this one that I have finally been able to break the cycle. Aside from writing I love art, though I wasn’t very good at it until I discovered Photoshop and photo manipulation. My first successful effort was the cover of Natural Selection. From there’s it’s grown to my own cover art business, though it hasn’t truly taken off yet. I’m a licensed cosmetologist though I don’t practice, an avid beader, and I love all things technological, especially cell phones and tablets.

Noahan Author: What would you like to tell us about Natural Selection?

Elizabeth Sharp: The characters from this book were initially created when I was 17. When I got the idea for the storyline of Natural Selection I was thinking of what kind of characters to use and it all just fell together like a puzzle. I wanted to set the story somewhere I knew, but not where I actually live now. So I chose the town where I graduated high school. On a rainy day in early March I went there to drive down memory lane and get a good feel for the town.

Noahan Author: What can you tell us about Amelia? I notice that your story is told in first-person. To what degree are you and Amelia the same or different from one another?

Elizabeth Sharp: Amelia is actually based off my best friend Tori, but there’s a lot of me in her too. Many of Amelia’s stories are actually my own, down to the location of the babysitter’s house. Though Crystal was her daughter, and one of my good friends. Though there’s a little of me in all my characters, I like to think they are each their own person. Amelia has grown and moved away from who she was in the beginning, and now she’s just based on Amelia.

Noahan Author: In your story we meet a teenage girl who discovers that her maturity and the loss of her humanity go hand in hand. Is that what it's like to be a girl?

Elizabeth Sharp: Yeah, we might seem inhuman, but being a girl doesn’t mean we’re not human. Lol. No, I don’t know that it was that big a deal for me when I was in school. Like all other girls I read “Are You There God, It’s Me Margret” but I wasn’t waiting and comparing like the other girls. Though I do remember wanting some boobs. Still waiting, actually. ;) Maybe the difference for me was I could be anything I wanted if you gave me a pen and some paper…

Noahan Author: Your protagonist is in high school. What was your high school experience like?

Elizabeth Sharp: Hell. That was the title of the book before the paranormal stuff got added High School Hell. I didn’t fit in and everything the kids learned about me was just fodder for more ridicule. I was wicked smart (too smart, really) but somewhere along the way I stopped caring or trying. Then when I was a freshman, my mom was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. The doctor’s said she wouldn’t survive to see me graduate. To say I was in a dark place would be an understatement. How did I cope? I fell into a world of fantasy and didn’t really emerge for a couple of years. I thought of life as the necessary motions between scenes. Finally I was moved to my father’s where my experience was different. At first I was the outsider, the new kid. But then something clicked and I felt I belonged for the first time in my life and it made me want to try. I can honestly say my senior year was the best year of all my schooling. And that was the part of my schooling I drew on for Amelia, the sort of anonymous everyone knows you but only some know you.

Noahan Author: Please tell us about your publishing experience so far. How has your experience with Four Corners press been?

Elizabeth Sharp: It’s been a roller coaster. The week leading up to the release I barely slept, I was scattered and couldn’t focus on anything. And then finally the release was here and it felt like all this build up was for nothing. It’s great to be published, but it’s just the beginning. As for 4CP, it was and continues to be a constant learning experience. We have finally mastered the actual publishing part with very little hiccup, now we need to build a catalog and work on brand recognition. We want people to see the 4CP logo and associate it with great books.

Noahan Author: What effect do you hope your book has on your readers?

Elizabeth Sharp: This is a coming of age story as much as a paranormal one. It’s about learning to stand on your own and that real strength is admitting you need help. There’s an underlying message of tolerance, but it’s not really touched on too much in Natural Selection.

Noahan Author: Are you prepared for the end of civilization?

Elizabeth Sharp: I have several survival scenarios in place ready for execution as needed. But really life is temporary. One way or another we’re not going to make it out alive so whatever happens, happens.

Noahan Author:  Is Pluto a planet. Why or why not?

Elizabeth Sharp: Pluto will always be a planet to me because that’s how I learned it in the third grade. Otherwise my red ribbon from the fifth grade science fair is a lie and we can’t have that, now can we?

Noahan Author: Would you like to ask me a question?

Elizabeth Sharp: Now for the fun part! What’s it like being one of the only men in our predominately female writing group? Do you find you get overwhelmed with our giggly girly ways are do you feel like a playa? ;)

Noahan Author: Most of our readers will not know, but Elizabeth and I are members of a couple of the same authors’ groups on Facebook. Joining groups like these is an excellent way for authors to get to know one another, learn from each other, and share experiences.

There is one in particular, a hidden and exclusive circle which may or may not exist, which we are allegedly both members of. There aren’t many men who have been invited.

To answer the question, I usually have a great time. Everyone is really nice and funny. But when you all start sharing the beefcake pictures of your “muses,” I am just a little left out! :P

Noahan Author Interview – James Quirk

Noahan Author: Please tell us a little about your background

JAMES QUIRK: I’ve had a pretty long career as a government reporter for several newspapers and wire services.  It all started when I was a kid growing up in the 1970s.  I became fascinated with short stories and novels, and soon I found myself writing my own stuff. After graduating high school, I attended Penn State and majored in English. My intent was to hone my English skills so I could make a living as a novelist. By that time I had become one of Stephen King’s biggest fans, as well as a faithful reader of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes’ stories. But things didn’t work out as I had hoped. After two semesters at Penn State, the money ran out and I was unable to continue with my college education.

After that, I floated from one job to another in northeast Pennsylvania. I worked in factories, I was a plumber, I serviced vending machines, I worked at a sawmill, I built kitchen cabinets … You name it, I probably did it. After getting laid off from one job circa 1993, I used the time to write a screenplay. It was called “Lonagan’s Gold,” and it was about a luckless guy named Jonny Lonagan who – after getting released from prison for a crime he didn’t commit – buys a lottery ticket and hits a multi-million dollar jackpot. When criminal associates get wind of the news, they steal the ticket from him, setting off a sequence of violent action involving a series of high-speed car chases, motorcycle chases, gun fights, etc., as Jonny attempts to retrieve his stolen ticket. I was unable to sell the screenplay, however. There was only one production company that requested to read it, but they eventually sent me a letter that indicated they thought the script would have had more action. They were being sarcastic because the thing probably had too much action.

During this time, I would regularly make trips to the local Post Office to send out my script to various agents and production companies. I would usually engage in conversations with the postmaster about what I was doing and she, in turn, told another woman about it who freelanced for a local newspaper. The freelancer eventually told a reporter about what I was doing, and the reporter eventually asked me if I wanted to write articles for the newspaper. By this time I was working in a factory and the job really sucked. About a month after turning down a freelance reporter job because it would have interfered with my factory job, I quit the factory job and took the freelance reporter job. For the next three years I made a pretty good living as a freelance reporter, moving back and forth between two rival Pennsylvania newspapers. Finally, in 1999, I was hired full-time at the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, and six months after that, was promoted to the top beat – City Council Reporter. In 2001, I took a job at The Hawk Eye newspaper in Burlington, Iowa, as the city and county government reporter. In 2007, I left Iowa for Hawaii when I was hired as county government reporter for Big Island newspaper West Hawaii Today. I moved back to Pennsylvania in 2009 to be closer to my family, and was later hired as a reporter for Capitolwire, a news service that provides coverage of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

Noahan Author: What can you tell us about The Ninth Leg?

JAMES QUIRK: The Ninth Leg is my attempt at bringing together all those wonderfully wild mysteries we read about, wonder about, and watch TV programs about, into a singular adventure story. The mysteries I’m talking about, of course, are those involving aliens, UFOs, Bigfoot, dinosaurs, a possible connection between Hitler and extraterrestrials, time travel, telepathy, remote viewing, invisibility … all of those fascinating subjects.

The book was initially going to be a children’s story called “Tad on the Prehistoric Planet.” Tad is the name of my real-life son, and I told him one day that I was going to write a story about a kid named Tad who sneaks aboard a landed flying saucer operated by Grey aliens. However, Tad is unable to exit the saucer before it takes off and he becomes an unwilling passenger. The saucer later crash-lands on a savage planet teeming with prehistoric dinosaurs, and Tad and the Greys find themselves in life-and-death battles with all sorts of carnivorous beasts. I thought it would be really cool to feature dinosaurs and aliens in one story. I began writing this story, but eventually reached a point when I realized it just wouldn’t work for a children’s book. At the same time, I was toying with an idea for a short story about people from the future traveling backward in time and rescuing Adolf Hitler from the bunker and transporting him into the future. Eventually, it occurred to me that it would be really cool if I somehow combined these two concepts into one story.  It took months before I finally had a good idea on how the story would work. Even after I started writing it, however, I found myself hitting brick walls and realizing some of my original ideas weren’t working and needed modifications. Because there are so many things happening in the story, it was easy to sometimes get confused, as well as realize some of the things I originally imagined just wouldn’t work. There were lots of times during the writing of this book where I would find myself sitting somewhere or laying down somewhere and trying to work out the kinks in my mind’s eye.

The finished product is a lot different than the original drafts. The book was originally broken up into three parts. The first part dealt with Don Black’s story, the second part dealt with the fantastic story of Hitler’s journey after getting snatched out of the bunker, and the third part was where all of it collides. The order arrangement in the original version was the way the novel was written. It was some time after it was written when I realized the structure of the novel did not work. So, I finally removed the parts and rearranged all of the chapters in an effort to create more of a rollercoaster ride effect. I also removed a chapter where Don had a confrontation with men in black. Although the chapter was fun, I realized it was unnecessary and did nothing to move the story forward.

The final product, I hope, is something that fascinates anybody who reads it.

Noahan Author: Who is Don Black?

JAMES QUIRK: There’s a lot of me in Don Black. Whenever Don was facing extraordinary situations, I tried to imagine what I would say or do if it was me. Of course, there are some things about Don Black that aren’t based on me. Don Black is a car salesman. I was never a car salesman. Don Black has been getting abducted by aliens his entire life. As far as I know, I’ve never been abducted by aliens or people for that matter. Don Black finds out early in the story that the Greys have implanted something into his foot, and then he decides to have the thing removed.  He hates the Greys and he won’t stand for any alien implant. Although he knows there might be consequences if he removes the implant, he doesn’t care. Unfortunately for Don, he doesn’t realize just how crazy things will get once he takes action to remove the implant.

Noahan Author: As I read The Ninth Leg I was struck by the frequency and mass of all the imaginative ideas you were hitting the reader with. It is a difficult task to give us so much so quickly and not make a mess of it. I think you managed it gracefully. But all the same, I found myself stunned by how much I was being given. Can you talk a little about the kind of experience it is for you to write this kind of material?

JAMES QUIRK: It’s a lot of fun to write about these kinds of crazy concepts. Once it starts flowing, it’s like releasing a wild animal out of a cage. You go into it knowing you’re going to have free reign to just let it all hang out, and once you get there, it just becomes a whole lot of fun. I really want to dazzle readers with concepts and scenarios that they never would have imagined before. Everybody has an imagination and just about every day crazy notions and concepts cross their minds. Sometimes you bury these concepts in the back of your brain never to revisit them again. Writing them all down becomes fun because now you can share all those funny, far-out ideas with everybody else.

Noahan Author: How does Time Travel work?

JAMES QUIRK: You know, I’ve watched the “Back to the Future” movies dozens of times and although I’ve heard Doc Brown explain the science behind the flux capacitor, I still don’t know how it works. I’ve read books by Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku that map out theories on time warps and time travel and I still don’t know what they’re talking about. Although I desire a better understanding of how time travel might work, I’m just not there. I’m more interested in the ramifications of somebody actually utilizing time travel. Although it’s explained somewhat in my book how futuristic government scientists mastered time travel, all of that came from my imagination. Hopefully readers of my novel aren’t too interested in the mechanics of how time travel works because they won’t find that in The Ninth Leg. What they will find, however, are some of the consequences of time travel.

Noahan Author: Why would Torquemada defeating Osama Bin Laden in combat to the death surprise anyone? Osama was a thin old man on dialysis who apparently spent the last years of his life sitting in a room and watching porn. I would think Torquemada would obviously have that one in the bag. But in your story, more people voted the other way. Can you explain why they did that?

JAMES QUIRK: Well, I reasoned that Bin Laden would be the favorite because he possessed actual combat experience. Torquemada, meanwhile, was basically a man behind the scenes who directed others to carry out the Inquisition’s torture policy. Also, keep in mind that Torquemada was pretty old when he died, too, and I’m sure he was in poor health. The entire Bin Laden mention in the novel had to be modified after May 1. When I finished the novel, Bin Laden was still alive. After he was killed by U.S. Navy Seals, however, I realized that real-life event affected my novel. The stuff about Max Jacks’ time traveling unit affecting the time stream when retrieving Bin Laden was added later.

Noahan Author: Do you believe the Earth has ever been visited by intelligent beings from another world?

JAMES QUIRK: I know for a fact the Earth is being visited by extraterrestrials. I’ve had two things happen to me during my life that convinced me, and I actually incorporated modified versions of those events into The Ninth Leg. I was eight or nine in the late 1970s when I woke up one night to discover something in my room. The blanket was over my head and the light, like usual, was on in my bedroom – which I shared with my brother Dave – and I could see the shadow of a claw-like hand moving up and down above my head. Accompanying the hand was an electronic humming sound. I thought it was Satan. I was scared out of my mind. I yelled for my parents, I yelled for my brother Dave to wake up, but the humming sound was muffling my voice. The claw-like hand – which featured three thick fingers that came to points at the tips – continued to move up and down above my head. I could plainly see its shadow. I was too scared to pull the blanket down to see the face of the hand’s owner and eventually reached a point where I prayed to God to make it go away. The whole thing lasted 20 minutes. Sometime during the course of saying prayers, I passed out somehow and woke up the next day. This was not a dream, although everybody in my family insists it was. It really happened. I was awake. Something strange happened. For years I thought it was the Devil, but when I got older and saw a program on television about alien abductions, I changed my opinion.

The second event occurred in August 1994, and this time there was another witness. I went night-fishing with a friend at a private community called Beech Mountain Lakes located near Hazleton in northeastern Pennsylvania. We were fishing at a pond off the lake all night and not catching anything. It was about 10 p.m. when I turned away from the pond to retrieve something from my tackle box and saw these three large lights hovering behind some trees at the perimeter of a field of tall grass. I said to my friend, “What’s that?” He said, “I don’t know.” The thing moved from behind the trees and slowly moved toward our position. It was gigantic, as big as a house, and it was only two or three stories above our heads. I thought the thing was going to land in the field. The most amazing thing about it is it did not emit any sound whatsoever. We hurriedly began throwing our fishing equipment into the back of my buddy’s truck when the thing suddenly began moving away from us until it finally disappeared over some trees. My friend zoomed away on the dirt road in the forest that brought us to the pond, and when we reached a point where the object had flown, we had to wait while about 20 deer ran across the road. They were running away from the direction of where the object had gone! To this day, I do not know what the thing was, but I’m supremely confident it was not something manufactured by humans.

Noahan Author: I’m guessing that your name is either a pen-name, or your ancestors were known in medieval times as being the go-to people in the kingdom for quirkiness. What do you think?

JAMES QUIRK: No, Quirk is my real last name. It’s an Irish name, handed down from my Irish forefathers who moved to the Land of Opportunity way back when. It was tough sometimes as a kid. Kids can be cruel when you have a funny last name. However, one of the nicknames they gave me based on my quirky name was one I really liked – Captain Quirk, or the Captain, a variation of Star Trek’s Captain James. T. Kirk.

Noahan Author: Are you prepared for the end of civilization?

JAMES QUIRK: No. I don’t relish the concept of dying. I don’t think I believe that 2012 will bring the end of times, either. Or maybe I should say I don’t want to believe 2012 will bring an end to our civilization.

Noahan Author: Is Pluto a planet? Why or why not?

JAMES QUIRK: Pluto is a planet because that is what everybody told me it was for years. If somebody wants to say it’s something else these days, that’s his or her prerogative.

Noahan Author: Would you like to ask me a question?

JAMES QUIRK: Yes, I would like to ask you a question. Do you believe extraterrestrials are coming to Earth? If yes, what do you think they want?

Noahan Author:  I have never picked between the scientific view of the world and the magical view. Were the fairies the same as the aliens? Are these spirits, or Gods, or men born on other planets who built boats, then airplanes, and went through all the same steps to then developed space-ships? I don’t know.

I do know that there are beings in our world beyond the mundane. I don’t know if they are aliens or spirits, or Gods, or the dead, or our interaction with the intelligence of the universe’s underlying archetypes. But I do know from first hand experience that they are there.

Perhaps we travel to them when we reach a certain level of advancement?

I’ve said more than once that I don’t believe in a deity less emotionally mature than I am. I have a similar problem imagining a race millions of years more advanced than us which does not also evolve spiritually. I understand that our own race may have, by and large, stagnated for the past two or three millennia, but really that’s not such a long time in the scheme of things.

I suspect that the lines we are accustomed to drawing between aliens and spirits and ghosts and Gods and robotic intelligences, and Fae, and yes, between objective and subjective, are primitive distinctions.

But… maybe I didn’t answer your question at all!

Noahan Author Interview – M.R. Mathias

Noahan Author: Please tell us a little about yourself.

M. R. MATHIAS: I am the author of The Dragoneers Saga, The Wardstone Trilogy, The Crimzon & Clover (short story series) and ‘The First Ten Steps’ - What to do after you publish your eBook. I enjoy traveling, and fishing, and my tweeting side-kick @MrStubbsSays is a pretty good dog. 

Noahan Author: Can you talk a little about The Royal Dragoneers (The Dragoneers Saga)?

M. R. MATHIAS: The Saga of the Dragoneers is a fun action fantasy series. Several reviewers have deemed the books “Young Adult,” but they are not intended to be YA.  Book  II – ‘Cold Hearted Son of a Witch’  will be released this week and Book III – ‘The Confliction,’ as well as a ‘Full Confliction Trilogy’ package will be available by Christmas.

Noahan Author: What should we know about Jenka?

M. R. MATHIAS: Jenka is very angry underneath. His witchy mother lied to him when he was young. The truth of his father’s identity is as aggravating to him as the lies he has been told. Zahrellion, the Druida,  has his heart, but he can’t ever seem to express that to her very well. He loves his dragon, Jade, though. He and Jade are bond-mates.

Noahan Author: I was struck by the level of detail you give the dragons in The Royal Dragoneers. They seem very real.  How important do you think that level of descriptiveness is in story-telling?

M. R. MATHIAS: I don’t think about that stuff much, Noah. I just write. If anything, I overwrite. Sometimes I have to delete a descriptive line or two.

Noahan Author: When our world was populated by dinosaurs, the best that mammals could manage was to grow as big as rats and hide from the monsters. Do you think humanity would stand any chance at all in a world that actually had dragons in it?

M. R. MATHIAS: I would think that would be completely up to the dragons.

Noahan Author: Not all, but most of your novels are fantasy novels. What qualities do you think help make for a good fantasy story?

M. R. MATHIAS: Characters that we can empathize with, the thrill of a great unknown adventure, looming danger, and brave heroes willing to stand against the odds to prevail.

Noahan Author: I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that you wrote some of your books while in prison. As I think we all do, whenever I watch a movie about prison, or see MSNBC’s Lockup on TV, I imagine what life there would be like for me. I wouldn’t want to get in any fights or be harassed by other prisoners. My biggest question is always: would I be able to write? Would they even let me have a pencil? Can you talk a little about what it was like trying to be creative in a place like that?

M. R. MATHIAS: I did get into a few fights and ended up in a solitary cell. (The State of Texas deemed me a threat to the staff and other inmates, mainly because I am 6’4” tall and well over 300lbs. ) We could purchase ink pens, envelopes, & paper.  (They come to your cell door when you are in High Security)  No prison system in the US can deny you access to the public mail service so they have to have those items available. Once I was in solitary, writing was easy. I couldn’t leave my box, so I wrote my mind right out of there.

Noahan Author: I have also read your book “The First Ten Steps.” And as a result, I am still waiting to have enough followers so that Twitter will let me follow anyone again! ;) Can you talk a little about this book?

M. R. MATHIAS: Ahhh... you need Tweet-Karma.com TwitterKarma maybe? You can delete all the people you follow that don’t follow you back, right from their easy screens.

As for the rest of The First Ten Steps, it’s all just common sense condensed so that people don’t have to spend a year drowning in worry over the lack of sales while they learn.

Noahan Author: You’ve written quite a few books now. Would you like to briefly tell us about one or two others?

M. R. MATHIAS: ‘The Butcher’s Boy’ is a horror - thriller of mine in my other pen name. It just won Silver in The Readers Favorite Award Contest. It’s the perfect Halloween read. Just don’t read it during a storm.

‘The Sword and the Dragon’ is a 700 page epic fantasy that was deemed a top indie release of 2010 by Fantasy Book Critic. It was also featured in the first ever Publisher’s Weekly Indie Review Supplement. It has been in the Amazon fantasy mythology top 100 for over a year and counting.

Noahan Author: Are you prepared for the end of civilization?

M. R. MATHIAS: I don’t see that we are really all that civilized, Noah. People are dying in wars all over the world, and people are starving while we worry about $3 coffee and the Kardashian Wedding.

Noahan Author: Is Pluto a planet? Why or why not?

M. R. MATHIAS: Pluto is a dog on Disney cartoons. Because Walt said so.  J

Noahan Author: Would you like to ask me a question?

M. R. MATHIAS: Are you Luminous or Ominous?

Noah K. Mullette-Gillman:  I try to be! ;) The phrase was with me long before I had the idea for the novel. My MySpace status for a couple of years was “Noah is luminous and ominous.” I was actually trying to write the first draft of The Brontosaurus Pluto Society when I got the idea for the story that would become Luminous and Ominous. As I started planning out the book’s structure and the symbolism, I realized how perfectly my phrase fit the story and they came together.

That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed our interviews. We will be back next week with three more authors. Please don’t forget that this is the 16th issue of this series, so there are lots of other interviews you can go and read now if you’d like.

Also, please consider taking a few moments to read the free previews of the authors we featured today. You may find one that you’ll like!

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