Ya author interview

YA Author Interview: Caitlin Sangster

~ The Spinning Pen ~ 2 Comments

Pen Friends~ It’s my honor to welcome YA Author Caitlin Sangster to the Spinning Pen. This amazing lady shares something very special with me– a love for travel and Asia! Which kind of inspired her debut, Last Star Burning– a thrilling dystopian, fantasy, fairytale, blend of awesome. Today she will share all kinds of gems with us: her writing journey, world building tips, and more!

images-53

SP: Hi Caitlin! Thanks so much for joining us! First, can you please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing?

CS: Hi! I’m so glad to be here! I’ve been writing on and off since I was a kid, but started seriously writing about five years ago. I’ve lived in California, China, Taiwan, Montana, and, most recently Utah. In college, I did a BA in Asian Studies with an emphasis in China (and am, consequently, a huge Chinese history and politics nerd). I love to run and wish I were a ballroom dancer. Lost but very much not least, I have four delightfully disruptive children ages seven and under. Continue reading →

YA Author Interview: Kester ‘Kit’ Grant

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ If you haven’t heard of International Author, Kester ‘Kit’ Grant, you will soon. Her debut, A Court of Miracles, will come out in 2018 and has already received a lot of praise and anticipation! Kit’s a gem to know (we met after we both won PitchWars 2016) and her words get under your skin within the first page. If you love supporting debut authors, be sure to add her book to your Goodreads!

Kit GrantSP: Hi Kit! Thanks for joining us. First, can you please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing? 

I’m Kester Grant but everyone calls me Kit, I am to quote my bio, a British-Mauritian author and nomad. I started writing seriously a few years ago, then put it on hold, and came back to it in 2016 when I drafted my Les Mis meets Jungle Book fantasy YA mash-up.   Continue reading →

YA Author Interview: Aminah Mae Safi

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment
Pen Friends ~ Today’s YA Author, Aminah Mae Safi, has got her hands full with all kinds of writerly projects and great advice across the board! She truly inspires as she talks about not giving up on your craft & dreams and how her first book, Not the Girls You’re Looking For, came to be!
Aminah Mae
SP: Hi Aminah Mae! Thanks for joining us. First, can you please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing?
Aminah Mae: Forever! But also– seven years. That’s a big difference, no? I grew up writing and I come from a family of storytellers. The kind of people that everyday life becomes a big dinnertime epic. We’re a fairly dramatic lot. I remember the time I read a Camelot comic in some after school program and I noticed that Guinevere didn’t do anything. So I re-wrote it. I must have been about seven or eight. Please note: this involved not only re-writing, but type setting, photocopying, cutting and literally pasting new words over the old comics, then photocopying again to make the final product look legit.

Continue reading →

YA Author Interview: Jenny Park

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment
Pen Friends ~ Welcome Jenny Park, YA Author of The Shadows We Know By Heart, to talk about her writing, agent, and publishing journey with us. If you are Tarzan fans, you’ll want to check out her debut, The Shadows We Know By Heart.
JenniferParkAuthorpic.jpg
SP: Hi Jenny! Thanks for joining us. First, can you please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing?
Jenny: Thanks so much for having me! I’ve been writing for about six years now, and before that I was an art teacher for middle school students. Growing up, writing was never my thing, although I spent more time reading books than talking to people. It wasn’t until I was getting my master’s degree that I really kind of broke through the mental block/fear I had about writing since it was an online writing intensive program. But it was still years after that before I wrote my first draft.

Continue reading →

Author Interview: Aimee Salter

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ Meet Aimee Salter, author of A Dark Touch & Every Ugly Word, and 2017 PitchWars Mentor, who is here to share all kinds of writing gems with us.

Hi Aimee! Thanks for joining us. First, please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing? 

Hi there. Thank you for having me!

I’m Aimee L. Salter. I’m an American who grew up in New Zealand, married a kiwi, have a kiwi son, and am now back in Oregon permanently.

I’ve always dabbled with writing and have loved it since I was in elementary school. I had a couple false starts on books earlier in life, but the first manuscript I ever completed with an eye to publication was in 2009, when I was 33. I got my first publishing contract in 2014 when I was 38. Continue reading →

Author Interview: McKelle George

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen friends! McKelle George, an editor and debut author of Speak Easy, Speak Love –a 1920’s retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is here to share her writing life and editing tips with us!

images-46

SP: Hi McKelle! Thanks for joining us. First, please tell us a bit of who are you and how long have you have been writing?

Hi! I’m a young adult writer and my debut Speak Easy, Speak Love comes out this month. I’ve always done a little writing (mostly fanfic and RP), but I made the decision to seriously write the summer of 2011. (:

SP: So lets talk about your debut, Speak Easy, Speak Love. How did this idea develop? How long did it take for you to write it? Unknown-12 Continue reading →

Author Interview: Carrie Anne Noble

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ Today we have awesome YA Author, Carrie Anne Noble, to chat about the writing life and her newly-released novel, The Gold-Son!

CarrieAnneNoble author 2016 - s

SP: Welcome Carrie Anne! Can you start out by telling us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?

C: Hi! I’m a stay-at-home mom/writer who lives in the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania with my family and assorted pets (currently two cats, a dog, a lizard, a foster hedgehog, and some chickens). I’ve been making up stories for as long as I can remember, but I really got hooked on it when I was about eleven years old.

SP: Essential info next: Tea or Coffee? And one fact about yourself that we wouldn’t know by looking at you?  Continue reading →

Author Interview: Hannah Heath

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ Come meet Indie YA author & super awesome writing-blogger, Hannah Heath!

images-43SP: Hi Hannah! Thanks for being with us. Can you start out by telling us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?

Hello! First off, thank you for inviting me on to your awesome website! I’m an author of YA Christian speculative fiction, a bookworm, chai-tea-lover, and all-around nerd. While I write mostly fantasy, I read everything from classic literature to comic books. I started writing a couple of years before I knew how to spell correctly, inspired by authors who brought beautiful worlds, new ideas, and courageous thoughts into my mind. Continue reading →

Author Interview: Carlie Sorosiak

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ We should be just a tad (read super-mega) excited because today we have the lovely YA Author Carlie Sorosiak with us!! Her YA book, If Birds Fly Back, is fast becoming the next bestselling, swoony, STEM-y (that means: nerdy smart stuff), read of the summer!

 

Carlie S 1.jpg

SP: Hi Carlie! Thanks for being with us. Can you start out by telling us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?

Thank you so much for having me! So, my first novel just published in the US and UK—it’s called If Birds Fly Back, and it’s about family and first love and disappearances. I’ve been writing for a long time. I went to a Montessori elementary school, where we had journal time every day. Besides recess and the hours reading in a beanbag chair, it was my favorite activity. I wrote my first full-length novel between the ages of nine and thirteen, and although I took a little detour into biology and defense studies during university, I’ve ended up exactly where I want to be.

SP: As one who splits her time between two continents, where do you feel most at home? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? You mentioned wanting to achieve an accent like Madonna’s… have you? Continue reading →

Author Interview: Sarena and Sasha Nanua

~ The Spinning Pen ~ Leave a comment

Pen Friends ~ We couldn’t be more excited to introduce to you two young twin authors, Sarena and Sasha Nanua, who have been wildly successful in their pursuit of writing, book blogging, publishing, and much more. (See below!)

f00ae8_d64f21118a92409c80ca0826e01429fe

 

SP: Hi Sarena and Sasha! Thanks for being with us. Can you start out by telling us a bit of who you are and when you started writing?

Sure! First off—thanks for having us! We’re super excited to be here! To start, we’re Sarena and Sasha Nanua, twin authors, book bloggers, and, of course, voracious readers. We began writing when we were nine years old, when we were super bored on an airplane and thought, Hey, why don’t we write a book? We finished the first book the following year and began writing in lots of journals, but never really finished another book until we were fourteen. We decided to self-publish our book, The Gemstone, when we were fifteen, and the subsequent novels in the series came out when we were sixteen and seventeen. Since then, we’ve written and revised two novels and are very excited to see where they head in the future!  Continue reading →