Interview with Author Q.L. Pearce

My guest today is author Q.L. Pearce. Hello! Welcome to Writing in the Modern Age! It’s such a pleasure to have you here.

Can you tell us a little bit about your latest book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?

Spinechillers: Hair-Raising Tales, is a collection of short stories for tweens to teens. It includes classic ghosts, a monster or two, urban legends and a couple of quirky stories that spring from a childhood spent watching Twilight Zone and reading scary comic books.

The stories are short and perfect for reading aloud at a sleepover, or under the covers with a flashlight.  Spinechillers came out as an ebook just in time for Halloween. It’s on Amazon now and it became available in paperback at the end of November.

 
How exciting!

So, is there anything that prompted Spine Chillers? Something that inspired you?

I have written more than 120 books including educational, nonfiction, biography, and fiction for all age ranges. My absolute favorite, though, is scary fiction for middle grade to YA readers. My first major series was Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs (Price, Stern, Sloan). Spinechillers is in the tradition of those stories but for a new generation.

 

Fascinating!

 

Let's try a different question.

 

When did you know you wanted to write? Or has it always been a pastime of yours?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. I won my first school writing contest in third grade and my first city sponsored contest at age eleven. I actually got into a little trouble when I was a kid for telling scary stories that frightened my friends.

 
LOL! Well, the muse has a mind of its own, doesn't it? I love to hear about an author's journey. 

So, do you have any favorite authors yourself, Q.L.?

I will read anything by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black or Ransom Riggs.

Ray Bradbury, George Orwell and Roald Dahl are among my favorite masters. I love Bradbury’s accessible writing style and, of course, he was the master when it came to short stories. I had the opportunity to hear him speak once. He was just as wonderful in person. One of my favorite quotes of his is, “We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

 
That is a lovely quote! I also favor one of his quotes about writing:  

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”


So...do you write in a specific place? Time of day? 

When I write I usually sit at my dining room table. I have an actual home office with a desk, but my dogs prefer the main room and I like to work with them close by. I begin my day with meditation even before my first cup of coffee. I have a wonderful husband, two dogs, a bird, a host of fish, and a garden. They get first dibs on my attention after my practice.  I start my reading and research mid-morning then spend two or three hours writing. My dogs take me out for walks a couple of times a day and I use that time to brainstorm. I usually write for another hour or so at the end of the day.

 
Sounds perfect!

Are there any words you'd like to impart to fellow writers? Any advice?

The advice I give to working writers is finish what you start. I have several manuscripts that are sitting in a file folder because I didn’t push through when I hit a weak spot. Once that happens I start second-guessing and lose momentum. A prolific writer I respect told me to get the story on paper even if it isn’t exactly what I had in mind, then go back and get it right.

The advice I always give to young writers is to take every opportunity you can to travel, meet new people, learn about new cultures and try new things. Life experience is a wonderful muse.

 

How true! Thank you for offering those words of wisdom to our readers. 

And thanks so much for stopping by to visit us here today at Writing in the Modern Age. It was wonderful having you!  :)

 

Readers, here is the blurb for Spine Chillers: Hair-Raising Tales.

 

  

The town of Saltlick Bluff is famous for an urban legend. Does the spirit of a young girl wait on a misty cliff-hugging highway for her ride to the prom?

In the house on Beech Street a terrible tragedy occurred. Now neighbors won’t look at the place as they pass. Those who live nearby draw their blinds and shutter their windows after dark. What are they afraid of?

Hale Hallow Woods seems sinister and menacing even in the light of day. Does a thirst for revenge beat near its dark heart?

The answers lie within these pages, just waiting to send a chill up your spine!

 
Here is an excerpt.

The House on Beech Street

Jason stepped inside. The air within was tainted with an odor that made him gag.

“What is that smell?” he asked, putting his hand to his face.

“What smell?” Mike responded. Thomas just shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you know the story of the Carlson’s?” The woman didn’t wait for an answer before she continued. “They were a typical family. The little girl, Anisa, took ballet lessons. The boy, Junior, played baseball. Some people said he had the talent to go far as an athlete … that is … if he’d lived.”

The group entered the kitchen. The table was set for five as if the family would be sitting down for breakfast any minute. Jason noticed a pitcher’s mitt on one of the chairs.

“He was a lefty,” he said to no one in particular.

“Mr. Carlson’s mother slept in the spare room. She was an invalid and needed a lot of care. Mr. Carlson and his wife had quarreled about it that fateful morning and he’d left early. When he came home he found his wife in that very chair.” She pointed to the one at the end of the table. “He’d brought her flowers and wanted to apologize. It took him a few moments to realize she was dead. It seems she had taken a handful of sleeping pills with her tea. The police found the rest of the family in the basement along with a cracked, bloody baseball bat.”

“What happened to the dad?” Mike asked.

“They found him two days later hanging from the tree in the backyard. He’d left a note that said he wasn’t alone in the house. The neighbors claimed they heard noises late at night … screaming. You’ll notice that the houses on both sides are now empty. No one wants to live near this place.” She paused and looked in the direction of the front entrance. “Sometimes I can’t wait to leave.”

Motioning for the boys to follow, the woman moved from the kitchen into a dimly lit hallway. She opened the first door on the left. “This was the grandmother’s room.” Jason was hit with a wave of a smell like rotting fish.

-Excerpt from Spine Chillers, by Q.L. Pearce
Copyright © Glass Apple Press 2016.

Purchase Links:
 
Amazon Universal:  https://bookgoodies.com/a/B01M7U859N

https://bookgoodies.com/a/1539953297

B & N:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/spine-chillers-ql-pearce/1125262476

CreateSpace:  https://www.createspace.com/6698943

BAM:  http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Spine-Chillers/Q-L-Pearce/9781539953296

 

 

 

 
Wow! This book sounds riveting! And so apropos for Friday the 13th! ;)
 

We'll be sure to check out this new adult horror novel!

Author Bio

Q.L. Pearce is the author of more than 120 books for young readers, from picture books to YA, as well as film tie-in books for the Fox animated film Titan AE and the Universal animated series Land Before Time. Red Bird Sings: The Story of  Zitkala Sa (Carolrhoda Books, with co-author and illustrator, Gina Capaldi), received several awards including a Carter G. Woodson Book Award gold medal from NCSS and a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award gold medal. Her fiction includes the popular middle grade series, Scary Stories for Sleep-Overs (Price, Stern, Sloan). Q believes strongly in the value of scary books for young readers. When asked what credentials she has which qualify her as an expert in this area she replies, "I was a child once. That was very scary."

  

Author Links: 

Website:  http://www.qlpearce.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ql.pearce

Amazon Author Page:  https://www.amazon.com/Q.-L.-Pearce/e/B001H9RTXO/

http://amzn.to/2gpmoAc

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5659856.Q_L_Pearce

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/q-l-pearce-7926604

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db4aQLSyKMg&feature=youtu.be

 

Q.L.'s Books:

 

 

 

     More Books by Q.L. Pearce...

Author.to/QLPearce

 

Why I Write by Rita Plush

Why I Write by Rita Plush

I’m usually too busy writing to think about why I write. But now that the query is in my wheelhouse, torture and rejection do come to mind. That’s no joke, folks, considering my first short story was rejected ninety-three times before a literary journal gave it a thumbs up, followed by other stories labored over, fine-tuned and brought back to my writers’ group ad nauseam. And then there’s the seven years it took to find a publisher for Lily Steps Out, my first novel. 

So why do I spend hours a day developing a character, plotting and replotting a story, or on the worst of days, stare at a laptop screen, fingers limp, languishing on the keypad? Any normal person would think to try another line of work. But who’s talking normal? We’re talking writer here.

We’re talking digging into your heart and guts and trying to explain the world—to myself, I’ve come to think—as much as to others. Because that’s what writers do; we take bits of real life and build an imagined world around it. Within that world is what we think and feel and hope for, disguised as dialogue, inner thoughts and incidents involving made up people, all the while striving for clarity and honesty true to our characters.

It’s a job, let me tell you, to put a reader there in a scene, to make them feel, see, hear and taste it. To get the chill in the air or the heat of the sun just right, to get the dress and actions, the character's motivations clear and true. And when that happens—when all the bits and pieces come together in a way you didn’t even know you were looking for—you hear it from your readers that you’ve hit the mark—well, that’s a pretty wonderful thing. You’ve created a world with words. You’ve made life shimmer on the page. 

Now that I think about it ... that’s why I write. 

Wow! It does take a certain skill set and a little insanity, for sure - but that's my opinion as a fellow author - to write a book or story. There's a lot here for writers of all stages, and book readers to think about. So, thank you, Rita! :)

Readers, let's take a look at one of Rita Plush's books, a women's fiction novel titled Feminine Products.

 

 

Here is the blurb.

 

Everyone’s got personal baggage, but Rusty Scanlon thinks she’s carrying more than her fair share. Owner of a trendy boutique on the outskirts of New York City, Rusty has an eye for fashion and a gift for messing up her love life. She doesn’t trust men. They’ve all abandoned her – the first being her carpenter father, who ran out on her and her mother when she was only six years old. 

When she meets Walter Margolis, a guy who adores her, she thinks she has it all. Not so, she discovers when she tells him she’s pregnant and he suggests a paternity test. Rusty doesn’t know what to make of Walter’s reaction until he reveals the details of the accident he thinks he caused as a teenager, and the guilt that has tormented him all his adult life.

When a smooth-talking con man puts two and two together, ‘by the way’ mentioning that he once knew Rusty’s father, and also her mother – they apparently had a ‘thing’ some years back – she realizes he’s after something. She decides it’s time to find out the truth, and find her father. Until she does, she can’t fully commit to the life she hopes to share with Walter. 

Rusty’s emotional roller coaster ride is full of twists and turns that teach her and those around her about losing love and finding it, and what it means to be a family.

Here is an excerpt from the book.

 

She finds it on the shelf with the vaginal cleansers and tampons, anti-itch creams and panty liners, promising accuracy and easy use.

At home, hands trembling, she breaks open the carton, grasps the thumb grip, and leaning forward on the toilet holds the wand under her stream. She gazes at the little windows and waits for the stripes to appear. She remains on the toilet staring at the double band. “A baby,” she whispers to the silent tiled room. “I’m going to have a baby.”  She peers down and leans over, getting her face as close as possible to her belly and gives the air a little kiss. 

Rusty is thirty nine and she’s only been pregnant once before—at sixteen. Back then the thought of going through with it filled her with fear and disgust, but now she wants the life inside her—and the man who put it there.  A sort of man hard to describe. Traumatized by the deaths of his family and the accident at the root of it, only some thirty-plus years after the fact, did he sit shiva for them. Closure, some would call it—though not Walter; he’d never use a cliché like that. Wouldn’t even think it. Walter has a way of expressing himself. Stiffly, some might say, as if he’s out of practice, or just learning the language.—They are gone from me. I am of no use to them. It is time I give them to their graves. And on the subject of children? The one time they talked about it—Do you like kids? she’d asked over desert at her place a month or so ago. There will be none, he said. That too was Walter, succinct and to the point. And Rusty, unsure of where the relationship was going—she’d only known him three months then—let the matter slide. It slid all right… right into her fallopian tube. 

After days of worrying the how, when and where, she decides… in his loft. She’ll bring champagne—Oh?  And what are we celebrating?  She’ll seem mysterious by not partaking and he’ll want to know why. She’ll say doctor’s orders. She’ll give hints. I have a condition… I’m not supposed to drink…  Make him guess.

But before she gets the chance to buy bubbly or the opportunity to tease out the details, into her boutique walks the prime mover, trim and fit as a marathon runner, unannounced as usual. Hair gray, short and side-parted, eyes glistening with energy, he climbs atop a counter-high stool fronting the showcase.

Caught up short, she chatters away about a movie they’ve seen, the Chanel exhibit she’d like to catch at the Met. Has he tracked down that new carburetor for his vintage Ford? While about the baby, not a word.

He studies her face. “What is it? There is something else on your mind today.”  He cocks an eyebrow.

And so she comes out with it. “I’m going to have a baby.”

Purchase Links:

Amazon Universal link:  https://bookgoodies.com/a/B01FZX77WU

Barnes & Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/feminine-products-rita-plush/1122816053

CreateSpace:   https://www.createspace.com/5810516

Publisher: http://penumbrapublishing.com/php/show_detail.php?itemnum=FemProd&ret=show_all.php

 

Intriguing! 

 

Readers, don't forget to pick up your copy of Feminine Products, or even Lily Steps Out, her first novel!

 

 

 

 Guest Blogger Bio

 

Rita began her diverse career as an interior designer, enjoying the position of coordinator of the Interior Design/Decorating Certificate Program at Queensborough Community College for 20 years. She remains on the faculty teaching courses in design, decorative arts and creative writing.

The publication of her novel, Lily Steps Out, (Penumbra Publishing 2012)—twelve years in the making—earned “Published & Proud,” a feature article in Newsday’s Act II, followed by “Rita Steps Out,” in The Times Ledger.  Her short stories have appeared in many literary magazines including The Alaska Quarterly Review, before they were included in the collection, Alterations (Penumbra 2013).

A sought after speaker, Rita has presented at libraries and synagogues, Hofstra University, CW Post Hutton House, on topics as varied as decorative arts, interior design, the talk, “Writing & Publishing in the Modern Age, or So You’ve Written a Book, Now What?” and “Coco Chanel,” The Woman ­~ The Legend.” She is the book reviewer for The Fire Island News.

Frequently appearing on Blog Talk Radio, Rita read from Alterations on “The Author’s Corner” for Public Radio. She has guested on The Writer’s Dream, LTV, and “The Amy Beth Arkway Show,” When interviewed on Morgen Bailey’s “Author Spotlight,” Rita talked about the similarities between interior design and writing. “It’s still creativity at work,” she said. Writing is another form of design. “In rooms you put fabric and furnishings together aiming for the perfect note of color, texture and scale. Everything arranged in a way that instantly strikes the eye as a balanced whole. Writing a book is similar, except that instead of objects, you put people and plot together to create that perfect balance. A world made with words."

Author Links:

Website:  http://www.ritaplush.com/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/rita.plush

Amazon Author Page:  https://www.amazon.com/Rita-Plush/e/B009N37NO6/

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6549689.Rita_Plush

Publisher:  http://penumbrapublishing.com/

Additional:  http://www.jennymilchman.com/blog/2014/04/14/made-it-moment-rita-plush/

Rita's Books: