An Interview with Katie MacAlister
The Reading Cafe is happy to have the fantastic Katie MacAlister as our guest today.
Katie just released A Tale of Two Vampires in September. Our review of A Tale of Two Vampires is just below this interview.
Katie is here to talk to us about her latest book, as well as telling us a bit about herself.
Let’s meet Katie
Hi Katie. Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions today. We are always looking forward to reading about the author behind the book.
TRC: What is your writing process? Do you have a favorite time, or place to work? What is the most difficult process in creating your stories?
Katie: I’m a morning person, so I always write in the morning. Usually I stagger in to the computer around 8 or 9 am, and then immediately proceed to procrastinate for as long as I can get away with it. Having dogs helps with that. Also having people doing things around the house—assistant, house cleaner, handyman dude who is always wandering around fixing things—helps keep me distracted, but inevitably, I have to sit down and write. I write for about four hours, then move on to other things related to writing, such as promotional work, chatting with readers on Facebook and Twitter, pulling contest entries, making book videos, and on and on.
There’s little about the process that isn’t difficult, because I really want readers to enjoy what I’m doing. So I’m constantly aware that my characters need to be funny, sexy, and easy to relate to. But on the whole, writing the first draft is the hardest part. Once that’s done, I’m a happy little camper in the land of editing—I love to edit. It’s my chance to take the bare bones story and polish it up until it’s full of goodness.
TRC: Can you please tell our readers who are new to your Dark Ones series, the premise of this series?
Katie: My vampires are a bit different than others—they are called Dark Ones, have a female who is their other half (and has the power to redeem the vamp’s soul), and they all have a good sense of humor. Even if sometimes it’s a grumpy sense of humor (I’m looking at you, Adrian).
TRC: The Dark Ones is the 10th book of this series with your new release “Tale of Two Vampires”. How many books do you plan for this series?
Katie: I don’t have an end planned for the series. Every year I step back and consider whether readers are still enjoying the books, and still asking for more. Thus far, the answers are still yes, so I’m still writing them.
TRC: Can you please tell us the premise of Tale of Two Vampires?
Katie: The official blurb says it much better than I can:
Time isn’t always on a vampire’s side…
Iolanthe Tennyson has had a very bad year—due in part to the very bad men in her life. So, she’s accepted her cousin’s invitation to spend the summer in Austria indulging in her photography hobby. There, rumors of a haunted forest draw Iolanthe into the dark woods—and into the eighteenth century…
Nikola Czerny is a cursed man, forced by his half-brothers to live forever as a Dark One. But his miserable existence takes an intriguing turn when a strange, babbling woman is thrown in his path. Iolanthe claims to know Nikola’s daughter—three hundred years in the future. She also knows what fate—in the form of his murderous half-brothers—has in store for him. If only she knew the consequences of changing the past to save one good, impossibly sexy vampire…
TRC: You write in many different genres, such as paranormal (vampires, dragons), contemporary romance, historical romance, and YA. Do you have a favorite, if so why?
Katie: Really, all of them are favorites. I learned early on that writing something I didn’t love was not only painful to write, it was worse to read. So henceforth, I make sure that I really love the book before I start writing it. And that goes for genres—I love my dragons, but I also love the vamps, the contemps, and so on. Sometimes I get in the mood to write one over the other—that happened a couple of years ago when I suddenly decided I HAD to write a contemporary—but for the most part, I love all the genres equally.
TRC: Also how are you able to jump between paranormal(vampires & dragons) and historical, as you have been doing? When doing your research, is one genre more difficult then others?
Katie: I love, love, love research, so none of that is difficult. In fact, the more research I have to do, the happier I am (hey, any excuse to buy research books is good with me). As a rule, though, the historicals take more research because they are based on a real time, and I try to keep the anachronisms to a minimum. The paranormals are much more easy to research because I do much of the world building on my own, pausing to dip into various mythologies now and again if I need something special.
TRC: Is there any other genre you are interested in writing, or would you like to return to YA again?
Katie: The YAs where a blast to write, and I don’t think I’d have an issue tapping into my inner-sixteen-year-old again, but right now, my time is better spent writing adult books. That doesn’t mean I won’t go back to YAs someday—I just need the write story to tempt me into it.
TRC: What are you currently working on?
Katie: Right now I’m editing the first book in a new paranormal series. The book is very, very late due to my husband’s death this summer, and my publisher has been wonderful about letting me have extra time to get back into the swing of writing. Once I’m done with the editing on that, I’ll be diving into the sequel. And after that…I’m not sure if I’ll write a vampire book, a dragon book, or something else. That’s just too far ahead for my brain to consider.
LIGHTNING ROUND
Favorite Food: Pizza. No, salt and vinegar chips. Wait…milk chocolate. Orange milk chocolate. Um. Homemade spaghetti. Crap. I can’t pick. There’s so many yummy things!
Favorite Movie: Right now my favorite movie is the Rifftraxed version of a truly horrendous movie called Birdemic. The guys at Rifftrax—they used to be Mystery Science Theater 3000—did a commentary track for Birdemic that literally made me cry I was laughing so hard. And when I watched it with some friends earlier this year, they loved it so much that now we randomly quote lines from it. I highly recommend the Rifftrax version, and will even gladly plug it: http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/birdemic
Favorite TV Show: Chopped. I love cooking competition shows, and Chopped makes me very happy because it stumps chefs with bizarre food combinations.
Favorite Author: Agatha Christie. You can’t go wrong with one of her books.
Last book that you read: The last book I finished was Eton: A Dame’s Story (yeah, I have odd taste). The books I’m reading right now include an 1871 bound volume of the Illustrated London News, Edward and Alexandra, A Short History of England, and the Visual Guide to Lock picking.
Favorite Character from books you have read: I’ve spent ten minutes trying to pin down just one character, and I every time I think I have one, I think of someone else. So I’m just going to go with a couple of my favorites because yes, I am that wishy-washy. In the romance world, one of my favorite characters is Adam from Roberta Gellis’s Fire Song. In the mystery world, I love Detective O’Yee from William Marshall’s Yellowthread Street series. In fantasy, gotta be Barry Hughart’s Number Ten Ox. And in children’s literature—the Lewis Carroll’s White Knight.
TRC: Thank you, Katie for answering our questions. We look forward to continuing to read your books, and to work with you again in the future.
Katie: Thanks so much for having me at The Reading Café! I much appreciate you including me.
If you would like to learn more about Katie, you can visit her at the following links:
Website: http://katiemacalister.com/
Twitter:
Facebook:
Goodreads:
Katie has graciously offered to give four members of The Reading Cafe a $25 gift certificate for her favorite shop, Loomingmoon on Etsy. http://www.etsy.com/shop/loomingmoon.
1. You must be a member at The Reading Cafe. If you are not a member, please register using the Log-In at the top of the page, or by using one of our social log-ins.
2. If you are using a social log-in e.g. Twitter, please leave your email address along with your comment.
3. Please post a comment and say hi to Katie.
4. Giveaway open to U.S. & Canada Only
5. Contest runs from October 14th – 17th.
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