Reading and Writing Addiction was able to catch up with Margo Bond Collins, Author of Waking Up
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| Margo Bond Collins, Author of Waking Up Dead |
Dead, for an interview. We are pleased to share this insightful interview today with our readers.
RAWA: When did you first discover that you were a writer?
MBC: I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember. I told stories before I could write, and wrote them down as soon as I learned how to write.
RAWA: What is your favorite part of writing?
MBC:I love getting lost in the worlds in my imagination, in those moments that feel like the words pour out on their own and it’s all I can do to keep up with them.
RAWA: What do you think is the most challenging aspect of writing?
MBC: Editing! Even when I know it will make my story and my writing stronger, I dread having to try to decide what to cut and what to keep.
RAWA: Tell us about your latest release.
MBC: In Waking Up Dead, Callie Taylor is murdered in Dallas, but instead of going to Heaven or Hell, she winds up as a ghost in Alabama. She doesn’t know how or why she’s there, but when she sees another woman murdered, she knows she can’t rest until the killer is brought to justice.
RAWA: How did you come up with the title of your book?
MBC: My grandmother used to warn us that if we weren’t careful, we would wake up dead some day. It’s an old Texas saying and it always made me laugh. When Callie’s story came to me, I could almost hear my grandmother’s voice.
RAWA: Who are some of your favorite authors?
MBC: Lois McMaster Bujold, Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Messer, Ilona Andrews, Carrie Vaughn, Rachel Vincent, Janny Wurts, Holly Black, Faith Hunter . . . and too many more to list!
RAWA: What do you think has influenced your writing style the most?
MBC: In my other life, I’m a college writing and literature professor. The process of getting a Ph.D. in English forced me to learn to pare down my writing and to make it as clear and direct as possible. Working with students to help them improve their writing has taught me what sorts of problems I should look for in my own writing. And finally, reading some portion of everything from the classics of Homer through modern graphic novels has taught me to take inspiration where I find it.
RAWA: As a writer what is the accomplishment that you are most proud of?
MBC: I have two novels coming out in the next eighteen months, but they were accepted by different publishers within two weeks of one another; having both of them accepted so quickly made for an excellent month!
RAWA: How did you get published?
MBC: I made a list of publishers who were interested in works in my genre and submitted to all of them. I kept a running list of where I had submitted, and when rejections came in, I crossed that publisher off the list.
RAWA: Do you have any advice for writers looking to get published?
MBC: Ignore rejection! The very best advice I ever got was to keep writing and keep submitting; just because one or two or a dozen or fifty publishers turn down your book doesn’t mean that it’s not good—it just means that the right publisher hasn’t seen it yet. Don’t get bogged down in waiting to hear back about your current submission; just keep moving forward on your work in progress (and always have a work in progress!).
Waking Up Dead by Margo Bond Collins is published by Solstice Publishing and available at Amazon.com
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