Author Spotlight: Lucy Snyder

Today’s guest author is a local friend and fantastic author Lucy Snyder! Lucy A. Snyder is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of the novels Spellbent and Shotgun Sorceress and the collections Sparks and Shadows, Chimeric Machines, and Installing Linux on a Dead Badger. Her writing has appeared in Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Hellbound Hearts, Masques V, Doctor Who Short Trips: Destination Prague, Chiaroscuro, GUD, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. She was born in South Carolina but grew up in San Angelo, Texas. She currently lives in Worthington, Ohio with her husband and occasional co-author Gary A. Braunbeck.

We are excited to have her interview on Wicked Jungle and know all you urban fantasy readers out there are going to love her! Keep reading for your chance to win a signed copy of Spellbent!!

Author Spotlight

Name: Lucy Snyder

Porn Star Name: King Thursday Charlotte.

Which sounds like a combination butch lesbian porn star and indie rocker! I feel compelled to explain this one: my first pet (I was 2 or 3) was a king snake I named King Thursday. Thursday, for reasons that are obscure to me now, was apparently my favorite day of the week when I was little.

Website Address: www.lucysnyder.com

Writing Age:

I’d say that content-wise my Spellbent series is for adults, which essentially means well-read middle teens and up. One romance blog gave Spellbent an “R” rating, whereas I’d put it at a PG-13 … I know of several 14-year-olds who’ve read it and they don’t appear to be corrupted/traumatized by it.

My humor collection Installing Linux on a Dead Badger is probably 15 and up, not due to sex or cussing, but because of geeky references that people who aren’t familiar with computers won’t get.  A friend of mine has a computer-loving teenaged son with Asperger’s, and my friend had a hard time getting the boy to read much fiction, but he said his son loved ILDB and it’s sort of been a “gateway” book to other fiction, and that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

First Published Work:

My first novel is Spellbent, which was released by Del Rey in late December 2009.  My first book was Sparks and Shadows, a story collection that HW Press published in 2007.  And my first paid story sale was “Thirteen’s Revolution”, which came out waaaay back in a little magazine called Midnight Zoo … the managing editor, Bob Fleck, moved up in the publishing world and we encountered each other again last year when he became my literary agent.

Current Release:

My second novel, Shotgun Sorceress, will be released in October.  It’s a direct sequel to Spellbent and chronicles the adventures of Jessie, Cooper, the Warlock, and Pal as they get trapped in an isolated West Texas town that is being decimated by a soul harvester named Miko. As they battle Miko and her zombie minions, Jessie discovers a darkness within herself that she must overcome to save the town, her friends, and her own soul.

INSPIRATION AND MUSE

If you could live in any fictional universe/world what would it be?

Wow. This is a tough one, because there are so many intriguing choices! How do you choose between post-Jadis Narnia and the 23rd Century as portrayed in Star Trek? I can safely say, though, that I do not want to live in Gary Braunbeck’s Cedar Hill, Ohio.  Do. Not. Want.

If you could have lunch with any author dead or alive whom would it be and why?

I want to have lunch with author Nalo Hopkinson. She’s a super-cool person, but we haven’t seen each other in ages. And she’s been blogging her lunches lately, and every time she does, I think, “Damn, that sounds really good.”

If you were locked in a room for 48 hours and forced to watch one TV show the entire time, which television series would you choose?

Doctor Who, no question.  48 hours might let me catch up on the new series and put a slight dent in what I haven’t seen of the classic series.

What is the most outrageous or bizarre thing you have done in the name of “research”?

I was a goth for three years. No really, it was research, I’m telling you! I got stories out of it and everything.

What is your latest release?

My latest release is a short story called “Miz Ruthie Pays Her Respects” that appears in Dark Faith, an anthology from Apex Books that came out in May.

What inspired you to write said story/book?

I … can’t talk about that in public. If anyone reads it, and is curious to know the story behind the story, buy me a drink at a convention and I’ll tell you. I will tell you that I was absolutely furious when I wrote it, which you would probably never guess from reading the finished piece.

Fab Five

• Coffee or Tea? I CAN HAZ CAFFEINE YES?
• Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate.
• Vampire or Werewolf? Neither: devils rule!
• Meatie or Veggie? Mostly veggie.
• Salty or Sweet? Both!

Last but not Least–three words that describe you: sly, inscrutable, amused

Win a signed copy of Spellbent!

Once again, a big thanks to Lucy Snyder for joining us at Wicked Jungle. Ask Lucy a question and you are  automatically entered into drawing for a free signed copy of her latest novel Spellbent! And yes, international contestants are eligible.

To get you started, here is a free excerpt of Shotgun Sorceress

The Warlock pulled off the highway onto a dirt road running between two cornfields.

“This should be it,” he said, glancing down at the magic compass he’d brought along. “Karen, you got Riviera’s token?”

“Right here,” she replied, patting the small white beaded purse in her lap. She was wearing a long-sleeved sea-green silk gown and long strings of pearls; the outfit must have dated back to the 1930s, and it looked good on her.

We got out of the Land Rover. The ground was soft and damp, so I was glad I wasn’t in high heels. The weird calliope music of my familiar Pal’s flying spell was loud overhead. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and began to follow Mother Karen and The Warlock down a corn row.

Cooper nudged my backpack. “You could leave that in the car, you know.”

“If something happens, it’s not going to do me a lot of good if it’s locked in the car a mile away.”

“The Seelies are probably just going to make you check it at the door.”

I shrugged. “Checked at the door is still closer than locked in the car.”

We came to a clearing where a battered old scarecrow hung crucified on a couple of rake handles. A cloud of dust rose as Pal touched down, and Cooper spoke an ancient word to turn off his invisibility.

A tin cup had been tied to the straw fingers of the scarecrow’s left hand.  When we got within ten feet of the scarecrow, my stone ocularis started to itch in my skull. I blinked through to the gemview that had shown me the invisible door in Karen’s back yard. I saw an odd double-image of the scarecrow and a set of bronze-reinforced oak doors big enough to admit an elephant.

Read More Here

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