For our Author Interview this week, we will be joined by Morgan Smith, the author of 'A Spell in the Country' and 'Casting in Stone', both published just this last year.

Welcome Morgan! Let's get started...

David: "So, Morgan, What genre/subgenres do you write in?"
Morgan: "Epic fantasy. Well, sort of. They are somewhere between 'slice of medieval life' and 'epic struggle between good and evil' with a bit of 'swords and sorcery' thrown in…"


David: "How long have you been writing?"
Morgan: "Seriously? About 2 years, for fiction (but one of those years was 1999), but I have also written professionally as a columnist in the local rag, and academically as an archaeologist."


David: "What made you want to be a writer? Or did you always want to write?"
Morgan: "I wrote my first novel on a dare…but then other stories just wouldn’t leave me alone. In a way, though, I always was writing – in my head – telling myself stories."


David: "Who is your favorite author?"
Morgan: "In fantasy, it is Guy Gavriel Kay. Man! That guy can write. But in a wider sense, I think I learned the most from Jane Austen. She really knew how to pace a novel!"



David: "What was the first piece of fiction that you fell in love with?"
Morgan: "Narnia. The entire series. I still go back to it from time to time. Last week, I re-read 'The Silver Chair' to cheer myself up."



David: "What do you enjoy most about writing?"
Morgan: "When the characters do something unexpected but so perfect…when I write a really great piece of dialogue…when I type 'The End' and know that I’ve actually written something worthwhile…I live for those moments."


David: "How long did it take to write your first/last novel?"
Morgan: "'A Spell in the Country' took about 9 months, but I was only writing for a couple of hours each morning, and maybe a little bit in the evenings. 'Casting in Stone' took about three months, but I had all day, every day, and it is shorter novel and in some ways, a smaller story."



David: "What are three words that you would choose to describe your writing style?"
Morgan: "Slightly snarky adventures"

David: "Are your characters inspired by real life people, or do you make them up 100%?"
Morgan: "I refuse to answer this on the grounds that may tend to incriminate me."
David: "haha. Okay, fair enough."


David: "What sort of mood or feelings did you hope to convey to your readers with your latest work?"
Morgan: "Amused fear. It’s a bit darker, in some ways, than 'A Spell in the Country' was, in that the protagonist is a bit…troubled…and some of the things that have happened to her are sad. And she faces, in a way, a much harder test than the main character in 'A Spell in the Country' did. But I tried to keep it light, not make the reader feel it was all unrelieved gloom and doom."



David: "Tell us about the main character of your most recent novel."
Morgan: "Caoimhe is a woman with a past she would like to forget. In fact, she would like to be unfeeling, unemotional. I think she’s on the edge of Asperger’s, really: she watches other people to see what sort of reaction she ought to have, she does that quite a bit. She doesn’t trust her own emotions. She would like not to have any at all, really."



David: "How do you go about building an antagonist?"
Morgan: "Oh, evil’s easy. Evil treads pretty well-worn paths.
I know it isn’t fashionable to have evil villains who are just plain bad to the bone, but I think, in fantasy, we really rather like them. We want that feeling that evil can be resisted, that it can be overcome. We need those stories."
David: "Can you describe for us your writing process?"
Morgan: "Not very well. I think them through, for years, a lot of it. I tell myself the stories. I don’t really start writing anything down, though – I just kind of rehears them over and over, and then, when I’m ready, I sort of plot out the general stuff on paper and then get going."


David: "What kinds of activities do you enjoy besides writing?"
Morgan: "Well, I read a lot. And I am a Viking re-enactor on occasional weekends. And I do some crafts and stuff: I trained, originally, as an artist."



David: "Do you ever need to escape from writing? What do you do to get away?"
Morgan: "Sleep. I am a championship sleeper. 15 minutes and a horizontal surface, that’s all I need. Or Youtubes about esoteric bits of history…Penn State has a whole ton of video lectures on the Silk Road."



David: "What is the hardest part for you as an author? Easiest?"
Morgan: "Getting started is the worst. Every time, I think 'I don’t know how to do this. I can’t do this. The other times were just flukes.' The characters, though, they are easy. I can get that part almost without thinking, and I don’t know why.



David:  "Any author pet peeves?"
Morgan: "Waking up realizing that in your dreams you solved a tricky plot point, and Now You Cannot Remember What That Was!"



David: "Any authors that you feel directly inspired you, your works, or your style?"
Morgan: "Sara Paretsky. She writes these mystery novels with this really tough female detective with a smart alecky mouth and a kind of dogged persistence to her. My husband once said that 'A Spell in the Country' was the fantasy novel that Sara Paretsky would write if she wrote fantasy novels."


David: "Would you say that you were good at english in highshcool? If not, what were you good at?"
Morgan: "I was always good at the soft stuff. Gym, Art, English, History.
Math and science – not so much."

David: "Do you ever get writer's block? If so, what are some ways that you overcome it?"
Morgan: "Not usually for more than a couple of days. But I’ve been blocked at the middle of my new book ('The Shades of Winter') for a solid month. Usually, I try writing other things – short stories – and that generally does work. This time it’s a bit harder, because I’m breaking a big epic fantasy taboo, and I’m having problems resolving how it will affect the big finale."


David: "Any current projects that we can look forward to?"
Morgan: "My first two books are based on Celtic/medieval cultures. This new one is based on the Vikings (well, of course I was going to get around to that, sooner or later!) but still in the same world. It’s got a 'when cultures collide' kind of vibe to it."



David: "What are your long-term goals as a writer?"
Morgan: "Oh, you know: fame, fortune, oppress the working classes…
Seriously? To write the most entertaining books I can. Books that people fall in love with. Books that they wish would never end. It would be nice to make a little money on the side, as well, though."



David: "Are you planning any spin-off novels?"
Morgan: "So far, all the books are connected. They are stand-alone stories, but characters recur, and the events are not…unconnected. I even have a volume of three short stories out there ('On Tollswitch Hill') that tap into the same stuff: minor characters get some expanded time on stage, other threads of things going on that might be related, like that."



David: "What advice would you give to your younger self?"
Morgan: "Don’t waste so much time angsting over stuff. Just do it!"



David: "What advice would you give to aspiring writers?"
Morgan: "Read. Read a lot. Read outside your comfort zone. Don’t analyze it, just absorb it, and don’t rush yourself into writing. Let all that you read and experience settle into your consciousness, and then, when you are into your later twenties, start finding your own voice."



David: "Any other interesting things that you would like your readers to know?"
Morgan: "I am old. I even have a memoir of what it was like to grow up hippie in the sixties out there. Because it was what I sometimes think may have been the last unabashed good time."


David: "That was a great interview Morgan Smith! Thank you so much for being a part of the fun and we look forward to reading your work!"


If you would like to find out more about Morgan Smith and her work, check out the links below!Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/morgansmithauthor/?ref=bookmarks


Blog (Traveling Light)  https://www.facebook.com/morgansmithauthor/?ref=bookmarks


Twitter  @morganauthor1