Post by Angie Taylor

Thank you D.L. Colon for being a part of BOD’s author spotlight interview.  It’s a fun opportunity for the members to get to know you better.

It’s a pleasure to be here.  I want the members to get to know me better.  I’d like to thank you for taking the time to interview me and for giving me this opportunity.

D.L., why don’t you tell us how long you have been interested in writing, and what first inspired you to write?

I actually never was very interested in writing. When I was younger I found it too hard to do.  But in my high school days I wrote some poems and song lyrics. I didn’t consider it writing though, it was just a hobby.  Now writing has become something I love to do.

I find it immensely daring to write a book in a language that is not your native tongue.  Can you tell us where you got the guts to pull this off, and what has helped you to accomplish this?

Growing up, I actually liked my English classes. I didn’t pay attention to most of my other classes, but I did in English. I first started The Lost City before my last year of high school.  But when my laptop broke down I forgot about.  I remembered about it when an author I liked made the suggestion I should write my own book.

The things that have helped me accomplish writing a book in English are: the US friends I have made through the internet, and most of all, my friend, Christina Escue, who is my editor.

Tell us a little about Drake in The Lost City: Drake’s Revenge, and what the story is about.

Drake’s a Hybrid born from a love that shouldn’t have happened, between an Angel and a Demon.  In The Lost City: Drake’s Revenge, he deals with the loss of his parents, and how he can grow from being a cocky ass boy who doesn’t care about anyone but himself to a man who finds purpose in life and humanity.

The Lost City reads a lot like a fantasy sci-fi book, but the fact that a war between the angels and demons causes the destruction of the world, brings an apocalyptic thread to it.  Can you tell us where this idea came from?

I used to read the Bible when I went to church, and I always liked the idea of an apocalypse. When I started writing in my high school days, and I was trying to figure out what to write about, I remembered the apocalypse parts from the Bible that I really liked.  I have always been a gamer, so I decided to put both worlds in my head and this story came to be.

A couple of your characters in The Lost City have to learn to control their powers in order to find their true potential.  Do you believe people should control their actions, or do you think their emotions should allow them to act however they want?

I believe people have the option to do what they want to do, but I also think people should take responsibility for their actions. I think control is needed, but you must find it inside yourself and not let your actions dictate what will happen to you in the next stage of your life. I have been in control of my choices most of my life, but I had to learn things in a way not many will go through. In my case, I was forced to learn in order to survive, and not because I chose to. It was my only option.

What can we expect for Drake in the future, and where do you see your writing taking you?

Well, you can expect him to go through a lot of situations.  His part is never done, just like many of the characters in my story. We are at war after all, and anything can happen when you least expect it. I hope, in the future, that I can make a movie of the book, or a game.  But mostly I hope my writing will take me to events, help me meet new people, make trips to promote my books (hopefully), and have a peaceful life.

What are some fun facts you’d like all of us at BOD to know about you as a writer?

Hmm, funny. I don’t know.  But I like Japanese music. I listen to music while writing. It helps me concentrate. I don’t like the silence in my room when I write. I sing to the Japanese songs, even though I’m pretty sure I’m messing it up. 🙂

If you weren’t pursuing writing, what other job opportunities would you like to undertake?

Actually, it wasn’t in my plans to become writer.  I have a degree in culinary arts, and I would love to put that to the test.  I will someday.

Dayron, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you better.  Thank you for sharing your time and writing with us!

The pleasure is all mine, and thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it. I hope we can do this again in the future.

THE LOST CITY: DRAKE’S REVENGE

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Life in the World was simple. As always there was war, poverty, power struggles and a new leader for different years, until 2014. That was when the trumpets were heard.

What many thought was the coming of God was, instead, a race for survival. The heavens opened up, not to receive new souls, but it opened to release the battalions of heaven’s warriors against a known enemy, The Demons of Hell. The Demons of Hell, led by Raphael, came with one thing in mind, Total Annihilation of The Angels of Heaven. The Angels of Heaven, led by Gabriel and given free reign by God, came with one thing in mind, Total Supremacy over The Demons of Hell. Since they needed neutral ground to fight against each other they used the one available, Earth.

Humanity was pushed to the brink of destruction during the war and people with abilities came to exist in the middle of the conflict. There was a decision made by each side to use one of their Lieutenants to gather intelligence from the enemy. The Angels chose Maria Faith for this task and Hell chose Simon Black. What neither side expected was for Maria and Simon to fall for each other. Even though they kept fighting the war for their sides on Earth, they were quickly losing interest in the battle. They decided to leave the war and build a life together. Both Heaven and Hell kept watch on them but left them alone until something happened. Maria became pregnant with Simon’s son. On top of everything else, the boy was half Angel and half Demon.

Heaven and Hell couldn’t let the boy live so they plotted to kill him. Maria and Simon, who named the boy Drake Blackfaith, found out about this before the attack and they took Drake to a Guild named Never Too Late. They left Drake with the Guild and a letter, which he was to be given on his 25th birthday. The day of the attack, instead of killing Maria and Simon, Heaven captured Simon and Hell captured Maria. Both of them were to be tortured into revealing the location of Drake. Both Heaven and Hell wanted him because of a prophecy that was passed down 600 years before that says….

On the eve of his 25th year, Heaven and Hell cannot do anything except hide, his wrath and hate cannot be stopped. Both of his sides will unite, to save or destroy what’s left of Earth. Heed my warning, for it will come to pass. Nothing can stop it, it’s just a matter of time…..
Now the year is 3014 and the war still rages on. Drake is approaching his 25th birthday and this is where our story begins…

ABOUT D.L. COLON

Find D.L. on Facebook

Hello Readers. My name isn’t really D.L. Colon, but it is a play off of my real name. I am 23 years old and live in Puerto Rico. I started writing my first novel last year and I just recently published it. For me writing was a learning experience because my first language is Spanish and even though I speak English pretty fluently, grammar is not my strong suit. It may surprise you, but until four years ago I hated reading. I found my love for reading, and my inspiration to write, when I read The Summoner by Gail Z. Martin.

I have a Culinary Arts degree, which I’m planning on using when I move to the US early next year. On an interesting note, I got the idea for my first book, The Lost City: Drake’s Revenge, from playing video games. I’m a gamer at heart, a writer by chance and a chef because it’s something I love. I’m currently writing my second novel, which is the second book in The Lost City series. I hope you all enjoy my first novel and continue on with the series when the rest are released.

Another great edition of WRITING PROMPT last Friday. You can view the original prompt here. Author Lisa Vasquez’s winning entry left us wanting more! Read her story below.

The sun was setting behind the horizon and the sky burned with the colors of dusk. The looming presence of the train stood against the backdrop menacingly. We all stood there in silence, trepidation causing a mass wave of fear. Six months. To us, having lived in isolation for that long, it was a lifetime. Steel against steel, it let out a final hiss followed by a high pitched squeal signaling that it had come to rest on the tracks. A collective gasp washed over the growing crowd who watched with curiosity. The Judges had arrived.

Curling his fingers through the chain link fence, Leo nodded softly and swept his gaze toward the section of women where Julia was already watching him. Since the Plague had eradicated most of the world and left the remaining survivors to fend for themselves in this small, simple village, the two had formed a bond. Between them they cared for the sick, the orphaned, and the despondent. By default, the others looked to them for everything.

As if on cue, the large door of the first car opened and the seven men began to exit dressed in the long, black cloaks that merged both priest and judiciary into one. When they reached the fence, the train let a blow of its horn fill the silence before the Guardian emerged dressed in stark contrast. Her white robes billowed in the wind before she took her first step toward Leo.

She made no rush of her pace, revelling in the anxiety she induced. When she reached Leo and removed the mask, her cold smile chilled him to the bone. This seemed to please her even more.

“Let’s skip the formalities, Leo. Bring me the infant.”

It’s so fun that I get to chat with you about your book Pandemic.  Thank you so much Yvonne for taking the time to be a part of BOD’s author spotlight interview.  We’re so happy to have you!

Thank you! BOD is an amazing group, so I’m thrilled to be interviewed here.

Before we get into Pandemic, tell us how you got into writing.  Was it something you’ve always wanted to do, or have done?  Or does it come from a love of reading?

I still have old poems from around sixth and seventh grade. I was always an avid reader, and wanting to work with words seemed like a natural extension of that. I took my first formal creative writing classes in college but didn’t write seriously until my children were born.

Will you please tell us about Pandemic, and what inspired you to write it?

Here’s a blurb about the story:

In Pandemic, only a few people know what caused Lilianna Snyder’s sudden change from a model student to a withdrawn pessimist who worries about all kinds of disasters. After her parents are called away on business, Lil’s town is hit by what soon becomes a widespread fatal illness. With her worst fears realized, Lil must find a way to survive not only the outbreak and its real-life consequences, but also her own personal demons.

In terms of what inspired me, I’ve always been fascinated with disaster situations. For example, I loved Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. When the Swine Flu pandemic occurred in 2009, it wasn’t particularly lethal, but it did make me wonder. What if a virus was extremely contagious and caused a high death rate? And what if a teen girl had to survive the illness on her own?

Pandemic is more about the experience during the disaster than the aftermath.  I found it interesting to think about not only the practical implications of a contagious disease, like potential food shortages, but also about how fear would change social interactions. Dire circumstances can bring out the best and the worst in people and I wanted to explore that in this story.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Pandemic.  I love how informative it was from beginning to end.  Does the knowledge you write about come from personal experience of what to do in an emergency, or from research?

I’m happy you liked it. 🙂

I did a lot of research, starting with the Spanish Influenza of 1918, then reading about current emerging infectious diseases as well. (I recommend Spillover by David Quammen and Emerging Epidemics by Madeline Drexler.)

The story is set in New Jersey and I was able to find planning documents online, as well as interview a local health officer. He spoke frankly about the H1N1 experience and gave me insight into what problems could potentially occur if a more deadly pandemic struck.

By the way, I thought because of my research that I was well prepared for an emergency. In the midst of writing the novel, we were hit by a severe October ice storm and lost power for about ten days. I quickly found the flaws in my efforts. And there were many! (For example, we didn’t have an easy way to recharge our multiple cell phones.)

I include information about pandemics and preparedness on the Resources section of my website.

I find it ironically scary to have read this book the same week a patient with Ebola was admitted to a hospital in America.  How do you feel about this?

Ebola is frightening. The disease obviously differs from bird flu—it has a longer incubation time, for example, and it’s not airborne. But it seems incredibly difficult to protect the medical staff needed to treat it. The spread of the disease is very worrisome.

The sexual assault sub-plot was so well handled in Pandemic.  Why did you put this sub-plot in a story about a viral epidemic?

I wanted to create a story where the main character is in a difficult place at the onset, even before the disease strikes, so that she must find a way to heal and become stronger during the crisis. The sexual assault was an integral part of Lil’s character for me.

I was also interested in the moral dilemma of whether or not we would help others if it puts us at risk. Since Lil’s philanthropy leads to harm prior to the outbreak (it’s after a food drive that she’s assaulted), she struggles to become altruistic again.

Now tell us some fun facts about yourself.  Do you have a favorite treat you like to eat when you’re writing or reading?

I love hot drinks while I’m writing— coffee, tea, hot chocolate—even during the summer. And I’m a big fan of Hershey kisses as a reward for a creative, productive session. I also like Skinny Pop popcorn but it messes up the keyboard if I eat it while I’m typing, so I have to save that as an editing treat.

Do you have a writing ritual or routine you do to get you in the writer’s zone?

It’s not exactly a routine, but in August and September, I participated in WritingChallenge.org. (I’m taking October off from the group to focus more on Pandemic publicity.) The idea is to write 500 words or edit for one hour each day for the month, tweeting and tracking your daily progress. It’s a great way to feel accountable for getting the work done, and like BOD, the group is friendly and supportive.

If you could do one thing differently about your writing career, what would it be?

Earlier in my career, I tended to rush the fiction writing process and I often felt “done” when more revisions were needed. Writing a novel takes a long time for me, and I wish I had realized sooner that leaving a manuscript alone for days (even weeks) between revisions is a good and necessary step.

Thanks for sharing your time with all of us at BOD, and for creating awesome stories to get lost in!

You’re welcome. As a special offer to BOD members in the US, if anyone wants a bookmark for Pandemic,  email me the address.

Keep reading to learn more about Pandemic and Yvonne!

PANDEMIC

An excerpt from the opening pages of Pandemic.

I stood on the smoking corner behind school reveling in my aloneness. Not many smokers had the same schedule, which made the corner the perfect place for solitude. We always stayed a foot off the high school property, near the big oak tree, and since we were allowed to leave during last period study hall, we weren’t technically breaking any rules.

As if rules mattered.

“Hey, got a light?” Jay Martinez asked, interrupting the quiet. In the fall, he’d moved from Arizona to live with his aunt down the block from my house.

I handed him my half-smoked cigarette. Cupping the burning ember, he used it to light his own. He didn’t fit in with the other smokers, but then neither did I. My black clothes, basic ponytail, and minimal makeup placed me in my own category. Maybe Lazy Goth. But the nice thing about smokers was that they didn’t exclude anyone.

“Thanks.” Jay passed my cigarette back to me.

“Is New Jersey always this cold in April?”

Being the new guy at school made Jay the flavor of the month with the other sophomore girls. They craved him in a nauseating kind of way. He was dark, tall, and lanky, and tended to over-communicate. Totally not my type. Now he ruined my aloneness with weather chatter. I shrugged so he’d get the idea that I wasn’t in a talking mood.

“Ethan was hoping to run into you,” he said.

Another shrug. I’d managed to avoid my ex for months. No reason to change the pattern now.

“So . . . do you have Robertson for bio?” he asked.

I nodded. Jay definitely wasn’t taking the hint.

“What are you doing your report on?”

“Emerging diseases,” I said, finally giving up on staying silent.

“Cheerful stuff.”

The school projects I chose did favor the dark this semester. American history report? The decision to drop the bomb. English book talk? A collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. Thematically, Ebola hemorrhagic fever fit right in.

“What are you writing about?” I flicked the accumulated ashes. “Lung cancer?”

He smiled. “The biology of taste. I write restaurant reviews on my blog and that was the closest topic I could think of. Do you like eating at restaurants?”

Leaning slightly forward, he held eye contact a little too long for me. Was he flirting? Nervous, I pulled my sweater tighter around me and crossed my arms. A flirtatious guy was the absolute last thing I needed in my life. No boyfriends, no coy conversations for me. Not anymore.

Buy Pandemic: Indiebound |  Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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ABOUT YVONNE

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest

Before becoming a children’s writer, Yvonne Ventresca wrote computer programs and taught others how to use technology. Now she happily spends her days writing stories instead of code. Yvonne’s the author of the young adult novel Pandemic, available since May from Sky Pony Press. Yvonne’s other writing credits include two nonfiction books for kids: Avril Lavigne (a biography of the singer) and Publishing (about careers in the field). You can visit her website at www.YvonneVentresca.com.

BOD author Ann Christy won this week’s Writing Prompt over in the group. Check out the original post here and then read Ann’s winning story below!

“That’s ridiculous!” Emma cried. “There are no trolls. And if there were, they wouldn’t live on top of bridges, but under them.” She rolled her eyes at Gary. He might be twelve and she nine, but she wasn’t a baby.

“It’s true. I swear,” he said, an annoyingly superior look on his face.

“Then prove it.” The ultimate challenge issued, she crossed her arms and leaned back against the bridge.

Gary huffed, momentarily at a loss, then hissed, “Fine. Tonight!”

—–

Emma woke in a panic, Gary’s hand over her mouth. When she saw her brother, she pushed him away, sat up in bed and punched him in the chest.

“What’s that for?” he half-whined, half-whispered, rubbing the spot.

She waved him off, got up and dressed. Silently, they snuck downstairs, donned their outerwear and left the house. At the bridge, their flashlights darted about, chasing creepy night sounds.

“Let’s go.” His voice was shaky, perhaps reconsidering this course of action.

Emma felt victory close at hand and winning would be delicious. She wasn’t having any wavering. She charged toward the bridge’s center, her boots clomping loudly.

Gary hesitated, then followed. Under the little building, Emma faced him. She felt brave now, convinced of her rightness. He’d tried to scare her. He’d lost. Emma shone her light up toward the hole in the building’s bottom. Nothing peered back, no croaking voice demanded a toll.

“See,” she said.

Gary started, his flashlight bouncing around, his breathing suddenly harsh. “Shh. I heard something.”

Again, Emma rolled her eyes, patience gone. Then Gary squeaked and crouched a little, fear blossoming on his face. Emma looked up again and saw what he saw. A pair of orange eyes framed by a green face leaned out of the hole above. Then another pair. Then another.

Post by Angie Taylor

This week I had the amazing privilege of interviewing fellow BOD member and author Ilsa J. Bick. Please enjoy this awesome author spotlight interview!

Thank you so much, Ilsa, for taking part in our BOD author spotlight interview. I know all our BOD members are so excited to hear from you!

My pleasure. I love knowing that all those hours spent hunched over a hot keyboard actually means something to someone besides my cats, who really only see me as the Can Opener.  But you take what you can get.

You have done so many interesting things in your life, and have had many different careers. When did you know that writing was going to stick?

Gosh, I don’t know. I’d like to say that it snuck up on me gradually. See, as a writer, you start out with small goals—or, at least, I did. First, all I ever wanted was to write nonfiction essays on film and television. Then my husband dared me to write a story; he thought I was afraid to because I might actually like it. So then it was . . . finish a damn story. Then it became publish a story. Then, it was a couple stories, and then that morphed into what was my biggest goal: to write a Star Trek book.

Hey, you think I’m kidding? Look, Captain Kirk was serious beefcake in my day. So that was definitely something in my sights. I even remember telling an editor that all I wanted was to hold a Trek book in my hand that I had written.

But, you know . . . it’s always something new and more and different. Once you’ve accomplished something, you need to keep moving, or you become boring, and I knew that I really couldn’t stick with Trek forever because I kept thinking bigger and broader.

A very wise writer once told me that every book should be a challenge; that you’re always about trying something new. I guess you could say that I got addicted to that idea. I love learning new things. In fact, researching topics and learning new stuff is one of the most exciting and gratifying things about being a writer. My mind is a kind of magpie. You know, these are birds that see something glittery and think, Oh, that would look great in my nest and Wow, that’s a pretty shiny thing. Me . . . I’m like that, gathering scraps of data, interesting facts. I hate being bored, and that’s the thing about being a writer: it’s never boring. Frustrating, yes. Slit your wrists because what you’ve just labored over all day is absolute garbage . . . that happens a lot. But it’s never boring. Drive you to drink, yeah. But never boring.

How have your other careers influenced your stories, and more especially, Ashes?

It’s so interesting you ask that. I was just thinking about my past lives: Air Force major, child psychiatrist, forensic psychiatrist, film scholar, surgery intern, wannabe actress. You know, past lives aren’t like bad cases of the flu. You don’t get over them, you only move on and, in another context, I once wrote that you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. We are our memories and experiences and dreams, pure and simple.

Gandhi once said, “A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, nothing else,” and so you might say the same of memories and experience. I’ve met a lot of people in pain, and I’ve sat across from a scads of others—I’m talking when I worked with inmates in a women’s prison—who you really wouldn’t want to know or meet on a street, even in broad daylight. So, in my case, I think that when I write, I really want to work my way into a character’s head, squirm into those deep, moist, dark, nasty, very secret places most people hide or don’t want to admit they’ve got. It’s not as simple as understanding what makes them tick; I want to see through their eyes, and I can only do that if I also access everything that’s gone into making them the characters they become on the page.

In terms of ASHES: When I set out to write this trilogy, I was very clear from the get-go that my book had to be as real as possible and not one more in a seemingly endless (and boring) array of books about the world centuries after a plague, a virus, blah, blah. So, the science is pretty real. What I present—massive waves of electromagnetic pulses that effectively throw the world into a preindustrial black hole—could conceivably happen. Congress has known that for years, and if you think what went down in Fukushima was bad, imagine what might happen if all reactors went off-line with no ability to keep them from melting down or the water cooling those spent fuel rods from boiling away.

So now we’re talking about a world where things are going from bad to worse, and people struggle to stay alive. By the way, all that survivalism is real, too. Making debris shelters, purifying water, making fires—all that and much more—are things I’ve done and techniques that will keep you alive if the worst happens. Mind you, I didn’t say comfortable; we’re not talking toasty slippers before a hearth, but you can make it if you know basic survival tricks. Ditto the medical stuff, too, and the surgical procedures. Been there, done that, bought the tee-shirt.

Also, having served in the military definitely played into what I did with the trilogy (and in almost all my writing). First off, my dad was in the Air Force; I served at the same base he did; and I’ve been around military folks in some capacity all my life. I treated a lot of servicemen and women who were doing jobs that took them away from their families, exposed them to immense stress, and—in some cases—nearly broke them. I have nothing but admiration and a tremendous amount of respect and compassion for their sacrifice. When I think of what soldiers endure to keep me and everyone else in this country safe to enjoy the freedoms others want to take away, or hear the National Anthem, or see a bunch of soldiers hanging out? I can get pretty choked up. I’m not embarrassed by that either; it merely reflects how strongly I feel.

I’ll be honest, too. I don’t think that enough people truly understand what it’s like to be in the military. They may sympathize and they can be supportive, but that’s not the same. There is no sense of shared burden or sacrifice here as there is in other countries where service is mandatory. As unpopular as the draft was, if you think back to how many young men and women lined up to serve in World War II, it’s not right when that kind of patriotism—that sense that we’re all in this together—is so lacking.

I know some people who treat military members the same way they do guns—wouldn’t touch ’em with a ten-foot pole—and that’s just a shame. What troubles me even more is the notion of the military—and, by extension, war—as things most kids know only from playing computer games. They glorify it, and they shouldn’t because combat is ugly and the cost is high. So I bring a lot of that when I deal with characters like Tom and even Alex: people who’ve seen a lot of combat and death.

Teachers always ask me about the violence quotient in the trilogy: like, I should be bothered because I make the violence so realistic and in your face. My response is this. Nothing I do is any worse than any video game or movie. More to the point, I try very hard to dwell on what happens to the person who pulls the trigger. A lot of books don’t. Video games never do. But I remember the first time I shot a .45. I remember how I felt; how I nearly peed my pants; how I was shaking—because firing a gun and understanding that you now have the power to take a life is a visceral, humbling experience. It shouldn’t be glorified, and the idea of blowing someone away is most certainly not fun. So I want my readers to get that, too. The person who pulls that trigger pays a price.

As a reader, I love discovering characters who appear normal but end up having special powers. I especially loved that this happens to some of your characters in Ashes. Why do you think readers are so drawn to protagonists who exhibit supernatural strengths?

I don’t think that it’s anything more mysterious than a good story almost always involves ordinary people put in extreme and extraordinary circumstances. Supernatural abilities are just one manifestation of this “specialness.”

Then, too . . . and I’m not being condescending, but it’s true . . . teenagers, in particular, need to believe that they are special in some way. Think about it: you’re being asked to leave everything you’ve known, all the people who’ve taken care of you, and strike out on your own, whether that’s in college or a job or whatever. Well, that takes extraordinary courage, for one—it really does—and a belief in your own specialness, for another. If you didn’t believe that you could conquer that great unknown beyond your parents’ front door . . . why ever would you turn the knob? Boil them all down, and that’s what these stories are: they are coming of age narratives, when a young person is thrust into a position of having to face a hostile, unknown world and, in doing so, discovers an unknown strength (or has it imposed on him/her).

You illustrate so clearly in Ashes how delicate the mind is, and yet at the same time, show what a magnificent machine it is. What interested you in focusing on this dynamic in Ashes?

Gosh . . . I don’t know? I guess that, as a shrink, I’m always interested in the mind driven to the brink or an extreme. I don’t stint here either because one thing I do know as a shrink who’s crawled through some pretty slimy sewers of the mind: people can be quite brutal and no one ever does what he imagines he would when his life is on the line. In my books, we see people making choices and doing some fairly horrible things because I think that reflects reality. That’s what interests me: the rules people are willing to break and the compromises they’ll make just to survive. People say, I’ll never do this or that. I say, Baloney. You don’t know because you’re not there yet. Talk to me when you’re starving, or someone’s holding a gun to your kid’s head. Conversely, I am also intensely interested in what things are truly worth dying for—and I don’t think there’s a single answer for everyone.

To my mind, it’s also not enough to simply survive. I want to understand what it means to live.  I see this novel—and the entire trilogy—as a journey as the principal characters fight to carve out some kind of life for themselves in a world gone to pieces.

In Ashes, the majority of the humans portrayed lose their humanity pretty quickly when they feel threatened. Do you think, for the most part, that we as humans would really act like this if faced with similar circumstances?

Without question. Just turn on the evening news, if you don’t believe me. Or go read some history. My dad is a Holocaust survivor; the Nazis came for him when he was just a little boy, and he was in three different concentration camps before he was finally shipped west and out of Europe to America. The rest of his family, except his grandmother, all died in Auschwitz.

We act in depraved ways now, not only to one another but to the other inhabitants on this Earth who have no advocates and whom we drive into extinction simply because we can or believe our needs are so very much more important. Trust me: humanity can always be counted on to live down to your lowest expectations. The hard part is not to stand by and think someone else will fix it for you. You want something to change? You want something better? Then get off your butt and make it happen.

If you were to develop a super sense, what would it be, and what would you use it for?

Bless me, I don’t know. I’d rather have a superpower, to be honest. Like . . . I wouldn’t mind being able to fly. Or read minds. Except then I’d know what you really think about me.

Use it for? Heck, I don’t know. You know if I could fly, my carbon footprint would be really low. That’s something.

Out of all the characters you have created, which one do you feel you’re most like, and which one would you most like to be similar to?

You’re going to think this is a cop-out, but they’re all me. They have to be because they all came out of my head. So I understand and feel like every single one of them, even my villains.

Of all the stories you’ve written, is there any one in particular that’s nearest to your heart?

Nope. Every book I write is my baby of the moment. I have to feel that way in order for the book to have any life at all.

Can you tell us anything about your work in progress? What’s next for you?

Well, I’m just finishing up proofs of The Dickens Mirror, which is the sequel to White Space and Book II of The Dark Passages Series (Egmont USA). I’m now in hand-to-hand combat with a standalone about love and spiders and lies, tentatively entitled (appropriately enough) Love Among Spiders. With any luck, I’ll either finish this book, or it will kill me.

Ilsa, thank you again for spending a little time with us at Band of Dystopian! It has been such a pleasure!

Thanks for having me!

Ashes Links: Egmont USA | Amazon |Barnes & Noble | Indie Bound | Walmart | Target

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

It could happen tomorrow . . .
 
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.
Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a world that could be ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.

ABOUT ILSA J. BICK

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Ilsa J. Bick is a child and forensic psychiatrist, as well as a film scholar, surgeon wannabe, former Air Force major, and an award-winning, best-selling author of dozens of short stories and novels.  Her YA credits include the critically acclaimed paranormal mystery, DRAW THE DARK (winner of the Westchester Fiction Award, a VOYA Perfect Ten, and Bank Street College 2011 Best Book); the bittersweet DROWNING INSTINCT, a story about a sixteen-year-old girl’s relationship with her chemistry teacher; and THE SIN-EATER’S CONFESSION, a mystery revolving around the murder of a young boy, who may or may not have been homosexual, that was also a 2014 YALSA BYFA and just honored with the 2014 Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction.

ASHES—the first book in Ilsa’s YA apocalyptic thriller trilogy—follows Alex Adair, a 17-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor.  Embarking on what she believes is a one-way journey into Michigan’s north woods, Alex suddenly finds herself fighting to stay alive after a wave of electromagnetic pulses sweeps the globe, crippling power and communications grids and killing most adults, sparing only the very young and the very old while most teenagers are “Changed,” meaning that they not only make an interesting lifestyle change but become people you really don’t want to meet in a dark alley.  ASHES was a 2011 VOYA Perfect Ten; 2012 YALSA Top Ten Teen Nominee; 2012 YALSA Best Fiction Nominee; 2012 Outstanding Book by a Wisconsin Author;  2013 ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers Finalist; 2013-2014 Gateway Award Final Nominee; 2014 Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award Nominee; and 2014 Abraham Lincoln High School Book Award Nominee.  SHADOWS is the second volume, and MONSTERS, released September, 2013 to starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus, rounds out the trilogy.

Ilsa’s latest YA novel is WHITE SPACE: Book I of the Dark Passages series, a  psychological horror/sf YA thriller that’s been pegged as both metatextual—whatever that means—and “a freaking head trip,” which sounds much more to the point.  Think The Matrix and Inception meet Inkheart: a story that revolves around teenagers who may be real or might only be characters plucked from horror novels penned by Frank McDermott (Wisconsin’s Most Famous Crazy Dead Writer).  Now, imagine that they’re all trapped in a bizarre, snow-shrouded, fog-filled valley that has the knack of bringing all their worst nightmares and monsters to life—and you’re getting warm.  The sequel, THE DICKENS MIRROR, will be released in 2015 from Egmont USA.

Ilsa lives with her very tolerant family and other furry creatures across from a Hebrew cemetery in rural Wisconsin.  One thing she loves about the neighbors: They’re very quiet and only come around for sugar once in a blue moon.