EKKO Mysteries has long admired hard working
authors, which is why we started the EKKO Mysteries Author Spotlight Series,
focusing on emerging authors and their stories.
This time we bring you
Margo Bond Collins, author of,
Waking Up Dead
Was there a moment or specific event that
made you commit to writing?
I’ve
always known that I wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. The
first story I remember actually writing down was basically fan-fiction of The
Wizard of Oz. I wrote it in long-hand in a yellow legal pad. I’ve been
writing ever since.
What is the working title of your book?
Waking
Up Dead
Where did the idea come from for the book?
What genre does your book fall under?
I
wrote Waking Up Dead, a paranormal mystery, when I lived in Alabama for
a few years. I remember driving to work one morning and seeing just a wisp of
fog move across the statue in the middle of the town square. The statue was of
some Civil War figure, and thought that it looked oddly ghostly. In between
teaching classes that day (I’m a college professor in my other life), I started
writing Callie’s story.
How would you describe the pace of the
story?
It’s
a fast-paced murder mystery. Callie, the ghostly protagonist of the novel,
witnesses a murder, and everything takes off from there.
Which actors would you choose to play your
characters in a movie rendition?
Callie:
Jennifer Lawrence
Ashara:
Kat Graham
Maw-Maw:
Ruby Dee
Stephen:
Chris Hemsworth
Clifford
Howard: Adoni Maropis
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your
book?
When
Callie Taylor died, she expected heaven or hell; she got Alabama.
Is your book self-published, published or
represented by an agency?
It
is published by Solstice Shadows Publishing.
How long did it take you to write the first
draft of your manuscript?
Six
weeks—the first novel I ever wrote was during National Novel Writing Month
(www.nanowrimo.org) and I’ve used that method ever since!
How have your friends and family influenced
or helped you in the writing process?
Absolutely! The feisty grandmother Maw-Maw in
Waking Up Dead is actually largely based on a combination of my own grandmother
and great-grandmother--the only real difference is that they were white and
from Texas rather than black and from Alabama. Otherwise, she talks like them
and acts like them. It's my great-grandmother's voice I hear in my head when I
write her dialogue, my grandmother's movements I see when I picture her walking
around. Physically, I imagine her looking a bit like Ruby Dee in the television
movie version of The Stand. But her attitude? That's straight from my
own family!
What other books would you compare this
story to within your genre?
That’s
a tough one. The narrator is pretty snarky, especially when she’s out of her
depth, so it’s kind of like Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum mysteries—except
there’s a paranormal element. It’s got a paranormal element that is perhaps
reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton’s early Anita Blake novels—except it’s only
one ghost and (as far as Callie knows) there are no vampires or shapeshifters
or other monsters. Ultimately, I think I drew on a lot of the mysteries and
urban fantasies I’ve read and mashed them all together in one book!
Who or what inspired you to write this
book?
I
read tons of urban fantasy and love just about any kind of fiction with a
paranormal element; there was never any doubt that what I wrote would have a
supernatural slant. But I didn’t know that Waking Up Dead was going to
be a mystery until I had written the first few chapters—I tend to start with a
character and then see what happens. Once I knew I was writing about a ghost, I
knew I wanted to see the world from her point of view. And what she saw when
she watched Molly die made her need to take action.
What else about your book might pique the
reader’s interest?
Here’s
the book blurb: In Waking Up Dead, when Dallas resident Callie Taylor
died young, she expected to go to Heaven, or maybe Hell. Instead, when she met
her fate early thanks to a creep with a knife and a mommy complex, she ended up
in Alabama. Now she's witnessed another murder, and she's not about to let this
one go. She's determined to help solve it before an innocent man goes to
prison. And to answer the biggest question of all: why the hell did she wake up
in Alabama?
What is your favorite response from a
reader?
I
love it when readers contact me to tell me they started the book and then
couldn’t put it down. One of my favorite Amazon reviews says “I crawled into
bed last night intending to just read the first few chapters before bed, and
ended up, well after midnight, bleary-eyed but satisfied at a ripping good read!
I really couldn't stop till I finished and found out how it all ended.”
Great interview! Kudos to Margo
for her hard work!
Where can readers find your work?
Buy
Waking Up Dead on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Dead-ebook/dp/B00FOXWLM8/
Connect
with Margo
Amazon
Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/margobondcollins
Website:
http://www.MargoBondCollins.com
Goodreads
Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/vampirarchy
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