Last month, one of my favorite authors, Keith R. A. DeCandido, took some time away from writing books to answer some questions for me. Here’s part two of our emailed interview. (The intro is here. Part 1 is here.) * * * * * How do you start a project? Do you begin with a [...]

Describe your ideal book signing. Is it in a large chain bookstore, or a smaller independent one? Is there a café? Do they have food and drinks that tie in with your book? What is the audience like? Bookstores with cafes are the worst—blenders whirring, milk being steamed nosily, lots of mindless chatter and the [...]

What are you reading these days? Or, what types of things do you like to read when you have time? Writing nonfiction meant I got pulled away from my first love, the novel. I went so far out on a limb, so far from anything I was trained to think or write about, with this [...]

Do you write in longhand first, or do you compose at the keyboard? Tell us about your preferred pens, ink, paper, or platform and program. I usually begin everything writing by hand, with a pencil—Ticonderoga #2s are my favorite, but I’ll take a round pencil over them anytime. Every year I go to my favorite [...]

What question are you never, or rarely, asked in interviews, that you really wish people would ask? How would you answer it? “How has doing this book changed your idea of America?” I’d start by talking about how skewed our idea of ourselves as a people has been by official history, then talk about the [...]

This post marks the first of what I hope will be many author interviews. The questions are generic, and each author may use as much or as little space as he or she likes. I have not edited content, only format. Most recently published work (as of this posting): The Earth Knows My Name: Food, [...]