Book Tour Interview & Contest: Nancy Holzner

Jen: Today we welcome Nancy Holzner to Romancing the Book, as she makes a stop on her blog tour.  Nancy, will you please share a short bio with us?

Nancy: I grew up in western Massachusetts and went to college in Boston (where my Deadtown series is set). My family's roots are deep in New England, but I've also lived in London, in Alabama, and in upstate New York (where I live now). I started my career as a medievalist; I've also worked as a high school teacher, corporate trainer, editor, and technology writer. My Deadtown books use Welsh mythology as a background, so a focus on medieval studies came in really handy.

Jen: Tell us about Bloodstone and where it can be purchased.
Nancy: Bloodstone is the third book in my Deadtown series. The series features Victory Vaughn, a shapeshifter who kills other people's personal demons for a living. Vicky lives in the Deadtown section of Boston, where all paranormals must live by law, with vampires, werewolves, two thousand sentient zombies, and assorted other creatures for neighbors. Her boyfriend, Kane, is a workaholic werewolf lawyer whose goal is to establish paranormal rights at the federal level. In Bloodstone, a series of ritualistic murders has Boston on edge, and tensions are running high between humans and paranormals. Vicky soon learns that the killer has a connection to her past—and is after much more than blood.

Bloodstone is available at bookstores and through online retailers, such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and the Penguin website.

Jen: At what age did you discover writing? When were you first published? Tell us your call story.

Nancy: I discovered writing at a very young age. From the time I was able to hold a book, I always loved to read. So it didn't take long to start making up my own stories. Through childhood and adolescence, and into college, I wrote all the time. In college, though, I started to think of myself as more of an analytical person than a creative one. I switched my focus to scholarly writing. Eventually I earned a PhD and became an English professor. But I missed writing creatively, and years later I returned to it.

I didn't get a call—I got an email. I was trying to find an agent for a mystery I'd written, titled Peace, Love, and Murder. After I'd queried about 60 agents, one offered to represent me. It took her about a year to sell that manuscript to a small press. After several near misses, I was almost ready to give up and try a different project. Then my agent emailed me that we had an offer from a small press that specializes in hardcover fiction for libraries. I was thrilled. I knew the small print run wouldn't get me on any bestseller lists, but it was such a validation to have a publisher want to buy my book.

Incidentally, that publisher only bought hardcover rights. Later, I released Peace, Love, and Murder as a 99-cent ebook. It's done really well. The ebook edition has been one of the top 20 mysteries in Amazon's Kindle store.

Jen: Are there any other writers, published or not, in your family?

Nancy: My husband Steve has been a professional writer for his entire career, with more than 130 books published. He writes nonfiction and technical books. My sister, Paula Brown, has published a sci fi novel for middle-school students, called Dream Wanderers. And my daughter is a closet writer, but she probably wouldn't want me to tell anyone about that.

Jen: Do you have a writing routine?

Nancy: I try to tackle my daily writing goal first thing in the morning. The Internet is a big distraction for me, so I avoid going online until I've accomplished a good chunk of work. That can be hard—I like to read the news with my morning coffee. But it's so easy to put off work by reading just one more article that I can't let myself indulge.

I'm not a particularly fast writer. During the first draft, I'm happy if I write 1,000-1,500 words a day. If I accomplish that in a morning, I can move on to other things for the rest of the day. If I don't meet that goal, though, I sit in front of the computer until I do.

Jen: Do you have a theme, object or person that appears in all of your stories?

Nancy: Since Deadtown is a series, there's a whole cast of recurring characters. I think a theme that appears in both my mystery series and my urban fantasy series is the need to make peace with the past in order to move forward into the future.

Jen: How much of your actual life gets written into your fictional stories? Have you ever written yourself into a story?

Nancy: My life isn't exciting enough to be made into fiction. Hard to imagine a compelling novel about someone sitting at a computer trying to write 1,000 words so she can get on the Internet. :) That said, I do draw from my life experience when writing fiction. What I mean by that is I take emotions I've experienced in my life and use those to enrich what a character is feeling. Fear, joy, insecurity, grief—I draw on my own experience of these and other emotions in order to make my characters' feelings more real.

Jen: Do you have a favorite character or one you most identify with?

Nancy: One of my favorite characters is Tina, the teenage zombie in Deadtown. She's a lot of fun to write. Deadtown's zombies aren't the typical horror-movie fare. They can speak and think; they have personalities. Tina got caught in the zombie plague when she cut school to go shopping for a dress to wear to a dance. Even though she's restricted to the Deadtown section of Boston and most likely doomed to a life of manual labor, she refuses to give up her dreams. She's self-centered and annoying, but she also has courage and a big heart.

Jen: Who has inspired you as an author?

Nancy: You're asking a former English professor—there are almost too many influential authors for me to list. I'll just name the first urban fantasy authors I first discovered, including Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, and Patricia Briggs—who made the genre seem like so much fun I had to try writing it myself.

Jen: What has been the highlight of your career to this point?

Nancy: Probably when a box full of copies of Deadtown landed on my front porch. That moment proved I wasn't dreaming. The other moment that comes to mind is getting positive blurbs for Deadtown from some of my favorite authors, including Ilona Andrews, Karen Chance, and Devon Monk.

Jen: What’s next for you?

Nancy: I'm currently writing Darklands, the fourth novel in my Deadtown series. In it, Vicky travels to Annwn, the Welsh realm of the dead, to prevent the resuscitation of a Hellion that wants to destroy the human world. I'm also about to release a collection of Deadtown short stories in ebook format, which will include a prequel about the zombie plague that started everything. In addition, a lot of readers have asked for the sequel to Peace, Love, and Murder, my contemporary mystery; I'm having a lot of fun working on that and hope to release it as an ebook this winter.

Jen: Where can you be found on the web?

Nancy: My website is http://www.nancyholzner.com. I'm on Facebook and Twitter, and I also blog once a week with other authors of fantasy and horror at Dark Central Station.

Jen: Is there anything you’d like to ask our readers?

Nancy: How do you define the difference between between urban fantasy and paranormal romance?

Contest details:

• The prize is a bloodstone pendant like the one featured in the book. It's set in .925 sterling silver and comes with a silver chain.
• The contest is open to everyone, international readers included.
• You must leave a meaningful comment for entry.  This means your comment needs to be more than "please enter me in the contest".
• A valid email address needs to be included in your comment.  If you're worried about spam, please modify your address, such as admin.bookblog AT gmail.com.  You can also send a message to this email after your comment has been posted.
• While following the blog isn't required, it is appreciated.
• The contest ends on Wednesday, October 26.

 Purchase Links

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