Tour: Interview with Karen Kincy

Today Karen Kincy has stopped by the blog for an interview to promote the release of Bloodborn! Karen Kincy is the author of Other and Bloodborn. Visit her at her website, http://www.karenkincy.com/.


If the characters from Bloodborn got stuck on a deserted island, who would fare the best? The worst? And who would be the one to get them off the island?

Randall, the werewolf who bit Brock, would fare the best on a deserted island. He grew up in Los Angeles in a dangerous neighborhood, and now spends most of his time on the run as an outlaw member of the Bitterroot pack. Survival skills? Check. Street smarts? Check. Ability to change into a wolf at will? Check. I know Brock would hate hearing this, but he would fare the worst on the island—just because he doesn’t know how to control being a werewolf yet, and he would be too obsessed with getting revenge on Randall. The one who would get them all off the island would have to be Brock’s ex-girlfriend, Cyn, who’s definitely the most inventive of them all. She might not look like it, being a tiny and petite person, but she’s much tougher than Brock thinks.


If you could have lunch with one of your characters, who would you choose?

Winema, the Alpha of the Bitterroot Pack. She’s been leading that pack ever since the previous Alpha, John Skerry, froze to death in the northern wilderness of Yukon Territory in Canada—if you remember your Other factoids. She’s defended her pack against hunters, a serial killer, overzealous police, and anyone else who threatens them. I’m sure she would have many tales of badassness to tell.


If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Tough one! I’ve traveled, in this order, to Canada, England (at the airport), France, Germany, and Switzerland (on the train). I loved walking down medieval cobblestoned alleys, standing in the center of cathedrals, and shopping for German beetle-shaped bread, Parisian chocolates, and Breton buckwheat crepes. I would like to go to England—not just a five-hour layover at the Heathrow airport—and explore some of the castles, manor houses, and villages. Ooo, maybe a tour of places in Masterpiece Theatre.

If you could go back in time for one day, where would you choose?

Tempting… let me think. If it were one day in my own life, I’d go back to my first day in France and tell myself not to try to go backwards through the gates in the metro tunnels. No, seriously, it was embarrassing and involved a giant backpack and horrified onlookers. If it were one day at any time, I’d love to visit Ancient Rome, maybe with a jaunt down to Egypt to have a chat with Cleopatra.

Do you have any writing rituals you like to follow?

I like to have my desk tidy, my book soundtrack playing (or an acceptable substitute radio station), my distracting websites closed. If it’s nice weather outside, I like to take the bus to a little park by the Sammamish River and sit beneath the sweet-perfumed linden trees and write on a picnic table with my trusty blue netbook, which I have named Monstre. On a book-geeky side note, I had an epiphany when I realized what Marcel Proust was talking about in his In Search of Lost Time (aka Remembrance of Things Past) when he eats madeleines with linden tea. I bought some of these cakes to test the theory, though I wasn’t brave enough to brew the flowers in a tea.

Which is harder for you to write: The first line? or the last line?

The last line! It’s fun tinkering with first lines, choosing different seeds that will grow different stories, but once I’m nearing the end, I start trying to think of that perfect sentence that will resonate with the reader. It isn’t always easy, since I consider the whole story before adding the cherry on top. My first lines usually never change, but the last ones have changed quite a lot between drafts.

Thanks Karen for stopping by! You can find her on the web at her website, Twitter, and Facebook.