In addition to being entered into the weekly spotlight contest, all commenters on today’s post will be entered into a drawing for the winner’s choice of Shift Happens, Gym Dandy, or Tart & Soul.
Who are your latest crushes (celebrity, book character, or otherwise)?
I’ve been re-watching an 80s vampire show called Forever Knight, and I do find Det. Nick Knight sexy. I like Atticus in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. But I think I’m actually between crushes at the moment. My last huge crush was Dr. Rodney MacKay on Stargate: Atlantis. (I’m all about the characters, rarely the actors.)
Do you ever keep those people in your mind when writing your own works?
You’d think that would be true since I cut my teeth writing fanfic, and indeed, many authors use celebrities or TV characters as a basis for their own. But I prefer to come up with my own people. Within a very few paragraphs, my characters become real people to me. I wish I could hang out with Dolly and Oz or Adrian and Tom.
If you could pick anyone in the world to be the cover model(s) on your latest release, who would it be?
Funny, but a bunch of writer friends and I were talking about that over dinner yesterday. In Few Are Chosen, my POV character is a 19-year-old boy who is tall, with blonde hair long enough to be tied back. I was trying to figure out who, among today’s young actors, would fit that description, and came up blank. Any suggestions?
The love interest, Shadow, is also 19, black, with dark skin tones, knife-sharp cheekbones, soft, generous lips, and a medium-length, natural afro.
I’d love some suggestions.
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What’s your favorite hobby outside of writing?
Dogs. I have two rescued dogs who are the center of my universe. There’s an amazing chain of old-growth forested parkland running through Toronto and I’m there with my dogs every morning before 7:00, winter or summer. It’s good for all of us.
What would constitute your own personal happily ever after?
I’m pretty much living it. My husband and I are childless by choice, but active with our many nieces and nephews. We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood of Toronto. I’m writing full time, and I have two groups of wonderful friends, the first I met over a dozen years ago through fandom, and the second I met three years ago through the RWA (Romance Writers of America). I have an active online life, and a satisfying offline one, as well.
Although we aren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, we are comfortable. And I’ve found a wonderful, cheap place in Mexico to spend a month each winter. San Miguel de Allende is a writer’s paradise, and my husband loves it too. He spent so much time out cruising the town while I wrote, that he became known around town as “Walking Guy.” “Hey, look. There’s Walking Guy!” or “I know you. You’re Walking Guy.”
Do you own an e-reader?
The gals I worked with gifted me with a Kobo as a retirement gift. I wouldn’t have bought one, but it is very handy. Even though I read fanfic on the computer for years and years, I still prefer longer works in hard copy. If anything happened to it, I would probably replace it with an iPad rather than another dedicated e-reader.
Are you a book hoarder?
Not really. If I read a book, I add it to my Excel spreadsheet and then decide, “will I ever look at this again, either for research or for pleasure?” If the answer is yes, I add it to the bookshelves. If the answer is no, out it goes to someone else who might enjoy it.
What’s the one question you wish people would ask you when you tell them you’re a writer?
“Tell me about your work.”
Maybe it’s just me, but a lot of people only ask you a question as a segue to talking about themselves. Author Fran Lebowitz once said, “The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.”
How would you answer it?
I find the people who are genuinely interested in my work are usually older and more literary. So I tell them I write urban fantasy. Of course they don’t know what that is so I clarify by saying, “You know, like with vampires. Or Harry Potter.” Then I lose them.
If you were doomed to spend the rest of your life on an island with only one book, one person, one food (coconuts and fish aside), and one object from the modern world (computer, deodorant, vibrator, etc.), what would they be?
One object: Computer with internet access.
One book: Good Omens by Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
One food: Thai Green Curry. Yum!
One person… hmmm. Someone trained in the art of surviving on a desert island.
Do you have a favorite character out of all the ones you’ve written
Captain Thomas Ferrell from Shift Happens. The guy is so straight-laced and then he ends up working with an entire agency comprised of supernatural beings, and then discovering that he’s a supernatural being himself! He spends have the book stuck in the form of a giant jaguar, with his humanity slipping away.
Here’s the blurb about my uptight Captain: Captain Thomas Ferrell hates the supernatural. But when the Army kicks him out for weird behavior, he signs on with paranormal investigators Borderless Observers Org. Three missions in, Tom’s learned BOO does a lot more than observe. And that their paranormal investigators really are paranormal investigators. Sent to stop a drug operation in the Amazon basin, he’s unwillingly shapeshifted into a huge black jaguar. He believes he must regain his humanity before he can complete his mission. Is he wrong?
Why is he your favorite?
Because he’s fearless and sexy and willing to risk his life to help others, and absolutely nothing like me.
Where are your favorite online hangouts? What are your daily must-stop blogs and websites?
I have a LiveJournal filter that includes all my favorite blogs and I read it every single day. It includes people I know through real life, other m/m writers, agents and editors, and of course, I Can Haz Cheeseburger.
I don’t Facebook much and haven’t really checked out Google+ yet. I do go on Twitter fairly often, but I’m a blogger at heart.
Speaking of online hangouts, where are yours? Where can your readers find you?
Author Name: Gina Grant w/a Storm Grant
Email address: storm.grant@gmail.com
Website: www.StormGrant.com
Blog: http://storm-grant.livejournal.com/
Twitter: @stormgrant
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/stormgrant
Here’s an excerpt from Sucks & Blows, my new release from Riptide Publishing:
Cary was just about to jerk off again when the electronic door chime squawked the first few bars of “Another One Bites the Dust.”
He rushed out to the reception area. “Hello. Welcome to Drewel’s Dentistry!” He hoped he didn’t sound too anxious. And that his residual hard-on wasn’t tenting his racy black dental smock.
That the visitor was tall and handsome, with a muscular build and chiseled cheekbones, did little to dampen Cary’s arousal.
“I . . . I thaw your brothure.” The man held out Cary’s carefully crafted (but badly printed) flyer:
Grand Opening!
Drewel’s Family Dental Clinic
~ Vampires Our Specialty ~“You do vampireth?”
“Absolutely.” Cary grinned. He’d included the vampire reference to show he was the dentist with a sense of humor. And also to attract the Twilight age group, which was ripe for expensive orthodontia.
“Hurths.” The man pointed to his upper lip, red and swollen on either side of his sexy little cupid’s bow.
“I can help you with your dental breakdown, Mr. . . .”
“Tharpe. Pierthe Tharpe.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Sharpe. May I call you Pierce?”
“Thure.” Pierce held out his hand.
“Call me Cary, then.” Cary grasped the outstretched hand, surprised at how cold and shaky Pierce felt. This guy was in bad shape. He looked like death—if death were really cute, that is.
Withdrawing his hand, Pierce shoved it deep into his jeans pocket, maybe to hide the trembling. “I haven’t eaten in dayths. Hurths too much.”
“Okay then. You’re in luck. I was about to close, but I can squeeze you in. Let’s get you in the chair right away.” He led Pierce through the pristine reception area, which, he hoped, would one day have an actual receptionist. “Climb aboard.” He gestured at the shiny new-and-not-yet-paid-for dental chair.
Pierce clambered into the chair and lay back. Cary took a moment to look at him—professionally, of course. He’d been so excited at getting his first actual patient he hadn’t really checked Pierce out.
Sprawled in a chair was a good look for the guy. He had a terrific body, nicely showcased by a tight black T-shirt and faded jeans. His lips were reddish and swollen and brought to mind other things that made a guy’s lips red and swollen—but in a good way rather than an inflamed-gums way. Short dark hair contrasted nicely with blue eyes that were a little bloodshot. And staring back at Cary.
Click the cover to buy Sucks & Blows.
