fiction

A while back we published Pieces of Eight by Michele Emmy, and recently we unveiled the new cover for the book, shown to the right. So, it's about time we post her interview.

Michele lives in Littleton, Colorado with her husband and son. A homeschool mom and tutor, she has written scores of parenting and education articles for newspapers and magazines, as well as fantasy and science fiction stories and novellas. A Clarion graduate, decades of daydreaming finally paid off when she won the Colorado Gold award for fantasy.

Hex-A-Gone is her first novel full length novel and we'll be publishing it in April. Pieces of Eight is an ecofiction novella about a desperate Wetworld confronting the reality of the world above.

Soaring ocean temperatures are destroying the oceans, the scorching heat and putrid waste slaughtering its denizens. A desperate Wetworld sends one of its own to Dryworld to assess and mitigate the threat. But as their emissary struggles to understand and confront their foe, she realizes that if Wetworld wins its battle for survival, something more vital will vanish forever.

Now, let's get to know Michele a little better.

Q: How would you describe yourself/life in seven words?

A: Obsessed with recipes. Delighted when sentences work.

Q: Besides being a writer, what other types of jobs have you held?

A: I've worked as a nanny, homeschool mom, tutor, presidential campaign staffer, customer service representative, medical practice manager, community and commercial barter club owner and operator, magazine editor, and social media advisor.

Q: How do you go about researching for a book?

A: That’s the beauty of writing fantasy. I don’t have to. I make it all up.

Q: What would you like your readers to come away with after reading your book?

A: Mostly I want them to enjoy themselves while reading.

Q: If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?  Explain?

A: Seriously? Because that’s what I said to my husband when he popped the question, and it kind of exemplifies my attitude towards life in general.

Thanks to Michele for sharing a few things about her life and writing process. Now here's a teaser from the beginning of Pieces of Eight that you can get on Amazon in eBook.

Pieces of Eight Opener

The language of octopi has no words, no concepts. Only senses. Thousands of them, distinct, each a harbinger of the world unfolding around us. The cease of motion when a predator glides past, the taint of death eddying around it. The cloying stench of coral, comparable to a human with questionable oral hygiene. The soft crack of newly hatched eggs.

We cannot smell, you say? Sounds are muted underwater, shadows distorted? To you, perhaps, who smell only through nostrils, hear only through ears. Wetworld creatures do not separate the senses—they are as tangled as a kelp canopy, accentuating one another.

Even when we hunt, we do not destroy, but envelop. Predator and prey become one as we consume, are consumed, and as part of some new entity, consume again. It is our dance, and we dance it through eternity. Wetworld exists, how would you put it? All for one and one for all.

Octopi are solitary creatures. We lurk in caves, nestle in crevasses—except when on the hunt. Then we glide, a deeper black against dark water. We unfold, senses prickling, until sustenance appears. And then we lunge. Buoyed by a blinding determination that temporarily thrusts aside our shyness—we MUST feed! we WILL feed!—we envelop what we need and retreat, sated. But not merely by flesh—it is the essence of our prey that sustains us, connects us. We savor this feeling, this unity, until our bellies shrink once again and hunger drives us outward.

That was all I knew of life. To me, it was enough. Until the day you plucked me from my world, and altered yours forever.