
Your first four books started as letters to your daughters while they were at school. What made you decide to try and publish your stories? Or did you always write them with the intention of sharing them beyond your family?
I had finished the first book, The Hollow Kingdom

Wow. That's such a great publishing story. What was it like living in Germany for seven years?

It was wonderful. I'd love to go back, and we may go back in a few years. Of course, it was inconvenient that the libraries and bookstores were full of German books! Amazon.com became our neighborhood bookstore. But we could get up early on a Saturday, take a flight from our nearby "cheap fares" airport, and be in Italy or Norway by 9:00 in the morning. We could play around in a new country for a couple of days and be back in time for my husband's Monday morning meetings.
That does sound wonderful. You must have done a lot of travelling. Did you have to readjust to living in the US when you moved back?
Yes. It takes so long to get anywhere! I have to drive all day just to get to another state. But I have to say, it's nice to be back in a country that has air conditioning. And screens on the windows. And drive-through lanes at the coffee shop.
Air conditioning is definitely a plus. Do you have a favorite character?
No. Do you have a favorite pet? I'm god to my characters, and I wouldn't be a very nice god if I didn't love them all unconditionally. I even love the villains and feel bad for them when they make poor choices. My editor complains about how hard I try to be fair to my villains. And some books don't have a villain at all, just a hero doing stupid things. (That's how I felt about In the Coils of the Snake
What’s your writing environment like?
My writing environment is wherever I can pop open my Vaio ultraportable laptop. I love it because it's so cute and reliable--at least three hours of battery life even after two years of use. I wrote at home before this year, but now I take my Vaio to the Trinity University library here in San Antonio, where I used to work as a librarian and where I still have lots of friends. I have my favorite spots to work upstairs in the stacks there, and I can get lots done because it's so wonderfully quiet. I try to work for four hours straight before coming back home, where the cats and dog and my family ensure that I won't be able to get anything else done for the rest of the day unless it's something for them.
I can understand that! What was your best moment (to date) being a writer?
Goodness! I have no idea. I couldn't narrow it down to just one moment. My favorite moments are when I'm reading through the final line-edited manuscript, and I just did that for The House of Dead Maids, which comes out next year. I'm terribly fond of that manuscript, so I had a wonderful time doing the read-through. Those were some great moments!
The Hollow Kingdom trilogy is a very different setting from your book The Sky Inside

Changing genres ... well, did I really? I suppose so, but The Sky Inside
Any new projects you’re working on that you can tell us about?

The other project in the works is a co-written memoir of my daughter Elena's life with anorexia, tentatively titled Skeleton Girl. That's been awful to write, but I think Elena has some amazing insights into the illness that will help other teens and teens' families. We're half finished with the rough draft, but it's been so painful to work on that I'm taking a break for a few weeks to work on my Bronte webpages, which I'm creating now before I forget all the research I did to write the manuscript.
Can't wait to see the new books. Thanks so much for stopping by! It was a pleasure to have you.
Clare B. Dunkle is also the offer of the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy, By These Ten Bones
4 comments:
Help! All these great author interviews have my Amazon cart at over $200 and it's only halfway through the month! I'm both anxious to see what's next but also wondering how strong I'll be to resist all these yummy books. Keep it up!!!
Well, I guess maybe you'll have to space some of the orders out. :-)
Anom--that's why I take advantage of amazon's 4 for 3 deal as often as freaking possible. It really cuts down (though I tend to then just keep adding books XD).
I'm looking forward to reading the Hollow Kingdom, I've been waiting on book 3 (cause my sister had it) and shall now enjoy it as a whole :)
Wonderful, insightful, interesting interview! Yes, it really does deserve all of those adjectives. Those questions are great, and Ms. Dunkle provides some great answers. I want to move to Europe now! :-) Great post!
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