Please help me welcome author Rebecca Gomez Farrell to PNR and More! Read on below for more info about her book and our interview. Also, don't miss the GIVEAWAY below!
Hi! Would you tell us a
little bit about yourself?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: My name is Rebecca Gomez
Farrell, and you can call me Becca now that we’ve been introduced. 😉 I write speculative fiction, so
pretty much anything that fits under the umbrella of science fiction, fantasy,
and horror, and I write all styles of it: humorous, epic, flash, silly,
traumatic…the list goes on. Did I mention I’ve also had a contemporary sweet
romance novella published? And that I blog about food, drink, and travel and
used to write entertainment articles? I like to sum this all up by saying I’m a
writer of fictions and strong leisure-time opinions.
I
live in Oakland, CA, with my wonderfully supportive husband and two cats as
co-workers.
Do you have anything you
would like to say to your readers?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: I have readers?! Thank you
for existing! It is an honor when people tell me they enjoy my writing, because
it’s ego-boosting, yes, but also because it means I’ve done something right in
terms of connecting with my fellow human. For me, that’s the purpose of
writing: effectively conveying an experience to someone else.
Can you tell us a little bit
about your book?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Wings Unseen
is my first novel-length publication, and I’ve been working on it since
college, which was a decade and a half ago. For many years, I mainly daydreamed
about what I wanted Wings Unseen to
explore: a fantasy with bitterly divided cultures that must learn to work
together for the good of all. I started writing it in drabbles around 2007 and
then dedicated myself to writing in 2009. I finished my final draft and began
submitting it out in late 2013.
But that’s process! What’s
the book about? It’s about a self-assured young woman who hopes to inherit her
father’s lands in a culture in which women are oppressed. It’s also about the prince
of a neighboring land who hopes he can someday measure up to his own father and
do right by his people. Oh, and also a near-princess who discovers that the
trappings of royalty may be downright suffocating in the midst of deep grief. Don’t
forget the plague of invisible creatures that eat people from the inside out, a
silver flame that burns with power and menace, and mythical creatures that may
or may not be real at all! It’s about those, too!
Which came first for you,
the characters or the plot?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Characters are the building
blocks of a story for me. I may start writing with a vague outline in my head
of where I’d like the plot to begin and end, but the characters’ emotional
journeys are the ones that are clearest to me. Through writing initial drafts, I
work out how the plot needs to go to make those emotional journeys the most
resonant.
You’re out demon hunting
(because you’re that kind of awesome) and you come across one about to kill a
young couple. He has not seen you yet; what is your first course of action?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Well, I was raised
Pentecostal, so I’d instinctually start yelling out some prayers to protect
myself and the couple. Because this is fiction, those prayers would take form
as a dark cloud lined with sparking yellow light. It, and me, would speed over,
placing ourselves between the couple and the demon, and the cloud would send
lightning bolts straight into the demon, causing it to sizzle and scream an
unearthly sound. The couple would also scream and clutch at each other. “I’ve
got this!” I’d yell while pulling out a handy collapsible sword from my
messenger bag. With a deep, ground-shaking yell, I’d slice right through the
burning demon and the rest of it would turn to ash, dissipating into the night
air. The cloud would send a localized storm to wash away all traces of the
battle, and the couple would take me out for dinner, where I’d try not to scare
them too much with the other things they’ve never seen before.
Where can we purchase your
novel?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Hopefully, at a bookstore
near you! But for sure at Amazon.com
here or at Barnes
and Noble. You can check your local library and request it, too, if it’s
not available yet.
Can we expect more novels
from you in 2017/2018?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: It would be amazing if I
have another novel out by the end of 2018, but that depends on how fast I can
get my second book, a post-apocalyptic romance, into shape. I’m done with the
first draft, but I’ve been on a long pause getting into the second one. I am
also in the very early stages of a Wings
Unseen sequel.
Are you reading anything
interesting at the moment? If so, what is it?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Right now, I’m reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi
Coates. It’s a long-form essay written to his son about coming to terms with
his place in America as a black man, the forces that he’s had to reckon with to
protect his body, and his eternal quest for understanding why. It’s about as
American a story as you can get, and I think it’s essential reading.
Can you tell us a little
about your first publishing experience?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: It’s hard to remember what
qualifies as my first publishing experience! I think the answer is a
third-place contest win with the WOW! Women on Writing’s flash fiction contests.
I was delighted they chose my “Last Complaint” as a finalist in the summer of
2009, just after I began writing as a career. The awards are small cash prizes,
story publication online, and an interview—those all felt quite fancy my first
time out! I recommend contests as a great way to get a confidence boost, but I
probably wouldn’t enter one that cost more than $10.
How much of you or people
you know do you think make it into the characters in your novel(s)?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: I don’t subscribe to the
advice to “write what you know,” especially as a writer of imaginary worlds!
But aspects of my personality and worldview make it into my characters, as do
aspects of friends, family, and random people I pass on the street. Including
such details are necessary as a way to make characters relatable; the reader
needs something that feels tangible for them to grasp onto. But I can’t point
at any one character I’ve written and say, “Yes, that’s me.” Rather, from Wings Unseen, I can say Vesperi has my
flirtation skills; Janto, my ability to nudge conversation where I want it to
go; and Serra, my honey-colored hair.
Can you tell us some of your
latest news?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: In addition to the launch of
Wings Unseen, I have three new short
stories available this year. “What Scattered in the Wind” appears in the Little
Letters on the Skin anthology chapbook from Cleave: Bay Area Women Writers
and the Liminal Center. It’s a horror story told with poetic prose that evokes
a landscape of eternal torment for past mistakes. “Garbage” is a humorous story
of alien invasion and the complicated feelings that arise from multiple waves
of immigration; it appears in Through
a Scanner Farkly: The 2017 Fark Fiction Collection, which benefits a
children’s charity. “Treasure” is a fantasy fable that will appear this fall in
the Dark Luminous Wings anthology from
Pole to Pole Publishing. Additionally, my short story “Thlush-A-Lum,” which
first appeared in PULP Literature
Issue #5, has been picked up by the
Centropic Oracle for audio
production.
What are some of the pros
and cons of self-publishing verses being published by a publisher in your
opinion?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: This is a question I get all
the time, in part because going the traditional publication route is unusual at
this point in the game! I chose to go with a traditional small press, Meerkat
Press, because I didn’t want to be the sole person promoting Wings Unseen. Marketing is not my forte,
and to successfully get a work to as many readers as possible, marketing is
essential! Meerkat Press has done a wonderful job thus far. It’s also hard to
overestimate the importance of having a publisher cover the costs of the
editing process…and to give you that confidence of an advance and their
willingness to invest in your work.
The primary pro of
self-publishing is how much faster the process can go. I finished Wings Unseen in 2013 and began sending
it out to publishing houses then. Over the next three years, I sent it to many publishers
and agents and waited the interminably long periods of time to hear back on if
they wanted to proceed to the full manuscript reading or they weren’t
interested. Meerkat Press picked up the book in August 2016, and it’s been a
year from then to publication…which is actually pretty speedy for most presses.
So if an author wants their work out in the world as soon as possible,
self-publishing is definitely the way to go. I just wouldn’t feel confident
handling all aspects of publication myself, and let’s be honest, I love the
validation of someone else believing in my work enough to take it through the
publication process.
Random Quickies!
When do you prefer to read?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: When I’m on a blanket or
hammock in the sunshine. A breeze is helpful, as is a way to stop my cats from
jumping on me.
Supernatural or Psych? (TV
Shows)
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Psych. I
love that Supernatural has lasted
this long, and I love aspects of its storytelling, but the humor and bond
between Psych’s leads makes me happy
to watch.
Favorite color?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Electric blue—this is the
color of the sky at the end of twilight on a day spent thoroughly enjoying
oneself outdoors.
Night or day?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Day. That said, I don’t rise
for the early part of it! I am a night owl, through and through.
Dark Chocolate or Milk
Chocolate?
Rebecca Gomez Farrell: Dark chocolate, no question!
We’re living in a golden age of chocolate with so much access to so many
quality bean-to-bar products. To dilute that glory with milk is to squander a fortune.
Wings UnseenRebecca Gomez Farrell
Published by: Meerkat Press
Publication date: August 22nd 2017
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
To end a civil war, Lansera’s King Turyn relinquished a quarter of his kingdom to create Medua, exiling all who would honor greed over valor to this new realm on the other side of the mountains. The Meduans and Lanserim have maintained an uneasy truce for two generations, but their ways of life are as compatible as oil and water.
When Vesperi, a Meduan noblewoman, kills a Lanserim spy with a lick of her silver flame, she hopes the powerful display of magic will convince her father to name her as his heir. She doesn’t know the act will draw the eye of the tyrannical Guj, Medua’s leader, or that the spy was the brother of Serrafina Gavenstone, the fiancèe of Turyn’s grandson, Prince Janto. As Janto sets out for an annual competition on the mysterious island of Braven, Serra accepts an invitation to study with the religious Brotherhood, hoping for somewhere to grieve her brother’s murder in peace. What she finds instead is a horror that threatens both countries, devouring all living things and leaving husks of skin in its wake.
To defeat it, Janto and Serra must learn to work together with the only person who possesses the magic that can: the beautiful Vesperi, whom no one knows murdered Serra’s brother. An ultimate rejection plunges Vesperi forward toward their shared destiny, with the powerful Guj on her heels and the menacing beating of unseen wings all about.
Readers of all ages will enjoy Wings Unseen, Rebecca Gomez Farrell’s first full-length novel. It is a fully-imagined epic fantasy with an unforgettable cast of characters.
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo
Author Bio:
In all but one career aptitude test Rebecca Gomez Farrell has taken, writer has been the #1 result. But when she tastes the salty air and hears the sea lions bark, she wonders if maybe sea captain was the right choice after all. Currently marooned in Oakland, CA, Becca is an associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her short stories, which run the gamut of speculative fiction genres, have been published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Pulp Literature, the Future Fire, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and an upcoming story in theDark, Luminous Wings anthology from Pole to Pole Publishing among others. Maya’s Vacation, her contemporary romance novella, is available from Clean Reads. She is thrilled to have Meerkat Press publish her debut novel.
Becca’s food, drink, and travel writing, which has appeared in local media in CA and NC, can primarily be found at her blog, The Gourmez. For a list of all her published work, fiction and nonfiction, check out her author website at RebeccaGomezFarrell.com.
Thanks for being on the tour! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for the fun interview, Holly!
ReplyDelete