Good Monday morning everyone! Today I sit with Talya Andor down for a little Q&A. If you haven't read anything by this author, then start saving up! Talya has only just begun!
About you: The Person
Where do you call home?
Salem (not that Salem), Oregon in the lush green Willamette Valley of the Pacific Northwest.
Do you have any siblings?
I don't! I was the one, the only. I credit that fact, in part, for my early development of a vivid imagination. I was world-building and story-telling for my own entertainment from a very young age.
Favorite place traveled?
I've been to a lot of amazing places, from the ruins of a French castle to the shores of a lake rumored to contain a legendary monster. My favorite so far is probably Half-Moon Cay in the Bahamas; it was so peaceful and gorgeous.
Besides writing, what do you do in your free time?
Many things! There's never enough time for it all. I enjoy snuggling up on the love seat with my girlfriend, and our kitty Pepper, who we spoil outrageously. She is the cutest cat in the world. I'm working on getting fit, and am currently doing the Insanity Workout with a friend - we buddy up for eating habits and workout resolve. I've lost 23% of my starting weight and I have further to go, but fitness is the focus. I used to get nail polish as a workout reward, then it took off and became its own full-blown habit, I mean hobby, and I keep a nail polish tumblr updated with my manicures as well as other pretty manicures I find.
In between writing and editing, I try to sneak in a fair bit of reading - I'm a fiction fan, primarily fantasy and sci-fi, with a fair bit of contemporary when the summary or author hooks me. I also enjoy playing video games and my girlfriend and I are movie geeks and regularly see first-run films in the theatre.
As a cooking enthusiast, I have seen pretty much every show there is to do with cooking: I collect Top Chef, I'm a huge fan of Masterchef Australia, Masterchef New Zealand, and even Masterchef U.S.; I've seen Gordon Ramsay's F Word, Hell's Kitchen, the Next Food Network Star, and probably more I've forgotten. I follow several food blogs, though I don't have one of my own, and I do a fair bit of cooking and experimenting at home. I love making healthy lunches to bring to work every week.
Music fuels a lot of my writing and I have a seriously eclectic collection. I listen to whatever strikes my fancy, or what my BFF, who is even more eclectic than I, force-feeds me in the name of exposure to new music. My iPod probably has about nine different languages represented on its playlists, maybe more.
About you: The Author
Signal to Noise was my first published novel. I'm so proud of it! It's very niche and not for everyone, being sci-fi horror with a pairing that wouldn't be to everyone's taste, but I'm happy that it's getting good reception from the folks who are reading.
What made you decide to write in the MM genre?
I got hooked through fandom, initially. I started in the anime fandom back in college, and I was lured into yaoi after a brief stint writing gen humor. After reading a ton of yaoi, everything I could get my hands on, it sparked ideas. I'd always loved to write, so I became an enthusiastic and prolific yaoi writer. The dynamic of m/m hooked me in a way that hetero romance had never managed. Writing in fandom, and writing a ton, really helped me find my style and confidence. In time, I turned to writing original fiction, and learned to plot and follow through with novel-length ideas through Nanowrimo.
Throughout all that, my passion has been m/m fiction, both reading and writing, with some forays into f/f narratives. I can't get enough good gay fiction, and I'm really enjoying the proliferation into multiple genres that has happened over the years. When I started out reading m/m, finding it in published fiction was a treasure hunt. Now, we're becoming spoilt for choice with so many amazing independent presses.
Where do you get your information or ideas for your books?
My inspiration comes from a number of different sources; I probably wouldn't even be able to pin them all down. Music, a lyric, a picture, a prompt that gets me thinking about what would be my take on it ... as a writer, I'm constantly filtering my impressions of everything that I take in. My series Appetite, coming out this year, sprang from my love of all things foodie as well as an idea that I had for competitive chefs whetting their blades to better themselves, and each other, and falling for each other in the process. A story that I wrote last year, Fireborn, came from a concept that I'd daydreamed of a young god and his willing sacrifice where death wasn't the end; it was the happy beginning. And an outline I jotted down the other day came initially from a short comic that I saw online, which was the jumping-off point to a fairytale-style fantasy of a lady knight and a monster who turns out not to be so monstrous after all.
Sorry, that turned out to be a very long way of saying "all kinds of things."
Who or what influences your writing?
When I was younger, I looked up to authors such as Roald Dahl, Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, David Eddings, and Robert Heinlein. I think Mr. Heinlein and his views on writing had a lot of influence on me during my formative years as a writer. He projected an image of someone who loved and loathed writing, yet was inextricably bound to it and unable to do anything but produce it, try as he might. I think that's a relationship with writing that many authors can identify with. Some of his books in my collection became so tattered and pet-mauled, I had to buy new ones!
What current WIP are you working on?
Right now I'm working on The Fall Guide, in which a young male beauty blogger experiences failure to launch, and relies on the help of a smooth producer who happens to treat him better than his boyfriend does. I'm also outlining a sequel for Signal to Noise, which is tentatively titled Klaxon at the Core, and I guess I have to count Appetite: Surfeit for the Senses, because I may end up doing a bit of writing for the final draft I'll send to the editor. I also have a story I'm working on for a submission call titled The More Plausible Evil.
A Bell Jar Moment you will never forget as an author?
Probably the very first novel I finished as a wee kidlet. It started out as a hand-written mess in a series of notebooks, and ended up as a couple hundred word-processed pages, but I wrote a fantasy novel, revising and finishing it in my early teens. That first novel is lost to time and many moves and computer upgrades now, and it was most likely terrible, but I loved writing it and sharing and having friends tell me they loved it. The entire process of creation, and sharing, and feedback, was so thrilling that I knew I wanted to be a writer. From the moment I finished printing that stack with its neatly-lettered title and my name under it, my dream job--what I wanted to be when I grew up--was "author."
Talya's next release, A Cut Above the Rest will be published by Less Than Three Press.
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Fresh out of school, he is eager to begin work at the restaurant owned by a good friend of his father's, a restaurant well known for the beautiful, innovative meals its chefs create. He is primed to join the ranks of those masterful chefs—until the day he starts, and learns that he is nothing more than kitchen lackey, lower in rank than even the dishwashers.
Worse, his boss is none other than Nik, the beautiful, infuriating, highly talented classmate that Alex could never best—or resist.
Talya is currently running a bundle giveaway over on her blog. Be sure and sign up for your chance to win! Don't let the chance of getting to know this author pass you by!
I want to say a special thank you to Talya Andor for allowing me to interview her! It has been a pleasure getting to know more about you and your work!
2 comments:
Great interview! Thanks so much for spotlighting Talya. :)
You are most welcome! Thank you for stopping by! I love getting to know other authors as well. My to read list tends to grow in leaps and bounds :)
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