Welcome one and all to April’s Swamp Visitor–Kelly Meding. You may recognize her from such enthralling titles as Three Days to Dead, As Lie the Dead, Another Kind of Dead, or the equally entertaining Trance and Changeling. If you don’t have them on your TO READ list, you best get a move on!
Without further ado, I give you…KELLY MEDING!
If your character(s) came with a warning label, what would it say?
Incurable Sarcasm Ahead: Proceed At Your Own Risk
*hehehehe* I like that one…
If you turned your laptop/computer/pen/typewriter (yes, some of still use these!) over to your character(s), how would they describe you?
Sadistic. Mean. Overly dramatic. They’d probably accuse me of over-thinking the plot at times.
Oh come on! Don’t they know you could make it so much worse?
We all have favorite characters, either main or secondary, and there are always bits and pieces of them we don’t share with our readers, but keep close to our hearts. Choose your favorite from your cast of characters and tell us a couple of things that you haven’t shared in your books/writing.
This question is fitting, considering Tempest is about to release in April, but one of my favorite characters is Ethan Swift, from the MetaWars books. I’ve had a soft spot for him since his first appearance in Trance. He’s the quiet guy with inner strength, who always wants to take care of others before himself. I haven’t shared a great deal of information about him in Trance or Changeling, but he takes center stage in Tempest. Readers who paid close attention in Changeling figured this out, but since it’s never been plainly spoken/written anywhere, Ethan is gay. Dahlia is the second person to whom he’s ever admitted that, and the third person who finds out in Tempest will probably surprise you. As for a totally unknown fact, when he was twenty-one, Ethan spent a year as a beach bum in Boynton Beach, Florida, working at a tiki bar for income—a lot of which he spent on sunburn cream.
I can empathize with Ethan, except I don’t know if there’s enough sunburn cream in the world to make sure I don’t resemble a burnt lobster!
Personally, I tend to be a bit on the introverted side so the thought of being in the actual presence of one of my favorite writers makes my heart race, my knees shake and tangles my tongue (yes classic fan girl behavior). Who could reduce you to such a level and how do you imagine your initial meeting?
I had a moment like this last year at Authors After Dark: NOLA, when I met Jeaniene Frost for the first time. We’d communicated a few times in the past, and she graciously blurbed Three Days to Dead way back when, but I’m a huge fan. So I admit to being heart-pounding nervous, and I probably babbled a little. But Jeaniene is so sweet and gracious. The other time it happened was years ago when James Marsters attended a SF convention, and I was briefly in his presence during the autograph session. I was crazy nervous, because, well, it’s Spike!
Oooohh, Spike and Authors After Dark…there’s two items on my bucket list. It’s a good thing we’re doing this interview via blog because I’m not sure you’d understand the words tumbling from my mouth, or if they’d even make sense…
And now for our favorite part–bullet questions. Kelly’s under the gun and fires back…
Blades, guns, fists or feet?
Blades, all the way. To me, they simply look cooler on screen or drawn in a comic. Guns are too easy. Blades require you to get in close, but they maintain an elegance that fists or feet don’t.
A women after my own heart…
Favorite Fairy Tale of all time?
For traditional fairy tales, The Little Mermaid. I love the beauty of the mermaid’s sacrifice at the end of the story.
Three titles and their authors sitting on your nightstand/bookcase/table/floor waiting to be read?
Hitchers, by Will McIntosh (loved, loved, loved Soft Apocalypse, and I can’t wait to read this one); Echoes at Dawn, by Maya Banks (I am crushing on the KGI books right now); Static, by L.A. Witt (her m/m romances rock).
You and me both! I love Maya’s KGI Books!
Greatest one liner of all time?
I don’t think I could actually narrow that down. There are simply too many.
Sarcastic witticism, Southern sweetness or Geeky disdain?
Sarcastic witticism.
Every time, all the time…
Strangest item currently taking up space in your writing cave?
A little plastic unicorn from Authors After Dark: New Orleans, that I had signed by Allison Pang, Kristen Painter, Kelly Gay, Amanda Carlson, and Carolyn Crane.
Favorite supernatural creature?
Shapeshifters.
Huge Thank You to Kelly for stopping by! Want some more? Check out this peek at TEMPEST, out April 22, 2013 from Pocket Star:
Two months after the discovery of the powerful, non-Meta Recombinants, the former Rangers—Meta-powered humans dedicated to preserving the peace—have made no progress in uncovering the newcomers’ origins, or convincing the public to trust them. Newly powered Metas are popping up and causing trouble, while the former Banes—Metas who harm humans and create chaos—show no inclination that they even want to leave the island prison of Manhattan. With a presidential election looming, the hot political debate is all about Meta rights—and whether they deserve to have any.
Still haunted by the murder of so many in the Meta War fifteen years earlier, Ethan “Tempest” Swift accepts an assignment in Manhattan, working with a team that’s interviewing Banes to determine which are still threats and which have reformed. But Ethan has a personal reason for going to the island as well. Armed with questions for the Bane who just might be his father, Ethan’s quest for answers is interrupted by an unexpected assault on the island. Forced to side with old enemies to uncover who’s responsible for the devastating attack, Ethan begins to question more than just his past—he questions his place in defending a world that sees him as its enemy.
Get yours:
ALL ABOUT KELLY MEDING:
Born and raised in Southern Delaware, Kelly Meding survived five years in the hustle and bustle of Northern Virginia, only to retreat back to the peace and sanity of the Eastern Shore. An avid reader and film buff, she discovered Freddy Krueger at a very young age, and has since had a lifelong obsession with horror, science fiction, and fantasy, on which she blames her interest in vampires, psychic powers, superheroes, and all things paranormal.
Three Days to Dead, the first book in her Dreg City urban fantasy series, follows Evangeline Stone, a paranormal hunter who is resurrected into the body of a stranger and has only three days to solve her own murder and stop a war between the city’s goblins and vampires. Additional books in the series, As Lie the Dead, Another Kind of Dead, and Wrong Side of Dead, are available in both digital format and mass market paperback from Bantam.
Beginning with Trance, Kelly’s MetaWars series tells the story of the grown-up children of the world’s slaughtered superheroes who receive their superpowers back after a mysterious fifteen-year absence, and who now face not only a fearful public, but also a vengeful villain who wants all of them dead. Trance and Changeling are available now in both digital format and mass market paperback from Pocket Books, with Tempest and Chimera following digitally in 2013.
WANT MORE KELLY?
You can find Kelly on Twitter (https://twitter.com/KellyMeding), Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/kellymeding/), and Facebook, as well as her website (http://www.kellymeding.com/) and her blog Organized Chaos (http://chaostitan.blogspot.com/).