Summer Songs - Interview Series - Elizabeth Inglee-Richards!

The summer is here and I cannot think of a better way to spend the rest of it than sharing information about some of my favorit fellow authors.  Therefore, I have created this Summer Songs - Interview Series, in which I will post interviews that I have been so fortunate as to host, so that you too can get to know some wonderful fellow writers a little better.

Welcome Elizabeth Inglee-Richards



Tonia (T.M.):  Elizabeth welcome to my Summer Songs - Interview Series.  I am so glad you agreed to chat with me and let me ask you a few questions.  I want people to get to know you and learn more about your work.

Tonia (T.M.):  Can you tell me what spawned your desire to write?

Elizabeth:  This may sound weird, but the first story I wrote was a birthday present for a friend.  I couldn’t find a present for him and we were living about 500 miles apart at the time.  Stories can be e-mailed so it seemed like a logical choice.  I was thirty at the time. 

Tonia (T.M.):  Does any particular location help you form the foundation for your writing? 

Elizabeth:  Most of my fiction takes place in either the Boston or the Philadelphia areas.  Those are the two places that I have spent most of my life.  I do have a few pieces that are set in the South or in Canada, but I don’t like to write about places that haven’t spent a lot of time, it is rare for me to write about a place I have never been.    

Tonia (T.M.):  I know that you have several works published.  Please tell us about the first story, A Few Days Early, a flash fiction published with Etheral Tales. 

Elizabeth:  A Few Days Early is a short piece set in Salem MA during the Halloween season.  Halloween is a big deal in the communities of the North Shore (the area just north of Boston) as you might guess, and the hero of the story is a werewolf who is traveling a few days before the full moon. 

A Few Days Early was actually my second piece published with Etheral Tales my first piece was called Tobin Bridge and was about an injured shape-shifter meeting a kid standing on the rail of the Tobin Bridge in Boston.    

Tonia (T.M):  What are some of the styles of writing you enjoy? 

Elizabeth:  I mostly write Urban Fantasy, with a humorous and romantic bend.   

Tonia (T.M.):  Are there other writers who have inspired you to step forward and work on your own achievements?

Elizabeth:  That is a hard question for me to answer.  I think I have been most inspired by the works of Charles deLint, Tove Jansson, Terry Pratchett, Susan Cooper and Jonathan Mayberry.     

Tonia (T.M.):  Among those listed, who would you say are your favorite writers?  Or are there others? 

Elizabeth:  I would list all of those authors among my favorites, but I would also say that Sherman Alexi is a favorite, but he doesn’t write in my genre, and I love both JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. 

Tonia (T.M.):  Now, your second book, Box of Cows,  is a short story published by Books to Go Now, and it is available from not only Books to Go Now, but also Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Android Market in e-book formats.  Can you tell us a little about this story? 

Elizabeth:  Box of Cows is set along I-95 in the State of Delaware.  A young male fairy gets stuck in a traffic jam caused by cows being lose on the highway, and how he deals with the cows being lose.  It is based on something that happened to my father in the late seventies when we had first moved to Delaware. 

Tonia (T.M.):  I just want to let you know I felt honored to be featured in the Fantasy Paranormal Anthology Volume I which was also published by Books to Go Now and which is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  

Elizabeth:  I thought it was pretty cool being in that anthology.  Anthologies are actually my favorite things to read, so that was a real honor.

Tonia (T.M.):  Do you read a lot? 

Elizabeth:  I have always been an avid reader.  I’m not sure that you can really learn to write without being an avid reader. I try to spend at least an hour a day.   

Tonia (T.M.):  I also understand you have recently had a new book published called Rebuilding Year.  It was also published by Books to Go Now and is available at not only at Books to Go Now, but also at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Android Market.  Please tell us how this tale of hyena team work came to be.

Elizabeth:  Oddly enough I was thinking about how a hockey team would be like a wolf pack, with the six men on the ice being the wolf’s head, legs and tail.  From there it was just short step to the hero, Trey, saying his team wasn’t made up of wolves.  It took me a little while to figure out what his team was made up of.

Tonia (T.M.):  I understand that you have just received word that your fourth book will be coming out soon.  Can you give us any information about that book?  If not, can you let us know the title and where to find it once it is released?

Elizabeth:  My next short story, Safely Home, will be included in an anthology called Sprits and Legends from Runewrite Press sometime later this month.  In it a young woman meets the gods of her pagan boyfriend during the last hockey game played in one of the older hockey arenas. 

Tonia (T.M.):  It has been a pleasure chatting with you and we look forward to seeing more of your work in the near future.  If you could relay a message to your readers, what would that be?

Elizabeth:  I have no idea... maybe that you need to keep going and not let anything stop you, but know that sometimes you will need help.  I have a learning disability, but I still managed to get my work polished and published. You need to be able to ask people for help with things like editing. 

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I would like to thank Ms. Richards for letting us get to know her on a more personal level.  I hope that you will check out some of here work.  Having had the pleasure of reading many of Ms. Richard's works, I have come to not only enjoy her creative talent, but also admire and respect her as a fellow author.

Please stop by again next week for another featured author in my Summer Songs - Interview Series.