Interview with Author Steve Rzasa (& Book Giveaway!)

WordVessel is delighted to welcome author Steve Rzasa today in celebration of his most recent launch for his book, Crosswind. Here's his bio:  

Steve Rzasa is a librarian
in Buffalo, Wyoming who fills his head with Scripture, history, graphic novels,
and TV shows like Castle and Big Bang Theory, ideally in that
order. Steve has had three science-fiction books published by Marcher Lord
Press: The Word Reclaimed (2009), its sequel, The Word Unleashed (2010),
and Broken Sight (2011), which won the 2012 Carol Award for
Speculative Fiction from the American Christian Fiction Writers. Crosswind
is his fourth novel.






More
information about Steve’s books is available at www.steverzasa.com and www.marcherlordpress.com
   




Steve, what makes your new novel
different from your previous works?

Well,
Crosswind is a departure from the science-fiction/space opera I’ve written.
It’s a steampunk fantasy, meaning it’s set in an imaginary world in which the
vehicles of the day are driven primarily by steam power—the airplanes,
dirigibles and predecessors to cars. All the action takes place within a very
small geographic area compared to my interstellar adventures. But what remains
the same is that it’s an adventure that involves family, something I try to
include in all my novels.




Where do you get your ideas?

Well,
I just kind of daydream, I guess. A lot of times I happen to think of a scene
or a combination of characters – or a fantasy city-state – and then it all kind
of flows from there. Once I put pen to paper and write down that idea, more
ideas seem to come naturally. But many times I troll through the current events
and see what can be adapted as a future plot.  For example, with Crosswind, I came up with the mountain range surrounding the
city-state of Perch when my children and I were playing atop a huge snowpile
pushed up by snowplows.




How does your faith impact your
writing?

My
faith drives me to present what I believe about God rather directly. It
enhances my creativity and gives me the freedom to address topics not
necessarily just for a secular or Christian audience.




What’s the biggest surprise about
being a published author?

The
biggest surprise was that people other than my family and friends read my books
and liked them! I’ve been gratified that men and women of varying ages – from
70s right on down to middle school – have enjoyed reading all three of my
novels. And now my son, who’s going to be 10 in March, wants to read Crosswind. I told him he’d have to wait
a while.




What do you think about writing
contests? Have you participated in any? What’s the benefit to an unpublished
writer?

Most
recently, my third novel, Broken Sight,
won the Carol Award for Speculative Fiction from ACFW and my flash fiction
piece In the Bag took the grand prize
in a contest held by HIS Writers (Northern Colorado Chapter, ACFW). It serves,
I think, as a way to show potential publishers that an unbiased source read and
liked your work, so I would encourage submitting to such contests.




What’s coming up next?
I have a sequel to Crosswind,
working title Desert Scourge,
finished and ready for another round of edits. It may be published this summer.
Plus, I’m working on a third Sark brothers tale and have a sci-fi project that
is a complete departure from the writing I’ve done before.



Thanks so much for being with us today, Steve. We enjoyed getting to learn more about you and your books. Readers, Steve has graciously offered a copy of Crosswind to one of you lucky readers. Please leave a comment with your e-mail address so that we can contact the winner (chosen through Random.org). Here's the book blurb:












Crosswind





The
First Sark Brothers Tale





It’s been almost five hundred
years since the collapse of the Great Commonwealth. The plagues left folk few
and far between. City-states rule the continent of Galderica. There’s coin to
be had in trade— whether you take your wares by aeroplane or ride them over the
rails.




Winchell Sark has a fine life as
a reporter for the Perch Advocate newspaper, a good family at home and a faith
that seems downright peculiar to most everyone else. So when he is called out
to investigate a biplane crash at the foot of Perch, the finest center of
aviation in the Sawtooth Mountains, he doesn’t think much of it.




But there are dark powers at
work—powers that have their eye on Perch. Powers that mankind long thought
consigned to the trash heap of mythology. ’Cept they were wrong.




It’s up to Winch and his brother,
Copernicus, a hotshot pilot, to save their people—and it ain’t going to be
easy.