Author Interview: Danielle Ackley-McPhail - Part One
One the more favorable aspects of being the writer liaison for a convention is the chance to network with writers both new and experienced. At Farpoint this past February, the convention doubled its usual number of writer guests and among them was award-winner Danielle Ackley-McPhail. 
As she states in her bio, Danielle has worked both sides of the publishing industry for over eighteen years. Her published works include four urban fantasy novels, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, Today’s Promise, The Halfling’s Court and The Redcaps’ Queen: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. She is also the author of the non-fiction writers guide, The Literary Handyman and is the senior editor of the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, Dragon’s Lure, and In An Iron Cage. Her work is included in numerous other anthologies and collections. Danielle is a member of the New Jersey Authors Network and Broad Universe, a writer’s organization focusing on promoting the works of women authors in the speculative genres.
To say that Danielle is busy would be an understatement, but I'm thrilled that she took the time to chat with me about her career.
First, where can we find you online?
I’m all over the place, but here are my official sites.
Website and/or blog www.sidhenadaire.com , http://lit_handyman.livejournal.com , http://damcphail.livejournal.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/DMcPhail
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/danielle.ackleymcphail
Amazon author page http://www.amazon.com/Danielle-Ackley-McPhail/e/B002GZVZPQ/
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/989939.Danielle_Ackley_McPhail
What conventions do you typically attend throughout the year?
There is some variation, but my regular conventions are Mysticon (Roanoke, VA), Lunacon (Rye Brook, NY), Ravencon (Richmond, VA), The Maryland Faerie Festival (Darlington, MD), Balticon (Hunt Valley, MD), Capclave (Rockville, MD), Philcon (Cherry Hill, NJ), and Darkover (Timonium, MD). I do other random conventions as the opportunity arises, and I also do a lot of one-day or local events. Book Fairs and stuff like that. The two big ones I do are the Collingswood Book Festival and the Baltimore Book Festival. I’m hoping to return to Farpoint (Timonium, MD), which I attended for the first time this year, and I’m looking for a few new events to fill in gaps in my schedule. I’m also hoping Confluence (Pittsburgh, PA) returns next year. This year’s event had to be cancelled due to problems with the hotel being sold.
What attracts you to the Urban Fantasy genre?
I have always loved things that are reality one step to the left. I could write about the most mundane things and find some unexpected twist to make it magical. I love to let my imagination out to play. Sometimes it doesn’t wait for an invitation! I can’t complain, though…often when the muse grabs the bit is when things get truly amazing. Those stories tend to be my performance pieces. They are always a bit surreal, but they have a voice of their own that resonates with the reader (or listener). For those who want examples of what to look for, some of those stories are: A Legacy of Stars (A Legacy of Stars, Dark Quest Books 2012), "Ruby Red" (Of Darkness and Light, Dark Quest Books 2014), and "Consigned to the Sea" (Sails and Sorcery, Fantasist Enterprises, 2007)
On the flipside, I also enjoy deconstructing myths and legends…thinking of plausible situations that could have led to those beliefs. This has given me an understanding of how to construct my own legends, which is always a handy thing for an author!
You recently released Today’s Promise, the third book in your Eternal Cycle series. Could you provide a blurb about the series and also tell us what inspired it?
Today’s Promise (Book Three in the Eternal Cycle Series)
Love...Life...Liberty...
Never before had Kara O'Keefe had cause to doubt in any of these,
and yet she was now called to defend all three or lose them for all time.
Though the Battle of the Knock was counted a victory, the war--as they say--was not won. Carman's Children have resurface after millennia and have reunited against their common foe once more. These adversaries from the ancient history of the Tuatha de Danaan have one goal: dominate all.
Kara and the Sidhe Fianna must find a way to end this threat forever
or find themselves and all humanity shackled to the will of evil demigods.
As this journey of self discovery comes to an end, will Kara find herself
and retain her freedom, or will all be lost for eternity?
I used to work with a number of great authors on a writer’s site hosted on AOL. When we weren’t “working” we would head to a chatroom and just talk. My supervisor was one of those in this group and he had plenty of stories of various odd jobs he’d held over the years, including pawnbroker. Now his chosen writing style is very dark so knowing his writing personality and hearing about the pawnbroker position, my mind just went running with the concept of what would happen if you pawned something that was actually linked to your soul? How would the ruthless take advantage of that? That kernel morphed into a benevolent pawnbroker seeking to safeguard such things. At first that was all it was. A character portrait about a girl giving up more than the cherished heirloom she thought she was pawning. It was popular enough when I posted excerpts that I just kept going. That led to research into Irish mythology, which expanded the story even more as I encountered random bits of legend that dovetailed perfectly into the story.
Definitely love the title, Bad-Ass Faeries! How did the anthology series come about and are there future installments planned?
This series is our attempt to de-Disneyfy the faerie. Basically the concept came out of a chance encounter with an artist and a failed author event. I met Ruth Lampi at Albacon, where she showed me her sketches for warrior faeries. They were just pencil drawings, many of them on lined paper, but they were really good. I ended up commissioning Ruth to work on a number of projects with me. We had a local event at a friend’s store and the timing was bad. It conflicted with some other event going on and not many people showed up. We sat there for most of the day entertaining each other. During the conversation the question came up of how we met. That topic lead to speculating about the sad state of faeries in fiction, which lead to an anthology proposal of tough faeries that were more in line with the actual legends. From that, Bad-Ass Faeries was born!
Currently there are three anthologies (Bad-Ass Faeries, Just Plain Bad, and In All Their Glory) and three novels (The Halfling’s Court, The Redcaps’ Queen, and James Chambers’ Three Chords of Chaos) based on the Bad-Ass Faeries concept. We are currently working on the fourth anthology, It’s Elemental. It should be out sometime in 2014. We are also planning which authors to tap for the A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale novella series. The concept behind that is a series of novellas or novels based on story universes that appeared in the anthologies. Basically, we’ve taken a look at what stories resonate with readers and reviewers and expand on them.
Stay tune for part two of my interview with Danielle, which should be posted tomorrow!
As she states in her bio, Danielle has worked both sides of the publishing industry for over eighteen years. Her published works include four urban fantasy novels, Yesterday's Dreams, Tomorrow's Memories, Today’s Promise, The Halfling’s Court and The Redcaps’ Queen: A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale. She is also the author of the non-fiction writers guide, The Literary Handyman and is the senior editor of the Bad-Ass Faeries anthology series, Dragon’s Lure, and In An Iron Cage. Her work is included in numerous other anthologies and collections. Danielle is a member of the New Jersey Authors Network and Broad Universe, a writer’s organization focusing on promoting the works of women authors in the speculative genres.To say that Danielle is busy would be an understatement, but I'm thrilled that she took the time to chat with me about her career.
First, where can we find you online?
I’m all over the place, but here are my official sites.
Website and/or blog www.sidhenadaire.com , http://lit_handyman.livejournal.com , http://damcphail.livejournal.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/DMcPhail
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/danielle.ackleymcphail
Amazon author page http://www.amazon.com/Danielle-Ackley-McPhail/e/B002GZVZPQ/
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/989939.Danielle_Ackley_McPhail
What conventions do you typically attend throughout the year?
There is some variation, but my regular conventions are Mysticon (Roanoke, VA), Lunacon (Rye Brook, NY), Ravencon (Richmond, VA), The Maryland Faerie Festival (Darlington, MD), Balticon (Hunt Valley, MD), Capclave (Rockville, MD), Philcon (Cherry Hill, NJ), and Darkover (Timonium, MD). I do other random conventions as the opportunity arises, and I also do a lot of one-day or local events. Book Fairs and stuff like that. The two big ones I do are the Collingswood Book Festival and the Baltimore Book Festival. I’m hoping to return to Farpoint (Timonium, MD), which I attended for the first time this year, and I’m looking for a few new events to fill in gaps in my schedule. I’m also hoping Confluence (Pittsburgh, PA) returns next year. This year’s event had to be cancelled due to problems with the hotel being sold.
What attracts you to the Urban Fantasy genre?
I have always loved things that are reality one step to the left. I could write about the most mundane things and find some unexpected twist to make it magical. I love to let my imagination out to play. Sometimes it doesn’t wait for an invitation! I can’t complain, though…often when the muse grabs the bit is when things get truly amazing. Those stories tend to be my performance pieces. They are always a bit surreal, but they have a voice of their own that resonates with the reader (or listener). For those who want examples of what to look for, some of those stories are: A Legacy of Stars (A Legacy of Stars, Dark Quest Books 2012), "Ruby Red" (Of Darkness and Light, Dark Quest Books 2014), and "Consigned to the Sea" (Sails and Sorcery, Fantasist Enterprises, 2007)
On the flipside, I also enjoy deconstructing myths and legends…thinking of plausible situations that could have led to those beliefs. This has given me an understanding of how to construct my own legends, which is always a handy thing for an author!
You recently released Today’s Promise, the third book in your Eternal Cycle series. Could you provide a blurb about the series and also tell us what inspired it?
Today’s Promise (Book Three in the Eternal Cycle Series)
Love...Life...Liberty...
Never before had Kara O'Keefe had cause to doubt in any of these,
and yet she was now called to defend all three or lose them for all time.
Though the Battle of the Knock was counted a victory, the war--as they say--was not won. Carman's Children have resurface after millennia and have reunited against their common foe once more. These adversaries from the ancient history of the Tuatha de Danaan have one goal: dominate all.
Kara and the Sidhe Fianna must find a way to end this threat forever
or find themselves and all humanity shackled to the will of evil demigods.
As this journey of self discovery comes to an end, will Kara find herself
and retain her freedom, or will all be lost for eternity?
I used to work with a number of great authors on a writer’s site hosted on AOL. When we weren’t “working” we would head to a chatroom and just talk. My supervisor was one of those in this group and he had plenty of stories of various odd jobs he’d held over the years, including pawnbroker. Now his chosen writing style is very dark so knowing his writing personality and hearing about the pawnbroker position, my mind just went running with the concept of what would happen if you pawned something that was actually linked to your soul? How would the ruthless take advantage of that? That kernel morphed into a benevolent pawnbroker seeking to safeguard such things. At first that was all it was. A character portrait about a girl giving up more than the cherished heirloom she thought she was pawning. It was popular enough when I posted excerpts that I just kept going. That led to research into Irish mythology, which expanded the story even more as I encountered random bits of legend that dovetailed perfectly into the story.
Definitely love the title, Bad-Ass Faeries! How did the anthology series come about and are there future installments planned?
This series is our attempt to de-Disneyfy the faerie. Basically the concept came out of a chance encounter with an artist and a failed author event. I met Ruth Lampi at Albacon, where she showed me her sketches for warrior faeries. They were just pencil drawings, many of them on lined paper, but they were really good. I ended up commissioning Ruth to work on a number of projects with me. We had a local event at a friend’s store and the timing was bad. It conflicted with some other event going on and not many people showed up. We sat there for most of the day entertaining each other. During the conversation the question came up of how we met. That topic lead to speculating about the sad state of faeries in fiction, which lead to an anthology proposal of tough faeries that were more in line with the actual legends. From that, Bad-Ass Faeries was born!
Currently there are three anthologies (Bad-Ass Faeries, Just Plain Bad, and In All Their Glory) and three novels (The Halfling’s Court, The Redcaps’ Queen, and James Chambers’ Three Chords of Chaos) based on the Bad-Ass Faeries concept. We are currently working on the fourth anthology, It’s Elemental. It should be out sometime in 2014. We are also planning which authors to tap for the A Bad-Ass Faerie Tale novella series. The concept behind that is a series of novellas or novels based on story universes that appeared in the anthologies. Basically, we’ve taken a look at what stories resonate with readers and reviewers and expand on them.
Stay tune for part two of my interview with Danielle, which should be posted tomorrow!
No comments have been added yet.
