Three Interview Questions You’re Not Expecting with the Loverly Z.A. Maxfield!

As you may or may not be aware, my longtime pal Z.A. Maxfield is hitting the road again with a new book. My Heartache Cowboy is the sequel to her popular mainstream release My Cowboy Heart. (If you haven't read it, it's classic ZAM. What are you waiting for?!)


I invited Z.A. to stop by and amuse the troops, and she turned the tables on me and dragged me into the interview room too!


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Hi Josh! Thanks for having me over here chez vous today! A lot of people probably know this by now, but you’re actually the reason I established an Internet blog presence. (I’m sure people are lining up to send you thank you cards. NOT)

I joined LiveJournal to read those posts you used to write about writers, writing, and the work you were doing back then. You were right in the middle of Adrien English and just starting to explore the world of Romance… I think I came in right around the release of The Dark Horse, and of course that led me to read the book The Charioteer by Mary Renault.

I looked to you and other successful writers like you back then for book recommends, writing tips, moral support, and a shoulder to cry on and you have always been so generous. Not only with me, but with all the people in your sphere of influence. So thanks for everything you’ve done, I wish I could be as good a mentee as you’ve been at mentoring me, but hey…I can only do what I can do…


I guess you can’t blame the path for the people on it… *snorts*  

Today I thought I’d do an interview format, and see if you’ll answer too…  

Three Interview Questions You’re Not Expecting.   

Three Books On A Desert Island -- This is like Marry, Kill or Shag only with books. You’ve got nothing to do, you have nothing to burn, and you have no toilet paper. What you do have is three books from tenth grade English. Fahrenheit 451, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Separate Peace. Read, burn, er...utilize in another way. Go... 

ZAM - Are there no leaves on this island? Is there no driftwood? Must I??? Really, must I???? 

Okay, if I must, I’d have to say, it just seems fitting to burn Fahrenheit 451, doesn’t it? I’ve read it, and I enjoyed it, but it’s not going to keep me warm unless I burn it.  

A Tale of Two Cities? Yep. I’m keeping that one. Not because I love a Separate Peace any less, but because if I’m going to spend all my time crying on a desert island, I’m going to do it with a longer read. It will take more of my time to get through A Tale of Two Cities than to read A Separate Peace, but the outcome is going to be the same: red swollen eyes, sobbing and despair. But at least at the end of A Tale of Two Cities, it will be a noble kind of despair.

True, and somewhat funny/sad story. On my daughter’s 10th grade language arts syllabus, right on the top, the teacher put the 1 (800) number for the Teen Suicide Prevention Hotline. It was almost as if they took a look at books like A Separate Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Of Mice and Men, The Brute, Medea, Frankenstein, and Antigone and thought, wait…
:-(

 Josh? Do you want to play with those books, or do you want to spin the magic wheel of books and find three different books for your answer? 


Awww. I love A Separate Peace. I get choked up just thinking about it! I’m saving that. Anyway, I’m probably saving all of them because apparently I’m going to be dying of starvation and exposure quite soon anyway, so I’ll need something to take my mind off it. Reading and bracing sea baths. If I do break down, the first book I eat will be Fahrenheit 451, as I’ve always found it a lot to digest.

;-D

  What will you bring for the coming cowboy apocalypse? Forget Zombies, the Cowboys are coming. Here’s what I’m bringing:

 Texas Caviar

1/2 onion finely diced
1/2 cup each finely diced red and green bell peppers
1 bunch green onions finely chopped (white part and some green)
1/21 basket cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 jalapeno peppers seeded and finely chopped (wear gloves, please)
1 T. fresh oregano chopped
3 T. minced garlic
2 cups vinaigrette
3 cans (15 ounce) black eyed peas rinsed and drained
1 can black beans
 Combine all ingredients and let marinate in the refrigerator overnight. Serve with tortilla chips and lots of beer.

Funny/true story. My husband bought a bag of “UCLA corn chips” at Christmas. This did nothing to amuse my UCSC and UCI students, despite the fact that they were blue and gold, the correct colors for both my kids’ schools. Apparently they tasted, “Of betrayal.”

Josh, what are you bringing to the Cowboy Apocalypse?

 Oh man, I LOVE that Texas Caviar stuff. One reason I prefer zombies to cowboys is they don’t care about the hors d’oeuvres. MORE FOR ME.
Well, let’s see. You may be surprised to hear I spent several formative summers with cowboys. Elderly cowboys, yes, but cowboys nonetheless. So I am bringing what I know cowboys love. A twelve-pack of Coors beer (I know, I know!!) and the hottest freaking chili I can find.

I don’t eat chili though, so I will ask our readers to supply me with some good chili recipes. Anybody have a good chili recipe out there? Best chili recipe ever? Come on!  


And finally, which of your characters would survive a round of no-holds-barred dodgeball?

Out of all my characters, I think the winner would be Yamane from Drawn Together. Yamane’s tough. He’s resilient. I wrote him to be a true badass, deep down. I’m always likely to pick the little guy to win -- the underdog, the one who’s a little outmanned and outgunned but never outsmarted. That’s just how I like things, so naturally, I’m going to pick the most unlikely character and let him win it all.
Apologies to Samuel Colt, but fiction is the great equalizer. In my work, I have the opportunity to right all the world’s wrongs (as I see them) and settle old scores through the characters I create. So look out, ballers. Yamane is coming atcha.

 Josh? Which of your guys is the biggest badass.
Hmm. I was going to let Taylor MacAllister from the Dangerous Ground series take this one; he’s good at sports and is definitely a bad ass, but then I thought noooo, let’s let a REAL athlete at this one. So I’m choosing Mitchell Evans of Lone Star. Yeah, he’s a ballet dancer, and probably the only character I’ve created who can lift a grown woman over his head. He can leap six feet off the ground from a full stop, so I think he’s probably got this dodgeball thing nailed.




Thank you to Z.A. for stopping by -- and here's wishing her another bestseller!