Interview with Author Jackie Morse Kessler (Includes Contest!)

This week my author guest is Jackie Morse Kessler a.k.a Jackie Kessler.

Now Jackie is well known for her Hell on Earth succubus books and also her superhero YA novels written with Caitlin Kittredge. But did you know she has a new YA series out? A cool new series about the four riders of the apocalypse?

I have had the pleasure of reading both Hunger and Rage and can only highly recommend them both. I am really looking forward to the next two books and hopefully you will all get yourselves a copy and agree with me!

Maybe you will win a copy? Check out the contest after reading the interview. You could get a copy of Hunger!

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Amber - Welcome to Amberkatze's Book Blog! It is great to have you here as a guest again! Could you start things off by telling us a little about your YA
series, The Riders?

Jackie - Thanks, Amber. I'm really happy to be here. :) The Riders' Quartet is a series of four books about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and, more important, about a specific issue faced by the different teen protagonists. HUNGER is Famine's book, and it focuses on eating disorders.

Amber - How did the idea for the series come about? Is it something you have been working on for a while?

Jackie - I had the idea for HUNGER for 10 years. I'd told myself that no one would want to read it. Luckily, my agent convinced me otherwise. (For the record, I don't recommend waiting 10 years to write a book!)

Amber - I already had the pleasure of reading HUNGER and was extremely impressed about the way you spotlighted such a delicate subject. You seem to know a lot about eating disorders. Is is something you researched or something you have dealt with yourself?

Jackie - I used to be bulimic. Writing HUNGER was extremely cathartic, even though I haven't been bulimic for a long time. I did do some research into specific anorexic behavior.

Amber - Will the other books also focus on other teenage 'problems'?

Jackie - Yes. RAGE, which will come out early spring 2011, is about a teen girl who self-injures, who becomes the new avatar of War. LOSS, which I'm writing now, is about a bullied teenage boy who is tricked into becoming Pestilence. The fourth book, BREATH, will be Death's book. I haven't started writing that one yet, but it's safe to say the issue will have something to do with death. :)

Amber - Is it hard switch genres? A sexy succubus one day and a Young Adult series the next? Did you always want to write a Young Adult series?

Jackie - It's actually not as hard as I would have thought. Then again, I didn't intentionally set out to write YA, so there you go!

Amber - The books have really cool covers! Did you get a say in that?

Jackie - I had absolutely no say in the cover, but I am extremely grateful to have been blessed by the cover gods.

Amber - How long on average does it take you to write a book? Do you have a
process you follow? or do you just start at page one and see what happens?

Jackie - Well...HUNGER had been brewing for 10 years. So it all came pouring out in four weeks. (To be fair, it is a very short book.) RAGE took longer -- a couple months to write the first four chapters and the synopsis, and then two more months to write the rest of the book, with a lot of research in the middle. LOSS at the moment is giving me gray hair from how long it's taking. But that's OK. The words will come.

For me, I absolutely must have the right opening sentence. It's just one of those things; if I don't have the right opening sentence, I can't move forward. Frustrating, really.

Amber - A lot of authors have 'soundtracks' for their books. Is there any music that influenced the Riders series?

Jackie - For HUNGER, no, because the words came so quickly -- that being said, Nirvana songs play a role. For RAGE, I listened to a lot of Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Shine Down, Linkin Park, Nickelback, and definitely Nirvana. LOSS is mostly Linkin Park and Nirvana. As for BREATH, I currently have Nirvana, Breaking Benjamin, Shaman's Harvest and Slipknot on the soundtrack.

Amber - Are you working on any other projects you would like to tell us about?

Jackie - Other projects, yes. Other contracted projects, no. ;)

Amber - There has been quite a lot of Paranormal TV series and Films to hit the screens lately. Why do you think that is? Would you like to see any of your characters come to life in the same way?

Jackie - Just like people enjoy reading about the supernatural, they like to watch it too. Stories about monsters, after all, are really stories about our own humanity. And heck yes, I'd love to see my characters on screen. I think a lot of HUNGER would have to be reimagined because so much of the book is internal -- just like what Alan Ball did with Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse series for True Blood, a visionary director would have to do something similar with HUNGER. But it could be done! As for the superhero books and Jezebel's books...man, those are tailor-made for the big screen. Or possibly, in Jezzy's case, HBO. :)

Amber - Which Rider would you like to be? Or would you choose to be Death?

Jackie - Oh heavens. I wouldn't want to be any of them. I have far too much fun playing God when I write them. But I wouldn't mind hanging out with Death. He's cool. And he plays a mean guitar.

Amber - Thanks for visiting Amberkatze's Book Blog again!

Jackie - Thanks again, Amber!



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Contest Time

Would you like to win a copy of Hunger? Well just enter the contest to win!

How to Enter

Everywhere I look I see Christmas! Are you ready? Have you got all the presents? Do you wait till the last minute? Or is it just too early?

No Christmas = No Entry

Earn more entries for each link you place about this contest on the net. You can post on Facebook, Twitter & MySpace but make sure you add links here for me to confirm your entries! However please do not make individual postings for each entry. Please post all your entries in one post.

Advertise Amberkatze's Book Blog on your site and get an extra entry for this and every other contest!

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You can also earn extra entries by emailing your friends about the contest. Just make sure you send a copy of your email or receipt to me at Amberkatzes_book_blog at gmx dot net.

Make sure you post your links here so I can confirm your entries.

Keep the contests going by using the Bookdepository.com links/Banners below and around the site!



The contest will stay open until Sunday 5th of December 2010 4pm CET and the winner will be picked by a randomizer. Entrants should check back to see if they have won. I do not hunt down winners and will pick new winners for any prizes not claimed within 7 days.