Ricky Vernio – Historical Fiction [Author Interview]
This week’s interview is with Ricky Vernio who has written several novels. Ricky Vernio writes across a variety of genres, including historical fiction. Interview with Ricky Vernio 1. How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? About fifteen years, give or take. I use a dozen different pseudonyms because of all the genres I work in. I believe that writing is storytelling first and foremost. It irked me that authors were somehow losing sight of that fact. 2. Do you write for a living, or do you also do other work? I write for a living. Lately, with the sales down for everyone, and the publishing industry unable to support as many authors as it could earlier, I've been augmenting my income by painting portraits and cityscapes, lecturing, and giving painting and music lessons. 3. How…
Fiction Bookshelf – Bookshelves Abound = #Shelfie 01
Bookshelves abound in my home and this is my fiction bookshelf. Every room has some books in it. So inspired by this tweet from @helionbooks I thought that it might be interesting to take pictures of all the bookshelves in my house and post them one at a time over the next couple of months with a little tiny bit of commentary on where it is and what the books are. Here is the first #Shelfie Fiction Bookshelf Fiction Bookshelf on the upstairs landing I've called this the Fiction Bookshelf because it is majority fiction, and most of my books aren't fiction. So this one is unusual because it houses most of the fiction titles in my house (well at least most of my fiction, there's a lot of other fiction belonging to my wife and children). This is a…
new cover reveal for Themself
Firstly I would like to thank everyone that took time to give me feedback on the design of the new cover for Themself. In particular I'd like to name check Tom Mouat who first suggested a minimalist approach (as did a couple of others). This prompted me to spend some time looking at book covers in the bookshop at London Victoria train station. What I saw there was that nearly every non-fiction book (and a lot of the fiction) had a fairly minimalist cover. Bookshop visit I was sort of surprised by the number of books that have a block colour cover, large text for title & author, and nothing else. Although most of those also had a small illustration on the cover, usually about half the width and a third of the height. Those illustrations were simplified, not photo…
Dominic Green – Science Fiction Writer [Author Interview]
Dominic Green The author interviews are making a return to Themself! First in the new series is Dominic Green, a Hugo nominee and science fiction author. I reviewed his book Warlords of Llantatis earlier this week, it's one of my top books of 2016. I have a feeling that I'll shortly be reading a lot more of Dominic Green's work. Interview - Dominic Green 1. How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I remember filling exercise books with ridiculous, poorly-spelt, derivative stories written in pencil. I was about 33 at the time. I don't remember ever making a decision that I wanted to write stuff. That would be like a fish making a decision that it wanted to breathe water. 2. Do you write for a living, or do you also do other work?…
Warlords of Llantatis by Dominic Green [Book Review]
Warlords of Llantatis by Dominic Green My rating: 5 of 5 stars The author emailed to ask me to review this, unusually I bought the book rather than accepting a freebie. There were two reason for this, one was that the reviews were really good, and the other was that it was only 99p for the kindle version. I'm pleased to report that it lived up to the promise in the reviews. Warlords of Llantatis At first sight this looks like a fantasy, but it's definitely science fiction. Set a couple of decades in the future most of the action takes place in a virtual game world. There are very brief interludes of real world that contrast the player life with that of their characters. The story is a combination of a detective mystery and also a heroic quest. Inside…