I am pleased to participate in Natasha Troop's Lakebridge: Summer Virtual Book Tour hosted by First Rule Publicity.
About Natasha:
Natasha grew up in Southern California and received her Bachelor’s degree from UCLA in Comparative Literature. She also holds Masters Degrees in both Secondary Education and Creative Writing. Natasha currently lives in the Phoenix area with her spouse, son, daughter and menagerie of pets, including a Basset named Moose and a very overprotective collie dog. Aside from writing and teaching high school students to love theatre.
CONNECT WITH NATASHA ONLINE:
Welcome to Darlene's Book Nook, Natasha! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself ?
Sure. I once took up the musical saw because I thought that if I were an expert with it, I could be a studio musician and people who needed a bow saw artist for their records could call me in and it would be my thing. What I discovered was that the bow saw is a very difficult instrument and there is a somewhat larger community of players than I originally thought there might be, so I just stayed an amateur hobbyist. It is similar to the efforts a friend of mine and I made to become Olympic Badminton players, which ended poorly when we discovered just how amazingly good some people are at Badminton. I’m also a post-operative trans woman, which I only say because I think some people might think it makes me slightly more interesting and, as a result, they may want to buy my books. Otherwise, it’s hardly worth mentioning because my books have nothing to do with my gender history.
What do you do when you are not writing?
I teach Theatre Arts and English and I’m earning another Masters degree in Educational Technology. I try to be an active parent as much as possible. My son and I have recently taken up model rocketry. We hope to one day become amateur rocket scientists or at least hang out with amateur rocket scientists.
How did you choose the genre you write in? Do you play in other “sandboxes” (genres)?
I never set out to write in any one genre, but given my history in horror gaming and as a long-time fan of the genre, my work just kind of naturally gravitated towards it. That being said, I think my work is equal parts horror, modernist and magical realist. It just depends on how you choose to read it. The fact is, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a really scary book in many respects, yet no one calls it horror. That being said, Spring is far less a work of horror than Summer. And Autumn will trump both of them in that regard. Winter will be much more in line with the work of the Romantics veering into Gothic. Beyond this series, I hope to continue to dabble in whatever kinds of fiction strike me as fun to write.
Do you work with an outline, or just write?
I’m an outliner, but I use French scenes mostly, just entrances and exits, so I know who is up next and what their basic action is. Also, my outline is written in pencil. I only ever really hold onto where it starts and where it ends.
What is your "writer’s food" What comfort food helps you get started? Or do you have a different routine?
Coffee. Coffee is food, isn’t it?
Neil Gaiman attributes Roger Zelazny as his inspiration and mentor. What author is in that role for you? If it is more than one, which three, and how did they inspire or contribute to Lakebridge?
The writers who are most influential to my work are H.P. Lovecraft, Virginia Woolf and Gabriel García Márquez. Each of them informs aspects of what I write and how I write. I always laugh when people complain how long my sentences and paragraphs are when they wouldn’t do the same about García Márquez. The fact is, I read his work and realized that I could write however I felt best suited my work. That the only rules to prose fiction are those I devise for the work at hand and it is my job to instruct my reader how to read my text. It might mean that my readership is not as large as I would hope it to be, but I will not compromise the art. As far as Woolf, I read Mrs. Dalloway and loved how she treated characters and moved from person to person and frankly stole that from her. Read my books to see what I took from H.P. I’m not telling.
If you could cast Lakebridge Cycle, who would you pick to play the main characters of your novel? If there was one line in your series you could hear one of them say, what would it be (and who)?
Crickey! I’d want Sam Rockwell to play Gil, Amy Adams for Shelley, Lena Headley for Jenny…this question is taking too long for me to answer and there are too many characters…sigh. One line? I don’t really have any favorite dialogue, which is weird because I spent so much of my life as a writer writing dialogue.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Yes.
If you could tell a person one reason to read your book what would it be?
There’s a moose and people seem to like him a lot because he’s persnickety. Read it for the moose.
What is your main protagonist's (or one of the characters in the series) favorite food?
Gil loves maple syrup and donuts and the two in combination do not make him unhappy at all.
Can you tell us about your current project/book?
I’m working on Autumn, the third book in the Lakebridge Cycle. It’s veering sharply into fantasy horror, which was its intended veer. In some ways, however, I feel it’s a much more visceral book than the previous ones and certainly darker. But Autumn is the season where things get darkest.
Do you have any advice to give to aspiring writers?
Don’t let anyone tell you what you want to write or how you should write it. If I say anything more, I’d be contradicting what I said in the first sentence.
Thanks so much for joining us today, Natasha! It was a lot of fun getting to know you better!Sure. I once took up the musical saw because I thought that if I were an expert with it, I could be a studio musician and people who needed a bow saw artist for their records could call me in and it would be my thing. What I discovered was that the bow saw is a very difficult instrument and there is a somewhat larger community of players than I originally thought there might be, so I just stayed an amateur hobbyist. It is similar to the efforts a friend of mine and I made to become Olympic Badminton players, which ended poorly when we discovered just how amazingly good some people are at Badminton. I’m also a post-operative trans woman, which I only say because I think some people might think it makes me slightly more interesting and, as a result, they may want to buy my books. Otherwise, it’s hardly worth mentioning because my books have nothing to do with my gender history.
What do you do when you are not writing?
I teach Theatre Arts and English and I’m earning another Masters degree in Educational Technology. I try to be an active parent as much as possible. My son and I have recently taken up model rocketry. We hope to one day become amateur rocket scientists or at least hang out with amateur rocket scientists.
How did you choose the genre you write in? Do you play in other “sandboxes” (genres)?
I never set out to write in any one genre, but given my history in horror gaming and as a long-time fan of the genre, my work just kind of naturally gravitated towards it. That being said, I think my work is equal parts horror, modernist and magical realist. It just depends on how you choose to read it. The fact is, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a really scary book in many respects, yet no one calls it horror. That being said, Spring is far less a work of horror than Summer. And Autumn will trump both of them in that regard. Winter will be much more in line with the work of the Romantics veering into Gothic. Beyond this series, I hope to continue to dabble in whatever kinds of fiction strike me as fun to write.
Do you work with an outline, or just write?
I’m an outliner, but I use French scenes mostly, just entrances and exits, so I know who is up next and what their basic action is. Also, my outline is written in pencil. I only ever really hold onto where it starts and where it ends.
What is your "writer’s food" What comfort food helps you get started? Or do you have a different routine?
Coffee. Coffee is food, isn’t it?
Neil Gaiman attributes Roger Zelazny as his inspiration and mentor. What author is in that role for you? If it is more than one, which three, and how did they inspire or contribute to Lakebridge?
The writers who are most influential to my work are H.P. Lovecraft, Virginia Woolf and Gabriel García Márquez. Each of them informs aspects of what I write and how I write. I always laugh when people complain how long my sentences and paragraphs are when they wouldn’t do the same about García Márquez. The fact is, I read his work and realized that I could write however I felt best suited my work. That the only rules to prose fiction are those I devise for the work at hand and it is my job to instruct my reader how to read my text. It might mean that my readership is not as large as I would hope it to be, but I will not compromise the art. As far as Woolf, I read Mrs. Dalloway and loved how she treated characters and moved from person to person and frankly stole that from her. Read my books to see what I took from H.P. I’m not telling.
If you could cast Lakebridge Cycle, who would you pick to play the main characters of your novel? If there was one line in your series you could hear one of them say, what would it be (and who)?
Crickey! I’d want Sam Rockwell to play Gil, Amy Adams for Shelley, Lena Headley for Jenny…this question is taking too long for me to answer and there are too many characters…sigh. One line? I don’t really have any favorite dialogue, which is weird because I spent so much of my life as a writer writing dialogue.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Yes.
If you could tell a person one reason to read your book what would it be?
There’s a moose and people seem to like him a lot because he’s persnickety. Read it for the moose.
What is your main protagonist's (or one of the characters in the series) favorite food?
Gil loves maple syrup and donuts and the two in combination do not make him unhappy at all.
Can you tell us about your current project/book?
I’m working on Autumn, the third book in the Lakebridge Cycle. It’s veering sharply into fantasy horror, which was its intended veer. In some ways, however, I feel it’s a much more visceral book than the previous ones and certainly darker. But Autumn is the season where things get darkest.
Do you have any advice to give to aspiring writers?
Don’t let anyone tell you what you want to write or how you should write it. If I say anything more, I’d be contradicting what I said in the first sentence.
In the aftermath of a tragic spring day, the people of Stansbury, Vermont, are unable to forget what happened, as they have all the tragedies of their past. After the media exploited their pain, they have become uneasy with the world beyond their town and with any outsiders.
In the aftermath of the media deluge, latecomers straggle into Stansbury looking to pick up the scraps of stories left behind. What they find, however, is that the powerful forces that have guided the destinies of the people of the town for hundreds of years are now at war with one another and in need of pawns.
In the aftermath of Spring, there is Summer.
Buy Links:
Amazon Paperback / Amazon Kindle
Amazon Paperback / Amazon Kindle
Vermont, picturesque and lovely, attracts visitors from across the country in search for the perfect picture, the perfect fall foliage or perhaps a taste of maple syrup. Stansbury is best known for the odd covered bridge that spans Stansbury Lake and goes nowhere, connecting no roads and serving no known purpose. The locals call it the Lakebridge. Very few know of its mysterious origins and fewer care to know more. Those visiting the town perhaps take a few snapshots and leave, their curiosity quelled by an uneasy feeling that they shouldn’t think on it anymore.
The tourists will eventually leave Stansbury, but its residents strangely linger, seemingly held captive by a force they barely recognize. They also do not think about the town’s mysterious artifact much except in passing, all but Gil, his father, Ben, and a few others. They know of the bridge’s dark history and understand that it is responsible for every horror that ever befell the people of Stansbury: the people who fear the bridge but will not speak of it. The bridge makes people do things – bad things – so that it can continue to love and care for them all.
Some have tried to destroy the bridge, but as long as the bridge is fed with the lives of the innocents of Stansbury it will go on – loving the people of Stansbury.
Lakebridge: Spring is the first of a four book cycle revolving around Stansbury and the Lakebridge.
Tour Participants
11/5 - Lost Inside the Covers – Review
11/5 – Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews – Interview
11/6 – Jess Resides Here – Character Interview
11/7 – From the Bootheel Cotton Patch – Excerpt
11/7 – Broadcast from the Bistro – Live Podcast (7pm EST)
11/8 – Author Interrupted – Interview
11/8 – Amber Stults – Book Reviewer and Writer – Review
11/9 – Bunny’s Review – Excerpt
11/10 – Come Selahway With Me – Guest Post
11/11 – Seventh Star Press Blog – Review
11/12 – WTF Are You Reading – Review
11/13 – Darlene’s Book Nook – Interview
11/13 - Bending the Bookshelf – Review
11/14 – Book in the Bag – Interview
11/15 – Cabin Goddess – Review & Surprise
Design by Parajunkee Design
Thanks for the interview and for hosting my tour today!
ReplyDeleteNatasha
My pleasure, Natasha!
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