Lauren married her high school sweetheart at 24. They had their first child the following year. The next six years of her life were taken up with caring for her three children. She found out early on that being a parent could be as devastating as it is wonderful. Her first two children developed life-threatening conditions. At four weeks her son developed pyloric stenosis and two years later, at eight months of age, her daughter contracted meningococcal disease. Many surgeries and some very scary hospital stays later Lauren’s third child was born and her parents cross their fingers and thank the gods that, so far, she hasn’t needed any life-saving surgery! Her son (8) and two daughters (6) and (3) are now happy, mostly healthy and extremely boisterous.When Lauren hit her thirties and her children’s health problems began to settle, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied. The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left the family of five homeless.
When Lauren hit her thirties and her children’s health problems began to settle, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied. The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left the family of five homeless.Taken in by Lauren’s parents, with no home to renovate and faced with a stressful problem with no solution, Lauren found herself drawn to the computer. She sat down and poured all of her emotions and pent up creative energy into writing The Woodlands.
Family, a multicultural background and a dab of medical intrigue are all strong themes in her writing. Lauren took the advice of ‘write what you know’ and twisted it into a romantic, dystopian adventure!
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[…] the ones who always encouraged me to get back to my dream and write that book. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor The Woodlands was born from a lack of any other creative outlet. I had always thrown myself into […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the second question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #1 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the second question is “What is your favorite part of writing and the most difficult part?” and let’s check out what our authors have to say! 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen My favorite part of writing is getting to escape your own problems and dive into something you get to create outside of everything else. Meeting and talking to readers is an awesome part of writing as well. It’s so much fun to hear how your story affected them. The hardest part is getting your work into the hands of readers. There are so many books out there that getting yours noticed takes a ton or marketing, time, and effort. 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris My favorite part of writing is the rough draft. I love how I come to a point in the story and the characters and world I’ve created take over. It’s like the story begins to write itself and I’m just a conduit. I also love doing research and learning new thinks I wouldn’t look up if it weren’t for the story. The most difficult part is revision. During the revision process, I have to make sure all aspects of the story meld together smoothly. For me, revision is the grunt work of writing. 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn The favourite part for me is what I call the ‘secret’ stage. It’s that part when you have the very first spark of an idea for a book and you start a few chapters, get a little outline going. That’s the part when there are no judging eyes on the book, not even the kind eyes of your friends and family. It’s just you and your new idea in the honeymoon phase, secret and special and that’s a wonderful thing. The difficult part? Absolutely everything after that stage! 4) Author #4: M.E Cunningham Favorite part- getting lost in la la land and creating something out of nothing. Least favorite part: when I can’t write, for whatever reason. Whether sick, too tired, or uninspired. 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan My favorite part of writing is the creation of new people and their worlds. I love when the characters decide to break out of the mold I have created for them and take off in different directions than I’d planned. The most difficult part of the writing process for me is editing and marketing. Editing is a necessary part of writing but I enjoy creating over editing. Marketing is the worst part for me; I’m really not a salesperson. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese I love weaving in the true to life things- the people and places- I can see and feel all of it as I write. The hardest part is deciding how much is enough for the reader. I am not big on lengthy descriptions- I prefer a plot that moves quickly with character development woven in. Some people may not see that as enough for their tastes. I really despise marketing, too! I love my books, but I struggle to present them to strangers. They are truly personal and sometimes criticism is hard to take. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong My favorite part of writing is simple; it’s writing! I love letting the scenes lead me and seeing what the characters come up with! My least favorite part is then editing said scenes and telling my characters they are long winded and need to cut their conversation in half! 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer I have enjoyed pulling thoughts and experiences from my life and mixing it in with these characters. It’s been fun to explore parts of myself with aspects of the story, and think a lot about my childhood and past relationships. I also love hearing feedback and how my writing caused someone to feel the emotion I was going for. As a mother with very young kids, the most difficult part is balancing motherhood and setting aside time to write. 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser My favorite and my most difficult part might be one in the same, and that’s world building. As a fantasy writer, I find that it’s very important to pay attention to the little details. Doing so makes the world you create more realistic. It’s fun, but it can also be frustrating. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the second question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #2 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the third question is “How long do you take to write a book?” and let’s check out what our authors have to say! 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen It really depends on the book. My first book took me ten years of writing and rewriting before it was ready. That’s partly because I wrote the first draft when I was sixteen and did complete rewrites of the entire book three times in between getting married, having two kids, and college. Normally, it takes me between 2-6 months to finish a first draft. Editing sometimes takes much longer. 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris Hard to say. I’m usually working on multiple projects at once. Actual writing time on The Last Orphans was probably six months, though the project took over a year to complete. I usually pump out a rough draft in eight to ten weeks. When I’m working on a rough draft, I don’t stop or look back, I just cling to the fundamental elements of the story I’ve devised in my outline and barrel through to the end. Then I have to do a lot of work to fix it when I revise, and that can take some time. Thank God for editors and beta readers! 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn It usually takes me around 2 months to write a book, but some of my novels have come about much faster than that. The Mind’s Eye took 38 days, The Secret Star was 26 days and my fastest to date was The Book Of Shade which only took 15 days to pen its 78,000 words. It depends on how swept up and obsessed you get with the idea. 4) Author #4: M.J Cunningham I have written quite a few. This version of The Eye of Tanub is probably the 4th or 5th version, so honestly, it took about five years! 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan It took me about a year to write Dead in the Water, my second book. That doesn’t include editing, publishing, or marketing. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese I wrote Linked Through Time out in about 3 months, but I edited it and revised some sections over a few more months- I have three kids and I work, so it was hard to find the time to dedicate solely to writing. Lost Through Time took a little longer to develop, and Destroyed Through Time took almost a year because I kept changing my mind about the plot. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong I wrote my first ‘rough’ draft in four months. I then spent the next year and a half learning I had a lot to learn 😉 Needless to say, my 150,000 word story needed a little trimming. Once I got my novel around 98,000 words I decided I was done cutting my left arm off (that’s how it felt!). 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer I have enjoyed pulling thoughts and experiences from my life and mixing it in with these characters. It’s been fun to explore parts of myself with aspects of the story, and think a lot about my childhood and past relationships. I also love hearing feedback and how my writing caused someone to feel the emotion I was going for. As a mother with very young kids, the most difficult part is balancing motherhood and setting aside time to write. 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser Lingering Echoes took just over a year to complete. I ended up cutting out a lot of scenes because little did I know that it was too long-winded for a YA novel and I had a lot of unnecessary scenes. Over the next couple years of trying to get published, I continued to cut out scenes or add a little here and there to improve the writing. The process of finding a publisher took over three years! 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the second question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #3 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the third question is “Why do you choose to write Young Adult books?” 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen I love YA. I always have and I always will, even when other opinionated people think it’s juvenile. I love the excitement and emotional drama of teens. Not in real life, mind you, just in fiction! YA is my primary genre, but I actually do write contemporary romances as well. I have one published so far (Date Shark) and two more scheduled for release this year as long as everything goes to plan. 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris Firstly, I like to read YA (especially YA that appeals to boys). Because I find it hard to find YA that appeals to boys, I’ve always felt like it was an area where we need more writers to focus. Also, I like YA characters–I like all the conflict and newness to life and experience that they offer (if that makes any sense). I don’t know if I’d be good at writing in any other genre. Regardless of the age of my character, I expect they’d all end up sounding YA. 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn Actually I do write a lot of other books that aren’t YA. I have a new adult series Shadeborn and a few books that are suitable for all ages. For me the story dictates the ages of the characters, so I always write what is suitable for the kind of story I want to tell. When I do write YA, those books tend to be a lot about self-discovery, first loves and the pressures of growing up. I find those kinds of issues very enjoyable to explore. 4) Author #4: M.J Cunningham It’s just more fun. I like good, clean writing. I don’t want to worry about a lot of swearing or sex, which I think is inappropriate for YA. Plus, it makes me feel young again! 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan Actually, Dead in the Water is my only Young Adult novel. My other two books (Sideshow, out now, and Conspiracy of Ravens, due for release at the end of June) are both horror novels for adults. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese A lot of my favorite books are YA- and also, that is the time in my life when I really became close with books. I love that age- an age of finding one’s self and also testing boundaries. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong I love writing YA! Maybe because I had such a sad social life when I was sixteen (and I want to live vicariously through my characters) or maybe because I want to relive the first kiss over and over again! Writing YA is all about firsts; first kiss, relationship, betrayal, breakups, and self-discoveries, etc… I may one day dabble in the exciting new world of New Adult (shh…don’t tell anyone!) 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer Having spent a number of years working with youth as a Recreation Therapist, I am more comfortable with teenagers than I am writing for adults or younger kids. Also, as a teenager, that’s a time where I felt like I had a ton of growing experiences and emotional episodes to pull from! It’s also an age where so much growth can happen for characters who are experiencing life, some events for the first time. It’s fun to go back to that time in my own life and visualize what it might be like for different characters. 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser I mostly read Young Adult books, and I have long before the Twilight series. A romantic at heart, first love gets me every time, and I love coming of age stories, too. There is something magical about all that possibility in youth. I may someday write other genres, but for right now, I really enjoy this one. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the second question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #4 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the 5th question is “Why do you choose to write Young Adult books?” 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen I’ve been blessed to get to “meet” a lot of my readers through social media and I love hearing directly from them how my books have affected them. One of the common things I hear when they talk about my characters is how they’ve felt the same way my characters do at times. Sure, my readers may not be faced with being fated to destroy the world, but they know what it’s like to be an outcast. They may not be cursed with hunger for other people’s suffering, but they know what it’s like to feel different from everyone else. They may not be invisible (literally), but they know what it feels like to be the kid no one seems to know is there. It really touches me to hear them say that connecting with my characters made them feel like they weren’t alone in what they were feeling and that things could change for them. 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris My desire is to get kids and adults reading. Otherwise, I just want to entertain and make the reader think a little. If they read my book, the first goal is achieved. Most seem to enjoy my story, so I suppose my desired impact was achieved. 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn The Mind’s Eye was my first YA book, published by Clean Teen Publishing. The response was immense! I can’t get over how many messages and kind words I have received from readers all over the world who connected with the story of a young English girl set in World War 2. It’s been a big hit with the American School Library Journal which was a huge, glowing recommendation and it’s continuing to surprise me with the different kinds of people that connect to it, regardless of age, nationality or any other factor. 4) Author #4: M.J Cunningham The impact of my first book, Reluctant Guardian, has been great. So many people have written to me telling me the cried the whole way through. I love that. A book that can make you laugh and cry is a success in my mind. 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan I wrote Dead in the Water for my students at the school where I work. I wanted to write something for them that was appropriate but also entertaining, something that my little sisters could read (they are teenagers and pre-teens) without too much graphic content or language. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese I think some were pleased and really liked the story, but others had a hard time identifying with the setting- as it is a purely rural lifestyle. Overall, I have gotten positive remarks from groups, but the book has reached fans of all ages, which makes me even more proud. I never set out to write a trilogy, but people kept wanting more answers and really became involved with the characters in the first book. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong The best part of writing a book is feedback, hands down! It makes my day every time someone lets me know they enjoyed my novel! Before I published The Awakener I had the entire novel up on Wattpad for free reading, so I received feedback from many of thousands who’d read it. I still remember one night my phone chiming I had a message. I pulled it open to see a girl in Africa had just finished reading my book and was in tears over how it was just what she’d needed to restore her faith. That message left me in tears. 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer I enjoy writing with a purpose so Lingering Echoes has morals and values sprinkled within the emotional and mysterious storyline that touches on family relationships, friendships, love and healing. It’s still a fairly new book so I am eager to get it into the hands of more young adults. I hope the emotions of first-love, forgiveness and trust are topics that young adults can relate with, and that the storyline of Lingering Echoes will resonate with them. Moreover, keeping youth in mind, I kept the book clean of bad language and overly-descriptive intimacy so as not to limit my audience. I’m finding there is a lot of appreciation from readers who enjoy a “clean read”. 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser Never Forgotten at its heart, is the story about a teenage girl coming to terms with her mother’s illness and settling into a new life in a different country. I am fortunate that I did not experience much grief as a teen, but I know many others have. Since then, I’ve had personal experience with loved ones suffering from cancer. It’s unbelievably painful. Never Forgotten may make you cry, but I hope it will also make you believe in possibilities, in forgiveness, and in the redemptive quality of love. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the 6th question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #5 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the 6th question is “Your favorite scene or character?” 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen One of my favorite characters to write is Oscar from my Someone Wicked This Way Comes Series. Oscar has some serious emotional, psychological, and hunger issues. Reality isn’t always his friend and he tends to go off the rails on occasion. That made him a challenge to write, but also one of the most interesting of my characters to get inside his head. 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris My favorite scene in The Last Orphans is the opening scene. It’s a little sad because the protagonist just lost a family member, but I had a lot of fun with the setting. I drew from my childhood experiences in the South to create a sultry summer afternoon in North Georgia. It was a blast to take that setting and tie it dirrectly to my lead character’s emotional state at that point in the story. 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn I can’t give you the details or it’ll spoil a big shocking moment in the book, but in The Mind’s Eye my favourite scene happens quite late on. It’s the most violent scene in the book and it happens in North Africa, I just loved creating the action-packed atmosphere around it and building up to that big ‘Oh NO’ moment. It’s those scenes that I live for as a writer. 4) Author #4: M.J Cunningham In The Eye of Tanub… hmm. That’s a hard one. I seriously love all of the characters. This is by far my favorite series. I love Lauren’s sassiness, I love Zach’s loyalty and determination. I love Dardanos’s hard exterior and tender insides. I love Flitwicket’s calm intellect… I could go on and on. LOL 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan My favorite character is Evalyn (Eva) Dunbar. She is such a typical teenage girl, particularly in my neck of the woods. I love how she blossoms from an introvert who thinks of herself as a freak into a young woman in love. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese I think Kate was the most fun for me, since she represents my life and feelings when I was fifteen. I was moved from the city to the country at that age, and I thought my life was over. I had a lot to learn about country living and values. My favorite scene would be from the second book, Lost Through Time, when Kate is struggling to live in 1910, rural Minnesota. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong Ah-hum, is it cliché to say the kissing scene is my favorite? Okay, aside from that, my favorite scenes to write usually involved Eden and her guardian angel Gabriel. I loved creating scenes where their two worlds collided. 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer I loved writing when Allie Collins meets Damien Michaels for the first time. Allie is walking alone by the lake and stops by one of her favorite trees. Then, she feels like someone is watching her and scrambles up the branches. In her haste, she ends up falling and getting the wind knocked out of her. A dark-haired guy with piercing blue-grey eyes and a strange tattoo on his bicep approaches her. Allie is nervous and defensive during her interaction with the “calm and collected” (and turns out highly secretive) Damien… this was one of the first scenes I wrote and it came easily to me, and I immediately knew I needed to keep writing to figure out more about this attractive and mysteriously alluring Damien Michaels! 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser My two favorite characters to write have the smallest roles in this book – how funny is that? Brigid and Kieran. They both play bigger roles in Current Impressions. My favorite scene was the dance club where Meara meets Kieran for the first time. I rewrote that scene into a short story that is available in the Certain anthology, a collection of short stories from a few of this year’s UtopYA Con authors. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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[…] Hello everyone! It’s time to reveal the answers for the 7th question for May Author Interview featuring 13 Young Adult authors. Answers for question #6 can be found here. Just in case if you are wondering who we are interviewing this month, you can check out this link and get all your Crime Fiction/Horror/Mystery writers to participate in the next group interview. So, the 7th question is “If you gave one of your characters an opportunity to speak for themselves, what would they say?” 1) Author #1 : Delshree Gladeen I think the character who most wants to say something would be Ketchup, which isn’t surprising for those who know him. His message to everyone would be, “If someone promises you unlimited power, think twice before assuming they’re out to benefit anyone except themselves.” 2) Author #2: N.W. Harris They’d probably pin me in a corner and beat the crap out of me! I live by the motto “Make your characters suffer.” At every turn in my books, I’m asking myself, “how can I add conflict, trauma, and general suffering to this dude/girl’s life?” I’m sure my characters would hate me if they could meet the man behind the curtain pulling their strings. 3) Author #3: K.C. Finn The first thing that springs to mind is “Why do you make our lives so torturous and complicated???” My answer would be that I follow the essential rule of fiction as laid out by Kurt Vonnegut: Be a sadist. Your characters only show their trye strength and their most amazing qualities when you let them face terrible obstacles and painful situations, so don’t be afraid to put them through the ringer! 4) Author #4: M.J Cunningham The impact of my first book, Reluctant Guardian, has been great. So many people have written to me telling me the cried the whole way through. I love that. A book that can make you laugh and cry is a success in my mind. 5) Author #5: Chrystal Vaughan In the book, Eva does speak for herself, and so does her boyfriend Jesse. I think I would give Natasha (the antagonist) the chance to speak. I’m sure she would apologize for what she did to Alex and for what she tried to do to Eva. Natasha had a very hard life; that doesn’t condone killing anyone, but it helps to understand some of the reasons behind her actions. 6) Author #6: Jessica Tornese I think I would let Sarah explain the reasoning on her destructive behavior and her obsession with ruining lives. I don’t know what I would say for her, other than….I am thinking of writing a spin-off book to the series to share her villainous viewpoint. 7) Author #7: Amanda Strong “I never asked to be the one who’d to save the world, but the responsibility is mine now, no sense crying about it. I know who needs me, and I won’t let her down, no matter what it costs. No matter what sacrifices must be made.” 8) Author #8: Erica Keifer It depends on what part of the book and how far they have come in their growth, for truly, there is a lot of development in these characters as the storyline progresses. So as not to giveaway the ending, the Allie Collins in the beginning of the book would say she is like Megara from Disney’s “Hercules,” taking lyrics from the song, “I Won’t Say I’m in Love”. Allie would say love is over-used, thrown around with little understanding of the word. She would relate to the lyrics from this song that say, “No chance, no way!” as Allie let’s fear and lack of trust prevent her from believing in love. 9) Author #9: Kelly Risser Sharon and David, Meara’s parents, would look to justify why they made the choices they did long ago. I think they both are consumed with a lot of guilt and “What if” – like most parents who question whether their decisions are always the right one. Meara narrates the novel, so I think most of what she would have to say is there, although given the choice, she might go off on a well-deserved rant about the unfairness of it all. 10) Author #10: Lauren Taylor […]
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