Each day of The Crossroads Tour, a new question will be revealed on The Crossroad Blog Tour main page and each day the answer to that question will be found within one of the 16 different blog posts by Crossroads Tour authors. Your job is to get the question, read the blog posts, and collect all 16 answers by the end of the tour, on Halloween. Go HERE to get today's question and links.
Today's guest for the Crossroads Tour is author Jeri Smith-Ready. Though not new to readers of adult Urban Fantasy, Smith-Ready's debut YA novel, Shade was released in May 2010 introduced her to a new audience.
What was your favorite paranormal/horror/fantasy story as a child/teen? And why did you like it so much?
DOGSBODY by Diana Wynne Jones. It was about the Dog Star Sirius who was framed for murder (the stars are like gods, basically, in this story) and sentenced to live out his life as a dog on earth. It combined my love of animals with my love of astronomy. I recently reread it and was surprised at how rough the dog’s life was. Not sure how I coped with such a sad story when I was a kid. I must have been tougher then.
Especially in Y.A., there seems to be a big emphasis on paranormal romance? Do you consider the romance part when you are writing your story or do you consider writing your story and see where the romance fits in?
Everything I write has a romantic relationship—otherwise I would get bored with it! So for me it’s not something I include to satisfy readers’ expectations or publishers’ guidelines. I just love to write about love. A lot of authors I know dread writing the kissing scenes, but those are my favorite parts.
If you could have a supernatural power or gift what would it be?
Definitely invisibility, but only if I could turn my clothes invisible, too. I wouldn’t want to have to get naked in order for the power to work.
To find her on Twitter: @jsmithready
