| Interview with KC Dyer |
First off, thanks so much for joining us for an up-close and personal interview for TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking time
out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for your readers
and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
Hi Jennifer! Well, let’s see. I’ve known all my life that I wanted to be a _reader_, but as for writing – I didn’t
really get a start on that until I was a teenager. Kept diaries and journals (I have big boxes of all my
journals, now), progressed to writing articles and poetry on the side, for fun. I didn’t write my first full-
length book until after my children were born, though.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
I do have a bit of a funny story about this. I was ready to find a publisher for my first book at about the
same time as a friend of mine who had just finished her first novel. Mine was a book for teens and hers a
romance, so we were not competing directly. We were both members of an on-line writers forum, so we
decided that we would have a Rejection Queen contest. We decided to race to be the first to get 100
rejections! The point was, rejections ALWAYS sting, so we would share the pain to see if that made it hurt
less. Plus, just to add that little element of public humiliation, we would do it in front of hundreds of
members of our on-line forum.
Every time we’d get a rejection, we’d go on line and tell the other person that they had better get working,
because they were losing ground on the true rejection queen. This got us both through the very trying
process of getting our first books accepted.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
My next book is called MS ZEPHYR’S NOTEBOOK. It has a little mystery, a little romance and a lot of
attitude. It also should come out looking exactly like the title – more like a notebook than a novel. You’ll be
able to check it out in the spring.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Mostly all the great writers I have read over the years have been my inspiration. I majored in reading as a
kid (still do, come to think of it), and some of my favourites are TH White, W.O Mitchell, Madeleine
L’Engle, LM Montgomery, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, Michael Bond, John Wyndham, O.
Henry, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, PD James…too many to count!
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
Right now I have two kids, one big puppy and two cats in the menagerie of my family.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
<whispering> Dark Chocolate. With Cashews. Hands down.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Brush teeth, walk dog, feed kids. The writing comes later!
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise
me the most?
Perhaps that I don’t have either an attic or a basement? But I think you might like the spiders and skulls I
keep in my office…
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Indigo Blue – just because who wouldn’t?
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Favourite – hm. Snagglepuss, I think. Exit …stage left. But I also love Bugs Bunny – he gave me the best
education in classical music!
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in history,
where and when would it be—and why?
This is why my job is so amazing. I beam my characters all around the world, through time and space,
every day! But if I had my own time-traveling dog like Delaney, (from my Eagle Glen Trilogy) I think I
would like to travel back to 15th or 16th century Scotland, just to see what the people were up to. It would
be a big help for my research if I could do it, too!
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists?
I have somewhat eclectic tastes in both books and music. I love Green Day, Rufus Wainwright, Tom
Waits, Loreena McKinnett, Sarah McLaughlin, Spirit of the West, The Paperboys, Van Morrison, Colin
James, U2 …
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows?
I don’t really watch much T.V. – most of my favourite shows are pretty old, because I watch them on DVD.
My favourite TV show of the past few years was the BBC version of ‘The Office’. And my daughter keeps
me up to date on the latest events on ‘LOST’.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading! Books are the eyes of the world. T.V. may be up-to-the-minute, but it can’t take you the
same places you can go when you read.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
I have a new book coming out in the spring of 2007. It’s called MS ZEPHYR’S NOTEBOOK and is quite a
departure from the books I have published right now. And I’m working on a new series right now, with the
first book set in Edinburgh. It’s a historical time-travel mystery. A touch bleak, a tinge dark – with a fast
paced adventure that will take your imagination captive and not let it go until the last word…at least that’s
what I’m hoping!
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
My name is Jen, and I’ll be your server toda…oh, wait, wrong job! Anyway, thanks so much for taking time
out of your writing schedule—which I’m sure is busy!—and answering a few questions for your readers
and fans.
Let’s get some of the typical interview questions out of the way first. When did you first know that you
wanted to be a writer?
Hi Jennifer! Well, let’s see. I’ve known all my life that I wanted to be a _reader_, but as for writing – I didn’t
really get a start on that until I was a teenager. Kept diaries and journals (I have big boxes of all my
journals, now), progressed to writing articles and poetry on the side, for fun. I didn’t write my first full-
length book until after my children were born, though.
Can you tell us a little bit about your road to publishing?
I do have a bit of a funny story about this. I was ready to find a publisher for my first book at about the
same time as a friend of mine who had just finished her first novel. Mine was a book for teens and hers a
romance, so we were not competing directly. We were both members of an on-line writers forum, so we
decided that we would have a Rejection Queen contest. We decided to race to be the first to get 100
rejections! The point was, rejections ALWAYS sting, so we would share the pain to see if that made it hurt
less. Plus, just to add that little element of public humiliation, we would do it in front of hundreds of
members of our on-line forum.
Every time we’d get a rejection, we’d go on line and tell the other person that they had better get working,
because they were losing ground on the true rejection queen. This got us both through the very trying
process of getting our first books accepted.
Tell us a little bit about either your latest or upcoming release. If you could only tell your readers one
thing about the story that had to convince us to buy the book, what would it be?
My next book is called MS ZEPHYR’S NOTEBOOK. It has a little mystery, a little romance and a lot of
attitude. It also should come out looking exactly like the title – more like a notebook than a novel. You’ll be
able to check it out in the spring.
What, or who, has been the greatest inspiration for your stories?
Mostly all the great writers I have read over the years have been my inspiration. I majored in reading as a
kid (still do, come to think of it), and some of my favourites are TH White, W.O Mitchell, Madeleine
L’Engle, LM Montgomery, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Charles Dickens, Michael Bond, John Wyndham, O.
Henry, Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, PD James…too many to count!
Let’s hear about your family, who I’m sure are thrilled to have a published author among them!
Right now I have two kids, one big puppy and two cats in the menagerie of my family.
Now for some fun facts. What’s your greatest comfort food?
<whispering> Dark Chocolate. With Cashews. Hands down.
What are the first three things you do when you wake up in the morning?
Brush teeth, walk dog, feed kids. The writing comes later!
If I came to your house and looked in your closet/attic/basement, what’s the one thing that would surprise
me the most?
Perhaps that I don’t have either an attic or a basement? But I think you might like the spiders and skulls I
keep in my office…
Everyone asks the question about “if you could be a tree, which tree would you be?” so I want to know: If
you could be a color, which color would it be, and why?
Indigo Blue – just because who wouldn’t?
Who is your favorite cartoon character? Which cartoon character is most like you?
Favourite – hm. Snagglepuss, I think. Exit …stage left. But I also love Bugs Bunny – he gave me the best
education in classical music!
If you could beam yourself to anywhere in the world (“Beam me up, Scotty!”), during any time in history,
where and when would it be—and why?
This is why my job is so amazing. I beam my characters all around the world, through time and space,
every day! But if I had my own time-traveling dog like Delaney, (from my Eagle Glen Trilogy) I think I
would like to travel back to 15th or 16th century Scotland, just to see what the people were up to. It would
be a big help for my research if I could do it, too!
So what’s your favorite type of music to listen to? Favorite musical artists?
I have somewhat eclectic tastes in both books and music. I love Green Day, Rufus Wainwright, Tom
Waits, Loreena McKinnett, Sarah McLaughlin, Spirit of the West, The Paperboys, Van Morrison, Colin
James, U2 …
Do you have any favorite T.V. shows?
I don’t really watch much T.V. – most of my favourite shows are pretty old, because I watch them on DVD.
My favourite TV show of the past few years was the BBC version of ‘The Office’. And my daughter keeps
me up to date on the latest events on ‘LOST’.
You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your teen readers. What would it be?
Keep reading! Books are the eyes of the world. T.V. may be up-to-the-minute, but it can’t take you the
same places you can go when you read.
One last question. What stories can we look forward to from you in the future?
I have a new book coming out in the spring of 2007. It’s called MS ZEPHYR’S NOTEBOOK and is quite a
departure from the books I have published right now. And I’m working on a new series right now, with the
first book set in Edinburgh. It’s a historical time-travel mystery. A touch bleak, a tinge dark – with a fast
paced adventure that will take your imagination captive and not let it go until the last word…at least that’s
what I’m hoping!
Again, thanks so much for joining us at TeensReadToo.com!
