Blog Tour: Interview with Rebecca Ryals Russell


Today on the blog we have the pleasure of welcoming author Rebecca Ryals Russell on the blog tour. She took time to answer some questions for us today. 

Links:

Once Upon: What inspired you to write your first book?


Rebecca: I’ve always written things since I was about eight years old. This series, Seraphym Wars, began in my head about 30 years ago. But it wasn’t until I retired from teaching Middle Grades I had time to write it. The inspiration for it comes from daily news of all the evil done by people to people every day.



Once Upon: Describe your typical day?



Rebecca: I try to rise about 8:30, but some days it’s closer to 9am. I begin by riding my stationary bicycle and reading whatever book I’m into at the time. Usually this is the only reading time I get; except days my oldest son has guitar/bass lessons. Next I eat a small breakfast while checking out my emails and watching reruns of Supernatural on TNT. I can’t believe I missed out on that show for so many years. I love it. Then the TV gets turned off and I get to real work. Writing, doing promo work for Odessa, researching or organizing. About mid-afternoon I make the school-run and pick up my boys (one at the community college doing Dual-Enrollment and the other at a Catholic school). Once everyone is home my concentration for writing is shot, so I work on promo, reading blogs, networking, that sort of thing. After supper it’s back to the blogosphere while watching TV with my hubby. Then another chance to write from about 11pm until 2am.



Once Upon: Describe yourself in 5 words?



Rebecca: Introverted to the nth degree. Organized. Logical. Loving. Lazy.



Once Upon: Do you believe in love at first sight? Describe your answer.



Rebecca: I’m living proof of it. I met my husband while in Community College. I was part of the literary department’s Magazine and Newspaper group. We all hung out together and went out weekends, dancing and just talking. My second year in college I had broken up with the guy I’d gone with for a year when I was approached by this Adonis with long curly hair, a Fu Manchu mustache and the most soulful eyes. He was working on the newspaper side of the building while I was editor of the magazine in another part of the building. When he said he’d been watching me around campus for the past year and even made sure to be at my Math classroom door after class, just so he could see me--that was pretty much it. We went dancing the following weekend with the group, but I ended up dancing with only him for the entire night. The other girls were quite peeved that I hogged him to myself. Six months later, on Valentine’s Day, we were married. That was 35 years ago. And he’s still as adorable as he was back then. Oh, and he was fresh off the ‘potato boat’ from Ireland. He’d been in America only nine months when we met. So I believe in fate and soul mates.



Once Upon: Where do you hope to take your writing in the future?



Rebecca: I would love to do what JK Rowling did.



Once Upon: If you could leave your readers with one legacy, what would you want it to be? 



Rebecca: What a tough question. I want my readers to ‘get’ the point of the series. I want them to ‘Mind the Signs’ as I say throughout the books. Look around you and do what you can to stop the evil that is happening daily everywhere. This means ‘living green’, being kind, loving instead of finding fault, etc. Be as good as you can possibly be. 




Here is a list of Rebecca Ryals Russell’s books in the Seraphym Wars YA Series:
  • Odessa (release April 2011)
  • Guardian (release September 2011)
  • Harpies (release January 2012)
  • Majikals (to be written)
  • Debello (to be written)
Rebecca also has a Middle Grade series coming out this year. It is called Stardust Warriors. It focuses on the same planet and problems with more age-appropriate characters and situations. Here’s the list of those books:

Zarena (release July 2011)
Jeremiah (release November 2011)
Laman (release February 2012)
Mercy (release April 2012)
Magaelbash (release June 2012)
There will be more to come in this series.


 BIO:
Author of MG/YA Dark Fantasy among other things, Rebecca Ryals Russell has two series coming out next year: The Seraphym Wars Series for YA and Stardust Warriors for MG.
She lives in a Victorian house on five acres in North Central Florida with her family. She also runs a Vacation Rental Log House on the property (Florida Black Bear Cabin) It was in this cabin she wrote Odessa within 6 months, after thinking about it for 30 years, but never having the time to commit it to paper.
A fourth generation Floridian, she has lived all over the state except the Panhandle.
The daughter of an Elementary school principal dad and school secretary mom, for fourteen years she taught Middle Grades, preferring English and Creative Writing. She had several students’ works published in anthologies as well as several of her own stories, poems and photographs.
Main interests include her four children, ages 22, 19, 16, 11 and Irish hubby of 35 years. She enjoys spending time writing, drawing, going to movies and reading. Her favorite pastimes are sitting on the wicker porch swing on a chilly Autumn evening with her husband and usually a kid or two, drinking a beer and eating mixed nuts while chatting about anything and everything, or discussing philosophy and religion with her 16-year-old son over pizza.

BLURB:
Myrna Ashlin Watts is a high school Senior in Jacksonville, Fl when she is transported to a bizarre and primal planet corrupted by demon-dragons. And they want her DEAD. Her problem is, she has been recruited to kill them, too.
Reluctantly, and knowing it is her only way to get back home, she agrees to lead an army of six teens called The Vigorios- battling dragons and monsters while crossing swamps and mountains, forests and seas. She wrangles with mental scars of a demon attack when she was 16 and receiving a vision of those same demons killing her brother 2 years later. Three very different men join her quest—a seasoned demon/dragon-slayer who irritates but beguiles her, a tender and sweet mentor in whom she trusts completely and a roguishly handsome Scientist who sets her senses aflame. How is she expected to lead the others and keep everyone safe with so much inner turmoil? Whom can she trust, if anyone, even herself? How can anyone expect her to be a leader? Much less one who leads an army of kids in a Holy battle?
Will love and lust, jealousy, greed, deceit and distrust break the delicate tie that binds these teen warriors called The Vigorios? Can a troupe of teens help the Seraphym finally defeat the massive empire of evil dominated for eons by the demon-dragons of Dracwald?

Odessa is due out April 1, 2011 at MuseIt Up Publishing.com as an eBook then in print a few months later.  CLICK HERE to purchase Odessa now

Conscientia, a Prequel, is due out September 2011 and Harpies, the next installment in the series is due out January 2012. The remaining two books in the series remain to be written.


A  MG series, Stardust Warriors, is based on a similar storyline. Zarena is due out July 2011. Jeremiah - November 2011. Laman - February 2012. Mercy – April 2012 and Magaelbash – June 2012. The others in the series remain to be written.



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