Guest Author: Keri Arthur
Today’s guest’s bio on her website says that she “grew
up sharing (your) life with dragons, elves, vampires, werewolves, shapeshiters
and the occasional talking horse” but she actually had jobs as a clerk at the
Bureau of Meteorology, a cook at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and a Function
and Desert cook at the Essendon Football Club in Melbourne well before she
became an author. 
She has penned the New York Times bestselling Riley
Jenson Guardian series and I met her many years ago at my very first Romance
Writers of Australia conference. I remember how I was a little overwhelmed when
I met her but that she was welcoming and very down to earth and easy to speak
to – immediately putting me at ease.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed seeing her at numerous
conferences, conventions and book signings and have followed her career (and
over forty books) with great interest. I’ve cheered when she won RT’s Career
Achievement Award for urban fantasy, applauded when she’s won Australian
Romance Readers Awards for Favourite Scifi and been thrilled for her when she’s
received several nominations in the Best Contemporary Paranormal category of
the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Awards, because all these accolades are so
well-deserved.
I welcome
Keri Arthur, who joins me from Melbourne, Australia!
Thanks
for having me here J
Keri, I’ll
start off by asking about your latest release and whether it posed any particular
challenges to you.
My
latest release is BURN, which is book 3 in the Kingdoms of Earth & Air
series. I’d say the biggest challenge in this book was the fact that the
heroine has a form of amnesia at the beginning of the story, and doesn’t know
where she is or even who she is. Writing from the viewpoint of a character who
is struggling to uncover what has happened made world building interesting.
Yep, that
sounds like a challenge!
You’ve
described yourself as a wanna-be photographer and I know you do a lot of
travelling. Would you care to share a couple of your favourite shots with us
from your travels?
You
may regret you asked...but here’s some of my favs J
Wow! You really are a lady of many talents. I'm thinking you should have an exhibition!
Imagining
all those dragons and vampires certainly set you up for writing paranormal
romance, but I know you are adamant that all your heroines should be very
capable and strong women who are more than capable of taking care of
themselves.
I wrote a post last year on the Breathless in the Bush blog about
how romance novels empower women. What are your thoughts on that topic?
I
think it’s vitally important that women (and girls!) have role models that they
can look up to. People often mock romance because it’s written by women
(generally) for women, and yet romance novels often tackle truly heartbreaking
subjects such as the loss of loved ones, mental illnesses, abuse, and even
rape—even if the overall plot is about falling in love. Romance heroines are
strong and capable, and they always find ways of overcoming darkness and adversity
to come out the other side whole and happy. I think the world needs more of
that sort of strength right now. I also think
one of the major reasons Urban Fantasy has been so popular for so long is due
in no small part to heroines who are kicking bad guy butt and saving the
world—and even the hero—along the way. 
And
to me, there could be no greater example of how much strong heroines have been
needed than the reaction the movie Wonder Woman got. Not just from adults, but
from little girls who finally had a woman onscreen who was strong, capable, and caring.
Writing can
be an isolating profession. I know you keep active and that you have many
friends who are authors. Do you need to be strict with yourself to drag
yourself out from the writing cave and to make time for both exercise and
socialise or does it come fairly easily to you to have that balance?
I’ve been writing full time for about 12 years now, but
I still have to be fairly strict about treating it as a job and making sure I
get the daily word count done. The good thing about being my own boss is that I
can change the hours to suit myself. The hardest part of it is controlling the
urge to scroll through all the online sales when the words aren’t coming.
I generally don’t find it difficult to exercise, as I
consider my morning walks my ‘thinking time’. I also don’t find it hard to
socialize—and I think it’s vitally important for any writer to do so. I’m a
member of a couple of writing groups that meet once a month to talk about the
business, the market, and our writing, and I always find it revitalizing.
Writing can be a very isolating business, and I’m a big believer in the need
step away from it and get out regularly, if only for our
mental health.
What’s
next for you as an author?
I’ve currently got Wicked Wings, book 5 of the Lizzie
Grace series, going through copy edits. I’m also working on Blackbird Rising, a
take on the King Arthur legend, and the first book in a brand new series. It
should be out in Feb. 2020.
Good luck with the edits! I believe we can expect Wicked Wings out in October, so not too much longer to wait.
Thank
you for joining me, Keri and for giving me more to look forward to. I’ll look
forward to catching up with you again.
It's definitely worth a visit to Keri's website where you can check out all her books. Scroll through the book page and you'll find links to her series in Fantasy - Military & Magic, Urban Fantasy, Dark Urban Fantasy, Dystopian Fantasy, Fantasy Romance, Paranormal Romance and Erotic Urban Fantasy. https://www.keriarthur.com/
Aren't the covers fabulous as well!!
Cathy Marr.
Until then, Happy Reading!
Best wishes,
Alyssa
_________________________________________________________________________________
About the Blogger:
Alyssa J. Montgomery is an Australian contemporary romance author who is published by Escape Publishing (Harlequin Enterprises, Australia). She also
writes medieval romance as Alyssa James,
Welcome, and hopefully we’ll catch up at the next
conference!
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