Lace and Blade 4 Author Interview: Doranna Durgin

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Lace and Blade 4 offers a bouquet of sensual, romantic, action-filled stories. Order it from iBook, Kindle, Kobo, Nook. Table of contents is here.

Doranna Durgin interview

Deborah J. Ross: Tell us a little about yourself.  How did you come to be a writer?

Doranna Durgin: I didn’t “come to be” a writer—I was always a writer.  I put my first little book together in first grade and never stopped, and wrote my first novel in 7^th grade (Illustrated.  About a Collie, if you must know.)  At that point I was writing daily by hand (in very particular lined notebooks with very particular pencils that I didn’t give up until I realized that pencil fades) and submitting with the naïve confidence of youth.  I didn’t switch to the typewriter until after college, and boy howdy, you should have seen me when I sat down in front of my first word processor (Atari!).

I guess the point is, I started and I never stopped.  I don’t suppose I ever will.

DJR: What inspired your story in Lace and Blade 4?

DD: Oh, there was no way I wasn’t going to stump Kelyn, my straightforward sword & sorcery heroine, with social strictures and subtleties—especially not when I’m in the middle of writing a sequel (Rings of Ranadir) for her first book (Wolverine’s Daughter).  I figured it would be gleeful rubbing-hands-together fun, and it was!  There might be some sly thoughtfulness in there, too. I’m not saying.

DJR: Why do you write what you do, and how does your work differ from others in your genre?

DD: I write what I do because it’s all inside me, and possibly I would explode if I didn’t find a way to let it out.  And I also write what I do because authors before me have made me feel the wonder of their worlds, and I want more than anything to share the wonders I feel from my stories, too.  And I write because I want to explore and reveal things I think are important—things we’ve forgotten about our world, through alternative lenses.

How my work differs as I go about that is, I think, a reflection of how and where I’ve always lived—I’m an environmental ed major and former park naturalist who’s always lived as close to the real world as possible.  Once upon a time, that meant a log cabin on a hundred acres of Appalachian mountainside where I interacted with more critters than humans.  Since then I’ve immersed myself in the land on SW Virginia farm acreage (and spent my summers sleeping in a wee tent anyway) followed by rural high altitude desert foothills.  Always close to my animals—horses and dogs--and training them, an avocation that led me to the current pack of four that includes the most highly performance-titled Beagle breed champion in the nation and two more who are right on his heels.  I think this immersion—combined with a neurosensory syndrome—provides a framework for my work that likely differs from other approaches.

DJR: What have you written recently? What lies ahead?

DD: My writing is in a transition phase.  I’ve recently stepped away from traditional publishing—bought out a contract when publisher restrictions meant I couldn’t do with the book what the book needed done.  Now I have so many projects on my list, it’s hard to know where to go first.  But there will be more for Kelyn, definitely a return to fantasy and a number of heart books that have been waiting, and more for Dale & Sully (a mystery series with a vet and his Beagle companion that I swear, I started before I actually had Beagles.  The prescience of me).  I also recently released the third book in the Reckoners trilogy on top of significantly enhanced Author’s Cuts of the first two books.  I love, love, love that indie publishing has allowed me to do this, after nearly fifty traditional books’ worth of bowing to publisher roadmaps.

DJR: What advice would you give an aspiring writer?

DD: The same advice I’ve always given, even as the market changes: Write lots of what you’re driven to write, know the market, know the different publishing paths, and know which choice is best for you before you make it.  Set your sights first, then figure out your plan for getting there, and then go after it.

Doranna Durgin is an award-winning author whose quirky spirit has led to an extensive

publishing journey across genres, across publishers, and across publishing lines. Beyond that, she hangs around outside her Southwest mountain home with horse and highly accomplished competition dogs. She doesn’t believe in mastering the beast within, but in channeling its power. For good or bad has yet to be decided.

Summer Reading: Gems From Book View Café Authors

Before I took off for ten days in New York City, I loaded up my trusty e-readers with offerings from Book View Café writers, then picked books at random. What a delight they were!

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s “Alfreda” novels – Night Calls and Kindred Rites. I’d enjoyed Kimbriel’s “Nuala” science fiction novels and looked forward to her Young Adult series. Set in an alternate, magical American frontier, these coming-of-age stories are told in such a powerful, distinctive voice and with such rich world-building, they drew me in from the very first paragraphs. Adolescent Alfreda comes from line of psychically gifted people, which in itself doesn’t sound very original. Her personality, her family, and her world, however, mark these stories as among the very best. I loved the relationships between Alfreda and her parents and brothers, her townsfolk neighbors, but most of all, the natural world – the tangle of forest and harsh weather, wild animals and supernatural entities – ghosts, werewolves, witches, and more. All too often, the characters in fantasy tales are orphaned or in some way disconnected from their families. In Kimbriel’s work, however, Alfreda’s family of loving, contentious, beautifully-drawn people, give her the strength and context to face her magical calling. I loved how competent Alfreda is, not only in the domestic chores expected of any young woman in that age and place, but in wilderness survival. Kimbriel’s writing is so smooth, the dramatic tension so finely handled, that I was caught on the very first pages.