This week I have something special for you: an interview with popular paranormal author Susan Krinard. Her latest book comes out in just a couple weeks, and Iīll be reviewing it, but I thought it would be fun for the readers to hear from the author herself.

Bella: First of all, how did you get started writing? What led you there, and how long have you been writing?

Susan Krinard: I always wanted to be an artist, pretty much from the time I was a child. I attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA, after taking some courses at the local community college. I hoped to become a Science Fiction and Fantasy cover artist. However, I really didnīt learn anything practical at art school, let alone how to find a job as an illustrator. I made up an entire portfolio of "mock" science fiction and fantasy book cover illustrations and took it to New York. I rode the subway around and dropped my portfolio off with art directors. Not one of them was interested. I never got a single call. (I now know that itīs even harder to break into cover illustration than it is in writing!)

So I had various secretarial and clerical jobs (most of which I hated), lived in Canada for three years, and then returned to the U.S., where I actually was hired to illustrate a book. Then that fell through, and I was unemployed. At this point, Iīd been involved in the "fandom" of the TV show "Beauty and the Beast," and had written my one and only novella for a fanzine I helped edit. A friend, who had a multi-published sister, read the story and suggested I write a romance novel. The rest, as they say, is history! Up to that point, Iīd read a lot of Regencies and Georgette Heyer, but not much regular romance. Most of my reading had been science fiction and fantasy, but I always look for strong relationships in those books--as in Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I sat down and began to write "Prince of Wolves." It was natural for me to use a shapeshifter as my first hero, a amn who can turn all the way into a wolf and embodies the fine qualities of that animal. I had no idea that such a book might be too "weird." I found that I understood how to write a romantic relationship; it just flowed out of my fingertips! Two years later I sold the book as part of a three-book contract to Bantam, without an agent.

B: Do you have a favorite hero in all your books? For any particular reason?

SK: I am still very fond of Luke, my very first and truly "alpha" hero from "Prince of Wolves." But I have a fondness for all my characters, so itīs hard to choose just one. I really enjoyed writing Tomas from "Once a Wolf." He was a lighter character than I usually write. And Quentin, from my new book "Secret of the Wolf," proved to be a real pleasure, because heīs very complex...light on the surface, but with much darker undercurrents that are an important part of the story.

Susan Krinard: The Interiew, Part Two

Happy reading!