1) Your new YA novel, Dark Genesis, sounds like the best kind of fantasy! What made you decide to focus on witches for this novel?
I really enjoyed books featuring witches, like L.J. Smith's "The Secret Circle" and Cate Tiernan's "Sweep," when I was growing up, and I think magic is just really fun to work with. I think it's interesting reading about different types of magical practices (astral projection, using familiars, utilizing runes, seeing the future with tarot cards, etc) and I thought that it would be cool to have a world of witches, where the covens are separated by these magical characteristics.
2) Do you have a favorite character in Dark Genesis?
I'm known for writing female characters, so I was really happy with the strong male voices in this book, especially Eric, who is really a confident, honorable warrior, who's also really funny. He had some of the best lines of the book, easily. But I really, really liked writing the villains. I like more sympathetic villains generally, but writing a really vicious, evil character like The Ice Queen, who has no feelings, and only craves power, is just great to cut loose with. Yeah, I think writing The Ice Queen was the best, especially with the cool things I got to do with her powers.
3) If you had to, absolutely had to pick a favorite scene from Dark Genesis which one would it be?
This is a really hard one!! But I think I'm going to have to go with a the scene featuring the Ticks later in the book. Ticks are vampires, but alien, insect-like vampires. At one point, there's a swarm of them that Alyssa and her friends try to hide from, and it just gets worse from there.
4) A lot of authors create playlists to go with their novels. I tend to watch different movies for inspiration. Is there anything you did for inspiration for Dark Genesis?
Music probably inspires me more than anything else when I'm writing. I do definitely get inspired by film and books, but something about the mood music can create just speaks to me. It makes me more emotional, I think, and when you can inject writing with real emotion, it becomes more vivid and makes you identify with the protagonist more. I have some classical stand-bys that I'm always playing, like "Bella's Lullaby" and "Blood Theme" from Dexter, but I tend to play more singer/songwriter material. I listened to a lot of Lana Del Rey and Kate Tucker while writing this, but Brooke Fraser's "Crows + Locusts" was probably the song I played the most.
5) Generally speaking, do you have a favorite author or book?
Growing up, I was a huge L.J. Smith and Christopher Pike fan. I still have a lot of respect for both of them, but my favorite author now is probably Jane Austen. I was an English major in college and read tons of classics, and I try to keep up on that since I graduated, because I think the more you read of the classics, the better your writing. It's funny, but I don't think I actually read Jane Austen at all while in college, even though I was assigned to read her books. It wasn't until after college that I really got into her work and devoured her novels. And it was through her that I discovered my favorite book ever, Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho." The protagonist of "Northanger Abbey" was obsessed with the book, so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. "The Mysteries of Udolpho" is kind of a pioneer of Gothic literature, and is just oozing atmosphere. Lots of mystery, suspense, action, and of course, star-crossed lovers. It's epic. I still read a lot of YA however, and some of my current favorites are Veronica Rossi's "Under the Never Sky," Elizabeth C. Bunce's "Star Crossed," and Rick Yancey's "The Monstrumologist."
6) Who or what inspired you to being writing?
I read hundreds of YA books growing up, when almost the entire category consisted of "teen thrillers," which were almost all slasher stories, with a few supernatural stories mixed in. I got to the point where I would pick up a book and after reading the synopsis on the back cover, I would sort of make up a story as to what the book would be like, and sometimes, I was left disappointed and thought that my story had been better. So I started to create my own stories.
7) What was the last best book you read?
The last book I read was "Hidden" by Sophie Jordan, the final installment in the "Firelight" trilogy. It's a paranormal romance about draki, descendants of dragons. I find that a lot of trilogies start out strong, but sort of lose their steam as they go along. I thought that that was the case for "Hidden," unfortunately.
8) Coffee or tea or neither?
I'm addicted to a drink called a London Fog. It's Earl Grey Tea, mixed with milk and vanilla flavoring. I like my drinks sweet. Like me ;)
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Ferraro.david@yahoo.com
http://www.ferrarofiction.blogspot.com
Twitter: @Dave_Ferraro
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