Featured Interview With Kelleen Silveira
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in a small town in northern British Columbia, Canada. My family actually lived way out of town and it was almost a cliche how “Canadian” my childhood was. Our neighborhood had problems with wolves attacking his horses. There were a few times when we couldn’t walk to our bus stop because of bears and there were some years we would get snow before Halloween and it wouldn’t fully melt until after Easter. When I was thirteen we moved to the U.S. I remember telling friends that in some places in the U.S. they didn’t get any snow at all and they didn’t believe me! After I graduated from high school I moved to Seattle so I could be close to my family in Canada.
My husband and I own an eclectic mix of pets including two dogs, three cats and a tortoise named Thermopylae. When I’m not writing I love hiking, weight lifting and to travel.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was obsessed with books from a very young age, I think the first novel I read was the Outsiders in the first grade. I used to get in trouble at school because I’d hide a book under my desk and read instead of doing work. My dad – a fellow book lover – got me a flashlight one year so I could hide under the blankets and read at night without my mum catching me. I started writing my first novel, Soul of the Woods, when I was twelve. I rewrote it probably a dozen times and the final result is far different from the original, but there are a lot of the same ideas that I first dreamed up as a kid.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
There is a soft spot in my heart for a lot of authors I first discovered while I was a kid: Anne Rice, Dean Koontz, Jude Devereaux and Lois Lowry just to name a few. These were the books that my parents had in the library at home, so they will always have a place in my heart. As an adult I’ve leaned more towards urban fantasy and am a fan of Darynda Jones, Carrie Vaughn and Ilona Andrews, and probably another dozen I could name.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book, Starved, was prompted by the thought of “what would actually happen if a real person became a vampire?”. My first thought was if food was no longer appealing I’d probably develop an eating disorder. I mean, how many women have a complex relationship with food? I also thought about the fact that the average person, despite all the evidence, probably would struggle to believe they were actually a vampire. Lets be real here, most of us wouldn’t end up cool and mysterious either. So that’s where I came up with Tate, a real woman in an extraordinary situation, and the story grew from there.
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