Featured Interview With Marie Kammerer-Franke
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m originally from St. Paul, MN, and sorely miss and adore land of 10,000 lakes during the summer. After several moves (Chicago, St. Louis, Tampa) we finally settled in Upstate New York. No, not that New York-Upstate New York, think gorges and waterfalls, acres of farm land and lush mountain forests as far as the eye can see…and then cover it all in about 200″ of snow.
I have a hard time sitting still dragging my husband and kids through as many off the beaten path trails as I can stumble upon! During the winter I can be found designing costumes for a local school’s drama club, judging middle school aged kids in robotics, writing, and reading.
And as my husband has learned, if you really want my attention bring an offering of coffee, tea, or Mexican food.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always been interested in books, it was bred into us growing up. My father was an avid into art, his entire family is filled with singers, poets, and star gazers. You can’t help but fall madly in love with Carl Sagan and his Cosmos or Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell when it surrounds you every day!
I started writing in grade school, having a story about red balloon who traveled the world published in our classrooms newsletter. I’ve written ever since, taking a couple years off to give drawing, singing, and photography a failed attempt. Luckily, my imagination was patient enough to wait in the wings while I spent time trying to find myself.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors? Would you like to go get a snack before I start listing them? It’s okay, I’ll wait, this could take a while.
I am a huge fan or Jean Auel and the Earth’s Children Series, they are my go to books and my copies are so worn that words are faded, but that’s alright, I have them memorized. I also adore Douglas Adams, Christopher Moore (you can NEVER go wrong with a Chris Moore novel), Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, Charlie Huston, Erin Morgenstern Stephen King, Mark Z. Danielewski, S. G. Browne Seth Graham Smith, Agatha Christie, Daniel Keyes…the list is never ending and I’m sure I’m forgetting one of my top ten.
My writing is inspired a ton by Douglas Adams, but more influenced by music. To me, there is nothing more relaxing than a pair of loud headphones and a blank Microsoft Word document.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is actually my first novel and book #1 in the sci-fi/fantasy series ACN; “A Charming Nightmare.”
The entire series was a story I used to tell my kids at bedtime when they were growing up. When they got too old for fairy tales I took the characters and aged them, the situation, the language, descriptions, and the conflict into something they can open again today as adults.
To this day, years after creation, the entire ACN Series is my 3rd child, I still feel embarrassed for the characters as they learn how to ‘handle’ each other, I still chuckle at the way our heroine Aylin, stumbles through situations much to the annoyance of Catch, our hero. He’s her opposite, where she is Earth (snarky, funny, sarcastic, emotional, and at times irrational) he’s our evolutionary descendant (feared, strong, rational, intelligent, mechanical, and egotistical.) Even after all these years I still adore opening to page one and reading all the way to the end. Even if my boys tease me that I have completely lipsticked all over their sci-fi/fantasy genre.
You follow Aylin, an every day New Yorker, who one special day is kidnapped. Her kidnapper is as violent as he is smart, no one will find her when she’s being held 40,000 years in the future. You, the reader, are the only thing left in Aylin’s life from a time when anything made sense…so yes…yes she is going to talk to you…and she’s going to blame you for starting a war on the future’s doorstep, and use you to play out theories about how to cure a virus that is killing off the human race faster than the enemies we’ve made throughout the galaxy. She’s going to use your shoulder to cry on when Catch barks her orders, when he’s down right mean, when she tired of fighting him. She’ll bend your ear because in 40,000 years mankind has become more machine than man and they don’t understand her need for tears or grief, but most of all she going to hold on tight to you, you’re all that is left of her home.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Marie Kammerer-Franke’s Website