Featured Interview With Abbie Payne
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up and I am still currently living just outside of Houston, Texas. I have a German Shepherd mix named Yoda (yes, I’m a major Star Wars nerd). I’ve always had a wild imagination (which I tended to get made fun of for by my classmates when I was younger), but I think that’s what helps me when it comes to writing my books. I primarily focus on fantasy and dystopian novels, but I also love to try and dabble in a little bit of everything whenever I can. I currently have five books out (three different series) and I’m working on releasing another.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always been a reader. My mom and grandma were always readers and I was taught to read and write before I even started school. I’ve also always loved telling stories and I fondly remember insisting to my mother that I read the book that she would read to me every night, but then completely changing the story around until it wasn’t even like the original story except for the characters. I started writing when I was in elementary school, but I was pretty severely bullied during those years. I remember when I was in second grade, my classmates and I all got to write short stories that our teacher later made into little “books” for each of us to keep. I was so incredibly proud of my story, but that quickly faded when everyone started to laugh at me for my story. In fourth grade, we were supposed to write a story about pirates and my teacher failed me for the assignment because I was being “too creative”. I ended up quitting after that and I only tried again when I was in seventh grade (I believe I was 12 at that time). I started again because my anxiety and depression were becoming more and more unmanageable and I simply couldn’t find any outlet for it. However, as I started writing again, I quickly fell in love with the craft again and I also figured out that it helped me to put my fears down on paper and that’s what I kept doing. Towards the end of that school year, I went home and told my mother that I wanted to be an author and that I was going to be publishing a book. I don’t think she thought very much of it at the time (I mean, duh, I was pretty young at the time and I wasn’t very well-known for sticking to anything), but I meant it. At the end of ninth grade, at 15, I finished my first book and ended up self-publishing The Secret Two just a few months later. After that, I seemed to become addicted to the art and I slowly began writing and publishing more and more stories. Now, I’m getting ready to publish my sixth book and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite genres to read are fantasy, dystopian, and non-fiction, but I do tend to read pretty far across the board. My absolute favorite author is S.E. Hinton (I read “The Outsiders” when I was in eighth grade, extremely depressed, and contemplating suicide and I strongly credit that book for being one of the things that saved my life), but I also greatly enjoy the classics: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald are just a few of my favorites.
I can’t pinpoint one person or thing that inspires my writing. I know that S.E. Hinton inspires a lot of my personal writing style, but I tend to get inspired by a lot of people – both fellow authors and normal, everyday people.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My sixth book is coming out in late October. It is a new adult/adult fantasy novel and it’s the first of its series. The book is called “The Light We Lost” and the series is called “The Stardust Circle”. Here’s the synopsis:
“Blood, death, and gore as far as the eye could see… and a High Priestess Serena standing on top of it all.”Nadia, Jade, Spencer, and Priamos have spent the best part of their lives trying to keep a massive part of who they were a secret. They kept themselves as separated from the rest of their coven as possible, not telling anyone about who they were – not even Priamos’ brother, Tempest, until he discovered he was already one of them. The number one rule for the entire group is very simple: absolutely no one can know about what sets them apart from the rest of the town. However, when the reigning High Priestess begins to lose her control over Wolf’s Hollow and the Stardust Circle, they realize that there’s a grave danger in Wolf’s Hollow and that they might just be the only ones that can put a stop to it.
This book took me two months to write, though it took me A LOT longer to plan it out, This book is also quite different from everything else that I’ve written.
This book all started because I was once in my college U.S. history class and my professor was telling us the story about what happened with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died and uttered the phrase “Jefferson still lives”. He told us that we couldn’t write a story about it because no one would believe it and my only response was “but can I try?” Then, a few months later, I started toying with the idea of a bunch of characters that had memories from significant historical events, and eventually, The Stardust Circle was born.
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