Featured Interview With Almondie Shampine
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I have lived in over 30 different locations. My current home is Durhamville, NY I’ve had for 5 years, but have only stayed in 2 years at a time. School years started out in Central Square. Then DeRuyter, Cazenovia, Canastota, Vernon, Syracuse, Oneida, Utica – all in New York, and I lived in North Carolina as well. In 10th&11th grade, I went to 5 different high schools. Talk about always being the new girl! The upside – I got to go to several proms 🙂
I have two children ages 10 and 13, whom I’ve been single mom to the majority of their lives, and we’ve taken in a little dog, a cat, and adopted a fish. Our other pet is TwoFlix – our car, inspired by ‘How to Train a Dragon’ (Toothless), but my daughter kept saying TwoFlix, so it stuck for the car’s name. When TwoFlix dies, he will become our very own Car-Fort in the backyard.
I’ve had as many varying jobs as I’ve moved. I’ve done everything from working in a deli, retail, waitressing, bartending, being a legal secretary, administrative assistant, being a counselor for the developmentally disabled, and a mental health therapy aide for the state. Oh, I was also a supervisor for Sprint once . . . and a professional singer, and a street saleswoman, a cook – Yeah, you name it, I’ve probably done it. Have I ever been a paid pooper scooper? Yep, I worked on a farm. Toilet cleaner? Absolutely. And I excelled at every single one of them . . . until I got fired, or ‘laid-off’, as I call it, or resigned. I’ve always been a perfectionist, even though I’m so utterly flawed.
For my secondary education, I went through six of those. I got certifications for freelancing, for children’s literature, for being a chemical substance abuse counselor, and tripled up on my Associates/Bachelor Programs where I got a BS in Psychology: Applied Behavioral Analysis, a Minor in computers and chemical abuse, graduating with 4.0’s. It got me a decent scholarship to Syracuse University for my Masters. It did not get me a job, and thereafter I became overqualified for managers to want to hire me.
Now I work full-time as a freelancer, publisher, editor, cover-designer, event scheduler, public speaker, social-media professional, web-designer – OH, and an author, which is the part I like BEST. No, actually, the part I like best is that I can’t get fired and I have no intention of ever resigning, because I’ve finally found a job I’m happy with. 🙂
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’m sure my first book was used as a teething-ring to drool over and chew on while my teeth were coming in. Dad owned the remote for the TV, so it was a blessing when I learned how to read. I was hooked from the very beginning. I won all the reading-log contests. I seriously annoyed my teachers, “So, if I read the bible, does that count as one book or 66?” Perhaps I started off as a bit of a nerd – just a bit.
I began writing when I learned how to write letters, words, sentences. My first book was in elementary about a lost goose. Then I illustrated one about fish. I got the majority of those writing awards. Old school friends don’t even flinch when they know I’m a professional author now. They’re like, “Yeah, I figured.” I was the student in the back of the class writing stories while the teacher just thought I was an avid note-taker. Eventually I became the employee that would write on my bathroom breaks, and my lunch and dinner breaks. Everywhere I went, I was either reading or writing. I wrote my first full-length novel at 18 when I made the decision to do it professionally, and that is what I’ve been doing ever since.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
It began with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, BabySitters Club, the BoxCar Children, then graduated to all of V.C. Andrews. While waiting for more, I got into Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Diane Steele, then Patterson, Grisham, Lindsay Taylor, Harlequin, Historical Romances, Nora Roberts, Nicolas Sparks. When I began my six book series, The Modules, I dove into all of Patterson’s Maximum Ride, Roth’s Hunger Games, Collin’s Divergent Series, Orwell, etc . . . I am a fan of every genre, which is why I practically write every genre. Horror, thriller, suspense, drama, memoir, literary classics, romance, satire, fantasy, sci-fi.
You will find other interviews where I speak of books saving my life. The reality of my childhood made the fiction of books my best friend. Through books like BoxCar children, I found ways to get away. Through books like BabySitter’s Club, I learned how to make money. Through books like V.C. Andrews, I learned how to cope, how to endure, how to survive, and not lose hope. Horror books served to show me that there are worse horrors in the world that I was happy to not have to experience.
My experiences, my life, my children and all that I listed regarding different locations, meeting hundreds of thousands of different people, and all my many varying jobs, and educations inspire my ideas for my books; however, it is my readers that inspire my writing, because as long as I can know that I am inspiring, maybe helping, providing hope to children and adults alike, I am 100 percent inspired to keep writing.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I had 3 books published in the month of May, 2015: The Reform, Glimp$es, and The Modules, available in both digital and paperback formats. Two more will be released end of August, 2015: Intelligent Design & Blind Fate. I am frequently doing promotions, sweepstakes, and events, one that is coming up July 26th, 2015 for an entire 7 day price-crunching event. The easiest way to become advised of the bargains and new releases is through my website or Facebook. Free books is never a bad thing, especially until you know an author and that they won’t fail to disappoint you.
The Modules Series, beginning with the Reform, is a young adult dystopian action-adventure that can be enjoyed by adults as well. It features Catina Salsbury, who winds up being the prodigy they’re looking for in the new reform, but with a very big personality glitch, as they call it. She tested inconclusive, a Purple, in predictable traits. She’s belligerent, sarcastic, rebellious, can neither be controlled, nor her behaviors predicted. In an education/job system that mandates like stay with like, Catina absolutely refuses to be separated from her twin sister, Kadrin, who tested Pink – optimistic, complacent, enthusiastic, and trusting. As her conspiracy theorist father’s favored child, he taught her everything he knew, including his distrust and paranoia, but also the tricks of the trade. Her rebellion attracts the attention of both the Commanding Officer of High Intelligence and The President, where he winds up getting stuck with the job of trying to tame the unruly Cat, break her Purple personality, and graduate her into a more controllable and predictable one. By the time the second book, The Modules, starts, she is the only Purple remaining and they are more intent than ever to break her, though the Commanding Officer secretly encourages her personality. 14 being old enough to work, following an accelerated education, she begins balancing work meant to break her while continuing her studies in the Business of Medical Sciences. She develops some really cool and scary abilities from the Mind-Enhancement drugs they were giving her, where the sci-fi/fantasy elements come in. No longer just a prodigy that knows six different languages, advanced physics, and all the words in dictionaries, she comes to learn that she’d also been trained to fight, and even to kill, which makes her a bigger threat than they ever could have imagined. Especially when she finds the formula that they will kill to get their hands on.
Glimp$es is an adult psychological thriller that features a psychic, technological, and spiritual design in providing a glimpse of the future of the characters choosing for a hefty price of one million dollars, but the money becomes the least of their problems when those unrealistic and far-fetched futures begin to come true.
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