Featured Interview With Chelsey Colleen Hankins and Emily Martens
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
Chelsey: I was raised in the small, but very charming town of Magee, Mississippi. I was surrounded by family throughout my entire childhood. From my sister to my cousins there was never really a dull moment in the Hankins house.
Emily: I grew up in Weaverville, California which is a tiny Gold Rush town way up in the mountains. It has no stoplights and is surrounded by woods with one road in or out. Needless to say there was a lot of time and space for developing the imagination.
We both graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (where we met), and after working together as stunt performers for a Hollywood sword fighting team, co-writing a comedy webseries, and starting our own business as Public Relations Copywriters, we conjoined our mutual love of sweeping historical dramas and intimate, character-driven stories to create the fictional world of Eden, Mississippi. We now live in the magical and exciting city of New Orleans, Louisiana.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Emily: My parents read me The Hobbit when I was about three years old, and that was the first time I remember words capturing my imagination. I was obsessed with learning how to read, and as soon as I conquered it, I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I wrote my first story when I was six years old. It was called “The Stinky Cheese Man.” I’ve been addicted to writing ever since.
Chelsey: I’ve always been a bit of a reader. Nothing in particular when I was younger, just whatever seemed to catch my eye. My sister and I used to spend hours playing in the woods behind our house. It was there that stories started coming alive in my head, but it wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I really started to recognize the joy writing brought me. My Honors English teacher, Barbara Fuller, was one of the first people who told me I had a talent for writing. She encouraged me and inspired me to keep at it. She’s a big part of why I’m here.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Emily: My all-time favorite authors are Barbara Kingsolver, Alexandre Dumas, John Steinbeck, Stephen King, and Madeleine L’Engle among many others. I read all genres. I am particularly fond of historical fiction, dystopian fiction and quirky urban fantasy. I love adventures and unforgettable characters that I can get addicted to.
Chelsey: I like Jane Austen and Tolkien, but in all honesty I connect more with playwrights. Oscar Wilde and Arthur Miller are two of my absolute favorites. I also really enjoy Christopher Marlow’s work. Like Emily, I read most genres. As long as it’s a character driven story I’m hooked.
We are both television fanatics. Steven DeKnight, Joss Whedon, Jenji Kohan, Alan Ball and J.J. Abrams are among our absolute favorites. We’re all about gripping stories and character development, and those writers are masters of both.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Death of Eden: Outlaw is the first in an exciting series spanning the Civil War in the South from its early beginnings to its aftermath. Our original concept, like many, was born on a bar stool. One of us asked, “What if Robin Hood took place during the Civil War?” A few sips of beer and a very long conversation later, we had written down brief sketches of our outlaw gang and the colorful collection of characters inhabiting Eden, Mississippi. From that moment on, the story of Eden consumed our lives. We spent every spare second researching and reading and gathering ideas. We visited museums and battlefields and antebellum mansions. We stayed up until dawn writing away until our little idea had transformed into the adventurous, romantic, heartrending and gritty five-book epic that is Death of Eden.
In this first installment, set on the eve of the Civil War, Jesse Locke and a band of outlaws led by the dauntless, unpredictable Jack Ross find themselves with no other choice but to seek sanctuary in Jesse’s former backwoods home. After being run out of town for murder seven years earlier, Jesse arrives to find his mother dead, his sister in the whorehouse and nothing at all as he left it. Having entrusted the survival of his family to his oldest friend, Hank Walker, Jesse sets out to put right the betrayal that has befallen in his absence. But with the gallows a misstep away and ravenous enemies closing in, Jesse finds himself thrown into a tempest of insatiable passions, corrupt justice and treacherous temptations that threaten to send him and everyone he loves to the grave.
Not merely sweeping historical fiction, Death of Eden is an intimate exploration of a time of decadence and distress, beauty and brutality seen through the eyes of those both fortunate and unfortunate enough to live it.
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OMGoodness, I didn’t know you’d written a book. Must get an autographed copy!!
Your mother raised my children!!