Featured Interview With Shannon Muir
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in California, while my father still worked in the United States Navy. As a result, I lived in California, Japan, and Hawaii before his retirement in the mid 1980s. After his retirement, we moved to Cheney, Washington, which I consider my hometown. There, I attended junior and high school, and later went on to get a BA in Radio-TV and English from Eastern Washington University. In 1996, I moved back to southern California, where I’ve spent nearly 20 years in and around the entertainment business with an emphasis in animation and family properties for my work… but my writing reflects other aspects of my interests, such as women focused issues, new pulp, and genre fiction.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My father read avidly since I was young, and bedtime stories were common at home. He’d read us all of Tolkien’s HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS rather young; I re-read LORD OF THE RINGS by myself the first time at age 10. My television interests, such as the animated SCOOBY DOO series, also inspired me to read a lot of Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown books. My interest in writing started strongly in the fifth grade when my teacher put a poem of mine on display in the local mall; my sixth grade teacher required us to use all our spelling words in stories every week and read the best ones to the class, and often she picked my stories, not to mention getting featured again at the mall that year. I took these as signs to continue to write and develop stories on my own.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
These days I continue to read a lot of science fiction and fantasy, but also started going back to my earlier interest in mystery, reading a lot more of the new pulp stories available as well as classic mysteries. Tolkien remains my favorite author of all time, but I’ve also very much liked David Weber’s Honor Harrington series and practically anything by Lois McMaster Bujold. I’m doing so much rediscovery in the new pulp and mystery area that it is hard to pinpoint any favorite author, as I am loving the diversity of the adventure. What I find interesting is that as much of the women centered fiction I’ve written, I actually don’t read it as extensively.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book from the women focused side of things is THE HEART’S DUTY COLLECTION. It contains four stories, including my first two independently self-published novels. I realized there were gaps in the THE HEART’S DUTY (my second published novel) both before and after that needed addressing, and the other released stories in this book do that. There is now a model of three generations of women, and the difficulties they must face ingraining the mentalities originally brought on to the grandmother of the group by her widowed father about women and their purpose. TOUCH THE STARS, my first novel, also became bundled in here since nearly all of its characters cross over into the second and third novel of THE HEART’S DUTY sequence. Most of these were written as part of National Novel Writing Month over a series of years, which means their first drafts were completed over 30 days in the month of November, with editing to follow. REDEFINING THE HEART’S DUTY, the only one not originally done for “NaNoWriMo” took about the same time, in part because it was dictated by events from the other stories.
This leaves what I have remaining to self publish to be my own series, THE WILLOWBROOK SAGA and TRUTH REVEALED, but I’m actually moving in a new direction with my future writing. I mentioned earlier a revived interest in new pulp and genre fiction. Last year, a short story of mine (based on characters developed by others) appeared in NEWSHOUNDS from Pro Se Productions. Later this year, and going forward, my goal is to put a lot more effort into these kind of stories as I realize how much I’ve missed reading and writing them. Wherever possible, these stories will still feature female leads, or at least strong female characters in the cast, but in different settings handling different subject matter than my other works.
Follow me on social media to find out when my latest works are coming out. Most importantly, I hope you enjoy what I write. Thanks for taking the time to find out more about me.
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