Featured Interview With Sydney Culpepper
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
While I was born in sunny Southern California, I spent most of my growing up in cloudy Southern Oregon. I spent my childhood heavily involved in music and the arts, participating in band, choir, and theatre. After graduating from high school, I attended college at Western Oregon University and recently graduated with a degree in linguistics and American Sign Language.
Currently, I’m trying to balance my many hobbies with spending time with my cat and significant other while also working as an editor for a fantastic indie publisher: Not a Pipe Publishing. And working on my next book, of course.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Like many people my age, I fell in love with reading through the Harry Potter books, which were read aloud to me by my father. We continued to read the entire series aloud together even through my teenage years, and it continues to be one of the experiences I hold dearest to me. That taught me the power that a story can have on people and the way they can affect lives. I began writing in fifth grade when a woman came to my class and talked about the magic of writing. I outlined a trilogy called The Legacy of Galen and have loved writing ever since.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I primarily read Young Adult, focusing on sub-genres of fantasy and LGBTQ+, although I am working to read outside of my usual tastes in order to expand my worldview. My favorite author is Maggie Stiefvater, and she definitely inspires me in my writing. I admire the way she lives and writes fearlessly. She is a woman of many, many talents, and she somehow finds the time and energy to write fantastic stories while also indulging in her other passions and spending time with her family and menagerie of animals.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is an anthology that I’m the editor of. In 2015, the publishing house I work with, Not a Pipe Publishing, took on Kamila Shamsie’s challenge to the publishing industry to only publish women authors in 2018. Now, after publishing eight novels by seven authors, we are capping off their Year of Publishing Women with an anthology of 18 short stories by women authors from across the country. It’s titled: Strongly Worded Women: The Best of the Year of Publishing Women: An Anthology.
The eighteen stories in the anthology are as diverse as the women who wrote them. The genres range from memoir to science fiction to urban fantasy and more. The title of the anthology fits so well because every story showcases the strength within these authors and within women as a whole. I’ve found being part of this project empowering and inspirational. A more diverse world is a better world, and I believe we can get there by purposefully supporting minority writers the way we have with this anthology.
The anthology will be available online and in bookstores on November 20th so it can be available for Black Friday shoppers in hardcover (ISBN 978-1-948120-23-4), trade paperback (ISBN 978-1-948120-24-1), and eBook for Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Google Books, etc. (ISBN 978-1-948120-25-8). The anthology is available for pre-order now.
A launch party for the anthology will be held at Another Read Through bookstore in Portland on November 30th at 7 o’clock. Many of the authors will be in attendance and will read short snippets of their stories, then sign copies.
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