For fun: please take this month's poll on the right-hand sidebar. Thanks.
BookGiveaway:
Bonnie is offering 1 hard copy edition of THUNDER (continental US only) and 1 e-book for Kindle of THUNDER. The winners will be announced here on Friday, February 20th between 5-6 PM EST. To be entered in the Giveaway, please leave your contact information within your comment.
Questions for Bonnie Calhoun:
As an introduction to viewers, your logo reads
“Snark, Suspense, Self-Discovery.” Interesting combo. Please elaborate,
snarkism allowed if you’d like.
Hmmm...Let’s see...snark because words roll around in my
head and shoot out my mouth without passing go. “I sorta’ got no filter.”
:-), suspense because I love the 3
B’s...blood, body count, and blowing things up, and lastly self-discovery because my characters never get away without
learning something new about themselves and becoming stronger.
You’re an amazing woman with talents ranging from
singing (extraordinary voice!!), writing, publisher, webmaster, seamstress, and
live chicken lover. Tell us how you got your beginning, how did you begin your
professional career(s). Is it talent, hard work, perseverance, luck, blessings,
or a magic elf?
Thank you. I am humbled
by your praise. Well to start with, I don’t believe in luck...I believe in God
and his providence on our lives. And to answer the whole rest of the question,
He made me an inquisitive extrovert who’s good with her hands and is gifted by
the Spirit for entertaining!
The “live chicken lover”
is a misnomer though, I much prefer them fried than alive!
After penning suspense and historical novels you’re
now writing dystopian fiction. Are dystopian stories your true fiction love,
and if so, why? What’s next?
I have always been a fan
of dystopian fiction from my teenage introduction to Lord of the Flies and Fahrenheit
451 all the way through to the latest machinations of dystopia like the Divergent series, the Hunger Games, the Wool series, and The Maze
Runner.
I love “what if.” What
if we continue to pollute the environment? What if we lose our freedoms? What
if we figure out how to control the human genome? The possibility for stories
are as vast as the imagination that comes from reading the news.
Yes, I’m beginning to
think dystopian is my true fiction love because I am having a ball writing this
series! I have turned so many “given and conventional premises on their heads.
This next book Lightning will answer
some old questions, but creates a whole new set of questions that will be
revealed in the super finale of book 3.
I will confess there is
at least a half dozen other little voices in my head that have great
suggestions for new series! But at the moment, the “next” thing will be book 2
of my present Stone Braide Chronicles series that publishes in October 2015,
titled Lightning.
About a month before Lightning publishes, there will be a new
short story. This one will be titled Shocks
and will reveal much new information that happens before Lightning starts!
Dystopian fiction opens
so many possibilities that I have been truly amazed at where people think this
series is going and *snort-giggle* Newsflash! I haven’t found anyone yet that
is even close in guessing how this ends.
Okay...one tidbit I will
reveal only to your audience...there are no angels or demons in this series!
Through the varying genres you’ve written, have you
seen an author theme develop?
That goes back to my
logo tagline. My characters are women and young women who aren’t consciously
aware of the strength within them until their feet are to the fire. I love to
think that within each and every woman there is a Laura Croft, TombRaider type personality yearning to
be free! My characters think fast and always have a lot to learn.
For the non-writing viewers of this blog, please
share what aspect of storytelling you most enjoy.
That one’s easy! It’s a
very short and concise answer...Creating word pictures in the readers minds
that both entertain and make them think.
In my eyes—and many other writers—you’re a social
media pro. Which venue has worked the best for you on an author basis and why?
Which have you enjoyed the most on a social basis?
Hmmm...Thank you again
for the compliment but I only seem to be a pro because I really love social
media. When you love something you naturally gravitate to ways of getting the
most from the experience with the tools they give you.
Which ones do I really
like? Well I think if you ask me in another 5 years my preferences may have
changed, because they have in the past. For example, seven years ago we were in
the middle of the blogging revolution. It was the hot new medium and everyone
was doing it. I enjoyed learning the internet and how to write HTML code by
creating custom templates and blogging. I wound up working for Google for
several years on the Blogger Help Forums helping people with Blogger problems.
But as we’ve come
forward and I write more, I have less time for other things. More truncated
forms of communication like Twitter and Facebook have reduced the time people
are willing to commit for interaction, and sometimes interaction comes in 10 or
15 minute spurts spread throughout the day.
My comfort level with
any medium is also what works best for me as an author. My suggestions would be
that everyone needs a website and a blog for longer stable interaction and
entertaining. But my favorite mediums are Facebook and Twitter. I use them regularly
and prolifically!
What advice does the present Bonnie have for the
Bonnie of years ago?
Runnnnnnnnn! (If I
explained that I’d have to hunt you all down....sure it always starts with
laughing and joking and ends with running and screaming! *snort-giggle*
No...seriously...I’d let
it all play out like it did because if I didn’t I might not be the person I am
today...now that could make a great
dystopian!
For fun (or possibly on a serious note): if you had
the opportunity to teach one class to a massive amount of people, what subject
would you lecture on?
The power of prayer, the
most under-utilized weapon Jesus gave us!
You can see Bonnie's first Everyone's Story interview here.
Bonnie's Ah-hahs To Tweet:
Author's Bio:
You can see Bonnie's first Everyone's Story interview here.
Bonnie's Ah-hahs To Tweet:
Everyone’s Story: Meet
“Snark, Suspense, Self-Discovery” author @BonnieCalhoun #DystopianFiction (Tweet This)
Advice from social media
pro, publisher, author, webmaster, seamstress @BonnieCalhoun #BookGiveaway (Tweet This)
Author @BonnieCalhoun:
Why #dystopian fiction? #BookGiveaway (Tweet This)
Author's Bio:
Bonnie
S. Calhoun is Owner/Director of Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, owner/publisher
of Christian Fiction Online Magazine, Northeast Zone Director for American
Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), and the ACFW ‘2011 Mentor of the Year.”
She
love to write, but it doesn't make her happy unless there are the three
B's...body count, blood, or blowing things up. She also has mad skills at
coding HTML, and website design. And she lives in a log cabin in the woods with
fifteen acres and a pond full of bass, though she'd rather buy fish at the
grocery store. Bonnie shares her domain with a husband, a dog, and two cats,
all of whom think she’s waitstaff!
Places to connect with Bonnie:
