Featured Author – L. Darby Gibbs (Elldee)

I love this Pay It Forward author features because it allows me to virtually meet authors from around the world. Today I’m introducing you to a 1960’s born southern east coaster woman, L. Darby Gibbs (aka Elldee), but has shared the same amount of time on both coasts. Gibbs is just as likely to pronounce “route” to rhyme with “root” as often as rhyme with “rout.” This dichotomy of accents catches the ear of her students on a regular basis as she is a teacher of English and creative writing at the high school level. 

Gibbs mainly writes science fiction, but is known to thrash out a contemporary poem or short story on occasion as well. She lives with her husband, a practical inventor, an adventurous daughter who doubles as her first reader, and two dogs in a 1920's house that interrupts her writing routinely as it is always in need of remodel. Gibbs has two books currently published in e-book format at Smashwords. She has been published since July of 2011, and is currently working on the second book in her series Students of Jump.

In Times Passed Synopsis

Take one time-jumping Nerg box and add three best friends, one self-aware computer and a leap into the past of more than 200 years, and you are bound to have a little trouble.

Idea for writing In Times Passed

Gibbs worked at a factory and was a product grader. She would pull off the line anything that didn't meet quality requirements. Doesn't take much thought or intelligence, just good automaton-like reflexes. She would listen to music, daydream, write letters in her head while her eyes registered flaws and her hands reached out and grabbed, flipped and dropped the item into the correct bin based on the type of flaw. Then a song came on the radio by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, "I just dropped in (to see what condition my condition was in)." As she listened, the story of a man who found a means to travel in time started playing out in her mind.  Gibbs liked the image of him "dropping in to see what condition [his] condition was in."

In Times Passed Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rAZYoz024

Where to purchase book:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77866

Gardens in the Cracks and Other Stories Synopsis

This book is an anthology of SciFi short stories.  The title story is Gardens in the Cracks and is about Marga Graber who has been living under the pandemic-inspired edicts of the desert planet Castoe all her life, following in her mother and grandmother’s footsteps. Her ravine farm has prospered. She enrolled her first son in the scrapper apprentice program as required by those same edicts and mourned her loss when he disappeared, presumed dead along with his mentor teamster. Now she must face again the placement of a second son in the program. It is one thing to intellectually know that the planet must raise its population and its production in order to contribute again to the Common Wealth planets, but returning the planet to full recognition as a contributing member after falling to mere colony status has costs that are felt much more personally.

Idea for writing Gardens in the Cracks

Gibbs had been writing several short stories and found that two of them Gardens in the Cracks and an included novella Scrapper together were nearly book length. So she looked through pieces I wrote that she thought could inhabit a book with them. They all deal with adjusting to the things that we struggle with in life: love, fear, challenge, and believing in our selves. 

Where to purchase book: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/177065

Why Did Gibbs Self-Publish?

She thinks she might be just a little bit of a control freak and that played a part in her decision to be an indie writer. She likes creating the whole package though she did get as much feedback as she could to make it a good package that she finally uploaded. She wrote the first drafts of her books several years ago and just put them away assuming that publication was a pipe dream. And then e-publishing arrived, and she thought she would dig them out and see if they had much to say for themselves. Clearly redrafting was needed, and she could see where the stories should take some new turns as well.  It’s only been a year she published the first in her series Students of Jump, and just this summer she published an anthology. She’s off to a good start.

Author site at Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LDGibbs

Gibb’s Blog: http://ldarbygibbs.blogspot.com/

Gibb’s Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5109451.L_Darby_Gibbs

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LDarbyGibbs

I appreciate Gibbs taking time out of her busy schedule to be part of Pay It Forward. It was a pleasure meeting her.

Old Houses and Science Fiction,
Bea