Featured Author – Deleyna Marr

Today’s featured author, Deleyna Marr, shares with us her book, Sisterhood, which is a modern adventure with a paranormal twist. Writing has been her passion since she could hold a pencil.

Deleyna is the proud mother of three energetic children, ages 6 through 19. She also tends to collect additional children the way most people collect stray cats—as of late, she has the cats as well.

Deleyna graduated from Santa Clara University with a BA in English/Creative Writing, a Minor in Anthropology and the equivalent of a Minor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (the university would not offer the minor officially until the next quarter, but she completed all of the coursework). Basically, she had no idea what she wanted to be, and followed various interests.

As a young woman, Deleyna learned to program and discovered that she has a talent for helping people and computers to work together and play nice. When she isn’t teaching her 6 year old her letters, working on her writing, or designing for the internet, she can be found in the kitchen or wandering the local beaches.

Sisterhood Synopsis

A genetically engineered psionic must find her sisters and uncover the truth of her creation. Her deadly protector has been through hell trying to rescue her. When she is tortured to increase her abilities, they’ll have to escape his brothers and the spirits their powers have attracted before they discover their love.

What motivated you to write Sisterhood?

Sisterhood started as an exercise in Deleyna’s writers group. She wrote a character sketch of her best friend. From there, the characters came to life. Her friend is a poet and she features the poems throughout the book. The book has two main concepts: friendship and slavery. As a girl, Deleyna discovered that the neighbor's nanny was really a slave. Ever since this discovery, she’s been fascinated by the existence of slavery in America, and this book explores the different levels of slavery she sees all around us.

Why go Indie?

Deleyna met with agents and editors who loved her writing, but felt that they couldn't sell it. They tended to not give suggestions other than to write in another genre (She writes in two different genres, apparently neither are selling these days). She continued to query, as she has a number of friends in the industry, but eventually she became tired of waiting for them NOT to respond to my queries. Deleyna doesn’t write to become rich or famous. She writes to share her stories. Deleyna went with Heart Ally Books as her indie publisher because she knows the owner.

Links to purchase the book:
Amazon (paperback): http://amzn.to/VDHPiR

Amazon (Kindle): http://amzn.to/TkhGor

B&N: http://bit.ly/OhsHop
Kobo: http://bit.ly/Tb09cZ

Author Website: http://www.deleyna.com to preview the book and request autographed copies.

I’d like to thank Deleyna Marr for sharing her publishing experience with us and participating in Pay It Forward. Now let everyone else know about Sisterhood by sharing this link – http://bit.ly/VPvy9N

Sisters and Paranormal,

Bea

Featured Horror Author – Linda Butler

I would like to introduce to you our first horror writer, Linda Butler, and she’s all about beauty and brains. Her love of horror began at a young age with the exposure to such classic horror films as “Night of the Living Dead” and “The Last Man on Earth”.

After a layoff, Linda J. Butler returned to school and graduated from Mount St. Mary's College with an M.A. in Humanities with an emphasis in Creative Writing. Her novel, Anti-Sentient, began as a writing assignment for a short novel class. With her professor’s encouragement, she shopped the finished product around for publication.

A native Angeleno, Linda is a technical editor currently residing in West Los Angeles, CA. Anti-Sentient is her first novel.  

Anti-Sentient Synopsis

Strange things are happening in Los Angeles: a vintage guitar shop owner finds a strange woman lingering near his shop as he closes up for the night; a homeless man attacks a waitress returning home from the late shift; the residents of a West Los Angeles apartment complex are awoken in the middle of the night to discover a group of strange people attacking a man in the building’s courtyard. In each instance the attackers move slowly and unsteadily, with eyes that are milky white and teeth like razors. Similar events are happening all over the city. Videos of the attacks have begun to filter onto the internet. The media is blaming the outbreak of violence on terrorists. The actual cause is far more insidious.  

The only hope to stopping the outbreak can be found at the headquarters of Nardock International, a drug research company secretly testing a new gene therapy, Anti-Sentient 6, on human subjects. Inside the headquarters’ walls, a test subject has begun to metamorphosize into a creature, devoid of humanity. The fate of the City of Angels, and perhaps mankind, depends on what happens within the next few hours.

How she came to write Anti-Sentient

Linda returned to school to earn her Master's degree and took a creative writing class titled, "The Short Novel". Her assignment for the semester was to write a novel about anything. Linda decided to write a zombie novel about people being stuck in an upstairs apartment during a zombie apocalypse because of a dream she had of her best friend and her being stuck in her apartment with a horde of zombies in the courtyard.

Her professor had each student sign a contract indicating how many hours a day they would devote to their novel. She wasn't working so Linda agreed to work three hours a day…and she did. When she wasn't writing, she was thinking about the book. By the end of the semester, Linda finished her book and her professor encouraged her to shop it around, and it got picked up by and independent press, Spore Press.

Indie Publisher

She came across Spore Press’s website and their request for Biopunk material. Anti-Sentient seemed like a perfect fit. Linda really liked the idea of being in on the ground floor with an organization that she believes loves what they're doing. She couldn't be happier with them.

Writing

She’s always enjoyed writing, but was shy and unsure about her material. Linda wanted to be a writer, but she didn't think it was possible. Being laid off and taking creative writing classes changed that. Losing her job gave Linda the freedom to try anything. She looked at it as a way of reinventing herself. Going to graduate school placed her in a setting where she was surrounded by really talented writers. The classes gave Linda confidence in her writing and helped her grow. 

Technology plays a huge part in her writing process. She knows many writers are purists and believe in putting pen to paper—she’s the complete opposite. Linda writes on her laptop. Her thoughts come too fast to keep up with using a pen, and she admits to having terrible penmanship.

Anti-Sentient Book Trailer

Anti-Sentient Amazon

Anti-Sentient Barnes & Noble

https://www.facebook.com/AntiSentient

Thank you, Linda for being a featured author and a part of Paying it Forward. I wish you much luck with Anti-Sentient and ask others to spread the word – http://bit.ly/UZWlij

Horror and Unemployment,

Bea