TwoLipsReviews.com - Sierra Dafoe, Featured Author, January 2007

We are absolutely delighted to have Sierra Dafoe as our Featured Author of the Month for January! There is no better way to bring in the New Year than with this talented and very entertaining author. We hope that you enjoy reading this interview as much as we enjoyed conducting it!

FROST: Sierra, it's a pleasure to participate in interviewing you! I’ve been a devoted fan since your very first book, Devarian Exile {which really wasn't that long ago} and have followed your prolific career since with eager anticipation. I understand that before you launched into novellas, you were a professional writer already.

SIERRA: LOL! Well, that all depends on how you define ‘professional’. If it’s simply ‘have I occasionally been paid for my writing?’, then yes, I have. The first time I made a buck at writing was in high school, doing articles for the town paper -- I think my mother still has them somewhere! Then, oh, about six years ago I wrote a screenplay, not with any intention of getting into screenwriting, it was just a story I thought would make a great movie. Amazingly enough, it got picked up by a manager and landed me a few assignments, which was cool, but ultimately was a four-year detour away from what I wanted to do, which was to write books. I’ve sold a few short stories over the years, a few magazine articles, things like that -- but honestly, in my own mind I’m just at the beginning of my professional career, doing the work I want to do regularly and as a job, rather than a vigorously-pursued hobby.

KERIN: And how does it feel, in your first year as a published erotic romance writer, to have picked up three CAPA nominations from The Romance Studio, including Favorite Erotic Writer?

SIERRA: Staggering. Simply to be included in the nominees, among authors who are so incredibly talented… I remember the first time I read Willa Okati -- I was absolutely bowled over by the passion in her writing. And Sylvia Day, and Lora Leigh… To say I’m honored is a massive understatement!

FROST: From your stories so far at Changeling Press, you've produced, or have in progress, two trilogies {Devarian and Dragon's}, a stand-alone {BloodWolf, which we all hope will become a series}, and a Jack-o-Lantern {Witch Hunting}. Do you have a preference in either, say, trilogy, longer series, stand-alones?

SIERRA: Well, there’s things I love about the novella format -- the need to keep the story very tight and on track. Even when Changeling gave me the opportunity to write the Devarian books as a trilogy (which was how I’d first envisioned the story), I really had to keep it focused. In that way, novellas are like screenplays -- there’s so many scenes that get cut; you’re constantly paring down to the story essentials. And I love the short story format, too, as anyone who’s visited my site and poked around the free stories page knows! They’re like… oh, like just a little snip of a life, just a taste, but the challenge is to get in the richness and texture everything that comes before and after -- you’re implying a whole life that goes on after the story ends, and I love that. At the same time, part of me is really antsing to have the space that comes with a novel, to be able to sprawl out in it, have that freedom… There’s really nothing like curling up with a good full-length book that holds you in its spell for hours. I’d like to try my hand at that soon!

SIERRA: I don’t know that I ever did decide, per se. It’s just something I’ve always done. It was the detour into screenwriting, actually, that kicked my butt into gear as far as pursuing writing for publication -- I wrote, oh, sixteen or seventeen screenplays over the course of four years, and there’s something horribly unfulfilling about writing a story that never gets seen, never gets enjoyed… It really fired me up to start putting my stuff out there.

I suppose, though, what really brought me to writing in the first place was my love of reading. There’s so many books that I’ve enjoyed, that have been as real and vibrant to me as my own life -- sometimes more vibrant! And I think every writer feels the urge to try to do that, to create something that sweeps someone else away, the same way they were.

FROST: And who have your favorite writers been? How have they changed, over the years?

SIERRA: They haven’t, LOL! I still go back and re-read books that knocked me out when I was a kid. I was in fifth or sixth grade when I discovered Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Trilogy and Patricia McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which was really the first book that made me love romance -- that moment when Kit realizes it’s not Barbados she wants so badly, it’s Nat Eaton, tall and prickly but as strong and reliable as New England bedrock… OH! Still does it to me, even now. I am, I will say, a big Stephen King fan -- even when I don’t like a particular story, I always love his writing. Teresa Medeiros has become a recent favorite -- her stories are so fun! And she’s a very strong writer, to boot. Gads, I wouldn’t know where to stop -- there’s so many writers and books I adore. As you can tell, my tastes are really all over -- fantasy, sci-fi, romance, horror…

FROST: Speaking of Stephen King, I have to ask the famous fan question he abhors: "Where DO you get your ideas?"

SIERRA: Frankly, I don’t know. They just happen -- or sometimes they don’t, which is awful! But usually I’ve found if I run with an idea a bit, if I go ahead and play with it even if I don’t really know where it’s going yet, that it takes on form, puts on weight so to speak, and usually grows up into a respectable story. More respectable than its author, at least!

SIERRA: Usually, it’s night! I’m a binge writer. I really admire writers who can work in half-hour and one hour blocks of time. I’m not particularly good at that. I’ve been known to settle in and write for fourteen, sixteen hours at a time -- but give me sixty minutes and I hardly get started! This can occasionally be rather stressful on a relationship… and I swear the next house we buy is having two bedrooms so I can take one over for my writing room! That’ll definitely make it easier.

KERIN: One thing I’ve noticed about your heroes is the variety. In Exile, you’ve got Kantou, who’s a pleasure-slave and submissive by nature, and Rolen, who’s out and out alpha. In Dragon’s Daughter, again, you have two really hot heroes who are both very different.

SIERRA: And in Dragon’s Heir, we add in Zendar, who’s as alpha as they get! I love Alphas, I do -- but at the same time, isn’t the appeal of the Alpha really that moment when he bends to a woman? When our powerful, dominating, masculine male lays all that ferocity at his true love’s feet?

And I have to admit, I really enjoy stories that have two heroes, each very attractive in his own way, but opposed to each other. In the Dragon’s Heir books, Darrek is fiery and haughty and dangerous; Rand is massive and thoughtful and nurturing. I think it’s a very natural dichotomy -- we want all that tempestuous, dangerous passion -- but we also want a good father, a warm, loving husband.… I love the fact that erotic romance gives me the room to put those qualities in opposition, at least in some of my books! In other ones, like one I’m working on at the moment, I get swept into the developing intimacy, the way the two characters find their way into each other’s hearts. It’s sheer joy, being able to work in a genre which can allow me both kinds of stories!

FROST: You have Devarian Pleasure Slave arriving in Feb. 2007 {Frost swoons here}. Assuming this will be in the Devarian Universe, could you elaborate a little {within the constraints of publishing etiquette of course]?

SIERRA: Well, there were two minor, but very important, characters in the Trilogy that fascinated me. One was Merkun, who sold Kantou to Soleyla. I don’t know if you remember, but he was freed by the previous Regent of Porto for ‘exemplary service’, and he’s now (at the beginning of Devarian Exile) the purveyor of the greatest pleasure-slaves the galaxy has ever seen. In a very real sense, he consciously sets all the action of the Trilogy in motion. And I was just fascinated by him -- who is he? What’s his story? So I started exploring that, and Devarian Pleasure-Slave is the result. It starts in his boyhood, and, well, I won’t say anymore, except to add that High Commander Amista (who’s the other minor character from the Trilogy) makes an appearance, as well!

SIERRA: Hee! You had to ask, didn’t you? In many ways, he’s based on my husband, to tell you the truth! Based on, sadly, not is… Hopefully, one of these years I’ll get to drag him to a convention!

KERIN: Is there something special you do to celebrate when one of your books is released?

SIERRA: I love having a chat on the day a book comes out. It keeps me from having time to be nervous! That’s really my reward, my celebration, getting to hang out on the loops and play and be excited. This month, for example, I’m barely going to get to be online at all! And I miss it.

SIERRA: Hee! Oh boy. Well, in March the third Dragon book, Dragon’s Desire, will be released. Darrek and Rand still have a lot to work out…

After that I’ve got another series starting at Changeling called Shifter Sisters, about three unique, shapeshifting friends and their attempts to negotiate life and love and dating -- difficult enough for us normal human females! But it doesn’t help any when you start shedding in high summer, or feel a craving for Milkbones in the middle of the night… I’m really looking forward to those!

I’m also thrilled to announce that I’m going to be writing a book for Changeling’s All Wrapped Up series, which (if you’re not familiar with the series) has a woman in handcuffs on the cover with a lusciously ominous-looking man behind her… Can we say forced seduction? OH yeah!

I’ve got a few other projects in the works, too, including a couple of longer stories I’m hoping to get to soon!

SIERRA: Other than write? Write the stories that excite you, not the ones you think will sell. Write the stories you’d have written even if no one ever buys them. Romance, whether traditional or erotic or blended with science fiction or fantasy or shape-shifting dragons, is all about the passion -- you have to keep that alive for yourself, keep it fresh. Every book should be a discovery. Or that’s my take on it, anyway!

Kerin and Frost, thanks so much for having me here at TwoLips Reviews! It’s been a delight.

Featured Book of the Month for January

Love's Alchemy by Ciar Cullen