Wow, it's been a while!! I have been absolutely buried in work and life... but I'm here today for some fun!
This week, we're celebrating Teen Read Week with an awesome blog hop, organized by Greta Burroughs and Vickie Johnstone.
Please check out the full hop schedule following today's post...
My special guest is Mr. Alan Tucker, author of The Mother-Earth Series (A Measure of Disorder, A Cure for Chaos, and Mother’s Heart), as well as a new science fiction novel, Knot in Time.
1. Reading
Why
do you think Teen Read Week is important?
For me, as a teenager, books were a
wonderful escape. I was small, with red hair and glasses, which didn't make me
the most popular kid in school. In books, however, I could be whoever I wanted
to be and go on all sorts of adventures. Teens today have so many more
pressures on them than I did growing up. Reading can not only offer a temporary
escape from those difficulties, but many stories can also teach us means to
deal with our real world problems.
How
do you think we could encourage youngsters to read more?
So many of today's movies have their
origins in great books for teens, yet I think many people aren't aware of the
literary origins of these fun and exciting stories. Most people know of Harry Potter, Twilight, and the Hunger
Games, but there are lots of other movies taken directly from the pages of
teen novels either out now or coming out soon. Ender's Game, Divergent, The Amber Spyglass, The Perks of Being a
Wallflower, the list goes on and on. If folks thought these stories were
good enough to put on the big screen, maybe teens should give the books
themselves a try.
When
you were a teenager what books did you like to read and did you have an
all-time favourite character?
I read science fiction for the most part in
my early teen years, then branched out into fantasy later on. My favorite
character growing up though, was Flinx from Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth series. He was a red-haired
empath with a colorful and dangerous flying snake for a pet, named Pip. Foster
wrote a long series of books with these characters that I thoroughly enjoyed.
2. Writing
Were
you writing as a teenager? If so, what were you writing and what inspired you?
Did a person inspire you to write?
I did write off and on during those years,
but I rarely finished any of my writing projects. One story I do remember
finishing was about a time traveller who goes back in his spaceship to witness
the birth of Jesus, but his ship malfunctions and explodes in orbit, creating
the bright star in the east.
Do
you think today’s teens are in a better position if they want to be a writer
than you were all those years ago (hee hee)?
Most assuredly! The Internet offers so many
avenues to explore writing and reading, it's absolutely amazing! Wattpad, fan
fiction sites, and GoodReads, just to name a few are all terrific for getting
teens involved in writing. Sites like Smashwords and even Amazon have made it
easier than ever before to present your writing to the world - it's a great
time to be a writer!
What
advice would you give a youngster who enjoys writing?
The old joke told to performers comes to
mind: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice! Write
something every day. Even if it turns out to be a homework assignment or a
short blog or journal post, make sure that you get some words onto paper or the
screen. Secondly, read. Read everything you can get your hands on and if an
author makes you feel a certain way, or inspires you, delve into the text and
figure out why those words affected you the way they did.
What
is your latest book about?
My most recent book is called Knot in Time and it's about a young man
who gets recruited to work protecting the threads of time, but I'll let him
explain it:
My name is Darius Arthur Heisenberg, but most people
call me Dare. If my last name sounds familiar, it’s probably because of my
great-great uncle Werner Heisenberg. He was a physicist who came up with
something called the Uncertainty Principle. But listen, Uncle Werner had no
idea how uncertain things really are.
I work for a group, called the Keepers, that label
themselves the custodians of time. And, believe me, time is a mess. It needs
all the custodians it can get. Which is, of course, why the Keepers selected
me, a nineteen-year-old high school dropout, to join them. I recently worked as
a janitor for a couple months. Perfect fit, right?
Okay, it didn’t make much sense to me either, but I
wasn’t in a position to turn down a steady job and a roof over my head.
Besides, all I’m supposed to do is travel through time and save the universe as
we know it, how hard could it be?
Yeah, better hold
on. This could get ugly.
Are
you working on anything new at the moment?
I am putting the finishing touches on the
sequel to Knot in Time, titled Abandon Hope. I am looking to have it
published some time in November. *fingers crossed*
What
do you love about being an author?
The ability to, in some small way, give
back to the authors who brought me so much joy, by doing the same for people
who read and are entertained by my work. Nothing gives me more pleasure than
seeing a glowing, honest review, or meeting someone at a book fair or signing
who can't wait for the next book to come out. I treasure anyone who has taken
the time to read my stories.
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3 ebook copies of Knot
in Time
Alan's fantasy/adventure series, A Measure of Disorder, is free all the
time on most major sites.
Nineteen-year-old high school dropout
Darius Arthur Heisenberg is sent on a journey as big as the universe itself
when he agrees to accompany a four-foot tentacled blob to be an agent for the
Keepers of Time.
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BIOGRAPHY
Alan Tucker, author of The Mother-Earth Series (A Measure of Disorder, A Cure for Chaos, and Mother’s
Heart), as well as a
new science fiction novel, Knot in Time, is a dad, a graphic designer, and a soccer coach. Mostly in that
order. He’s had a lifelong adoration of books, beginning with Encyclopedia Brown, progressing through
Alan Dean Foster’s Flinx, and
continuing on with the likes of Jim Butcher, Rachel Caine and Naomi Novik, to
name a few.
Blog Hop Schedule and Links:
Blog Hop Headquarters: www.tinyurl.com/kq4f3lv
