H. Killough-Walden Interview!

H. Killough-Walden is the New York Times best selling e-book author of The Big Bad Wolf series and The October Trilogy.

AA - What’s so big and bad about your wolves? What can you tell us about your Big Bad Wolf series?

HKW - You’d have to read the books to understand how they came about their reputation. ;) But I will tell you that my wolves are not the hair-shedding, bone-popping, painful morphing werewolves of night time television or other werewolf series. These are men – dominant men – who know what they want, can flash into wolf form with no more than a thought, and who possess a vast array of supernatural powers. They’re hot, they’re hard, and they love their women deeply and eternally.

AA - Why did you decide to go e-books instead of the traditional publishing route?

HKW - I didn’t really have a choice at first. I tried for ten years to get published. I have three hundred rejection letters in my closet. Along came Kindle, a light at the end of my seemingly endless print publication tunnel, and I posted one of my books. It shot to #1 in vampires, a wonderful agent (the chairman of Trident Media Group) gave me a call, and it’s been a dream come true from there.

AA - Who are your favorite hero and heroine in classic literature?

HKW - To be honest, it’s an author of classic literature that is probably my favorite hero – Samuel Clemens. The man was a genius.

AA - What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the last six months?

HKW -I haven’t seen a movie in six months. LOL But if I’m allowed to go prior to that, then I’d have to say Alice in Wonderland by Tim Burton (Disney). It’s one of my all-time favorite movies. Also Tron. I absolutely want a light cycle for my birthday.

AA - What can you share with us about The October Trilogy?

HKW - This trilogy spawned from a dream I had where I was walking through the darkened, hollow halls of my high school late at night. The sound of my boots echoed through the shadows, the gray lockers to my left seemed longer, taller than normal. They radiated an empty kind of cold. I could almost hear the remnants of student chatter, like ghosts of what had occupied the space hours before. I moved down the length of linoleum toward a destination that both beckoned and terrified. In the distance, I heard the sound of music playing.

When I awoke, the entire plot of the series throbbed like a beacon in my mind. I whipped out a journal and a pen and scribbled as fast as my still-sleeping hand would write. What was born the next day was the first chapter of what would become a three-part series about a girl who possessed the power to bring things to life with her writing… and the man – the all-encompassing being of tall, dark, forbidden power – that she unknowingly awakens with said power.

AA - Why is the month of October so magical?

HKW - What’s not to love about October? It’s like the world stops its frantic spinning in October. The tired, overheated globe begins to slow, the air grows still and cools, the allergens fall away, the chilled breezes kiss the plants to sleep. The night grows longer, the moon shines brighter, and mist envelopes the stones and statues of cemeteries everywhere. Danny Elfman reigns in October. Leaves skittering across the ground are a portent in October. Everything means something in October – nothing can be taken for granted. I love that. A more powerful month does not exist. It’s magic from day one to day thirty-one.

AA - Tell us the details of being a New York Times bestselling e-book author. How did that come about?

HKW - I have no idea. LOL I made it to the NYT list with The Spell, the third book in my Big Bad Wolf series. I don’t even think it was my best book of the four. But, the timing was right, the mood of the reading consumer was right, and the material I wrote and posted was right – it was kismet. I think that a large amount of success depends on luck. Don’t get me wrong. I think talent, hard work, and effort play an enormous role under normal circumstances. But I’m not so foolish as to discount the effects of environment, and whether a person makes it or breaks it really can be determined by something as crazy and seemingly insignificant as the weather.

AA - List three things that are better in Texas. (Okay, I know the expression is everything’s bigger in Texas, but I didn’t want to go down that road. ;o)

HKW - I honestly don’t think many things are better in Texas. I prefer the West Coast to Texas. I prefer Pittsburgh to Texas. I prefer Hawaii and the UK to Texas. Texas is hot. It’s windy. It’s agoraphobic-inducing. But if you insist on having me scrounge through my brain for positive points, I’ll say this: They’ve got good roads. I know that seems like a silly thing to mention, but I drive a gorgeous black muscle car with five hundred and fifty fire-breathing nightmares chomping at the bit in its engine, so roads are important to me. Of course, this only counts when they aren’t covered half the year by orange barrels.

AA - What is the history of your writing career? What did you like to write about when you were a little girl?

HKW - When I was four, I wrote a poem about how people are like bananas – they can be bruised and battered on the outside but still have hearts ripe with life and sweetness if anyone cares to look. When I was in high school, I nearly flunked out my senior year because I spent my time in Calculus, History, and Economics writing vampire stories instead of listening to the teachers (mostly this was The Lost Boys fan fiction). I have always turned to pen and paper for comfort. I spoke to my diary as if it were my best friend… because it was.

AA - If you couldn’t be a writer, what would you do for a living?

HKW - Forget it. It’s writing or nothing.

AA - If you were having a dinner party and could invite six famous guests, (all living) who would they be?

HKW - I don’t know about “famous,” but six well known figures that I feel very strongly and very positively about would be the secretary general and the secretariat directors of Amnesty International: Shalil Shetti, Claudio Cordone, Colm O Cuanachain, George McFarlane, Sara Wilbourne, and Widney Brown. The work they do is more vital than even the words of an author can fully give credit to.

AA - What’s next for H. Killough-Walden?

HKW - More writing, of course. I’m writing the fourth book in the Lost Angels series, working on the first book in a new eBook open-ended spinoff of the Big Bad Wolf series, writing Drake of Tanith, which is the sequel to The Chosen Soul, and working on Secretly Sam, the sequel to Sam I Am. I will always be writing. When I die, I want to be one hundred and twenty-three years, found bent over my mahogany writing desk with a Montblanc fountain pen in my arthritic hand, new Frye boots on my crooked feet, and a perma grin across my withered old face.

Thank you, H. Killough-Walden!