Rough cut of Mya Brand my fictional character who stars in my In Ark: A Promise of Survival. This early day rendering was created by the illustrator Aidana WillowRaven: willowraven.weebly.com
After spending two years developing and writing about main character Mya Brand who stars in my book In Ark: A Promise of Survival, I still don’t think she gets enough attention in my wrting and self-publishing adventures. So a shout out of thanks to Sandra Danby for inviting me to participate in this here blog tour where you will meet Mya.
Don’t know what a blog tour is? Flashback, and you may recall chain letters, or, that weird one I recall from the 90s — remember Panty Parades? Well, these viral events are a lot more fun nowadays with blogging and the Internet, and you can skip those annoying trips to the post office. In a blog tour, A friend nominates you to participate and then you roll with it, nominating others.
Let me tell you more about Sandra. I’m excited to read her upcoming novel Ignoring Gravity. She tells me it will release in 2015, and that it is a
Ignoring Gravity by Sandra Danby
tale of examining the nature of identity and belonging, when the permanence of both is thrown into the air by adoption. Already busy writing her sequel, Connectedness; it will follow a similar theme.
Sandra was always happiest curled up in an armchair with a book, and grew up loving stories. So it’s not surprising that she now writes them. She grew up on a small dairy farm in North Yorkshire and spent a pretty idyllic childhood climbing trees, making dens with straw bales, mucking out ponies, and reading books. She can swear in Spanish, drinks about 12 cups of Yorkshire Tea a day [even in summer] and has a pretty mean forehand. She blogs about reading and writing at: www.sandradanby.com
Now let’s get to know my Mya:
1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?
Mya Brand is her name. She’s a raven-haired beauty with amber eyes, she is part Irish and part Native American (Hopi). She is fictional.
2) When and where is the story set?
You’ll find Mya in New York City in the year 2044.
3) What should we know about him/her?
Her work and passion is digitally archiving the life stories of humanity, before the Change (climate change) destroys Earth. Trying to recover from a failed marriage, she’s buried herself deeply in her mission, trying to escape emotional pain that has made her shun relationships and lose trust in people.
4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
Mya faces daily struggles in surviving in the face of the Change, and barely manages to keep her digital archiving mission funded. But these are just logistics, her real battle is emotional in trying to overcome her broken heart.
5) What is the personal goal of the character?
Mya thinks her life’s mission is to save the life stories of humanity with digital archiving before the Change destroys life on Earth, but begins to realize that recovering from the emotional trauma of her divorce, and learning to trust people again, is what she really needs to do.
That’s my Mya. Next up in this blog tour we are going to hear from three writers I’ve gotten to know through Twitter. They are:
Lesley Hayes
After twenty fulfilling years as a psychotherapist, Lesley recently yielded to the inexorable urge to reclaim her original successful career as a fiction writer. It’s true that you can’t step into the river in the same place twice, and with an eye to the current trend she opted this time around to fly solo without an agent and self-publish on kindle. Her two novels: ‘The Drowned Phoenician Sailor’ and ‘A Field Beyond Time’ have both been highly acclaimed with 5* reviews, as has her first collection of short stories: ‘Not Like Other People.’
Find Lesley at:
www.amazon.co.uk/Lesley-Hayes/e/B00HR65DES
www.facebook.com/lesley.hayes.author
Jean Shorney
I write under the name J.M Shorney. I self publish at the moment, but am hoping to interest an agent. I live in Thatcham in Berkshire. Have two sons and a granddaughter. I have been self-publishing for two years. My current work has been a crime/family saga, written in P.O.V of a young ex-con Irishman. I enjoy listening to old country and Irish country music while I write. I love all things Irish, and set most of my stories either in London, or in Ireland.
Find Jean at:
Sarah Holding
Having worked as a postman, an architect, a university professor and an urban development consultant, Sarah is now a full-time children’s author, juggling writing with looking after a family of three children.
They live in Surrey in a funny old house with a leaning tower. When she’s not writing she’s singing, and when she’s not singing she’s playing sax in her jazz band.
She says she knew there would always come a time when the abandoned island of St Kilda would feature somewhere in her life, little thinking it would be the setting for her first children’s book.
Find Sarah at:
More about my book
You can follow along with my In Ark: A Promise of Survival story by searching for the hashtag #InArk. I’ve been posting photos and updates to G+, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook that you may find interesting.
My book is available on Amazon now for Kindle. I am pushing to release it as POD (Print On Demand) by Christmas 2014, and make it available on all ereader platforms as well.
My book is part of an emerging genre of literature called cli-fi (climate change fiction). It also fits in well with sci-fi, dystopian fiction and some would even say chicklit!
