Welcome to my weekly Author Spotlight. I’ve asked a bunch of my author friends to answer a set of interview questions, and to share their latest work.
Today: E.M. (Elisabeth) Hamill writes adult science fiction and fantasy somewhere in the wilds of eastern suburban Kansas. A nurse by day, wordsmith by night, she is happy to give her geeky imagination free rein and has sworn never to grow up and get boring.
She lives with her family, where they fend off flying monkey attacks and prep for the zombie apocalypse.
Thanks so much, E.M., for joining me!
J. Scott Coatsworth: How would you describe your writing style/genre?
E.M. Hamill: Chaos! Honestly, I would call my writing style less prosaic and more action oriented. What my characters are saying and doing is important to the story. That doesn’t mean I don’t world-build, but I try to do it in the course of character action and narrative when it’s appropriate.
JSC: Have you ever taken a trip to research a story? Tell me about it.
EMH: I’m going to take one this spring! I spent most of my summers growing up at our family farm in the mountains of southeastern Missouri, and I’m going back to the area because it’s where my WIP takes place. I want to absorb the atmosphere again and relive some childhood memories.
JSC: Do you use a pseudonym? If so, why? If not, why not?
EMH: I do use a pseudonym. It started out because I wanted to separate my writing life from my professional life, but as I got more into writing science fiction/space opera as opposed to fantasy, the gender-gap there is still pretty pronounced. Writing under initials rather than my first name fits my genderqueer identity better, and hopefully conceals the knee-jerk judgement of, “Oh, it’s a woman writing this, so it’s not going to be REAL science fiction,” that some people unfortunately cling to.
JSC: Do you ever base your characters on real people? If so, what are the pitfalls you’ve run into doing so?
My most recent book, Whiskey and Warfare, is based on the relationships between me and my three best friends, but obviously, with a hefty dose of space opera cheese and names and species changed to protect the not-so-innocent. In writing it, each character took on certain aspects of each of us, so no one character represents one particular person. The truth is, we’re all really cool people, but not cool enough to write a whole book about (at least I’m not!), so creative license was an extremely abused tool!
JSC: Do you reward yourself for writing, or punish yourself for failing to do so? How?
EMH: I will never punish myself. The fact I get any writing done at all while still working full time as a nurse is a victory! I do usually go out to dinner when I finish writing a new book, though.
JSC: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Pantser until I die. I have tried and tried to plot out a book before writing to no avail. The discovery of what happens next when the characters finally start telling me who they are and not who I want them to be is what I live for.
JSC: Do your books spring to life from a character first or an idea?
EMH: Sometimes both. For my Dalí Tamareia Missions, Dalí told me who they were in a single paragraph. For Whiskey, it was the idea of The Golden Girls meets Firefly. I wanted to write characters who were my own age and take the adventure I would love to have.
JSC: How do you approach covers for your indie stories?
EMH: I spent more money on the last four and was thrilled with the results. Independent artists are important resources and I would rather pay one of them what they’re worth. I’ve tried to make my own covers for my short stories, and I just don’t have that gift. Relaunching my brand was important when I went indie two years ago and I think I accomplished that with my artist, J Caleb Designs.
JSC: What book is currently on your bedside table?
I’m re-reading Hailey Turner’s Soulbound series. I adore those books. It’s the best martial magic system I’ve ever come across.
JSC: What are you working on now, and what’s coming out next? Tell us about it!
I am working on my first (public) paranormal romantic urban fantasy, working title Forrest House. It will be stand-alone. Ander and Tes have lived in my head for a long time now and I’m excited people will get to meet them.
Ander Forrest, a magical healer, becomes the guardian of his eight-year-old twin niece and nephew when his sister, a 007 type wizard, disappears and is presumed dead. A sorcerer terrorist wants to use the Forrest family’s most proprietary art, which Ander has rejected in favor of healing, to destabilize the mortal world. Ander’s ex-lover, also a spy/wizard, is sent to protect him and the twins. Adventure, cute magical kids, long-simmering love rekindles, and intrigue abounds!
And now for E.M. Hamill’s new book: Whiskey and Warfare:
Running on caffeine and spite with nothing left to prove. GOLDEN GIRLS meets FIREFLY in this rollicking space opera adventure.
Maryn Alessi retired from mercenary service after her last assignment went horribly sideways and settled down on a quiet planet with the love of her life. Unexpectedly widowed, Maryn must fulfill a promise to return her mate’s ashes to zer home planet for funeral rites, but a brutal civil war has destabilized space travel.
Former Artemis Corps sisters-in-arms and their sassy ship, the Golden Girl, are up to the task, counting on luck and their rather sketchy cargo business to get Maryn passage through the contested star lanes. But when the crew of the Girl rescues survivors of a ruthless war crime, Maryn and her ride-or-die friends must take up their old profession to save the lives of innocents from a genocidal dictator.
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Excerpt
She was cleaning her hands when Girl’s alert tone sounded over her headset. “Maryn, I’m picking up something unusual on the long-range scanners.”
“On my way.” She padded up the corridor and strapped back in. “What’ve you got?”
“A large debris field in the star lane which was not previously reported,” the AI said. “No asteroid belts exist in this sector, and the chart was updated less than seventy-two hours ago by a passing freighter. I suspect it may be war detritus.”
“I thought the war hadn’t come this far.” A frisson of something she couldn’t name shivered down her spine, and Maryn pulled her shapeless cardigan close. “Put it on screen.”
The three-dimensional representation of the obstacle spun in space, each tiny fleck of light representing a solid object which could punch through the Girl’s hull if she went through it in FTL. “Can we go around it?”
“Aye. Calculating a new course to avoid the debris and its predicted trajectory.” A line skirting the field branched off from the current path on the heads-up. “It will add an hour to our journey. We will still make the rendezvous within the allotted time and will arrive on Xyri four hours prior to Primetri Andelek’s funeral rites.”
Less time to spare than she’d hoped, but it was good enough. Maryn settled back to read more of the news articles until a faint signal keened in a rise and fall of plaintive electronics, like a cry for help. Her head snapped up. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Asteroid fields don’t send out distress beacons,” Girl confirmed.
“Oh, no.” Panic started behind her breastbone and tried to spin its way up her throat, but she fought for composure, her palms damp with sweat. The heads-up showed the ship was adjacent to the debris field, well out of range, but … “There may be survivors,” Maryn breathed.
She couldn’t leave anyone out there, like she had been.
Her heart sped up with—dread? Excitement? She wasn’t sure, but adrenaline flooded through her and her nerves quivered with anticipation. “Drop out of FTL, rescue protocol. I think you need to wake everybody up.”
“I agree,” Girl said crisply in her ear. “All hands, prepare for emergency deceleration sequence.” The announcement shattered the stillness of the ship, blue night lights paling to yellow, then white.
Maryn secured her water bottle and empty food container in a compartment beneath her chair and silenced the warning on the instrument panel as forward-facing thrusters roared into life. The initial drag pushed her away from the seat to strain against the harness. If Girl’s summons didn’t wake everyone, that certainly would. Moments after the first braking maneuver, the Merrows appeared, yawning but alert.
“What’s going on?” Scylla ran her hands over her head and raked up purple-tipped spikes.
“We’re approaching the coordinates, but Girl detected a debris field where one shouldn’t be,” she answered, and quickly unbuckled the safety harness to slide out of Scylla’s chair. “It’s not on the charts. The spread suggests it isn’t a natural asteroid swarm. Then we started to pick up an intermittent distress beacon.” The faint digital wail over the comm repeated as if on cue. “There it is again.”
“War debris?” Col had padded up behind them and slipped into her jump seat.
“Girl and I think it’s possible there are survivors.”
“If it’s a battle site, we won’t know what side they’re on,” Scylla warned.
“Does it matter?” Maryn arched one eyebrow as she buckled in.
“Well …” Jac sighed submission as she slid into the copilot’s chair. “It might.”
Col hummed deep in her throat. “There is more to your freelancing than you’ve told us, isn’t there?”
“Maybe a little bit,” Scylla admitted. “Everybody’s strapped in, right? I’m turning off artificial gravity. Emergency deceleration maneuver in three … two … one.”
Maryn’s body strained against the harness as Newton’s law displayed itself more assertively this time. The Girl‘s programmed rescue protocols kept them in wide, but ever-tightening circles near the source of the distress signal. The braking process took more than an hour until the ship slowed enough to drop into sub light engines, and Scylla turned them toward the beacon’s coordinates.
“Jeeze, the spread is massive.” Jac whistled as she took in the radar display. “That’s got to be more than one.”
“The war made it to the sector sooner than you thought,” Maryn confirmed.
“Whatever this is had to have happened within the last few hours.” The pilot’s hands flew over the instrument panel. Steel shutters over the windshield retracted into their pockets, and they all stared in disbelief at the carnage revealed in front of them. “What the—” Scylla whispered.
The slow-spinning bulk of a fragmented spaceship loomed ahead, a hull lined with dark, empty windows. Flotsam drifted around it in an expanding corona.
It was impossible to miss the bodies floating among the wreckage.