{"id":1838,"date":"2010-10-17T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2010-10-16T17:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1838"},"modified":"2010-10-13T21:26:17","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T08:26:17","slug":"the-heir-of-night-guest-author-series-tracey-ohara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/10\/17\/the-heir-of-night-guest-author-series-tracey-ohara\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Heir of Night” Guest Author Series: Tracey O’Hara"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Eos (HarperCollins, USA)<\/a><\/strong> purchased the North American rights to publish The Heir of Night <\/em>in 2008, they were also about to publish a hot new Australian author, Tracey O’Hara, in 2009. Naturally, Tracey and I got to emailing—at least semi-regularly in between edits, copyedits, first pass proofs et al—and then earlier this year we both joined the Supernatural Underground<\/strong><\/a>, a blog of HarperCollins USA specfic authors. (In fact, Tracey played a major role in setting it up.) So it is with very great pleasure that I now welcome Tracey as the fifth guest in the F-SF Guest Author Series<\/strong><\/a>, blogging on our theme of “Why F-SF Rocks My World.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>F-SF Guest Series Post: Tracey O’Hara<\/h2>\n

Fantasy and Science Fiction have always rocked my world as a reader, watcher and now, as a writer. It all started with Enid Blyton\u2019s THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE series that my year two teacher started to read us. I never much got into THE FAMOUS FIVE or her other ones, but that tree with pixies, fairies, Moonface and the ladder to other worlds totally had me captivated.<\/p>\n

As a watcher \u2013 I fell in love with Star Wars and then came the rash of SF movies of the ’80s. I read Issac Asimov\u2019s ROBOTS OF DAWN when I was 14 and totally loved it. Then came Stephen King and my love of horror. But it was at 20, when met my (now) husband, that I got into fantasy. He gave me Raymond E Feist\u2019s MAGICIAN and I was totally hooked. I was suddenly transported to other worlds where anything was possible.<\/p>\n

I was never one of the people that wanted to write from a young age. Actually \u2013 I was the opposite. A total maths and science geek in school, I would break out in a cold sweat if I had to do a creative essay for English class. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I loved to read, but I didn\u2019t have any desire to write at all. However, looking back, the story telling was always there.\u00a0 As a child I had a \u201ctribe\u201d of tiny 3-inch people dressed in bright colours that I used to teach things and tell stories too. My mother said I was always off chatting away to myself \u2013 well I wasn\u2019t really, I was talking to my very-visible-to-me imaginary friends.<\/p>\n

I do remember the day the writing bug hit me in March 2004. I had written some small piece on my family history that I was researching and showed it to a friend who said \u201cyou know, you have a flare for writing, have you thought of doing fiction?\u201d Well no, I hadn\u2019t \u2013 until that point. That same friend said there was heaps of money in \u201cbodice rippers\u201d and we should write one together. It was easy to bang one out and easy money (yeah right, and pink space monkeys live in my closet and dance the fandango).<\/p>\n

A story idea hit me like a tonne of bricks \u2013 only it turned out to be more of a colonial saga type story using the research I\u2019d been doing. It soon became apparent that my writing partner and I had differing ideas and voices and I was soon working on my own \u2013 taking the story in the direction I wanted it to go. I\u2019m such a control freak.<\/p>\n

In the process, I had the spark of an idea for a vampire story, seeing I loved horror. Again it was someone saying the market was looking for paranormal romance that got me started. So I turned that spark into the beginnings of a paranormal romance, having never even read one before. It soon became apparent that I was going to go a little darker than was really acceptable at the time for romance. Or so I thought until I read Charlaine Harris. All of a sudden this entire new world opened up to me in more ways than one and NIGHT\u2019S COLD KISS was born.<\/p>\n

Being grammatically and punctuationally challenged, I actually had to learn the rules of English literature. But it was the fantastical world of mythical beings opening up in my head that really had me ticking. It was like it had been there all the time, this fully functioning world with rules and structure and I became an explorer, discovering the hidden secrets. The story came first, and then the craft. And I finally finished my first book.<\/p>\n

Now I can\u2019t imagine doing anything else. I watch a lot more SciFi than I read and read more Fantasy than I watch. So between that and writing, SciFi and Fantasy not only rocks my world, it\u2019s become my life.<\/p>\n

About Tracey:<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tracey O\u2019Hara<\/strong> made her publishing debut in 2009 with the release of her Eos Books urban fantasy novel NIGHT\u2019S COLD KISS<\/strong><\/a> which went on to be short listed for the Aurealis for Best Horror novel for 2009 and win the RWA 2010 Romantic Book of the Year \u2013 Romantic Elements<\/strong>. Tracey grew up reading Stephen King, Raymond E. Feist, and J.R.R. Tolkien, where she developed her taste for adventure and the paranormal thriller. When she’s not writing, reading, or listening to heavy metal, she spends time with her husband, two sons, and two cats. To find out more, please visit Tracey on her website<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Eos (HarperCollins, USA) purchased the North American rights to publish The Heir of Night in 2008, they were also about to publish a hot new Australian author, Tracey O’Hara, in 2009. Naturally, Tracey and I got to emailing—at least semi-regularly in between edits, copyedits, first pass proofs et al—and then earlier this year we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fsf-guest-author-series","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}