Recently, Courtney and I decided it would be fun to interview each other. After all, we’re both writers and pet lovers. So read on, and learn something you maybe didn’t know about my awesome blogging partner, Courtney Mroch!
Aimee: What kind of things do you write about? (Genre, subject matter, themes, what have you.)
Courtney: I’m not prejudiced to any form of writing except maybe poetry (and that’s only ’cause I suck at it) so I pretty much write everything. Essays, short stories, novels, articles… Whatever notion my muse strikes me with, I run with it.
As far as genre for fiction…I lean towards a combo of mystery, fantasy, romance, and paranormal. It’s a big no-no to blend so many and why my agent is having such a hard time shopping my most recently completed book, The Ghost of Laurie Floyd. However, going forth I’ve vowed to try and not cross my genres so much. So I’m currently working on two romances and one horror.
Aimee: Do animals appear in your work?
Courtney: Regularly in the articles I post in the Pets Blog!
But in my fiction writing they appear too. In my book Beneath the Morvan Moon I had wolves as supporting characters.
I’ve got two books-in-progress in which I’ve included pets for the characters based on ones I’ve either had or currently have. In the The Girl of His Dreams (working title) my main character has a cocker spaniel based on our dearly departed Budly. In Searching for Mrs. Valentine (again, a working title) Mr. Meow keeps the heroine company.
Aimee: I know the answer to this one, but some folks might not. What kind of pets do you have?
Courtney: Currently we have two cats, Tabby and Mr. Meow, and a dog, Murphy.
Aimee: How do your pets help you work? (And I use the term “help” very loosely…)
Courtney: Similar to what you alluded to in your interview about how your Moose and Lally help you, my pets “help” mostly by making sure I don’t get lonely. They’re usually somewhere near.
Murph is good for forcing me to get up at least a few times a day. He’s better than any alarm clock with reminders about needing to go outside, check the mail, get dinner, and then go for his evening walk.
The cats help ensure my hands don’t cramp by requiring I take regular breaks to pet them.
Aimee: For all your new fans, let’s get a list of your works and how/where to get them.
Courtney: In addition to my book that I mentioned above, I’m also part of the Amazon Shorts program. They’ve released a couple shorts that are part of a trilogy of short stories based on cursed artifacts in my book (“The Clockmaker” and “Casting On, Binding Off”) as well as a stand alone fantasy/horror story (“Making Merry: Night of the Living Christmas Decorations” -which was written before my vow to avoid writing cross-genre stories).