**INTERVIEW with Author LIZ R. NEWMAN**

"AN AFFINITY for SHADOWS"
Author Liz R. Newman


http://www.lizrnewman
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.barnesandnoble.com
http://www.GypsyShadow.com


It is an honor and with great pleasure to Interview Author Liz R. Newman. Thank you for today's Interview, and I wish you much success.




~~~Author Interview~~~


What inspires you to write?


I've always loved the sound of words, and crafting the melody of the cadence my characters take on, and the words my characters say, inspired by their inner drives. I write because I adore the art of my storytelling, and I have a visceral reaction while crafting a story. My characters are almost as real to me as my own children, and when they triumph, I feel a sense of satisfaction. Most of all, I write because I love to read, and I long to someday strike that universal chord that all great writers have managed to strike in those of us who discover books that help us see ourselves and the world in a different light.




Did you have favorite books as a child?


As an adolescent, I would devour anything I could find by Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. I used to read the same books over-and-over, since our little public library couldn't keep up with my voracious demands for more books by these authors. I also loved to peek into the horror section, and borrowed books on scary ghost tales and the pagan arts.

When I grew into a teen, my reading was censored drastically. But, I would still manage to sneak in stories by V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, Danielle Steel and Hunter S. Thompson. I would hide them behind volumes of Shakespeare, although I loved his work too. I adore the classics. I loved Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Gone With The Wind and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald,which  provided me with the ultimate escapes from a somewhat bourgeois existence. I would read these books over-and-over, until the pages wore out.    





If you were to write in a different genre, what would it be?


It would be horror. But I'm the type of person who swears that if I hang my foot over the side of the bed in the middle of the night, something will grab it. I wrote a horror story for the 'Story Of The Month' section on my site, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when my husband asked me a question. Really! I'm too much of a scarred cat to write horror. I can't even finish some horror novels as they become too scary for me.    

                                                                                          


How important is a book cover to a book?


I love the look of a beautiful cover that implies far more than the genre itself. Pictures to me are more than what they are at face value, they are symbolic of what happens in the book itself. If I see a cover with simply a half naked man emblazoned upon it, I immediately bypass the book, because I worry there's not much substance to the work. I could be wrong, and if it sells and that is the objective, then I certainly have respect for that. But for my own books, I love it when my publisher puts together a cover that implies far more than what the title insinuates. That really draws me in.






Do you have current work in progress?


Gypsy Shadow Publishing Company is currently in the production phase for my second novel, THE LAST DAY KING, the first of the Mythic Royals Trilogy. I'm almost finished writing another novel titled THE NEW ORLEANS WAY, which is a historical romance, set in the 1890s. The novel is rich with gunslingers, Southern ladies and gents, Mafia men and gambling houses, and it has been quite a ride to put together. I'm really excited to get this one out to my readers.