I caught up with author A.J. Scudiere at booth #621 at San Diego: Comic-Con International. Here, you can buy all of her books – including copies of her latest novel Phoenix scheduled for wide release later this year. We started out talking about her focus into the area of suspense writing.
“I always loved horror stories, suspense stories, and I think as a writer that’s where the challenge is. I think the challenge is with suspense, it’s not just in the story…there are likable characters, but that you weave it and play it in such a way that you dole out clues as you go and you have to decide where to cut your chapters and where to change your point of view so that hopefully the reader can’t put the book down. So I like the challenge of writing suspense. ”
When I asked her how she decided which book would be her first, A.J. replied, “I had about ten different ideas that probably weren’t quite congealed, and my father handed my a scientific paper on magnetic polar reversal over dinner one night… we’re not like other families, that’s our running joke in the family… and as I read, of course I had read a couple other theories on magnetic polar reversal, but it really hit, it explained a lot of things. This particular theory, which is out of Harvard, puts the reversals a lot less frequently than a lot of other ones do. So it puts them approximately ever 60 million yeards, which matches with the history of the Earth and the five great mass extinctions. And to me that idea of the last magnetic polar reversal occuring 65 million years ago explains the dinosaur die out far better than any meteor theory ever does and gave me a realaly great apocalypse to put my story in. And so I read that paper and said this theory finally makes sense, it finally puts all the pieces together, and I had these characters who had been waiting for a story. I really sat down that night and started writing. Suddenly everything clicked on that one, and it is part of why Resonance is the first.”
A.J. stressed that she has three titles out now, and Phoenix is officially out in October, but will be available everywhere they stop this summer. Locations besides Comic-Con include Wizard World at Comic-Con in Chicago, and DragonCon in Atlanta.
Regarding the feedback A.J. gets from her readers, she said, “I think my favorite comments are that I’ve messed with somebody’s sleep patterns. Anyone who tells me how late they stayed up with it is a comment that I love to get, but I think a lot of the reviews that are really good is that it kept them guessing, that they didn’t know what was coming next.” At this point, the interview was interrupted by a young woman who brought her book back to be signed, buys another book, and brought two of her friends. I enjoyed watching the energy in the booth between author and reader. After they leave, I asked her about the experience. “I’ve had a lot of people come buy something the first day and come back and polish off the set. They’ve read the first couple chapters and had to come back and get something else before we left the Con. That to me speaks volumes. That I love.” She talked about the increasing struggle and irony that with her earlier works she was just writing and shopping around, but by the time it came to write God’s Eye, she started to work so hard at promoting that finding time to write became more challenging.
Griffyn Ink, A.J.’s publisher also handles audio books and her books to date have been released in audio format, along with other titles. “The audio has won best fiction in 2009, they won best audio in 2011, and I have to admit a deep deep disappointment in God’s Eye‘s performance because it only got second place for best audio book fiction in 2011.” She explained the person who does the audio fiction is the same one behind the Ender’s Game 20th Anniversary Edition. “They did ours full cast, full soundtrack, score so it’s really neat when Catherine is trying to protect herself from the demon you can hear the demon’s footsteps behind her while you’re listening. And it creeped me out and I berated myself, and I was like, A.J. you wrote this, you know what’s happening next.”
If you’re at San Diego: Comic-Con International this weekend be sure to look out for A.J. Sccudiere in booth 621 – or catch her at other conventions this summer. I really enjoyed chatting with A.J. Scudiere as part of my “Professional to Professional” series, and watch to see what else AmoXcalli brings you from Comic-Con!
