It’s impossible not to encounter @ruswriteszombie on Twitter or the blogiverse, and since zombies don’t write, I just had to ask him to speak in their name!

AM: I loved your novella Ushers, Inc -what inspired you to write such a funny/creepy story?

Rusty Fischer: It just seemed like such a fun “mashup” of genres. I was able to put my love of writing and reading YA together with the cheesy, late night, B-monster movies I love so much. I also got to add zombies, vampires AND werewolves in the mix and let these “geeky” kids use their movie knowledge to become a real strength when no one else – not the cops, the government, not even the Marines – can stop the monsters.

AM: The way you present yourself as a writer is quite astonishing: accessible, always helpful, and a huge zombie fan. What motivates you to have such a strong presence on the web?

Rusty Fischer: Two words: I’m shy! Like, painfully shy. But I’m also a former teacher and it’s very important for me to write YA and still try to foster reading in young adults. So promotion is very important to me, but can get difficult when I have to, you know, actually leave the house! But now I can do so much online, without standing around looking gawkish and uncomfortable. I can speak freely and share my opinions and blog about publishing advice and host giveaways or write guest posts and people can either respond or not. It’s great!

AM: That’s a great advantage to have been a teacher first, you know exactly what these kids go through – not that you’re old enough to not remember how it was when you were a kid, but times are changing so fast… Will you ever consider writing for adults and in other genres or will you stick to horror YA?

Rusty Fischer: I actually do write for adults. This year my first-ever adult contemporary romance comes out from Aspen Mountain Press. It’s a Christmas romance. So about half the year I spend writing YA supernatural horror-slash-romance and the other half it’s adult contemporary Christmas romance. So… try figuring that out.

Basically, after decades of chasing trends and trying to “fit” in here or there with this publisher or that, and getting rejected each and every time, I said, “You know what? No one’s reading this stuff anyway, so… why not write exactly what you want, have fun with it and maybe one day folks will read it?” So that’s what I did and, I like to think, that’s what I’m still doing.

Rusty blogs and give plenty of free goodies for authors, too!

I’ve met Seleste deLaney over this wonderful forum full of writers and have noticed her quick wit and readiness to always help a friend in need…and she’s quite the writer, too.

AM: I didn’t really know what to expect reading Badlands –being classified under ‘romance’ sub-genre and all– but I found the steampunk and action elements so strong, it made me wonder: was the developing relationship between your two main characters planned or did it just happen as you wrote the story?

Seleste deLaney: Thanks for the compliment! Actually, the romance was planned from the beginning. Personally, I like stories where there’s a really even balance between action, non-action drama, world-building, and romance, so that’s what I strive to write. It’s frustrating for me as an author because some places label Badlands only as steampunk, and a lot of steampunk fans were irritated by the romance. Hence, I’m really glad most places have the proper label on it LOL.

AM: I keep asking myself what identifies a story as romance, because sex scenes are present in most novels nowadays. Could it be that in the romance genre, the male counterpart cares more deeply and shows more feeling than in literary novels? How do you as a writer decide: ok, this is romance, because…

Seleste deLaney: For the most part, I’m a plotter, so romance is woven in from the earliest stages. I was once told that unless the love story between the main characters WAS the primary plot, it wasn’t a romance. Personally, I don’t believe that. For me, it qualifies as a romance if falling in love is a major plotline and on a level at or very near the external conflict. That may or may not mean sex. But in the case of Badlands, the heroine has a specific set of ideas about sex, love, and men. Her change in viewpoint (brought on in part by an unexpected sexual attraction) is another defining characteristic of a romance: where falling in love changes one of the characters in a substantial way. In general, I look at it like this: if you can take out the characters falling in love, and it doesn’t alter the plot and/or climax, then it isn’t a romance. The characters falling in live needs to be integral to the story as a whole. After all, people don’t fall in love isolated from the rest of their lives.

AM: I couldn’t help but totally get immerse into Badlands’ world: women rule part of the country, it’s dusty and dry like the Wild West, and the techno-steam is the right amount of punk. Where did you gather the inspiration for it, and how do you plan to keep it going for the second instalment?

Seleste deLaney: The story was inspired by a piece on DeviantArt that someone said reminded them of me. It was this lone woman on the top of a cliff, streaked with blood, weapons by her side…and I knew I had to tell her story. As far as keeping it going, the second story is Henrietta’s, so the way we see the Badlands is a little different. It’s an outsider’s image rather than someone who has known it all her life. Plus, there’s more ground travel involved (though the Dark Hawk is still in it), so we get to see different sections of the landscape.

AM: I love companions – can’t wait to read Henrietta’s story!! Last questions: why did you adopt a nom de plume, and what inspire you to become Seleste DeLaney?

Seleste deLaney: I decided to write under a pseudonym because I also write YA. My identities aren’t a secret, but I wanted to ensure that teen readers didn’t pick up my adult stories accidentally. As for choosing the pen name, the first part was easy. Seleste is a variation of the name I’ve been known by online for years (as well as my Pagan name). The last name was a combination of things. First, I wanted to pay homage to my favorite author and the woman who encouraged me to pursue publication, Kelley Armstrong, so a friend and I were going through the last names of her minor characters, looking for a last name that fit well with Seleste. When we ran across Delaney, I knew I wanted that one since the main character in the first novel I worked on when I got serious about my writing was named Delaney Craft. (It was only after I chose the name that Kelley’s The Gathering came out and it ended up Maya’s last name was Delaney, which killed my whole “minor character” plan LOL).

Seleste’s books are available here and Julie Particka’s here. Yes, they’re one writer, but the genres are quite different.

After reading your novella Ghost Bride , I couldn’t stop thinking of your interpretation of the after-life. We’re not talking about a little haunting, here, but a complex multi-dimension world where witches and Gods mix up with dead humans and soul mates. Where did it all come from?

Angela Addams: Anne, thanks for including me in this chat! Great question – the idea for Ghost Bride came to me while driving to work early one morning. The radio station I was listening to that day was giving an account of a string of murders that had happened in China that were believed to be the result of families paying big money to find the ghost bride for their dead young men. Gruesome, I know, but it got me thinking – what if I had a heroine who suddenly finds herself married in the afterlife to someone she doesn’t know? I could have made it very horrific I suppose, but I wanted to take my story in the romance direction so I opted for no murder – my heroine dies in a car crash. After coming up with the idea, I did a little research and learned everything I could about the tradition of Minghun – and then I started inventing my own world.

AM That’s cool; you inspired yourself from another culture and mold it into your own creation. I often find that little bits of information can spark an image that snowballs into a story – like what the Minghun did for your Ghost Bride. When I said I loved the world of it, you admitted your stories usually don’t have that much romance. Do you give yourself space to experiment different genre or do you prefer to stick to what you feel more comfortable with?

Angela Addams: Actually, when it comes to writing novellas or, as I call them, shorts, I tend to gravitate toward erotica but Ghost Bride started off with a different tone for me and I wanted to explore that – even if it meant more low key sensuality rather than explicit sexuality. I actually quite like writing romance, but I am flexible and try to explore other genres. The very first novel I wrote (which will forever stay trunked) was historical fiction and the manuscript I’m working on now is paranormal with a romantic subplot. I’ve had a few ideas that I know would manifest into horror. I don’t think I could ever leave the paranormal completely though – it’s too entrenched in my life to not colour my creative worlds in some way.

AM Your love for the paranormal does transpire through your work…what started it? Which book?

Angela Addams: What started it? Lol – I was born this way! I can’t remember a time that I didn’t love all things paranormal. My favourite book as a child was called The Good Little Witch and I made my parents read it to me so many times that it suddenly disappeared!

With my writing though, I didn’t start focusing exclusively on paranormal story lines until a friend of mine said to me, “Hey, you love supernatural themes so much, why don’t you write a novel with all that Halloween stuff going on?” It was like light bulb went off at that moment – duh, yeah, why don’t I? So, that’s what I did. I was on my first mat. leave and I sat down and plotted out a novel that featured an organization of witches. It was that manuscript that landed me my first agent – which eventually lead to my current agent and the manuscript I’m working on now with her.

Angela Addams is represented by Sarah Heller of the Helen Heller Agency, and her books Ghost Bride, Assassin and The Temptress are available in all e-formats at Cobblestone Press.