Author Interview: Anna Zabo

Exquisite Quills Welcomes Anna Zabo

EQ: Welcome to EQ! Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Anna: Hi! I’m Anna Zabo. I’ve written an m/m paranormal romance novel and an m/m paranormal romance short for Loose Id. I also write m/f sometimes. I adore all things fantasy and science fiction (and write in those genres under a different name) but I’ve recently branched into contemporary romance. Mergers and Acquisitions will be published in August Berkley InterMix.

I live in Pittsburgh, PA, which is far less boring than it sounds. Pittsburgh’s a great city with a mix of cultures, but it’s also very friendly and very green. Well, at least in the summer. Right now, like nearly everywhere else in the northeast this winter, it’s white.

By day, I write user manuals and other technical documents for a very large company and by night, I type away on my laptop. I have two cats and far too many orchids.

EQ: What made you want to become a writer?

Anna: I think it was the combination of the realization that people were interested in the silly stories in my head coupled with the desire to give back to the world. Reading books was one of the solaces of my youth. No matter how bad things got, no matter how anyone else treated me, I could always escape into a book. And there I found the people I wanted to be like: brave, truthful, loving, kind, strong. I high school, when I discovered that I had a knack for writing and that people—friends and non-friends—liked what I wrote... that made me take a right hand turn straight into writing. I had planned on going into the sciences, but I didn’t have nearly the passion for that that I did for stories. I might be able to become like my heroes, the authors who kept me up into the wee hours of the night? That. I wanted to be that.

I still want to be that! Every day, I work toward that goal.

EQ: Describe how you came up with the plot of your novel.

Anna: Close Quarter started as a dream. I was the sidekick to a vampire-hunting fae and we were on this cruise ship to hunt then down. In the dream I was male.(this happens to me a lot) and my job—more or less—was to chat up the vampires and get them all interested in my lovely, tasty neck. The whole dream was way more swashbuckling than Close Quarter turned out to be mostly because there’s no conflict if your hero just wins hands down. In Close Quarter, the vampires got a lot darker, the fae less campy and the sidekick vanished.

But that dream was the seed. Fae vampire hunter with a sword on a cruise ship. I just had to work out why he was there and throw a lot of obstacles in his way. Oh, and a very confused, grieving sculptor who becomes much much more than a sidekick.

EQ: What is something nobody would guess about you?

Anna: I actually enjoy technical writing. I’ve been one for nearly twenty years and I don’t mind the work at all. You kind of have to love something to stick with it...and I love figuring out how to do things and solve problems. And then I get to teach other folks how to do it. Love that.

It’s very different than the creative writing, but I suppose it fills the part of me that is still science and technology-oriented. Plus, I get great ideas for characters by meeting many different people and working near downtown Pittsburgh surrounds me with the colors and vibrancy of city life. So, the day job even helps the writing.

It’s probably not a coincidence that my first contemporary is an office romance. Heh.

EQ: Tell us a little bit about your most recent release.

Anna: My most recent release was Slow Waltz, a Close Quarter short story. While it can be read independently, it does follow after the events in Close Quarter.  Rhys and Silas finally have a few days of peace and quiet before their transatlantic cruise docs in New York. They’re no longer running for their lives.

Now Rhys has time to think about the fact he’s fallen in love with a man who isn’t even human. He’s not sure love at first sight can last, especially when your lover is fae. Sure, the sex is fantastic, but that’s not enough to hang the rest of your potentially immortal life upon.

Find Anna here:

You can find me at www.annazabo.com

And if you’re interested in my SF/F-writing alter ego, she’s at www.annlaurelkopchik.com

I tweet as @amergina, where I am a single, unified person. Most of the time.

Slow Waltz is available as an ebook from Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/slow-waltz.html

Close Quarter is available (in ebook and print) from the following:

Loose Id: http://www.loose-id.com/close-quarter.html

All Romance Ebooks: https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-closequarter-997909-139.html

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Close-Quarter-ebook/dp/B00A70QRFU/

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/close-quarter-anna-zabo/1113901638

Mergers and Acquisitions is up for preorder on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mergers-Acquisitions-Anna-Zabo-ebook/dp/B00IDD9VEM/

Check out these titles by Anna Zabo

Close Quarter

Slow Waltz

Mergers and Acquisitions (Summer/Fall 2014)