Spotlight on Shveta Thakrar

I first met fantasy writer Shveta Thakrar when her writing group invited me to give a reading or talk about my writing. I chose to answer their questions about writing and my experiences with publishing, and a good time was had by all. My life is the richer for the friends I made that day.

I was thinking about Shveta's journal recently as I gave advice to someone about their blog. Shveta sometimes posts interviews with other writers, like this one with Amal El-Mohtar. If blogging is community as well as personal platform, I can't think of a better way to show that than to establish new links, new connections, like when friends of friends of friends meet at a party. I've often found new blogs to read in that way, and even made new connections.

I've been thinking that, after I've done the major promoting for The Duke and The Pirate Queen, that I should work on my skills as an interviewer, perhaps featuring some of the people I've met over my years online.

For those who are interested in non-Western folklore, I highly recommend Shveta's article In Search of Apsaras in Cabinet des Fées. "I love faeries. I grew up reading all about them, believing in them, dreaming about them. I collected all the drawings, books, and winged figurines I could, I gobbled up lore like forbidden faerie food, I made wings out of poster board and glitter. I could rattle off bits of trivia like how the use of iron kept away unwanted visitors, that the fey inability to lie didn't preclude trickery, and that a brownie accepted gifts of food in return for cleaning a house. When things got bad, I told myself I was fey. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that it even occurred to me there might be faeries outside Western Europe--specifically, outside the Victorian take on the Celtic and British traditions." Go, read!