WHO ARE THE KINDLE ALL-STARS?
Short conversations throughout November with the stellar talent behind the revolutionary short-story anthology THE KINDLE ALL-STARS PRESENT: RESISTANCE FRONT
Today I’m chatting with Robin Reed!
FS: How did you come to hear about the Kindle All-Stars project?
RR: From Kindleboards, where I spend way too much time each day.
FS: What’s your contribution called?
RR: The Color Forest
FS: And without giving too much away, what’s it about?
RR: A young woman arrives on a colony planet and marries a man who picked her out online. As she is getting to know him she also becomes fascinated by native plants that glow in shifting colors at night. After another man in the camp tries to rape her she gets lost in the color forest and she makes an amazing discovery.
FS: What was the main inspiration behind it?
RR: At the time, I drove a shuttle bus at the Los Angeles airport. The airport has large pillars with glowing, shifting colors at the entrance. After I drove through them many times it began to feel like they were trying to tell me something.
FS: Did you write it specifically for the Kindle All-Stars, or was it written prior?
RR: I wrote it in 2010, and it won an Honorable Mention in the Writers contest of the Future in early 2011.
FS: Obviously the primary goal behind this anthology is to make some money for disadvantaged and abused children. But secondary to that, it is to promote fresh, new writing talent – the punk rock of literature – and show that Indie writers are out there, dedicated and working hard to produce Class-A work.
If people take notice of what you’ve written for this anthology, what do you hope the outcome is of that attention?
RR: That someone likes it enough to ask for more and pay me for it.
FS: How do you write? Are you a plotter? Do you fly by the seat of your pants? When do you write, and where? I write at night, at the dining table, when the kids are in bed and the place is finally peaceful and quiet. And I work everything out on paper before I sit down to write. What have you found works best for you?
RR: Seat of the pants all the way, baby. I never know exactly what is going to happen until I start typing.
FS: Is there anyone in particular who’s contributed to the anthology that you’re excited to be included alongside?
RR: The obvious is the two big names, especially Mr. E. However I think it’s great that so many writers will get a chance to have a bigger audience.
FS: We know that there will be a KAS 2 at some point. Plans are already afoot. Is there a dream name you’d like to see involved in it the next time around? Me personally, getting published in a book that includes a story by Alan Dean Foster is one of those “Wouldn’t it be great if one day…” things that I can now tick off of the list.
RR: Any of the living legend SF writers would be great.
FS: So when you’re not helping to fight evil, what do you get up to in real life?
RR: That evil thing does take up a lot of my time. That and my quest to find El Dorado. Other than that, I have been a bus driver for several years, I have worked in offices and factories and done all kinds of low-paying jobs.
FS: Are you working on anything now? Anything you’d like everyone to know about?
I have some things in the works, from a Christmas horror story to a fantasy trilogy involving a sentient mechanical donkey. None of them are far along enough to mention by name yet.
FS: And to your readers – both potential and existing – is there anything you would like to say? They might be reading this months after Resistance Front has landed, wanting to know more about you. What would you like to say to them?
RR: To quote my favorite cartoon sailor: I yam what I yam.
FS: Thats it! Time’s up! Hopefully we’ll the chance for a much more in-depth chat at some point in the near future when KAS is out on sale!
Tony Healey 