About Amy Sumida:
Amy Sumida lives on a little island in the middle of the Pacific ocean with her two gravity-defying felines. She sleeps in a fairy bed, lifted high in the air, and upon waking, she enjoys stabbing people with tiny needles, over and over, under the guise of making pretty pictures on their skin. She paints dark images on canvases in a cave-like studio carved out of the side of a cliff, and beautiful murals on the walls of her home directly above. She’s happiest with her nose buried in a book, or in her laptop as she writes her novels.
She is the author of several books, including the award winning Godhunter series, the Twilight Court Series, Feeding the Lwas, The Magic of Fabric, and Enchantress. She’s been writing since she was a little girl but first decided to pursue writing as a career when she gave her High School English teacher one of her books to critique and unbeknownst to her, that teacher passed her book around to all of her friends. A month later she was accosted in the halls by a teacher she didn’t know, begging her to write a sequel. She’s been writing novels ever since.
She enjoys serious, kick-ass heroines in her literature. “Nothing is more endearing than a woman who goes up against overwhelming supernatural odds with a sense of humor,” she says. “Who wouldn’t want to be that woman? I want to be that woman. So that’s who I write about, the woman I want to be and the men I want to be with.” Her main characters are strong, witty women, who in the midst of trauma will crack a joke, or find the nerve to sass a villain even when they know it’s not in their best interest. Add to that, strong male characters who aren’t intimidated or emasculated by the main heroine’s strength and you have a dynamic partnership. Amy’s books aren’t about women being more powerful than men or subjugating men in any way, they’re about women who can be strong and yet want their men to have their own strengths as well. More importantly, her heroines have humility and weaknesses that make them not only believable but easy to relate to.
What inspires you to write?
I’m inspired by strength. I’ll often see a story about someone overcoming adversity and I think “What an amazing person, I want to be like that person, I want to write about that person. And a character or scene is born.
Tell us about your writing process.
My head is just filled with stories. Constantly. All day I go through scenarios in my head and honestly, without the outlet of writing, I’d probably go insane. My friends tease me about my voices and how I’m constantly shocked by the way my books twist and the things my characters do that I didn’t plan for. I get an idea for a book and just write, my characters react to the situations inside my head and I end up feeling more like a reporter, someone documenting other people’s experiences.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I don’t really interact with my characters so much as observe them. The scene unfolds in my head and I record it. I do feel like a participant and usually put myself into the main character, but most of the time, I’m more of a watcher.
What advice would you give other writers?
Let it go…. let it go…. the snow never… oops sorry, got carried away there. Seriously though, if you’re writing fiction, my best advice to you would be to dream… daydream all the time. Lie down and see your story, let it come to you. Don’t get overwhelmed by forcing your creation. The best stories rise up on their own inside you and I often find that when I’m stuck on a story line, I just need to let it go. I go to sleep and in the morning I lie in bed and just let my mind wander a bit. That’s when my best ideas come to me. Or right before bed. There’s a lot of times that I’m about to drift off to sleep and I have to turn on the light and reach for a pen because I have to jot down an idea before I forget it.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I tried to get an agent for years and the push and pull process of them stringing me along only to tell me at the last second that they decided not to represent my book, just frustrated me. I went on Amazon and was shocked at how easy it was to self-publish.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think the publishing houses are on the way out. So many people are going through Amazon which also publishes actual books on demand, that the old school publishers are going to become obsolete. We self-published authors are making more money than published authors and the only benefit they get is a little advertising. The publishing houses make authors do their own promoting now, just like I have to do. So what exactly is the benefit of giving most of my money to a publisher?
What genres do you write?: Paranormal and Fantasy Romance
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print, Audiobook
Website(s)
Amy Sumida Home Page Link
Link To Amy Sumida Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
