What are your backgrounds or where are you both from? How did you first come to know about one another?
• Emily: I was born and raised in Oklahoma and met Anya in a writing/role play group a few years back on Facebook.
• Anya: As for me, I was born and raised in Tennessee. And what Emily said about meeting each other.
Describe your first meeting and what made you decide to start a series together.
• Emily: I feel like we've had this connection since we first met in our writing group and as it grew we developed a deep friendship. No matter what characters we portrayed, they seemed to bond and so the stories just came easily to us after that.
• Anya: I was one of the admins for the roleplay group when Emily joined. What really brought us together more was an “incident” she had one night. She was by herself that night and she had fallen and hit her head on a picnic table and ended up with a huge knot on her head. I remember setting a timer on my phone to check on her every hour to be sure she didn’t have a concussion. LOL So...a long night started an awesome friendship. Probably why Thoren in our first book has such a protective instinct over Ember.
Who played more of a role in creating the character Ember? What about Thoren?
• Emily: Ember has been a character of mine for awhile. She actually started out as a human character that I made up probably twelve years ago. It wasn't until I was inducted into the minxhood (another roleplay group) that I decided to bring her out once more.
• Anya: Thoren was definitely my brainchild. Modeled a bit after one of the male characters I was playing in the group that Ember had a definite...thing for. Of course he developed into a more well rounded character than we thought it would.
In what ways do you find you complement each other as writers? Who would you say is better at writing snappy dialogue? What about engaging scene descriptions?
• Emily: When we start writing our characters just take over and it's like we turn into one person. Sometimes, if we write something and it feels off, we will ask the other what they think. Anya is good about changing a sentence around for me because I tend to switch my words around like a dyslexic would. She definitely compliments me there! As far as snappy dialogue and scene descriptions, we are both pretty good at both I believe. We both have quick wit, so the dialogue just comes naturally.
• Anya: I agree with Emily. Although I have to say her descriptions really transport you into a scene as if you are living it. I’m more the grammar/technical, let’s keep it moving kind of writer.
Anya Kelleye, how did you first get into paranormal romance and who are some of your favourite authors? What about you, E.R. Richards?
• Emily: When I first read paranormal romance I was hooked. I've always had a love for werewolves and vampires growing up so you can imagine the first time I read a paranormal I was ecstatic. The first ones I read was a vampire series by Linda Lael Miller. After that I went crazy looking for others. So, some of my favorites are Amanda Ashley, Kerrelyn Sparks, Kresley Cole, Christine Feehan, J.R. Ward, Laurell K. Hamilton and many others.
• Anya: I was an avid historical romance reader for years. Then one of my friends decided to publish a book she was writing several years ago. It was a ghost story paranormal romance that she asked me to read before she published it. Then she wrote another one that was a vampire romance, and that’s when the bug got me. After that I started reading the Christine Feehan paranormal romances and that was it. I was in love. So Feehan, and most of the authors Emily mentioned are some of my favorites. I also just read the Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning and now she is a definite favorite along with Kristen Painter who write more cozy mystery paranormal romances.
What inspired the story "Under A Blood Kissed Moon" and the idea behind the rest of the BloodMoon & Magic Book series?
• Emily: A complicated love story between Ember and her love interest from the writing group where Anya and I met. Our close fans/followers know what I'm talking about. big grin Anyway, from that love interest, we created Thoren. He's way more than what I expected. Anya has developed him into something so extraordinary that Ember isn't the only one in love with him.
• Anya: Writing male characters seems to be my forte. Emily says I get into the male’s head a little too much. Ha! We wanted to take that love interest a little farther than we could in the group due to the limitations of staying canon with the characters in the group. So we started writing our own roleplay storylines and they sort of just developed themselves into a book. We decided that all those storylines needed to be put out there for more people to read since we enjoyed them so much. We started our own roleplay group with just the two of us writing the storylines. We had several followers and they always commented about how much they enjoyed our characters. So...voila! A book series was born. Besides, who wouldn’t want to read about a snow leopard shifter falling in love with a vampire that hated shifters? Heehee
Were there things that you both disagreed about when writing the book? Do you have a sort of system such that whenever you disagree on something, it can be solved in a calm and fair way so that neither of you has to compromise their writing too much?
• Emily: I don't recall any disagreements. We aren't shy about putting something out there. If either of us dislikes an idea then we compromise and move on. We joke around about having one brain that's shared between us. Like, one of us can be thinking something and the other blurts it out then we just stare at one another for a moment before busting out laughing.
• Anya: Like Emily said, if there was something we disagreed on it was either minor and we’ve already forgotten about it or we just worked it out. But I really don’t remember any kind of big disagreements. We really do have the same brain at times.
What has been your biggest surprise about doing a collab and writing a whole series together? What made you decide to go under one common name and not just keep them separate?
• Emily: Biggest surprise is probably how easy it is for us to write together. I've heard it is somewhat difficult for two writers to collaborate on one book, but so far it's been smooth sailing. As for writing under one name I think it's because readers tend to stray away from books when they see two names as the author on the cover. I'm guilty of it myself. (e.g. Written by Anya Kelleye AND E.R Richards)?
• Anya: Like Emily said. Two authors on a title does make me leery as to how well the writing meshes. So, I have a tendency to steer clear as well. And we have had readers tell us they honestly can’t tell the writing shows as two different people. So, I guess we are doing something right.
Anya, what would you say are the best parts about working with E.R. Richards?
Emily makes me laugh. Soooo many times does she make me laugh. Her Ember character is not just a character as much as it is the inner workings of her own thoughts and actions at times. Any time I have a bad day and jump on to do some writing with her, I find myself laughing and feeling so much better because of that. We have truly discovered we are soul sisters. I’m a little more laid back so we balance each out very nicely.
E.R. Richards, how would you describe your experience working with Anya Kelleye?
First of all. squeals I love it! We get along great and for me that is what counts. Sometimes I can be a bit squirrely and she calmly keeps me in line and on track. Well, sort of. Ha! I can be a handful because I can be all over the place all at once. Kudos to her for keeping up with me!
What are some things you hope to achieve with this book series? How many books do you plan on having in the series?
• Emily: For myself, I just want to share the stories and feel like I've accomplished something. It's always been a goal of mine to write and be published, so that would be the achievement. That's all I want. I don't care if it skyrockets to stardom or crashes to earth. I'm just happy to have done something I know would have made my mother proud. And I believe we plan on having four books in the series.
• Anya: I wanted to get this book series out there and published more for Emily than myself. I know it’s been such a big dream for her. As she said, whether we hit the big time or just happy that we have been able to publish writing we love, that’s all that matters. My mother would also have been so proud as well. She was an avid romance reader as well and very creative. So me publishing my writing as well as designing book covers for other authors as well would have had her beaming. Emily and I both lost our mothers several years ago and have that in common. It’s also created a tight bond between us. And yes, we have four books planned in this series.
How do you think this collaboration has helped you both grow as writers?
• Emily: It's definitely made me expand my vocabulary. I find myself wanting to come up with different words instead of using the same one over and over. Also, during certain situations I will try several different approaches at how a chapter starts out then ask Anya which one she prefers and vice versa.
• Anya: It has helped us to see that we can do more than we thought, for one thing. We both can bring out the best in the other. Her strengths counteract my weaknesses and the same goes from my side as well. I teach her more grammar and she teaches me how to use all my senses to describe a scene.
What do both of you love most about the other person's writing? If neither of you were authors, what do you think you would be doing and do you think you would've ever met?
• Emily: Ahnya's writing is captivating to me. I love reading what she writes and can't wait until she writes something on her own. I'll definitely be waiting at the front of the line for a copy. She puts a lot of emotion into her characters. It's one of the reasons we write so well together. Our energies flow together so perfectly and in sync. Oh dear. I would just be sitting here reading this as a housewife I'm sure and we probably still would have met since she would probably be working on cover art.
• Anya: Emily’s writing transports me into another world and makes me want to write better. We weren’t really “authors” before we met. We just loved to write fun stories based on a book series we both loved. So, I think we would have met anyway. It was that book series that brought us together to start with.
Could you explain briefly how a collaboration works? Do you write separately and email each other chapters/pages to edit through or do you meet up somewhere and brainstorm together?
• Emily: We open up a google doc, name it, share it then start writing. (Google is so cool because when we are both in it, we can each see the other typing, so it's live!) So, normally we take turns writing until a chapter is done or sometimes it's just one of us in there. Either way we do it, we each read what the other writes and then edit if needed.
• Anya: Google is our friend! We started using it in our roleplay group. And like she says you can see the other person writing. Which many times can set us into peals of laughter when we make a mistake or use a wrong word or when we purposely write something so far out of left field that we have to reel ourselves back in to write the real story. Goose chase much? Hahaha! Since we live two states away, we can’t just meet up and write at our homes or at the library. So this is the next best thing to writing in person.
