Seven Realms Week - Author Day

Due to some delays with the mail, the giveaway has been rescheduled to monday! Check the schedule post for the changes (click on the SRW button on the right for all the SRW posts). 

Today's Author Day!

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Cinda Williams Chima grew up with talking animals and kick-butt Barbies. She began writing poetry and stories in third grade, and novels in junior high school. Her Heir Chronicles young adult contemporary fantasy series includes The Warrior Heir (2006), The Wizard Heir (2007), and The Dragon Heir (2008), all from Hyperion, with two more books forthcoming.
Chima's best-selling YA high fantasy Seven Realms series launched with The Demon King (2009), followed by The Exiled Queen (September, 2010) and The Gray Wolf Throne (August, 2011). The Crimson Crown is scheduled for fall, 2012.
Chima's books have received starred reviews in Kirkus and VOYA, among others. They have been named Booksense and Indie Next picks, an International Reading Association Young Adult Choice, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, to the Kirkus Best YA list, and the VOYA Editors' Choice, Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and Perfect Tens lists. Her books also appear on numerous state awards lists. Both series are New York Times bestsellers.
Chima is a recipient of the 2008 Lit Award for Fiction from the Cleveland Lit and was named a Cleveland Magazine Interesting Person 2009. She lives in Ohio with her family, and is always working on her next novel.
Find Chima online at www.cindachima.com or http://cindachima.blogspot.com

Read my reviews for her Heir Chronicles books here:
The Warrior Heir
The Wizard Heir
The Dragon Heir
These books are amazing! If you loved the Seven Realms you should definitely read them too!


Interview

Do you have a favourite character from the Seven Realms series?  And a favourite book from the series?

That's like choosing my favorite son--and the answer to that depends on what they've been doing lately! Han Alister is a favorite--I have always loved handsome rogues, and he would qualify. For some reason I always find male characters easier to write--maybe because I've been surrounded by men for years (not random men, my family.) Cat Tyburn is another favorite--she is someone who doesn't suffer fools, and goes after what she wants. I knew Raisa ana'Marianna very well as an adult character in some of my unpublished work, and so it was fun to go back and imagine what she would have been like at 16. And it's been fun to follow her character arc over the four books as she transitions from naive princess to savvy queen. 

Is this the last book or do you want to revisit the Seven Realms again in the future?

This is the last book in this cycle, but I can easily see myself revisiting the Seven Realms. I love living in that world. 

What can we expect from this last book? Lots of emotions, action, love?

All of the above. Why stick to only one or two elements of conflict when you can have many? 

I read somewhere that you started writing an adult series, but then switched to a YA story. Will you complete this adult series some time? 

The adult series I began writing in this world is called the Star-Marked Warder. I had been reading George R.R. Martin's Song of ice and Fire back in the 90's and I was amazed at what he did with character. None of his characters were all good or all bad--they were all heroes of their own stories. And, yes, I would like to return to it and see what exactly I have, LOL

Why did you use Wolves as the reincarnations for the queens? Do you have a special bond with these animals?

Yes! I love wolves--predators at the top of the food chain. The Gray Wolf Queens' relationship with the wolves gives them an element of magic that would otherwise be lacking. 

Do you base your characters on actual people you know, or do you use some traits from friends or yourself to create a character?

When people ask me if I base my characters on real people, I say, of course--I have nothing else to work with! But I lift elements from several people to create one character. I think it's a mistake to closely model a character in fiction after a person you know--I don't think you can ever know as much about another person as you need to know about your characters. 

Thank you for this interview, Cinda! And thank you for introducing us to the Seven Realms!