Jennifer Caress

answers the Usual Questions

Jennifer Caress

Has your interaction with fans, for example, at conventions, affected your work?

Interacting with fans is a very validating experience. To know that others have connected with the same characters I lived with and lived through for months, sometimes years, fuels me forward. Interacting with fans is also a bit of a bonding experience because we -- readers, characters, and I -- have all traveled the same emotional journey through the story so I feel we've been together long before we ever meet.

Is there any particular incident (a letter, a meeting, a comment that stands out?

There's nothing better than the first time a stranger told me he liked my work. Again, realizing that a story I worked so hard on traveled into the hands of a person I'd never met before was amazingly validating. Here is someone I didn't bribe or beg to read my book and yet they had found it just the same, and it was a moment that will always stand out in my memories.

Do you have a favourite author or book (or writer or film or series) that has influenced you or that you return to?

I'm influenced by the stuff I love and the stuff I loathe equally, of course, and so without revealing who influenced me how, here is a short list of swayers: Douglas Adams, Terry Gilliam, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Carl Hiaasen, Steven Moffat ... and many mores whose names I can't recall off the top of my head.

Who is the person you would most like to be trapped in a lift with? or a spaceship?

Napoleon Hill. In a spaceship. On our way to have tea at the restaurant at the end of the universe with Nicola Tesla and Ernest Holmes and Douglas Adams.

Who is the person you would most DISlike to be trapped in a lift with? Or a spaceship?

Any political or religious extremist. One word: airlock.

What would you pack for space? (Is there a food, beverage, book, teddy bear, etc that you couldn't do without?)

My dog, River, laptop for writing, and a very well stocked wine cellar.

What is the most important thing you would like to get/achieve from your work?

Millions of dollars, a large and well constructed statue of me in a town square, and a lovely religion based on something awesome that I wrote. Oh, and a national holiday in my honor.

What is the special satisfaction of your work?

The special satisfaction of my work is when even I don't know what's about to happen because the story or a character has taken over and I'm just as surprised as anybody at what happens next.

submitted by Jennifer Caress

25 July 2014

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Just the facts:
Born: March 24 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA.
Resides: As of now, I reside in Southern California, but I know this is not my final destination. I seek a place with four noticeable seasons and a lot less heat, though I don't mind the lizards.
Bibliography/Awards:
Perverted Realities/ Stonegarden Publishing
Dragging Wings/ Stonegarden Publishing
Blood of the Broken/ Stonegarden Publishing
The Return of Spring-heeled Jack/ Black Bed Sheets
Read Us or Die (anthology)/ Black Bed Sheets