About the Author:Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, when she was nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish and the odd eel.
When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.
To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dog trainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.
Author Webpage
Now onto our guest post!
1. Where did you get your inspiration for the physical environment of the Nevernever?
For me, the home of the fey should be beautiful, haunting, and just a little bit creepy, much like the faeries themselves. So I took an environment and made it so that something was just a little off about it. I wanted readers to experience the same unease as Meghan when traveling through the land of the fey.
2. Before writing this series did you always know how it would end or did it develop as you wrote each one?
I knew how Meghan’s story would ultimately end, yes. But within each book, I knew there were certain things that had to happen, and I wrote toward those events.
3. If you had no other choice, which character would you want to step into the life of within your Iron Fey series?
It would have to be Grimalkin. Super smart, super snarky, and can turn invisible whenever he wants. Who wouldn't love to be a cat? ;-)
4. What is your writing space like?
I have an office, with a desk in front of a window so I can see out. Unfortunately, the window faces the rising sun, so the blinds are usually drawn because the sun blinds me, lol. My desk has my laptop on it, several books stacked and scattered about at random, and a constant supply of empty soda cans everywhere. Caffeine, I can’t live without it.
