Interview with Kiri Newton

Interview with Kiri Newton
Undertow Blog Tour

Have you a fascination with mermaids, or just enjoy Fantasy in general?

I think its just mermaids. I really don’t go for the black magic, warlocks and goblins theme. I passionately hate Vampires and werewolves. So yes, it is just mermaids.

Did you see the special on the Discovery Channel; Mermaid the Body Found?

I don’t have Foxtel and plus I live in Australia which means we get shows approximately twenty years after they have aired in the USA, so no haha.

Tell us a little about Undertow.

Not much to tell really. Its about a girl who becomes a mermaid and all the chaos that ensues.

 
Do you have a character you enjoyed writing the most?

Nox. He has such a intoxicating dark personality that was so intense to write about. Every scene he is in, he seems to flood the pages with inky darkness whereas Josiah floods the pages with light.

Is there a genre you would like to try?

ALL THE GENRES!

Could you live without coffee?

NO. NO. NO. NO. Did I mention no?

What's your favorite thing about the writing process?

Research. I researched some very interesting things in relation to this book.
Three facts about you?

       I’m Dyslexic and colour blind

      I’m still horse mad, I was the crazy kid in class who had horse       pictures all over her books and it hasn’t changed

   I have a phobia of deep water

Do you believe in UFOs?

I think it’s a little naive to assume that we have the wonderful, infinite galaxy to ourselves. But as to what is out there and what form it takes is open for discussion.  As for sightings, 99% can be explained but I will be honest some stories are hard to rationalize.
What was your favorite snack growing up?

I was very close to my Dad so we would go shopping together and he would always treat me to something. We were quite poor growing up but he would always take me to a burger joint or we would sit in the car park of the shopping center having a bottle of chocolate milk each or something. There’s one brand of chocolate that we would get all the time that I swear doesn’t taste as good as it did then.

Would you rather have fame or fortune?

Neither. I’m actually a simple person at heart and I would rather have enough money to live comfortably, but not ostentatiously on, surrounded by people I love and be able to do what I love and live in peaceful surroundings. Fame and Fortune offers neither to me, just complications.

Pick one book that is your all time favorite?

Phantom by Susan Kay. Its so perfectly written.

Embarrassing guilty pleasure?

I’m a fangirl. The thing I fangirl the most over is an Australian band called Short Stack that split up this year. They got under a lot of people’s skin and I still get ribbed about the fact that I chased them all over the country side, still wear their band shirts, have every album they have release, stalk their social media accounts, know all their songs backwards and USED TO have pictures of them all over my bedroom walls. I’m writing this from rehab…

Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

I am an extroverted introvert. I love my own company, but I love attention. I love observing people and finding out what makes them tick but the human race in large quantities drives me nuts. I could happily live in the middle of nowhere and yet I love the anonymity of walking along a crowded city street. Don’t worry, I don’t even make sense to myself any more.

Favorites:

Muppet – Animal, or the Swedish Chef or Beaker…ok that’s three, they’re all good

Cartoon growing up- The Rugrats and the side show The wild Thornberries

Color- Black

Type of Monster- In Matthew Reilly’s Contest theres this monster called the Reece. The Reece has to be one of my favorite monsters ever with the fact it hypnotizes its prey with swaying antenna on its head, its scorpion like tail and the fact it just never gives up.

Do you speed when you drive?

I just got my learners and yeah…I do have a lead-foot. Blame my parents

Spaghetti or Lasagna and why?

Lasagna. Blame Garfield

Your thoughts on Self Publishing.

Initially I was skeptical, I had been told by some people that it was a trap and a waste of money but when I did my research I saw how it could be a useful stepping stone to securing a traditional publishing deal which is what I am using it for.
Your thoughts on Zombies.

Hate them. I don’t think a zombie apocalypse will ever happen (they require brains, not many of those around last time I checked) and yeah the whole Zombie fetish at the moment just grosses me out immensely.
Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster?

Yeah. I like the notion that its one of those water-going dinosaurs that survived the event that wiped out all the other dinosaurs.

Are you a tweeter, a re-tweeter, or you couldn't care less about Twitter?

Tweeter. I unfollow people who do nothing but retweet, it annoys me. I was very addicted to twitter there for a while, I woke up in the middle of the night to a glow in my face only to realize that in my sleep I had picked my phone up, got into twitter and began typing out a somewhat inappropriate message to a dude in a band I had a crush on. After that incident I toned it back.

Your favorite type of music- Pop Punk/ Alternative

Your favorite color of Skittle- not really any colour, but I love the sour ones

Your favorite memory- Late nights building model airplanes with my dad.

Your favorite quote- Give ‘em hell kid (It’s a song quote but my Dad used to say something similar)

Your favorite way to spend an evening -depends. I don’t like doing the same thing every week. Sometimes I like quiet evenings, sometimes I like to be out with friends, sometime I like going to concerts, or out to dinner or just saying home, editing. Just depends what mood I’m in

Tell us what you are working on now!

Nothing much. I’m editing a crime fiction I wrote last year that I am looking to sell as I don’t want to publish it under my name for personal reasons. I’m kicking around a few ideas but at the moment my creativity is a bit dead.

Anything you would like to say to the aspiring authors reading this blog?

Just do, seriously, stop hanging around waiting for what you want to be handed to you on a silver platter. Hunt it down with a club.

Undertow

Kiri R. Newton

Bookpal Australia

For far too long these sailor-drowning, ship-sinking sea sirens have been portrayed as happy, peaceful creatures who want nothing more than to fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after. Undertow is an unconventional twist on one of the oldest mythological creatures known to man.

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About Kiri R. Newton

Its weird right but as an author I could tell you about my characters inside out and yet when people ask me to talk about myself I go all quiet. Anyways, here I go.

I am a child of ‘91 born in Jandowae, a tiny little town out past Dalby. When I was five my parents decided to pack everything up and move to Tonga in the South Pacific after Dad visited there and mum fell in love with the place after reading a book about it. So I grew up in a third world country, fluent in a second language by the time I was eight and lived amongst the locals who I was friends with.

When I was thirteen my father passed away and due to the fact that the government refused to pay my mum a pension over there like they did my father, we were forced to move back to Australia.

As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling.

In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title.