I’d like to welcome author, Marie Powell to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!
A few of your favorite things: I like chocolate, blackberries, and reading. Reading anything, but fantasy novels in particular. I try to read about 50 novels a year, over and above the research books I use. Favourite authors: Edgar Allan Poe, T.H. White, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo, Jim Butcher, Kelley Armstrong, and oh, so many more.
Things you need to throw out (or recycle?): Shoes I’ll never wear again, old magazines, and cords and adapters that go with—something from the 1990s, maybe?
Things you need for your writing sessions: Time! I always need more time.
Things that hamper your writing: Lack of timeT
Things you love about writing: I love those moments when I feel like I’m “in the zone.” When I’m out walking and my mind starts ticking with the rhythm of my feet, or the wind whispers in my ear, or I hear a scrap of conversation, and it floats in and around my brain until it comes out through my fingers on the keyboard as a story.
Things you hate about writing: Never having enough time to write all the stories I want to write. Okay, I know, I already mentioned that. (But seriously, couldn’t somebody invent a time-stretcher?)
Favorite foods: Ooh, lots! Lately I’m into cooking with medieval spices - cubebs, grains of paradise, long-peppers, ginger, cloves, and sage, mint, and parsley from my herb planter. I took an online class called “Eat Medieval” from Durham University and Blackfriar’s Restaurant last Christmas during the Covid lockdown, and it was so much fun that I signed up for two more. Going for another as soon as it’s advertised. There are combinations of sweet and savory spices you’d never have thought to combine, called Poudre Fort and Poudre Douce. Love it! These spices go great on anything you can bar-be-que in foil too, like chicken, white fish or salmon, root veggies, zucchini, mushrooms, root veggies, you name it.
Things that make you want to gag: Greasy bacon and over-easy eggs. (Give me poached any day!)
Things you never want to run out of: Books! Herbs and spices. Cat food (for my cat, of course).
Things you wish you’d never bought: Rabbit meat. I ordered it without realizing it was a whole, entire rabbit, flattened on a Styrofoam platter. It’s haunting me from the freezer. Tastes like chicken, right? (Maybe I can find someone to give it to.)
Favorite beverage: Coffee in the morning; tea in the afternoon
Something that gives you a sour face: Sour candy. (Sorry, kids)
Favorite smell: The ocean, when you just catch a scent of it on the Chinook wind, coming over the Prairie from the Pacific. It reaches all the way here, and takes me back to west-coast holidays when I was a kid.
Something that makes you hold your nose: Oh, gag me! Let’s not even go there.
The last thing you ordered online: I should say books, but actually it was spices. Cubebs from Salt’Sup in Estonia, elderflower leaves and some very nice pepper grinders from Amazon, of all places, and Grains of Paradise and Long-peppers from the Silk Road in Calgary. I have enough of each to last for the rest of my life now, I’m sure, and it wasn’t even expensive, which really surprised me. Gotta love the Internet!
The last thing you regret buying: Remember that rabbit I mentioned earlier?
Things you always put in your books: Ghosts, or something from the past that haunts the present. And siblings. It seems I always have a brother-sister team or at least the mention of siblings in my novels and my short stories.
Things you never put in your books: Ummm… Can’t really think of anything.
Favorite places you’ve been: Wales, Ireland, Cuba, New York, Cabo San Lucas, the Mexican Riviera, the Yale University library, Minneapolis, Northfield (Minnesota), Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, Tofino, Calgary, Edmonton, Medicine Hat, Drumheller, Eastend, Saskatchewan Landing, Cypress Hills, Hecla (Manitoba), Toronto, Montreal, Fredericton, St. John’s, riding on ferries across large and small bodies of water, riding on trains like the old TransCanada or even the Amtrack red-eye watching the countryside zip by in the dark, sitting in darkened theatres watching actors rehearse new plays -- wait, maybe everywhere I’ve ever been! I really love travel. It’s always an adventure, even if it’s just driving a few km down the highway to have supper in a small town restaurant.
Places you never want to go to again: Never? Like, never go again? I mean… what if I got it wrong or missed something the first time? I think every time I’ve said “never” in my life, I’ve proven myself wrong. So, better not to say that word.
Favorite books (or genre): Fantasy, historical fantasy, paranormal thriller
Books you wouldn’t buy: Steamy erotica and books with naked torsos (male or female) on the covers. Sorry. I worked as a dramaturg and assistant stage manager for a while when I was young, and I can’t help but think of all the out-of-work actors who have to make ends meet in various ways. Those images just feel exploitive to me.
The nicest thing a reader said to you: “It was like I was there. I mean, I could really visualize it. And when I read that final paragraph of Spirit Sight, it gave me shivers!”
The craziest thing a reader said to you: “You know, you should write a story about my life. It’ll make you famous. No, really. You write it, and we’ll split the profits.”
