An Interview with Carole McDonnell, Author of Wind Follower

Carole McDonnell, a fellow Blogcritic and author is about to have her first novel, Wind Follower, published and set to be released in August. Wind Follower is being marketed as Multicultural Speculative Fiction. I am a Christian and I love speculative fiction but the two don't mix, right? Well, according to Carole McDonnell and other voyeuristic Christian authors the two entities were made for each other.

How does it feel to have your first novel, Wind Follower, set to be released this month?

Very odd. Everyone, writers and non-writers, are being so helpful and happy for me. The neighbors and friends are proud of me. It's neat, almost like waiting for a baby to arrive. The funny thing is that Juno's acceptance of the book came about so suddenly. One day I was writing at my computer as I did for all these years. The next I hear that Wind Follower was accepted for publication by Juno Books. Publication means acceptance or criticism or both. I get a lot of panic attacks when I think about possible reviews. What if folks hate it? What if they think the book is badly written? What if the Christian mythos in the story offends them? I truly think it’s one of my six great works. Yep, I have six great works to do. I love this book. All my heart is in it. Wind Follower is so different from all the books out there. I'm not saying it's better than other Christian or African-American or fantasy romance books. I'm just saying it's different. And I’m very happy that God gave me the plot.

When did you know you wanted be a writer?

The first time I knew I was a writer I was in an English class in junior high school. I had written a poem and my classmate and friend, Jan, picked it up and gave it to the teacher. She shouted, “Look what Carole wrote! It’s so good.” The teacher read it to the class. From then on, I was a writer.

I’m not really sure when I knew I would actually make writing a career, however. I loved reading the classics and I loved story. I loved cultures. I also liked puzzles. I would watch foreign and arty movies and documentaries forever. And I was always changing the plot of movies and stories around in my head. What if this had happened instead of that? What if the main character had been a black woman instead of a white woman?

Article Author: Constance Burris

Constance is an aspiring speculative fiction writer with a serious attention deficit disorder. She currently writes to Single and Blessed where she chronicles her everyday life as a single mother of two beautiful hyperactive children. …

Visit Constance Burris's author page — Constance Burris's Blog