Guest post by Ann Gimple

I've been asked about what inspired me to write the Transformation Series. It’s not accidental that the main character in Psyche’s Prophecy, Psyche’s Search and Psyche’s Promise is a psychologist. Since that was my chosen vocation for many years, it’s something I can write about with a great deal of familiarity. I’ve been pleased when reviews of Psyche’s Prophecy, Psyche’s Search and Psyche's Promise have found them eerily close to real life.

Because I write genre fiction—in my case contemporary fantasy—the psychologist in question has psychic abilities. Lara McInnis has the sight. She also reads auras. I’ve had a lot of fun applying her expanded sensory abilities to the practice of psychology. In a fictional sense, of course.

Another strong interest of mine is ecology. It’s no surprise my novels and short stories often have a green twist. The Transformation Series is set in a dystopian near future where we finally managed to run fossil fuel supplies dry. Society is imploding because of shortages of everything from food to gas for people’s cars.

 

I prefer contemporary fantasy to high fantasy. There’s something about a real world setting that makes the addition of magic grittier somehow. Readers expect magical things in alternate worlds, but when a main character is flattened by a vision in the middle of her daily jog around Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, it feels far more powerful to me. Maybe it’s the juxtaposition of the unexpected against a life that looked normal until just a couple of pages ago. If it’s skillfully woven, I think a modern world with magic is far more interesting than one without.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written my share of high fantasy, and science fiction, too. Genre fiction opens many possibilities. Its relative popularity speaks to readers’ desire to have books transport them outside themselves to a new, plausible reality. The very best books suspend disbelief while you hold them in your hands flipping pages (or clicking buttons!).

What have some of your favorite books been and why do they loom large in your memory?

Thanks for inviting me to guest blog on your site.

 

You are welcome! Thanks for coming:)

About the Author Ann Gimpel

Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at heart. Recently retired from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers many hours at her desk where her body may have been stuck inside four walls, but her soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle moving to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It was during long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who see the backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann prefers her solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her fear for her life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. Oh, it wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between writing that novel and its sequel.

Around that time, a friend of hers suggested she try her hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before that first story found its way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then. A trilogy, the Transformation Series, featuring Psyche’s Prophecy, Psyche’s Search and Psyche’s Promise is complete. The initial two books have been published, with the final volume scheduled for release in 2012. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her tales often have a green twist and the Transformation Series is no exception.

In addition to writing, Ann enjoys wilderness photography. Part of her website is devoted to photos of her beloved Sierra. And she lugs pounds of camera equipment in her backpack to distant locales every year. A standing joke is that over ten percent of her pack weight is camera gear which means someone else has to carry the food! That someone else is her husband. They’ve shared a life together for a very long time. Children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out their family. Website / Blog / Amazon / Facebook / Twitter