Introducing One More New Member: E.C. Myers!
Another male is joining Pub(lishing) Crawl. Can you believe it? No more ladies' night at this bar. We have dudes. COOL dudes—and I (Sooz) know they're cool because I've hung out with both Adam Silvera (check him out!) and our other newest male member...
Welcome, E.C. Myers!
E.C. Myers was assembled in the U.S. from Korean and German parts and raised by a single mother and a public library in Yonkers, New York. His Andre Norton Award–winning young adult novel Fair Coin and its sequel, Quantum Coin, were published by Pyr in 2012.
Yeah, you read that right: Andre Norton Award-winning. Isn't that INSANE? (Trust me: the book deserved it.)
E.C. also writes short stories, which have appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Sybil’s Garage, Shimmer, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He currently lives with his wife, two doofy cats, and a mild-mannered dog in Philadelphia. You can find traces of E.C. all over the internet, but especially at his website, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
Now, in case you're curious about his books, here's a bit more to whet your appetite:
Fair Coin
Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.
Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin—a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.
The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted—if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out.
Quantum Coin
Ephraim thought his universe-hopping days were over. He's done wishing for magic solutions to his problems; his quantum coin has been powerless for almost a year, and he's settled into a normal life with his girlfriend, Jena. But then an old friend crashes their senior prom: Zoe, Jena's identical twin from a parallel world. Zoe's timing couldn't be worse.
It turns out that Ephraim's problems have just begun, and they're much more complicated than his love life. The multiverse is at stake—and it might just be Ephraim's fault. Ephraim, Jena, and Zoe embark on a mission across multiple worlds to learn what's going wrong and how to stop it. They will have to draw on every resource available and trust in alternate versions of themselves and their friends before it's too late for all of them.
If Ephraim and his companions can put their many differences aside and learn to work together, they might have a chance to save the multiverse. But ultimately, the solution may depend on how much they're willing to sacrifice for the sake of humanity...and each other.
Phew. Good sci-fi, those books. And excellent for YA readers, in my opinion. Now, to fully introduce E.C. to you all, we have a brief interview he was kind enough to do for us—despite being under massive deadline and working a Real Job to boot. (Inspirational, though, no?)
[hr]
Welcome to Pub Crawl, E.C.! We are BEYOND THRILLED to have you on the team! Now tell me: what inspired you to start writing Fair Coin?
I don’t remember what first sparked the idea, if anything, but an image popped into my head of a boy flipping a coin into a wishing fountain. A ripple spread out from the fountain, changing the world around him to conform to his wish, but leaving him unchanged. It played out like a scene from a movie with CGI effects. A lot of my story ideas begin visually, possibly because I’ve always been a TV and film junkie, and my first serious attempts at writing were all screenplays.
Aw, man, I totally understand the CGI scenes. That's what happens in my head too. So once you had the idea, what was your journey to publication like?
Sometimes it felt like hauling the One Ring to Mordor. But it actually was rather typical, a textbook example of how most authors probably get published—the timeline varies, but the steps are generally the same. I wrote and published many short stories for six years before writing Fair Coin, which was my first attempt at a novel. I did four revisions before I started querying agents. It took seven months to an offer of representation, and I worked on one more revision with my agent before we went on submission. Then we had some near misses and a lot of rejections, and two years later we sold it to Pyr. From that point, it was only another fifteen months before the book was finally published. While all that was happening, I wrote three other novels, the sequel and two standalones, so I consider it time well spent.
You know, I'm impressed that you call your journey "textbook" because it IS and yet we never heard about these standard, more "slow-paced" deals. It takes a lot of hard work and commitment to make it in this biz, so hearing your story is a super inspirational reminder for our readers to keep on keepin' on! Now, tell me about a typical writing day for you—assuming there even is such a thing.
I have two kinds...Monday through Friday: I wake up as early as I can manage, usually about 5:30, and write until I have to go to work. For the next eight hours, I write miscellaneous non-fiction stuff and proofread things and write social media posts at my day job. (I can usually fit in some personal writing at lunch.) When I get home, after making dinner and being a good husband and pet owner, I might manage another hour or two of work before going to bed around midnight, depending on how shiny the internet is and how far away my deadlines are. Saturdays and Sundays: If I have no other social commitments, I hole up at my favorite coffee shop until they kick me out, usually getting 10-12 hours of writing in each day.
But of course, these are only under ideal circumstances; like many authors, I write whenever I can, wherever I have to. But I do work best when I have at least an hour, preferably several, to really get into what I'm working on.
SEE?! More examples of how hard work and determination pay off. I am now even more impressed. Go. You. But what about those occasional moments of free time—what are you reading when you have them?
I just started Don't Look Now by Michelle Gagnon, book 2 in her PeRSEF0NE trilogy.
Oooh, I'll have to look that up! Last question: If you could spend a night at the pub with any 3 authors (alive or dead) who would it be and why?
I’m going to choose authors who unfortunately are no longer with us, because I hope I still might be able to buy drinks for those who are still living. Definitely William Sleator, because his book Interstellar Pig introduced me to science fiction, and that genre has shaped my tastes in reading and writing so much. He’s had a big influence on my work, especially his darker, provocative books Singularity and House of Stairs.
I’d also like to chat with E. Nesbit, who probably informed my ideas about fantasy and magic—and particularly the unforeseen consequences of wishes—as much as Sleator did for science fiction. And Robert C. O’Brien, because he only wrote a handful of books, and I wonder what other stories he might have told if he had lived longer; maybe he could give me some ideas. The Silver Crown worked its way into my head the way I hope one of my books will for a young reader someday.
Aaaand, E.C. had me at William Sleator. I WAS OBSESSED WITH HIM GROWING UP. Knowing E.C. loves William Sleator explains SO MUCH about why I loved Fair Coin—and why it reminded me so much of my favorite childhood sci-fi. Clearly, he nailed it.
[hr]
Now YOU all can enter for a chance to read (or listen to) E.C. Myers' books! Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below, and check back in a week for the winner! Also, this is open internationally, so everyone can join!
And one more GIANT WELCOME to all our new members! Janice Hardy, Adam Silvera, and E.C. Myers—thank you for coming onboard with our crazy crew.