Author Interview - Sarah Cross!

About:

Sarah Cross is the author of the fairy tale novel Kill Me Softly, the superhero novel Dull Boy, and the Wolverine comic "The Adamantium Diaries." She loves fairy tales, lowbrow art, secret identities, and silence.
If you want to know more about her, read one of her books. Her soul is in there somewhere.
Current art inspirations & obsessions can be found at tumblr, Fairy Tale Mood, or pinterest.

Favorites:

• Animals: Pallas' cats, hawks
• Fairy Tale: Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier"
• Disney movie: Sleeping Beauty
• Fairy Tale Retelling: Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber
• Movie: The Petrified Forest
• Book: The Tale of Genji
• Comics: early Spider-Man, golden age Batman (1940s), X-Men (Dark Phoenix Saga), Runaways, Castle Waiting
• Manga: Paradise Kiss, 20th Century Boys
• Videogames: Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Final Fantasy IV, Bioshock series, GTA
• TV Shows: Breaking Bad, Southland, Mad Men, The Shield, My Princess
• Music: Fiona Apple, Florence + the Machine, K-Pop

                                                Website
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My interview with Sarah:

Hello Sarah! Thank you so much for stopping by Books to Consider. To begin how about you tell us a bit about yourself?

The hardest question of all! I'm the author of the YA books Kill Me Softly (modern fairy tales) and Dull Boy (superheroes), and my comic "The Adamantium Diaries" appeared in Marvel Comics' Wolverine #1000. I love art, animals & old movies and I curate a fairy tale tumblr called "Fairy Tale Mood." Oh, and I really like (American) football.

How did you come up with the idea for Kill Me Softly?

I'd wanted to write a fairy tale retelling for a long time, and there was one fairy tale in particular that I wanted to retell. As I started to flesh out that story, I realized there was another fairy tale that would fit perfectly with the first one. And then I figured, if I was going to use two fairy tales, why not find a way to use them all? I'm being really vague, I know! I have to, for spoiler reasons. ;)

After reading Kill Me Softly I would say that you really like fairy tales and that you certainly know a lot about them. Why do fairy tales interest you?

I love fun, magical, sparkly things and I also love dark, dangerous, disturbing things, and with fairy tales, you get to have both. Also, some fairy tales are so insane, you spend the entire time you're reading them going "what ... WHAT ... WHAT??" and I love that aspect, too. Like Madame d'Aulnoy's "The White Cat." Fairy tales mean so many different things to different people ... there's a lot to play with, and a lot to explore.

What is your favorite fairy tale?

My favorite fairy tale is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier." The characters are toys and yet, it's so sad! The first time I heard it (yes, heard it) was when a college professor played the audio version (read by Jeremy Irons) during a writing workshop, and I was so moved by it that I started crying in class. I'm sure everyone thought there was something wrong with me, but that story earned those tears. :)

Any future projects or something you are working on right now (maybe a sequel to Kill Me Softly - I'm begging you!)

Haha! Well, not a direct sequel ... I'm working on a companion novel about some of the other characters from Kill Me Softly. No word on whether it will be published yet, but I certainly hope to write more books set in Beau Rivage. And there will be some fairy-tale stories on my website, starting with "After the Ball," which is up now, and features beautiful illustrations by young artist Oona Pohjolainen: http://www.sarahcross.com/stories/

What are your plans for the release day?

As I write this, my release day was yesterday (yay!) and I spent the day going to bookstores to sign stock, then capped it off with dinner and a delicious vanilla/apple pie/bacon milkshake
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Since my blog is called Books to Consider, which book should we consider reading next?

Ooh, good question ... well, if you like fairy tale retellings and haven't tried Holly Black's Curse Workers series (starting with White Cat), you should definitely consider reading that! And if you like contemporaries that don't pull any punches, I highly recommend The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez. You can't go wrong with either of those.
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And because I really loved this novel, I'm giving one of you the chance of winning Kill Me Softly :)


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