Today, we meet Vanessa Finaughty, author of Hocus Focus in the Space Wizards short story anthology.
A little history about Vanessa, because she doesn’t give herself enough credit.
Vanessa and I have never met in person, but only through on-line/email. We first met on a critique group called Critters.
Vanessa is a phenomenal author, and she has several published books. Really, I admire her grit, determination and honesty when it comes to putting her writing out there. She has no fear, and she’s so talented.
Vanessa is the author and creator of Space Wizards. She has done all the publicity, created all the images, the music video, the trailer, everything. To say there is no quit in Vanessa is an understatement. She gives all of her heart and soul to making this anthology successful.
I am blessed to be part of her world, even though we are half a world apart. Give her some love today, go check out her website (it is incredible! I’m jealous!) and do yourself a favor and pick up one of her books. You won’t regret it!
1. With which author (living or dead) would you most like to have dinner?
John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker novels. I had the pleasure of interviewing him over coffee many years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. His sense of humour had me in stitches for half of the interview, and he was extremely down to earth for someone so famous. What a nice person!
2. If you had the opportunity to live on a colony on Mars, would you go? Why/why not?
If the Earth was still an option – a resounding no! I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking things like ‘what if the dome breaks’ or ‘what if something goes wrong with our oxygen’ or ‘what if, what if, what if…’. You get the picture. If Mars was terraformed, however, that’s another story – but I’d first wait to see if the first colonists picked up any weird illnesses or were attacked by tiny little alien bugs or… something.
3. What’s your favourite animal and why?
Dogs all the way! What’s not to love about a dog? You can snuggle them and play with them, you can cry into their fur and you can teach them new tricks.
4. Do you prefer to write with no distractions or do you need something to help with creativity?
I prefer to have silence, but that’s a luxury for me, living in a noisy house and equally noisy neighbourhood. I’ve learnt the art of ‘selective hearing’, and am usually able to ‘fade to nothing’ all external noises. If the noise is too loud or irritating for that, I have a white noise mp4 that I play loud enough to block it out (but this white noise also starts to irritate me after a while).
5. What is your full-time job? How does that colour your writing?
I’m an editor by profession. My job has helped me to improve my own writing – when you edit, your brain is in a different space, looking at the nit-picking details, and it’s also easier to see that something doesn’t sound right when you’re not the one who wrote it. A few years ago, I was quite amused (because it was so obviously wrong and sounded ridiculous) by a mistake one of my clients made, and even more surprised to realise the next time I sat down to write that I, too, made that same mistake!
6. What themes do you seem to return to, whether you mean to or not?
I always seem to have ‘some deserving so-and-so getting what he/she deserves’ – the theme of justice. I don’t think there’s enough of this in the world and it bugs me.
7. Do you hide foreshadowing or breadcrumbs in your writing?
I always try to, yes. For me, half the fun of reading (and writing) is trying to figure out what might happen next and solve the little mysteries along the way – it’s a nice feeling if your guesses turn out to be right, and a real high if the author managed to surprise you in a way that wows.
8. What first inspired you to put together Space Wizards?
I love magic and I love a good space movie (think Star Wars). The idea popped into my head and, once it was there, it stuck around for more than a year before I put it into action.
9. How did your story idea originally begin – as a joke, an image, a question?
I set out to make it humorous, so I asked myself what elements would add humour. A familiar is supposed to be on your side, so to have yours constantly insulting you came to mind.
10. What mood were you aiming for: wonder, humour, dread, or a mix?
Humour and wonder.
11. What do you hope readers feel when they finish your story?
Amused and relaxed.
12. Which spell would you absolutely misuse?
The No More Chores spell!
13. If your story had a warning label, what would it say?
“Drinking liquid while reading this story might result in choking.”
14. If your story were a cocktail, what would it be called?
Hocus Focus (my story’s title) – something dark, with glitter swirling in it.
15. Star Trek or Star Wars and why?
Star Wars all the way! Although I do enjoy Star Trek, it feels more like a family sitcom than an epic story, and I really enjoy the thrill of an epic story – Star Wars ticks all the boxes for epic, action and humour.
Buy Space Wizards now!
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Prepare to be spellbound by this (mostly) light-hearted short story anthology offering a blend of science fiction and fantasy with one common theme: wizards and outer space. Imagine a galaxy in which magic is fused with machine, luxury space cruises run by cyborgs are the norm and familiars are a little… different.
Join the adventures of a powerful space wizard during wartime, a young wizard-in-training with her griffon familiar, and a time-travelling biker wizard who accidentally ends up in the future – well, sort of. Let’s not forget the caustic robot familiar cat, a faulty 3D printer causing magical havoc, spells gone wrong, space pirates, and a junior contract analyst who experiences a series of inexplicable, extremely inconvenient events as a result of a strange cube his team recovered as space debris.
That’s not all! A quantum conjuring that violates the laws of thermodynamics – check. A wizard in a Wild West-type setting – check. An ancient maths book that might hold the key to immortality – check. An adrenaline junkie smuggler and a daring rescue – check. Add an intergalactic circus with a shifty shifter, a bioship giving birth under dire circumstances and a moulting wyrmling with the potential to explode planets, and you have an anthology that is sure to enchant you until the last word and beyond.
Vanessa Finaughty is a multi-genre author who has published more than 20 books, including school books published by Oxford University Press Southern Africa. Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and still lives there with her husband and their four children (two human and two furry, four-legged).
Vanessa has always been passionate about books, and knew from a young age that she wanted to write them one day. She loves animals, coffee and the smell of wet grass, and hates excessive weather, long queues and liars. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, mythology, aliens and outer space, ancient history, life’s mysteries and martial arts, in which she has five years’ experience in Ki Aikido.
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