1. Tell us about your most recent project (written or published). What inspired it?
My most recent project has been weeding the garden. Aside from that, I have been writing a lot of short stories. I was really excited my story, “Day of the Nuptial Flight” came out in the July/August Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, a story someone called “alien, insect erotica.” I recently sold a series of 7 stories/paranormal love advice columns to Daily Science Fiction. Imagine Dear Abby meets the bogeyman.
The project I know I should be working on is Shadows and Starlight, the sequel to Silent Moon. The first book in the series came out with Soul Mate Publishing this year as an e-book and will be coming out as a print book on Amazon next month. The first book is a gothic mystery with werewolves and a Jane Eyre feel to it. The sequel will focus on one of the “wolfmen” in the first book and his relationship with a shapeshifter who resembles shadows and starlight in her true form. It has been really hard to find the time to finish editing it when I have been successfully writing and selling short fiction. It’s all a balancing act on the tightrope of time management!
2. What’s your writing process like? Are you a “pantser,” an outliner, or something in between?
I think I am something in between. I really like writing character and dialogue, possibly influenced by early play writing classes in college, but I know if I don’t make a plan, my characters will and that might not make the best story. Outlining means less cutting later, but it also takes away from the joy of spontaneity. It is a difficult balance. More tightrope walking.
3. What’s your favorite kind of story to write?
I love to write about magic and I like to write about relationships. I heard a writer once say that all romance is a kind of magic and that might be why many of my stories lean toward romance.
4. Which character from your work do you most identify with, and why?
Arg, that is so hard. I went to art school to be an illustrator and one of my teachers once said all portraits are self-portraits and all paintings are of yourself—whether you intend it or not. I think I put something of myself in every character and the ones I don’t are the flattest and least alive. Usually when I write about school teachers those are the characters that are the most authentically myself because I am putting direct experiences into my writing. The characters that are aliens or outcasts or monsters that I write about feel symbolic of my experiences living overseas because I was an alien in those circumstances.
When a friend and I were discussing my beauty and the beast obsession, most recently seen in “A Monster and a Gentleman” which came out in Hot Dish this year with my pseudonym, I wondered what that meant about my mindset and mentality toward men and women and gender roles. My friend said that actually she thought I thought I was the monster, not the beauty. That gave me a different perspective. I think this really came out in Cassia in Silent Moon. I identified with the struggle for acceptance and self-acceptance of being a monster/flawed/an outcast.
5. Which authors or books have most influenced your work?
So many! I love classical literature, romance, fantasy and mystery blended with these subjects. Some of my favorites include:
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
Tale of Two Cities
Wuthering Heights
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Count of Monte Cristo
Austenland
The Passion
The Promise
Harry Potter
The Host
Twilight
Imzadi
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
Tuck Everlasting
Shades of Milk and Honey
Dresden Files
Sookie Stackhouse Series
Stephanie Plum Series
6. What’s the last book you read that you really loved?
The Hunger Games. I really like how much I cared about the protagonist and sympathized with her.
7. Besides writing, how do you like to spend your free time?
When I am not writing, I spend my time sewing new creations as a fashion designer, teaching and performing belly dance and concocting experimental food that may or may not be edible.
8. Advice for other writers?
Don’t quit your day job. Ha ha! It takes a long time to become a career novelist. I have been writing since I was 6, submitting writing and attending writing workshops since I was 18 and more seriously starting to submit starting eight years ago. Four years ago I sold my first short story. At this date I have sold over 40 short stories, and two novels. Although I am selling to markets that pay better as I become a better writer, it takes a long time to establish a career.
9. Where can readers find your work?
The best place to find free stories is on my website:
My novel Silent Moon is up on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Moon-Sarina-Dorie-ebook/dp/B00GHLBDTI
Dawn of the Morningstar, my alien and puritan romance, is up on Smashwords.com. Next year it will be up on Amazon when WolfSinger Publishing republishes it.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/267911
10. What’s your favorite thing about the furry fandom?
Mary E. Lowd—also known as Ryffnah, author of Otters in Space. She introduced me to the furry genre.
Check out Sarina Dorie’s member bio here!
Furry Writers’ Guild 