Enjoy this entertaining interview with Piers Anthony! Guaranteed to lift your spirits!
Terminal cancer patient, Quiti, walks into an abandoned building planning on taking her life. Instead, she encounters a telepathic ball of hair that insists it is an alien seeking to facilitate diplomatic communication on Earth. Quiti assumes it is all a hallucination conjured up by her brain tumor. Because of this assumption, when she saves the alien’s life and it insists on doing Quiti a favor in return, she only asks for her hair back. She soon discovers, however, that the creature’s gift extends much further than her new locks that can change color with a thought. As her powers grow and her deadly illness goes into remission, Quiti quickly realizes that there are those that would want to use her for her abilities and is forced to leave behind everything that she knew. Will this blessing curse her to a life on the run, or does the mysterious hairball have more in store for her? Piers Anthony, critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling Xanth series, brings together humor and adventure in this original story of loyalty, friendship, extraordinary powers, and hair. Dreaming Big Publications
Interview with Piers:
Tell us about your latest book.
Hair Power is a novella about a girl with terminal brain cancer who helps an alien hairball, who rewards her with hair that not only replaces her own lost hair, but cures her cancer and makes her something of a super woman. In time that hair is six feet long and she wears it like a cloak. That’s only the beginning.
Tell us a little about some of the others who contributed to your book, such as cover designer or editor.
I have to default on that, as I don’t know them.
Who are your favorite authors?
If I lost my memory and had my choice of reading matter, I hope my favorite would be Piers Anthony. I try to write what I would like to read. As for other authors, I have admired many in the Science Fiction and Fantasy fields, from Robert A Heinlein on down. I am also an admirer of the plays of George Bernard Shaw, and not just because he was a vegetarian.
What advice do you have for other writers?
Publishing is changing so much now that much of what I might say would become dated about ten minutes after I wrote it. So I’ll just say read and study the genre you are in, keep writing and improving, and may the world go well with thee.
What's the best thing about being a writer?
For me the best thing is getting to exercise my imagination and being independent. I can’t be fired for someone else’s mistakes.
What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
It used to be dealing with publishers, who were like insensitive robots interested only in money, regardless what they claimed. But the old order is passing and the new publishers I am dealing with are generally more compatible. Some of them even like good fiction. So now the hardest thing is facing the prospect of my declining ability with advancing age. I’m not capable of simply letting it go and retiring. So when I no longer write well, I hope I am the first, not the last to know it.
Where can people find out more about you and your writing?
My web site is www.hipiers.com where I have a monthly column, commenting on whatever is on my mind, and background information on my titles. I have also written two autobiographical books: Bio of an Ogre and How Precious Was That While.
How long did it take you to write your book?
Three Weeks for this 35,000 word novella. It moved well, and I am an efficient writer.
Did you learn anything from writing your book that was unexpected?
I don’t think so. I had worked it out pretty well before I started writing. I’ve always loved long hair on a woman, so this was easy imagination.
Where can a reader purchase your book?
From wherever the publisher puts it.
What are you doing to market the book?
Precious little. I’m a writer, not a marketer.
Who inspires you?
The world inspires me.
How do you research your books?
There wasn’t any real research for Hair Power. I generally try to stay within the boundaries of what I know. When I do need to research, I buy books on the subject.
Do you have another work in progress? Tell us about it.
I am working on the sequel, Hair Suite, wherein there is competition with Cyborg aliens in very attractive human form. Until the two cultures have to unite against a third.
Have you written other books? Where can readers purchase them?
I have written about 175 other books. Readers can find many of them listed on Amazon. Many readers like my Xanth fantasy series, which now number 42 novels, not all in print yet.
Where you can find Hair Power:
https://www.amazon.com/Hair-Power-Piers-Anthony/dp/1534919147/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468715975&sr=8-1&keywords=hair+power+piers+anthony