Today I welcome Jay Hogan to the blog to answer a few questions
for Author Interview³.
1) Tell us 3 fun facts about your writing history
The first book I wrote about fifteen years ago was about a serial killer abducting girls with eating disorders-I know, I know lol.
I hadn’t heard about mm romance until three years ago
In my first mm romance, First Impressions, there was a glaring error that somehow managed to get through the publisher’s editing process. I was writing about a guy watching sport on TV and initially I had him watching a basketball game. Then I changed my mind to make it an American Football game but for some reason only changed one team name, and so I had a basketball and football team playing against each other…OMG.
2) Describe your writing style in 3 words
Gritty
Circular
Emotional
3) Name 3 of your literary influences
David Baldacci
Amy Lane
N R Walker
4) Share your 3 favourite books
Cut and Run by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban because it was the first mm book I read
Lord of the Rings well, just because, right?
The Virgil Flowers series by John Sandford
5) What are your 3 essential writing tools?
Quiet
Coffee or iced water
My cat and dog
6) Where are your 3 favourite places to write?
My office (I can’t do cafes etc). It’s pretty much the only place I write anything serious, though I would like to be able to change the view at times. I think I could write anywhere as long as I had a set space, like a Tuscan villa with a nice view, or a Greek cottage on the sea, but it must have a room or corner set away where I can think and spread out. I need routine and familiarity so I can shut out distractions and extraneous stuff and just get straight down to it.
7) Name 3 items on your writing wish list
I’d like to try a m/f romance and will at some stage
I’d like to write a fantasy, I have one on the slow boil that needs lots of work
I’d like to contract to Peter Jackson for a NZ film lol
8) What are your top 3 tips for aspiring writers?
Just write, no excuses.
Read, read, read in the genre you think you want to write in
Don’t get tunnel vision about genre. I love thriller and the first two books I wrote were in that genre but never got published. I actually found I didn’t like writing in that style even though I loved reading it. Then I discovered mm romance and found my home. In retrospect it was an obvious fit.
9) Tell us 3 of your writing plans for the year ahead
Finish current WIP, the third in the Auckland Med series.
Release a new book, Digging Deep, through Dreamspinner Aug 6th
Edit and submit a finished mm romance that needs serious word slashing.
10) Tell us about your latest release
Crossing the Touchline is a NZ mm romance about the first out gay All Black.
The All Blacks are a phenomenon in the rugby world and arguably the most successful sports team ever across all sports, with an over 77% win rate in the 120 year history. The first out gay All Black will be a big thing not just for NZ but also in the world of rugby as a whole, and the international media response will be massive. No one wants to be that guy and deal with all that attention. The All Blacks say they are ready for it. They are very vocally inclusive and appear to walk the talk. Rugby NZ is ready, or so they say… but are the fans ready?
Rugby is still seen as a quintessential ‘man’s’ sport. When a famous All Black, Ma’a Nonu famously ran onto the field in the early 2000’s wearing guyliner as nothing but a fashion statement, it hit the sports headlines from South Africa to Taiwan, all wondering if the All Blacks could survive the hit to their tough man image!
I also think people expect to encounter a very straight-passing masc guy as the first gay All Black, and that will probably be true because of the physical requirements of the sport. But I wanted to up the ante and have his partner be a very strong but very fem counterpoint to that and see what happened.
You don’t have to know anything about rugby to read the story. It’s a romance first and foremost.
Jay Hogan
Dreamspinner Press
23 April 2019
118k words
MM romance
Heat Level: 4/5
Amazon
What if you’ve worked your whole life for a dream, to play rugby for the most successful sports team on the planet, the New Zealand All Blacks?
What if that dream is so close you can smell it?
What if you meet someone?
What if you fall in love?
What if your dream will cost the man who’s stolen your heart?
And what if the dream changes?
Reuben Taylor has a choice to make.
Cameron Wano is that choice.
Jay Hogan is a New Zealand author writing in m/m romance, romantic suspense and fantasy. She has travelled extensively, living in a number of countries. She’s a cat aficionado especially Maine Coons, and an avid dog lover (but don’t tell the cat). She loves to cook- pretty damn good, loves to sing - pretty damn average, and as for loving full-time writing -absolutely… depending on the word count, the deadline, her characters’ moods, the ambient temperature in the Western Sahara, whether Jupiter is rising, the size of the ozone hole over New Zealand and how much coffee she’s had.
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