Please welcome Debbie Manber Kupfer to Fantasy Fun Reads! Debbie is the author of The P.A.W.S.Saga (5 book series). Cotula is the 5th book in the series and is currently on pre-order for 2.99 (regular price 4.99).
Rifka is lost, far away from home. Kidnapped by an insidious werewolf.
Far off in Manus Wu, a plan is set in place. An Old One sends colutae out into the world. These stones when brought together have the power to release Rifka. Yet does she truly want to go home?
Meet an empathic goat, a family of otters, a girl who loves to draw fairies, and a dragon in this new installment of the P.A.W.S. Saga.
Link to series: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074CHGV9G
Link to Cotula: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S9QHRP1
The entire series is available via Kindle Unlimited!
Interview:
I’ve been writing much of my life (sent my first short story to the Puffin Post when I was around eight years old), but I didn’t finish a novel until 2012. While I always wanted to write a book I felt I had all the time in the world, but in 2011 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through treatment. Luckily today I’m cancer free, but my brush with cancer made me realize my mortality. I learned that if I really wanted to finish that novel I needed to do it now, so in November 2012 I attempted NaNoWriMo and wrote the first draft of P.A.W.S. And the rest as we like to say is history.
What do you know now that you wished you knew when you first started to write?
That first drafts don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be written. I started so many books over the years, but only when I tried NaNo and just ploughed through did I actually get something finished.
Tell us about your writing and publishing journey. What made you decide to go the traditional or self-published route?
Well after I finished P.A.W.S. I didn’t really know what to do with it. I’d edited it and sent it to a friend who beta read it (and is still my number one beta reader today) but now what?
With some trepidation I took my prologue to a local writers’ group and read it aloud. Silence. Was I really so bad? Apparently, no – the opposite. The group that was filled with far more seasoned writers than I loved my story and encouraged me to find a publisher.
I then discovered that while I could write a 60K novel I couldn’t write a query letter! I sent one off to a New York agent and got a standard, not for us form letter back. I probably should have kept going, but instead I started talking to one of the members of my writing group who ran a local small press. I submitted P.A.W.S. to her and she accepted and just nine months after I’d written my first draft, P.A.W.S. was published.
I ended up publishing books 1 and 2 with the same small press, but then when my contract was up for renewal I decided not to renew and instead reedited the books and published them myself. While I appreciate the start my original small press gave me, I love the control I get self-publishing, and I would only go back to trad nowadays if it was one of the big boys.
Who are your favorite authors today? What genres do you love to read?
I mostly read fantasy and sci-fi with the occasional mystery and lit fic thrown in for good measure. Favorite authors include Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling and Cornelia Funke. I also read A LOT of indie authors and highly recommend E.A. Copen, R.R. Virdi, Michelle Proulx, Misha Burnett, Robert Franks and um Rose Montague!
What are you working on now? What's planned for the future?
Book 5 of my P.A.W.S. Saga, Cotula, will be out in August (currently on presale) and I’m currently writing Book 6.
Debbie Manber Kupfer grew up in the London. She has lived in Israel, New York and North Carolina and somehow ended up in St. Louis, where she works as a writer, editor, and a freelance puzzle constructor of word puzzles and logic problems. She lives with her husband, two children, and a very opinionated feline. She is the author of the young adult fantasy series, P.A.W.S. which features a secret institute of shapeshifters hidden deep beneath the Jewel Box in Forest Park, St. Louis. In addition she has stories in several anthologies including Fauxpocalypse, Stardust, Always, Winter Wishes, Sins of The Past and Sins of the Future and is the editor of the Sins of Time anthology series. She has also published a book of puzzles, Paws 4 Logic, with her son Joey. She believes that with enough tea and dark chocolate you can achieve anything!
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