Ask the Author: Sarina Dorie
Answered Questions (15)
Sarina Dorie
I am so glad to hear you enjoy the books! The books that are connected (and I would suggest reading in this series order are: Womby's School for Wayward Witches, The Trouble with Hedge Witches, Son of a Succubus, and Son of a Fae. I think the Vega and Thatch series (when completed) could be read right after Womby's or after the other books.
Sarina Dorie
Merlin's Balls! I am behind on his series. I had hoped it would be coming out the fall of this year but it is more likely to come out fall of 2024. I need to finish Vega's snarky series first, but I have had delays. When Patreon subscribers ask that their first books they are sent are Vega or Thatch related, I send them their requested book that hasn't yet been released: https://www.patreon.com/SarinaDorie
Sarina Dorie
The most recent mystery in my life would be titled "Where is the smell of chocolate coming from in the graveyard."
Sarina Dorie
Thanks for the message! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. The entire Womby's series is finished in print and ebook format, but I am currently writing a few spin off series, and the first book of the Womby's series will be in audiobook format in March.
Sarina Dorie
I have box sets of the series on Amazon, but not Kobo. I get that Amazon is not for everyone but I have found I have better results with my books if they are in Kindle Unlimited, rather than offered everywhere. I do offer readers on my newsletter many books in other formats before they are out on Amazon if they are willing to read and review. You can do that here:
http://eepurl.com/dEd4oL
Also, if you are specifically looking for the Womby's series but need it in a different format, use the contact form on my website and I can chat with you about that:
https://sarinadorie.com/contact
http://eepurl.com/dEd4oL
Also, if you are specifically looking for the Womby's series but need it in a different format, use the contact form on my website and I can chat with you about that:
https://sarinadorie.com/contact
Sarina Dorie
I don't remember what was on my summer reading list. On my fall reading list: Rainbow Rowell's Just Carry On, any book by Hallie Ephron, the third book in Sarah J. Maas Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy and the sequel to Discover of Witches.
Sarina Dorie
When I was six I wrote and illustrated a little book about my sister's dream of being chased and bitten by spiders. Over thirty years later I pulled the book out of a box of childhood toys and memorabilia--and a spider crawled out--for real!
Sarina Dorie
My first choice would be to be an ambassador in a Betazoid world in the original series or Next Generation version of Star Trek. My second choice would be a teacher at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. I would teach dark arts and crafts. But since I can't do either, I will settle for writing about mind readers on other planets and writing about teachers at magical boarding schools.
Sarina Dorie
I often use inspiration from my daily life in my novels. For THE MEMORY THIEF series, I used a lot of things I learned in different areas of my life. I used to live in Japan on the northern island of Hokkaido where it is very cold. This is where the "Native Japanese" lived, the pre-Japanese colonists. The idea of the Ainu being forced off their land much like the Native Americans in the U.S. heavily influenced the creation of the series, combined with my love of steampunk aesthetics from costume making, and my experience doing Civil War Reenactments when I was in high school and college. I took all those different ideas: the Ainu displacement, ruffled bloomers, and Victorian social etiquette and put it in space. The concept became: What would the Victorian era look like if they had rediscovered spaceflight and found a pre-colonized planet of Japanese Ainu?
For WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES, my daily struggles as a school teacher are a major influence combined with my love of Harry Potter. I have always wondered what it would be like to be a teacher at Hogwarts. For years I have wondered, "What if there was a magical school for at risk youth--not like Hogwarts--more like one of the title one schools I have worked at?" This is the premise of WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES. I am not a kid anymore and I wanted to write about being a teacher, but not in non-fiction or fiction. I wanted to do a reality check on all the perfect parts of Hogwarts that wouldn't happen.
Every once in a while I see a meme or read a joke about things students would actually use their magic wands for that wouldn't be magic, or how the point system for a "house" award doesn't motivate kids who don't have a desire for intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to do better. I like teacher memes on Pinterest that point out the pain and pathos of teaching that might be accessible to non-teachers if put in the right context like, "I don't always care about my grade, but when I do it is on the last day of the semester after all work was due." I channel a lot of that into my writing.
I considered making the main character/teacher in WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES a music teacher or Spanish teacher, but I know more about teaching art. Also, I wouldn't be able to incorporate some of the same humor from my life. I have worked at numerous schools that cut the art elective due to budget cuts. At my first teaching position I was the fifth art teacher in six years and we joked I was the equivalent of the defense against the dark arts teacher from Harry Potter and a werewolf was going to eat me. As a matter of fact, a blood-thirsty werewolf did get me, if a principal counts as a werewolf, so I became the fifth art teacher in seven years. But that is a long story I prefer to channel into my writing rather than tell as non-fiction.
For WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES, my daily struggles as a school teacher are a major influence combined with my love of Harry Potter. I have always wondered what it would be like to be a teacher at Hogwarts. For years I have wondered, "What if there was a magical school for at risk youth--not like Hogwarts--more like one of the title one schools I have worked at?" This is the premise of WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES. I am not a kid anymore and I wanted to write about being a teacher, but not in non-fiction or fiction. I wanted to do a reality check on all the perfect parts of Hogwarts that wouldn't happen.
Every once in a while I see a meme or read a joke about things students would actually use their magic wands for that wouldn't be magic, or how the point system for a "house" award doesn't motivate kids who don't have a desire for intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to do better. I like teacher memes on Pinterest that point out the pain and pathos of teaching that might be accessible to non-teachers if put in the right context like, "I don't always care about my grade, but when I do it is on the last day of the semester after all work was due." I channel a lot of that into my writing.
I considered making the main character/teacher in WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES a music teacher or Spanish teacher, but I know more about teaching art. Also, I wouldn't be able to incorporate some of the same humor from my life. I have worked at numerous schools that cut the art elective due to budget cuts. At my first teaching position I was the fifth art teacher in six years and we joked I was the equivalent of the defense against the dark arts teacher from Harry Potter and a werewolf was going to eat me. As a matter of fact, a blood-thirsty werewolf did get me, if a principal counts as a werewolf, so I became the fifth art teacher in seven years. But that is a long story I prefer to channel into my writing rather than tell as non-fiction.
Sarina Dorie
The thing that inspire me the most is the unknown. I have always been interested in ghosts, witches, fairies, dragons, bigfoot and aliens. These topics make me ask those "what if" questions, like "What if there was a magical school for at risk youth--not like Hogwarts--more like one of the title one schools I have worked at?" This is the premise of WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES. Or I ask questions like "What if the tooth fairy ran into the bogeyman because they both work the night shift? Would they get along or compete?" This was the premise of WRATH OF THE TOOTH FAIRY, coming out next year with Reuts Publishing. Because my brain often asks these kinds of questions, I write science fiction and fantasy. I would like to say that channeling my energy into asking questions about fiction keeps me from dwelling on questions/worries that I have very little control over like economics, the environment or politics, but I probably still worry about the world too much.
I am the most inspired by the mystery of the unknown, but that isn't to say my normal life doesn't inspire my writing. Students say weird things to me all the time that I slip into my writing. My first day of teaching at a new high school, the custodian found urine in our garbage can. Theoretically this means someone urinated into the garbage can when I wasn't looking. It might also mean that the room was left unlocked before I arrived and a student peed in there. These kinds of weird things that teenagers do make it into my short stories and novels. That particular event, followed by a series of horrible incidents while teaching at that particular school led me to write the short story: FIVE TIPS FOR OUTSMARTING SATAN--AND YOUR STUDENTS. I sold that story and republished it in my collection of short stories: FAIRIES, ROBOTS AND UNICORNS--OH MY!
I am the most inspired by the mystery of the unknown, but that isn't to say my normal life doesn't inspire my writing. Students say weird things to me all the time that I slip into my writing. My first day of teaching at a new high school, the custodian found urine in our garbage can. Theoretically this means someone urinated into the garbage can when I wasn't looking. It might also mean that the room was left unlocked before I arrived and a student peed in there. These kinds of weird things that teenagers do make it into my short stories and novels. That particular event, followed by a series of horrible incidents while teaching at that particular school led me to write the short story: FIVE TIPS FOR OUTSMARTING SATAN--AND YOUR STUDENTS. I sold that story and republished it in my collection of short stories: FAIRIES, ROBOTS AND UNICORNS--OH MY!
Sarina Dorie
I am in the middle of three projects at the moment. I am writing the eleventh book in the WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES SERIES. I probably should have written the tenths book first, but sometimes I write them out of order because certain characters are calling to me or I need to figure out how I solve a latter problem to fix another one.
Meanwhile, I am also workshopping the fifth book in the series, tentatively titled Hexes and Exes, through my critique group. The fourth book, tentatively titled Secondhand Hexes, is being prepared for a copy editor and will complete its last round of proofreading before being released in May. At some point I will take a break to write short stories. I have sold 150 short stories and have about 100 finished, but unpublished stories, and I have a lot more ideas in my head. It is usually my goal to write 25 short stories a year, but this year novels have taken the majority of my mental capacity. I hope to fit a few stories in between writing the novels in this series.
Meanwhile, I am also workshopping the fifth book in the series, tentatively titled Hexes and Exes, through my critique group. The fourth book, tentatively titled Secondhand Hexes, is being prepared for a copy editor and will complete its last round of proofreading before being released in May. At some point I will take a break to write short stories. I have sold 150 short stories and have about 100 finished, but unpublished stories, and I have a lot more ideas in my head. It is usually my goal to write 25 short stories a year, but this year novels have taken the majority of my mental capacity. I hope to fit a few stories in between writing the novels in this series.
Sarina Dorie
Just write. Write and write and write. Never stop writing. If you love it, keep going. Study the craft, read what you love, and hone your skills. And keep writing. Practice makes perfect. Marketing is important to study, but if there is ONLY one thing you do, it’s to write.
Sarina Dorie
I am an artist in several different mediums and writing is one of them. When I am in “the zone” it is transcendent. It is almost Zen-like and spiritual. It must be like drugs are for other people.
I love dissolving into a magical realm that I have created, going on adventures with my characters, and feeling like I have left my body. Writing is in between daydreaming, reading a book, and lucid dreaming.
I love dissolving into a magical realm that I have created, going on adventures with my characters, and feeling like I have left my body. Writing is in between daydreaming, reading a book, and lucid dreaming.
Sarina Dorie
I don't understand writer's block. It is something people talk about, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have a different problem called: there-isn't-enough-time block. If I can't write because I am too tired, or my brain isn't in the right place, I edit. Or I submit short stories to magazines. Or I do the dreaded website update, which is necessary, but not what I want to do. If I need to plot a novel aka "daydream" I might garden or sew or do a crafting project while my brain is thinking. If I absolutely can't write, it is because I am tired or I am sick with a cold or something along those lines. When that happens, I sleep. But I don't sleep as much as I would like to because I would rather be writing.
Sarina Dorie
I am so happy you enjoyed the book and are interested in interested reading more! Currently the first three books are offered in print in the series on Amazon: Tardy Bells and Witches' Spells, Hex-Ed, and Witches Gone Wicked. These will be available as ebooks starting at the end of May 2018.
It is my hope that these first three could be read in any order and don't need to be read sequentially so readers could enter at any point. The next books are tentatively titled Second-Hand Hexes, Hexes and Exes, and Reading, Writing, and Necromancy. I am projecting that there will be twelve books in the series and some short stories.
If you are interested in reading reviewer copies, go to my website and sign up for my newsletter or send me an email through my contact form: www.sarinadorie.com
Thanks for reading!
It is my hope that these first three could be read in any order and don't need to be read sequentially so readers could enter at any point. The next books are tentatively titled Second-Hand Hexes, Hexes and Exes, and Reading, Writing, and Necromancy. I am projecting that there will be twelve books in the series and some short stories.
If you are interested in reading reviewer copies, go to my website and sign up for my newsletter or send me an email through my contact form: www.sarinadorie.com
Thanks for reading!
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