#WriterWednesday Interview with W. L. Hawkin

I’d like to welcome author W. L. Hawkin to the blog for #WriterWednesday!

Favorite thing that you always make time for: reading a good book

The thing you’ll always do just about anything to avoid: reading a contract or procedure

Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: silence so I can hear my voices

Things that distract you from writing: noise and activity

The thing you like most about being a writer: I’m never bored.

The thing you like least about being a writer: Having to sell books.

Things you will run to the store for in the middle of the night: toilet paper

Things you never put on your shopping list: tempeh (made from fermented soy beans. Bleh)

The coolest thing you’ve bought online: a case of my own books

The thing you wished you’d never bought. A vinyl canopy cover that came without a stand and could not be returned

Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: a veterinarian

Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: teach a classroom full of people. I thought I’d die the first time I had to do this.

The funniest thing to happen to you: I was playing fake baseball on a diamond with my daughter and our border collie. She fake-pitched. I fake-hit and ran full tilt toward first base. The border collie ran in front of me and hit me and I face-planted in the dirt. I thought she was going to die laughing while I was trying to pick dirt out of my nose.

The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: I stood beside a man flashing himself at the fourth level elevator parking at Toronto Pearson Airport. I didn’t notice until I got in the elevator that IT was out. Then I tried to report him.

The coolest person you’ve ever met: Alan Thicke (I sang with him on a beach in Jamaica.)

The celebrity who didn’t look like he/she did in pictures/video: Valerie Harper (Rhoda from the Mary Tyler Moore show.) I weighed about 100 pounds and she was tinier that I me.

The nicest thing a reader said to you: My husband started reading again after your first book. Now he wants the rest of the series.

The craziest thing a reader said to you: How do you get away with writing LGBTQ books? My reply: What are you asking me?

The best job you ever had: Aboriginal Education Coordinator

The worst job you ever had: Aboriginal Education Coordinator

The one thing you cook/bake that is better than a restaurant dish: Indian Spiced Rice with Red Lentil Dahl

The one thing you cooked/baked that turned out to be an epic disaster: a cod chowder (yuk)

About W. L.:

W. L. Hawkin writes the kind of books she loves to read from her home in the Pacific Northwest. Because she’s a genre-blender, you might find crime, mystery, romance, suspense, fantasy, adventure, and even time travel, interwoven in her stories.

If you like “myth, magic, and mayhem” her Hollystone Mysteries feature a coven of West Coast witches who solve murders using ritual magic and a little help from the gods. The books—To Charm a Killer, To Sleep with Stones, To Render a Raven, To Kill a King, and To Dance with Destiny—follow Estrada, a free-spirited, bisexual magician and coven high priest as he endeavors to save his family and friends while sorting through his own personal issues.

Her standalone novel, Lure: Jesse & Hawk (2022) won a National Indie Excellence Award, a Gold Reader’s Choice award from Connections E-magazine, a Crowned Heart Review from InD’tale Magazine, and placed as a finalist in The UK Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Lure is a small-town romantic suspense story set on a Chippewa Reservation in the American Midwest near the fictional town of Lure River.

As an intuitive writer, Wendy captures what she sees and hears on the page, and allows her muses to guide her through the creative process. In an upcoming book, Writing with your Muse: a Guide to Creative Inspiration, she explains her writing process and offers tips and techniques to help writers get their words on the page.

#ThisorThatThursday Interview with W. L. Hawkin

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I’d like to welcome author, W. L. Hawkin to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday!

A few of your favorite things: cobalt blue anything but especially glass bottles; waterfalls, fountains, really anything watery; cuddly dogs; deep red wine & dark chocolate

Things you need to throw out: the horrible old pens, paper clips, pencils, erasers, and other dried out paraphernalia I collected while teaching high school!

Things you love about writing: being magically transported through time and space along with my characters as a kind of shadowy voyeur

Things you hate about writing: the physical aches and pains I feel when sitting at the computer too long. Right now I’m dealing with bicep tendinitis!

Things you never want to run out of: lip gloss & Righteous Dairy Free chocolate peanut butter vegan ice cream ... Oh my! My newest addiction!

Things you wish you’d never bought: most clothing I order online as it never really works for one reason or another

Favorite music or song: Peter Gabriel’s 1994 Secret World Tour (check it out on Youtube;)

Music that drives you crazy: heavy headbanging metal

Favorite beverage: black tea with almond milk and maple syrup

Something that gives you a sour face: tempeh (yuk, I hate it!)

Something you’re really good at: savasana (lying in corpse position at the end of a yoga session and meditating)

Something you’re really bad at: the rest of the yoga session especially if it involves gymnastic poses!

Things you always put in your books: animals, especially dogs, wolves, and horses

Things you never put in your books: secret agents

Things to say to an author: “I stayed up all night reading your book! I love ... because ...” Insert a specific comment re characters, plot, or something that reveals you engaged with the writer’s work and got it.

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: “I don’t want to read your book. I don’t read genres.” *shrug or eye roll (subtext: “I judge your book (which I refuse to try) to be beneath my intellectual, literary level.”

Favorite places you’ve been: the west coasts of Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the USA (from Alaska to Mexico; the Canadian Maritimes; Cozumel & Merida, Mexico; and Santa Fe, New Mexico

Places you never want to go to again: big cities like Chicago or Detroit (even Toronto’s a stretch and that’s where I was born)

People you’d like to invite to dinner (living): Peter Gabriel—I’d just like to soak up his energy. He doesn’t even have to talk. But I do have a piano and if he were to sing “Here Comes the Flood” I would literally melt. Peter Gabriel is one of my muses and inspired the Druid bard in my latest book. Conall Ceol has Peter’s incredible voice.

People you’d cancel dinner on: any extraverted, arrogant politician. You pick. The list is endless.

Things that make you happy: hiking in the rainforest; cowboy sunsets preferably with horse and cowboy; snuggling with my dog; family meals

Things that drive you crazy: leaf blowers. I saw a guy blowing dust from the sidewalk one day. Seriously?

The nicest thing a reader said to you: “I'd love to spend a day in the mind of W.L Hawkin, just to see what it's like in there.” *I took this for the compliment it was.

The craziest thing a reader said to you: “Your book’s risqué! And you, a teacher,” he said, tsking and wagging his finger.

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About W. L.:

W. L. Hawkin writes “fantastical romantic adventure” from her loft near Vancouver, B.C. Her novels—To Charm a Killer, To Sleep with Stones, To Render a Raven, and To Kill a King each stand alone but form the Hollystone Mysteries series. This coven of West Coast witches and their eccentric friends, solve murders using ritual magic and a little help from the gods. Although Wendy is an introvert, in each book her characters go on a journey where she’s travelled herself.

A seeker and mystic fascinated by language, archaeology, and mythology, Wendy graduated from Trent University, Ontario, and has post-bac diplomas from SFU in British Columbia. Her background in Indigenous Studies and Humanities informs her work. Wendy is a blogger, book reviewer, and Indie author/publisher at Blue Haven Press.

 Let’s Be Social:

Website: http://bluehavenpress.com

https://www.facebook.com/wlhawkin

https://twitter.com/ladyhawke1003

https://www.instagram.com/w.l.hawkin/

https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B01N69N3DW

https://www.pinterest.ca/wlhawkin/