Alama the author!

Name:

It isn't hard to find out my REAL name {cue evil grin with glittering
eyes here...] but I write, and am generally known in the literary
world, as Alma Alexander. The name on my blog, Anghara, belongs to a
character in my "Hidden Queen"/"Changer of Days" duology, and is a
persona I've used online ever since I've BEEN on the Net (which is
more than ten years now. Yes, I know, in real terms that isn't THAT
long. But it's almost a quarter of my life that I've lived with one
foot in Cyberspace. In the grand scheme of things, that DOES affect
who I am...) In Spanish, my name means "Soul" which I didn't really
know until relatively recently. We could have the same kind of fun
that Babelfish-like sites have when they translate Spanish sites with
my authorial moniker on them, and it comes out as "Soul Alexander". I
don't know, that could grow on me. But heck. Just call me Alma.

 Hometown:

I was born in a place called Novi Sad, on the shores of the Danube
river, and that still has my heart although I only lived there for the
first ten years of my life. My "home towns" after that included Lusaka
(in Zambia),  Mbabane (Swaziland), Cape Town (South Africa - it's
where I lived the longest, and where I went to University), Aucklan
(New Zealand) and now Belliihgnam (Pacific Northwest, USA). Cities
which I've just touched in passing but which have somehow still caught
at my affections enough for me to know that I could call them "home"
at the drop of a hat if I needed to include London, Vienna, Montreal,
Vancouver. But I'm a piece of grit whose oyster is the globe, who
calls the world "home", really. I've travelled a lot, and I've seen
much, and some of it's thoroughly exotic but there's still a scrap of
"home" in it somewhere. I am a human being. I belong to Earth. 


Have you ever been to a theme park? If so, what do you remember the most about the experience?

I went to Disneyland, as an adult. I wrote about it here:
http://anghara.livejournal.com/134930.html Basically my American
husband wanted to inflict the classic Disneyland earwom on me ("it's a
small world") so we did that ride - but we didn't really do "rides".
it was the whole thing that was the experience, being surrounded by
the warm-and-fuzzies of my childhood memories, all coming to life
around me. I was seven again. And a part of me LOVED it. 


 What kind of music inspires you to write?

Sweeping soundtracks will do it. I've got a visual brain and I'll
often "see" music if I close my eyes and just listen to it. The theme
from "The Ghost and the Darkness",for instance, is UTTERLY evocative
of a great wide African sky. And  "Dragonheart" changed my whole
musical paradigm - I walked out of that movie and straight into a
music store to buy the soundtrack - which they only had on CD - which
I bought anyway, despite not owning a player - and then I had to go
and buy a player to play the CD on. it was THAT evocative for me. I
can't write to anything with lyrics on it because the words distract
me. It HAS to be an instrumental. 



 The Red Cross is flying  you to Haiti. What unique skills can you bring to the recovery efforts?

I'm a trained First Aid provider - but I don't suppose they need any
more of those when they've got fully-qualified medical staff
volunteering for the healing parts of it. I'm not much good at digging
through rubble, either. But if they bring them to me, after they found
them, after they've bandaged up the wounds and released them back into
the world - I will help to feed them, I will help to bring them clean
water, and I will sit and I will talk with them, and I will tell them
stories to transport them away from the ruins that surround them, at
least for a little while. I am a storyteller. In places like Haiti,
where Story is still close to people, I think that might be
appreciated, especially in a situation where Story is the only real
thing left...


 What do you eat for breakfast on an average day?

What's breakfast....? (In all seriousness... it starts with coffee.
Then I go on to a cup of coffee, and usually finish up with coffee to
round it off. Occasionally I'll nibble on a toasted English Muffin or
poke around a small bowl of oatmeal. But I"m not much of a "breakfast
person". I generally don't do mornings, as a whole, very well. I'm a
night owl by nature...)


Do you have a blog, website (or book series) that you'd like to plug?

Websites: my own (www.AlmaAlexander.com) and the one dedicated to the
Worldweavers series (www.WorldWeaverWeb.com - goodies available
include a book trailer and a full reader's guide....) I blog at
http://anghara.livejournal.com and I am also part of two group blogs -
I will blog for www.SFNovelists.com  on the 5th of every month and for
www.StorytellersUnplugged.com on the 30th of every month. In between
you will find me at sites like
http://www.redroom.com/blog/alma-alexander, and if you feel like a
distillation of mostly writerly material which has usually appeared on
past group blogs or on my own personal blog then you can try
http://worldweaverweb.wordpress.com/. Feel free to leave comments - I
love to hear back from people...
--------------------


It's always a pleasure having a writer as an interviewee. They always write thorough answers!