Author Interview with Gillian Bronte Adams

 Gillian, the more I find out about you, the more astounded I am. Truly, you are a girl who takes the life by the reins and gallops with it. Not that’s a reference to your awesome horse riding or anything. ;) Could you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hmm, let’s see. During the day, I manage the equine program at a Christian youth camp in the great state of Texas, but at night, I kick off my boots and spurs, pull out my trusty laptop, brew a pot of coffee, and transform into a novelist. I have the adventure-seeking heart of a Ranger, but I dearly love having my own little hobbit hole to come back to at night. (It’s a tad difficult to write on the road, and books are hard to fit into saddle bags!) Aside from my book collection, I tend to stockpile random things like costumes, notepads, countless pens, and medieval weaponry.

Could you share one of your favorite moments from either your mission trips to Haiti or at the youth camp equine program?

This is a tough question … only because I have so many favorite moments! For the past four years, I’ve gone on a trip with the camp that I work at as part of an ongoing mission to establish a “sister” youth camp in Haiti. On my first trip, I recall hiking up the hill behind the campsite with the rest of the team one night and gazing out over the countryside and realizing that aside from the ones in the sky, the only light visible that night was a single lamp in the middle of the campsite. It was dark everywhere else. It struck me as such a clear picture of how God had chosen to plant one little light—Jacob’s Well—in the midst of an area of such poverty and spiritual darkness … but the darkness could not overcome it

You have a beautiful way with words, Gillian. What books do you feel most impressed their style of writing upon you?

It’s terribly difficult to compare my writing style to anyone else’s, because I feel like they are yet the master and I am but the student. But I would have to say that I have been most influenced by Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga and his ability to take a simple story and characters and transform them into something beautiful that grips your heart and won’t let go, Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive and his ability to create a world and plot and characters so complex it makes your head spin, and Maggie Stiefvater’s Scorpio Races and her ability to create compelling stories and characters, build unique worlds, and employ descriptions so vivid you can practically see them.

Besides writing, riding, and everything else, you also pull off incredible costumes! Who—if you had all the costume material in the world available to you—would you love to dress up as?

Eowyn—without a doubt. I love all of the dresses she wears in the movies, not to mention her armor, or her sword! Though if I could access whatever costume materials I needed, I would love to outfit my horse in full battle gear as would befit one of the various breeds of war horses in the next project I’m dying to work on!

What would you love to try that you haven’t done yet?

Sailing! Obviously I’ve never been, so I have no clue if I would be any good at it or would prove myself a hopeless landlubber, but I would dearly love to try it one day.

Besides Orphan’s Song, you also have a novella, Out of Darkness Rising, approaching. Do you have any other works in progress that you would like to share about? 

I’m currently working on book two in the Songkeeper Chronicles! So for all you dear readers who are anxiously awaiting the next book—never fear, it is coming! Once book two is complete, I’ll be tied up for a bit with book three, and then … then … well, there’s an epic fantasy series I’m simply dying to write. I have pages and pages of world-building notes, about a hundred pages of the first book done, and a thousand ideas swirling around inside my head!

These were such fun questions! Thanks for having me on your blog, Hannah.

Check out Gillian's Blog: Of Battles, Dragons, and Swords of Adament
Find Orphan's Song on Amazon!