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Our Paranormals

We’re not all chicks here, but we all write about them!

  • Sybir St. John
  • JT Bock
  • Andrew McKay

Sybir St. John
posting on Tuesdays

me_Jan2010_darkstrokes_150

Taking over Tuesdays

I write paranormal romance, although the romance part was a given with the pictures on the site. I have always written romance. There, I’ve said it. Now all those non romance readers can gasp in horror and run in horror that I got my Master’s Degree in Writing & Editing so I could write romance. *winks* For those of you who love the romance genre, paranormal for me can include fantasy, sci-fi and more, anything not the ‘norm’ is fair game. My stories range from aliens to Goddesses and everything in between.

My heroines are hard hitting, Alpha women learning to balance life, love and family wherever those may be. Some like to fight, some just want love. They are all strong in their own ways and love having a strong male by their side, not leading them, but as a partner. Of course, the fun is in getting there. Not all men want a female partner, but my heroines accept nothing less.

Let’s see, I have written stories about:

  • Tiara – the mutant teenager  who doesn’t know her heritage.
  • Echo – the mute teenager learning about psychic tendencies.
  • Phoinix – mutant fighter in a futuristic revolution (are we seeing a theme here yet?)

And many more, those were the first three. I started writing as soon as my mother taught me to hold a pencil. She has that first alien story tucked away in her dresser somewhere still. Junior year in HS, I ignored Geometry class…really, you had the question and the answer, I really didn’t need to know how you got there, maybe my way was different. Instead I wrote about Phoinix and her sister, Isleen. Long hand. And, I passed Geometry with a “C”. I suppose that says something bad about our school system,  but I was a stellar student in  Trig the following year!

Now, I have a few Fiction books circulating the rounds at publishers and agents, and many more making the edit rounds between critique partners and my desktop. I’m focused on a 5 book series about the Elemental Goddesses and their mates. Books 1 & 2 are in the edit process, and the agent rounds. Book 3 and I are dancing at the moment with Books 4 & 5 starting to brew in the back of my brain.

I love to read as much as I love to write. I can be found most nights curled up with a good book if I’m not online and working on a recent project. I love reading across genres. If you’ve got a book to recommend, let me know! I’ll be sure to check it out.

If you’re looking for my Non-Fiction, wander over to Mind-Body-Spirit Works…my alter ego is running amok with ideas and projects. I’ve started a number of new stories, and I hope to keep up the pace! I’ve got Goddessses to finish writing about before the others start clamoring to take over my brain. What to do with all the voices in my head somedays…hmmm.

*ponders biting you, but thinks she might have to get to know you a little better. Of course, that doesn’t mean one of the Goddesses wouldn’t like a nibble…Nibbles.*

JT Bock

JTBOCKI was born in Baltimore and raised by a loving single mom and grandmother. My mom opened the door to the world of weird with The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, The Outer Limits, and various horror movies on late night television. In particular, we shared a love and interest in vampires and werewolves. I didn’t believe that these creatures were all evil. Maybe if they had someone to love then they could be saved.

Yes, I am a hopeless romantic even for the monsters.
Fast forward to college, when I was introduced to Interview with a Vampire—at last, a story that captured the vampire’s perspective. Soon after, I began finding the bookshelves loaded with paranormal romance novels and the theme of redemption through love.

Finally, I wasn’t alone in rooting for these creatures.

For five years after college, I wrote sporadically. I jotted down story ideas during my lunch breaks at work, though I kept my focus on a career as a graphic designer and copywriter. In 2000, I started seriously pursuing my writing career. I wanted to create paranormal stories with strong heroines—who didn’t need the heroes to save them and sometimes even saved the heroes.

With the help of a wonderful husband and very supportive and encouraging friends, I have written several short stories and two novels. My latest book features a trio of heroines with special powers inspired by my husband’s comics, which I found surprisingly adult in the complexity of relationships and topics with which they deal.

As of now, I am evolving my story and shopping it around to agents and editors for possible publication, but you can download a sample chapter along with a short story on the Writing page.

Andrew McKay
posting on Sundays

Slammin' Sundays

Slammin' Sundays

Hi, I am Andrew McKay from central Wisconsin. Yes, it is cold over here, and yes I still love the state. I was born and raised in the same town that the song “Everybody is famous in a small town” comes to mind.
I did, however, keep a dark secret from them that only you readers will find out. I love paranormal romance novels, from reading them to writing them. I love getting into a character’s head and figuring out how they perceive things from their point of view. Although, if there is too much clutter in the story, for example where the writer keeps bouncing around from antagonist to the protagonist, I will lose interest. I love being in several characters heads at the same time, but they all need to have to same goal. If you want to write about one side and then the other, please make them separate books, or I will get grumpy. The best writers to display this I think are Katie MacAlister and Gena Showalter just to name a few. Yes, there are many other authors out there that I love and you might love, but right now these two authors are sticking out at me. I love other authors from G.A. Aiken to Nora Roberts, and everyone between if they write my style of books. I am a very picky man on reading and writing books and have a petite taste in the field.

A little bit about myself besides where I from, what makes me tick.. I went to school and started off being challenged right from the start. I had a terrible speech impediment, where no one could understand me. I went to this great language therapist that brought me from a person that said nothing to somebody that won’t shut up. If that wasn’t bad enough they soon learned that I had a learning disability in reading and writing. Yes, I know that contradicts in what I am doing now. What can I say? I love fighting the odds. Although, when you find out these things, it makes you depressed. However as a kid, how in the hell do you know what depression feels like? In order to compensate for this confusion of emotions I had, I turned to eating. I am still well over weight, but that is just another challenge for me to conquer. Trust me, it will be conquered with the help of my friends. So as you can tell my childhood up to high school was hard.

High school came and I had enough of being at the end of jokes. I found help with a therapist and friends that saw me through my challenges. I was encourage for some odd reason my freshman year to join FBLA. The president when I joined was the most popular and intelligent guy I had ever met. He turned out to be my role model. I then found myself in a class taught by my FBLA adviser called leadership. This adviser saw something in me that no one had noticed before. She must have saw hope or something, and she has been a mentor to me ever since. I was being pushed out of that terrible bubble into life. She made me reach for something that I just didn’t know that I could reach for before. I became a success in school because of what that president and adviser have taught me. I’m a very stubborn person, so I still don’t know how they pulled it off.
The following year I was voted into the board as the reporter, and also became the reporter for local sports for the town paper. I was doing it all, baby, and it was fun. The following year I was just the chapter reporter again, but the next year after that I became FBLA 20th president for the local chapter. I was so proud of myself, but the joyful feeling didn’t last for long. During the time I became president my parents were officially getting divorced. Several times in school my mean side tried to come through, but the adviser of FBLA and the business teacher at the time pushed it away. I received numerous awards from the chapter including my personal favorite the Jason Roy Merchant Most Positive Person of The Year Award which I received my sophomore year.

I met the girl of my dreams at her graduation party and we have been together ever since. I am not going to thank people like it is a book right now, but you should know that my editor, Mika (A.K.A evil), is checking the work that will get published. I would also like to point out the main reason I keep getting through difficult writing challenges is due to the incredible Dr. Stacia Kelly. Also I wouldn’t be able to write such great articles and stories without Peg, Lon, and Garzie.

I have several book ideas, but the one I am working on now, my start, is about several creatures, in human form working together to bring their land back from the wasteland that is slowly spreading throughout.  Here’s something from that story,  “If she could get to her staff she knew she could get free and kill them all with the combined magic from her own will and her staff.  She started to slowly move closer to her staff that was dropped in the struggle.  It was a long ways away for not being able to walk.”