A is for Awesome Authors #AtoZChallenge

Posted April 1, 2019 in A-Z Challenge / 7 Comments

It’s the first day of the Blogging from A-Z Challenge! Throughout April I’m posting about my life as a writer, including my inspirations, frustrations and celebrations.

Today, I wanted to start by talking about the amazing authors that inspire me.

Childhood favourites

I’ve always loved reading, and as a child my favourite authors were Roald Dahl, Jacqueline Wilson and J K Rowling. I wrote about them in a post about my favourite children’s authors a while ago. I also enjoyed Enid Blyton’s charming, old-fashioned tales, C S Lewis’ magical fantasy worlds and Dr.Seuss’ surreal rhymes.

My favourite childhood authors taught me about the value of friendship, the joy of using my imagination and the art of seeing the magic that exists all around us.

Literary legends

Through my high school and university years I was introduced to so many wonderful authors. I devoured the classic dystopian fiction of George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood and Aldous Huxley. I was intrigued by the poetry of T S Elliott and Philip Larkin and I fell in love with the beautiful, soul-shaking words of Mary Shelley, Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker.

These writers ignited my interest in philosophy and language and each left their own individual mark on me.

My current ‘must read’ authors

I have read so many fantastic books in the last few years. Authors today are pushing boundaries, celebrating diversity and reinventing old stories in new and unique ways. I still read a lot of YA fiction these days, even though I’m pushing thirty. I’ll be explaining why later this month. The authors on my ‘auto buy’ list at the moment are:

Rocking my Strange the Dreamer umbrella.

Laini Taylor

Mesmerising characters, dreamy fantasy worlds and beautiful lyrical prose. Taylor’s writing makes my heart so happy! I can’t recommend her books enough. Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Strange the Dreamer are two of my favourite novels of all time.

Maggie Stiefvater

I get ridiculously excited whenever there’s news about a new Stiefvater book. The Raven Cycle is such a fantastic series and the characters remind me a lot of the Marauders from Harry Potter in their younger days. A while ago I talked about Maggie being one of my top author girl crushes.

Jessica Khoury

Khoury’s Corpus trilogy explores the ethical implications of things like cloning and genetic engineering which are topics that interest me immensely. She writes fantasy too, but I’m most looking forward to reading Last of Her Name, which is a YA science fiction retelling of Anastasia. I wrote more about Khoury here.

Lauren Oliver

Oliver’s books are always emotional and she’s particularly brilliant at capturing the complexities of relationships. I enjoyed her Delirium series when I was younger, and more recently I was blown away by Vanishing Girls.

The authors of Masquerade: Oddly Suited

I couldn’t write a post about amazing authors without mentioning my fellow anthology authors. I’ve enjoyed getting to know them over the past few months as we’ve worked together promoting Masquerade: Oddly Suited. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such a talented, kind and helpful bunch of people.

LG Keltner, author of Oddly Suited
L.G. mainly writes science fiction and she’s a co-host of WEP. Her story was chosen as the title for the anthology and the cover is based on her characters. You can read an excerpt from Oddly Suited and find out about the inspiration behind it her Story Spotlight.

Jennifer Lane, author of Behind the Catcher’s Mask
Jennifer is a psychologist as well as an author of sports romance and romantic suspense novels. Check out her interview hosted by Nancee Cain here.

C.D. Gallant-King, author of The Dark Charade
C.D writes and reads across a wide variety of different genres and I really enjoy his comedic style. Find out more about C.D and his story here.

Elizabeth Mueller, author of The Cog Prince
Elizabeth is a talented artist as well as an author of emotionally charged stories. I can’t wait to share with you the amazing fan art she has created for our characters! You can read an excerpt from her story here.

Angela Brown, author of A Diver’s Ball
Angela has previously published fantasy and dystopian novels and enjoys blogging about books, writing and TV shows. Check out Angela’s guest post at J Lenni Dorner’s blog, in which she shares a playlist for A Diver’s Ball.

Myles Christensen, author of Flower of Ronda
Myles writes exciting adventures in a variety of genres and works as a product development engineer, university professor, and game inventor. Don’t miss his Story Spotlight at the IWSG anthologies blog on Wednesday!

Deborah Solice, author of Fearless Heart
Deborah writes both adult romantic suspense and YA/NA speculative fiction. She teachers in Russia and loves to travel. Check out my interview with Deborah from earlier today.

Carrie-Anne Brownian, author of Charleston Masquerade.
Carrie-Anne writes 20th century historical fiction sagas and series, with elements of women’s fiction, romance, and Bildungsroman. She created the protagonist for story when she was just five or six years old! Find out more in her Story Spotlight.

Chelsea Marie Ballard, author of Remedy.
Fellow Harry Potter and Disney fan Chelsea has recently announced that her book, The Masks We Wore is going to be published by Magnolia Press! Find out more about her at our debut author spotlight at Operation Awesome.

You can learn more about all the authors of Masquerade: Oddly Suited here.

Before you go…

Who were your favourite authors when you were a child and who are your favourites now?

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7 responses to “A is for Awesome Authors #AtoZChallenge

  1. I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone! Sadly haven’t had a chance to read Laini Taylor’s other works outside of that series.
    I was big into fantasy books with a mythology base when I was younger. Any of the Xanth books by Piers Anthony. Have you had a chance to read anything by him?

  2. so far, so good. Loved Enid Blyton as well, read nancy drew, a lot of horse books, the silver Brumby when I got older I now read mostly fantasy kelley Armstrong, Terry Pratchet, and anything I can get my hands on.
    bridginasauthorpageat.wordpress.com

  3. Another Tolkien fan here like J.S., and Frank Herbert and Asimov. When I was younger, there was G. A. Henty, who is probably historically questionable now. ATM favourites include Elizabeth Wein (Code Name Verity) and Harry Bingham (Fiona Griffiths series).

  4. Interesting collection of authors. I’m always curious which writers shaped other people since my own list is a bit unusual – I grew up in a communistic Poland, followed by the crazy start of capitalism and democracy in the 90’s, so some books didn’t reach us until I was an adult.

  5. What a fantastic shoutout of authors.
    I always envy readers who encountered classic authors as children. I read a lot of books as a child, but very little classics. That’s somethign I started reading later on.
    I used to read a lot of YA and children’s literature years ago. Now I have a hard time with ti, especially YA. Most story feel strianed to me, too excessive, too artificial. But of course, it’s just me 😉

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