Describe yourself using an animal.
Okay, so this one is easy. It’s clearly a mongoose with a rainbow tail LOL… The whole mongoose thing got started when we launched our web design business back in the nineties just before we moved to Hawaii. We needed a business that was portable, and chose web design, but when it came to a name for the business, we were stumped. So when we visited Kauai to look for a condo, and the only “bad” news was about a possible mongoose loose on the island, “Mongoose on the Loose Web Design” was born.
Flash forward a few years, and Mischief Corner Books asked me for an animal to represent me. Mark and I were already the “Mongoose Boys,” so it was an easy leap.
And the rainbow tail?
I’d bought that at pride the year before, and it seemed to fit.
The lovely and talented Catherine Dair did the logo to make it all official. 😛
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in the name of research?
It’s not weird, not really. But it was kinda cool. When I was writing “Through the Veil,” a story about a post-climate-change San Francisco, I needed to “see” what a thirty or forty foot rise in sea level would really look like. So Mark and I hopped into the car and drove to the City, walking the route for part of the story. It was a really cool way to see how folks might get around on rooftops and on top of covered walkways that would still be above water in such a scenario, and I think it added a great level of realistic detail to the story.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Don’t stop. When you feel like your writing is shit, don’t stop. When you are roundly rejected by every major fantasy-sci fi publishing house in New York, don’t stop. When you are exhausted at midnight trying to finish a story and have to go to bed to get at least a little sleep before work the next day, don’t stop. Keep writing. Keep submitting. You will get there.
How does the world end?
You’ll have to read “The Stark Divide” to find out. LOL… but seriously, who the hell knows? I suspect it won’t, but might continue on in a form almost unrecognizable to us today, whether or not we manage to tame climate change.
How long have you been writing?
Oh, that’s a loaded question. LOL… I’m turning fifty this year, and started when I was in Fifth grade, or about the age of 11, so… 39 years? Holy crap. I first started SERIOUSLY writing after high school, and I’ve been working to make a career out of it for about five years now.
What are you working on now, and when can we expect it?
So many things.
After “Lander”, the next up is “The River City Chronicles,” the book form of my successful web serial about a group of friends (mostly queer) in Sacramento. It will be my first self-published work.
In October, “The Rising Tide” comes out – book two of “Liminal Sky” (after “The Stark Divide).
Sometime this year, Mischief Corner Books should start releasing “Marionettes in the Mist,” a four author serial I participated in over there, as a trilogy.
I’m already writing my 2019 releases – “Ithani” will be the last book in the Oberon Cycle, and “The Shoreless Sea” the last in the “Liminal Sky” trilogy.
Oh, and I have a bunch of stories coming back to me from anthologies and the like that I might either turn into an anthology, release as self-published stand-alones, or expand to full novels. Or all three!
Check out Lander today!
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Author Bio:
Scott was ushered into the fantasy and sci-fi world at the tender age of nine by his mother. He devoured her library of Asimovs, Clarkes, and McCaffreys, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were. He decided that if there weren’t gay characters in his favorite books, he would just have to write them himself. Scott runs Queer Sci Fi and QueeRomance Ink with his husband Mark, communities that celebrate fiction that reflects queer life and love.
Facebook Profile: www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworth
Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/jscottcoatsworthauthor/
Author Website/Blog: www.jscottcoatsworth.com
Dreamspinner Page: www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php?cPath=55_1189
QueeRomance Ink Author Page: www.queeromanceink.com/mbm-book-author/j-scott-coatsworth/
Goodreads Author Page: www.goodreads.com/author/show/8392709.J_Scott_Coatsworth
Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/J.-Scott-Coatsworth/e/B011AFO4OQ
where dreams come true... 