Author Interview: Karen Fainges

About the Author:


Karen Fainges works as a trainer in business and computing. A wife and mother, she started thinking up sci-fi stories at the age of 10. Editor of the K-tips business and computing ezine, she longed to present her fiction to the world. So she took those long ago stories, a love of the absurd and wrote about beings that were not humans. Sometimes you see a lot more about humanity and yourself when you are looking at someone else.


Do you plan everything or just let the story flow?

I carefully plan everything and then the characters take the plan and use it to set fires.

Do your characters ever want to take over the story? 

See above, they know the story a lot better, after all, they live it.

What is your favourite food?

All of it, hence my svelte form. Actually, my 21st birthday meal was lamb shanks, and custard and jelly for dessert. I am the despair of my father that vowed his children would never eat food like he had in the orphanage.

Are you a morning person or a night owl?

Does 3am mean early or late?

Where do you dream of travelling to and why?

Everywhere, in fact, I would even love to go into space. Every new place and group of people means a new window into the universe. It is all amazing.

Do distant places feature in your books?

Distant dimensions and travel into the distant past and future, time being the furthest distance and all.

Do you listen to music while writing?

Sometimes I can find the perfect tune for the mood and everything flows but I have been known to write to the sound of children playing in the pool as well.

Could you tell us a bit about your latest release?

Actually Destiny Sets is the first of the Chronicles books. A created, vampiric, slave race fight for their freedom and their very lives. Follow the fortunes of Lisa Mara and her family as they struggle to unravel the mysteries of the past and create a new world for themselves.

What have you learned about writing and publishing since you first started?

The importance of proofing. I went through the book multiple times, and still found things that needed tightening. I also learnt that getting the book published is only the first step if you actually want people to read the thing.

Is there anything you would do differently?

Change my name to JK Rowling. Seriously, I made mistakes and still do but I wouldn’t have learned, so no I suppose I wouldn’t change anything. Everything you try is a lesson learned.

Who, or what, if anything has influenced your writing?

Other writers, my editor, my life and my friends. I read with wonder the words of excellent writers hoping to leech a little of their brilliance, Harry Harrison, Lois McMaster Bujold, Terry Pratchett, the list goes on. My editor showed me the mistakes I made and helped me to make whole new ones in the next book.

Anything you would say to those just starting out in the craft?

Enjoy every moment. Forget about anything but the joy of words appearing on the page. The rest will arrive all in its own good time.

What are three words that describe you?

Karen Michelle Fainges … I am all me.

What's your favourite book or who is your favourite writer?

Oh soooo many options. If you go by what I have reread the most often, I would say it is Bujold’s A Civil Campaign.

Blurb of your latest release or coming soon book

Lightning sears a scene against the eye. Trapped between reality and death, every scrap of life is fighting for existence. To stop fighting is to die.

Some precious moments of peace can be stolen from small pockets of calm. Life can take a breath and wonder at the harsh beauty. But only for a moment, then struggle resumes. And others watch.
The Shayton Chronicles begins in Destiny Sets, the story of one man. He is that drop of chaos that can spell success or failure.

Born from a vampiric race of slaves, genetically moulded to provide comfort for their masters, he alone decides to be truly free. Irreverent humour and a fierce need to know 'why', war within him and entire worlds are changed.

"The Stainless Steel Rat with fangs."

List of previous books if any

Actually these are after Destiny Sets, in the Chronicles series are:
Tamal’s Journeys – Talkar journeys the circle to save his people.
The Children of Tamal – If the worlds reject you, make a world of your own.

An Aussie humour book – Can You Smell Burning?

Any websites/places readers can find you on the web.

Website http://shayton.net/
Facebook Author page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karen-Fainges/83671225033
Facebook Series page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shaytonian-Vampire-Fiction/88608175544
Twitter https://twitter.com/annalisamara
Linkedin http://au.linkedin.com/pub/karen-fainges/a/b99/424/
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/10612018
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Karen-Fainges/e/B0050KEU3S/