Check out the review of The Iron King HERE

A little about Julie: Julie Kagawa was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dogtrainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full-time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon puppy. SOURCE

OBS: Who are your literary influences?

Julie: Too many to name them all, but fantasy authors like Terry Brooks, J.R.R Tolkein, and George R. Martin made a big impression on me. I loved the worlds they created, and the fantastic, larger then life characters. I was drawn to epic, sweeping plots and heroes who sacrificed everything to save the world, and that might’ve carried over into my own writing.

OBS: Do you have any advice for those out there wanting to become writers?

Julie: Persist. Really that’s the best advice I can give. It’ll be hard, and it will be discouraging at times, but all authors started exactly where you are now. Keep writing, keep trying to get better, and one day you’ll get there. But you’ll never get there if you don’t try.

OBS: What research did you do for ‘The Iron King’?

Julie: Mostly online. I deliberately avoided reading other faery books like Melissa Marr and Holly Black because I didn’t want to accidentally borrow anything from them. But there’s a wealth of creepy faery tales online, along with lots of fey most people have never heard of.

OBS: What other media do you use to help inspire you while writing (Music, Art, Movies, etc.)? Anything specific?

Julie: I have a few playlists that I listen to sometimes. And a few select movies that I can always count on for inspiration (Lord of The Rings, V is for Vengeance, Princess Mononoke, ect.). Believe it or not, a lot of my inspiration comes from video games, manga, and anime.

OBS: Describe ‘The Iron King’ in 140 characters or less.

Julie: Girl must rescue her brother from faeries, discover her own destiny, and confront The Iron King to save everyone.

OBS: How did you develop the characters? Do you use elements of people from your own life?

Julie: As I mentioned previously, a lot of my inspiration comes from video games, manga, and anime. I’ll see a character or characters that intrigue me, then use them as the blueprint for my own characters. For example, Ash has elements of Heero Yuy (Gundam Wing, anime), Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy 8, video game), and Aya (Weiss Kruss, anime), and my villain is a straight up Sephiroth (Final Fantasy 7). (I wear my geekdom proudly.)

OBS: Who was the toughest character to write? Who was the most fun?

Julie: Meghan was probably the hardest, because it was difficult to balance courage and vulnerability, to make her brave and determined yet a believable 16 year old girl who had never seen the terrifying creatures of Faeryland. Grimalkin, who I had no idea was going to pop into the story like he did, was always fun to write.

OBS: How did you fabricate the idea of the ‘Iron fey’?

Julie: When I first began writing a faery story, I got to thinking: what are the fey afraid of? In myth, the answer is iron, so what if there was a type of faery that was immune to iron, that had evolved with progress and technology? How would that affect the more traditional fey? And then I remembered we already have “monsters” lurking in machines: gremlins and bugs and worms and such, and from that thought, the Iron Fey were born.

OBS: If you could travel to the Nevernever what race would you want to be and which kingdom would you live in?

Julie: I would be a phouka, because I love the mischievous, shapeshifting pranksters. And I would probably live in the wyldwood, out of reach of the courts, because phoukas usually have a teensy problem with authority. (Not that I do, nope not me. *whistles innocently*)

OBS: Do you have a specific writing process or does it depend on the project? What was your process like with ‘The Iron King’?

Julie: It depends on the project. I usually try to get 1000-1200 words a day, that’s my normal quota. With The Iron King, however, I did it as my NaNo project, which is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That comes out to about 1,667 words a day. So I set my deadline and typed like a madwoman until the book was done.

OBS: What are your future plans for this series? Or other books?

Julie: I am working on a new series at the moment, this one about vampires. As for coming back to the world of the Iron Fey, anything is possible.

OBS: What is one thing you would like your fans to know about you and your book?

Julie: Just that I’m very grateful to all my readers and fans. An author would be nothing without people to read their book, so thank you to everyone who gave Iron King a chance.

And thanks for the interview!

Thank you Julie! I had a blast reading your book and interviewing you!

Check out the following links to connect with Jennifer..

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