So for my nineteenth interview, I got together with the talented new author, A.J. Burch. I hope you all can take the time to visit her lovely blog and read more of her work! Here she is: please give Ms. Burch a warm round of applause!
Where can we find you? (website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc.)
You can find me at
http://ajburch.wordpress.com talking about the woes of writerhood, mamahood, full-time-non-writing-jobhood, or a combination of them all. On happy occasion, you may be able to find me at my Google+ under Hanimah Chrub (long story on the name)
What is your author name And is it a pen name?
My author name is A.J. Burch. It’s short for my actual name, but I feel like my readers would appreciate the shortened version which is easier to pronounce.
What is the title of the book you’re currently working on?
Well, technically, I’m working on four simultaneously, but the one that I’m giving most of my attention to is called Concrete Apocalypse. For FYI sake, the others are called Purple Matter, Total Chaos, and Gravity (for now)
What is the genre of your book?
It is dystopian YA (it may later be classified as NA)
3-4 sentence synopsis of your book:
A young woman lives in a country going through civil war. She plans to leave for Canada, but her twin sisters go missing. She goes on a quest to find them and ends up losing herself along the way to a life of crime and drug addiction. Once she finds herself, she continues on the journey to locate her sisters and finds that, not only were the girls abducted by the government, there is dark plot behind it.
What inspires you to write?
The creation of worlds and stories that make me wonder what I would do if I were apart of them. The biggest inspiration, though, is my son. When I think about giving up and putting down the ‘pen’ all I need to do is see him or think of him and I imagine the bleak future I would create for him if I stop writing.
Self Publish or Traditional? Why?
Traditional first, but only because of the marketing. It seems easier to get the marketing that you need from people who spend everyday marketing. I could barely sell Girl Scout cookies when I was little, so having someone or an entity sell my book for me should hopefully give me the exposure I need to find readers who’ll follow me along to the self-publishing side.
What advice would you give an aspiring author?
Since I’m also an aspiring writer, I can say that never giving up on what you truly want will make you a stronger person. Don’t listen to people who say things to bring you down. If you absolutely have to think about it, also think about the other things they say and you’ll come to realize that all of their words are meant to bring somebody down. Never forget why you write. Once you forget, you stop writing. Oh! And try not to let writer’s block get you down. It’s the biggest loser ever, but even if you have to stop working on your ‘baby’, at least work on something.
Anything else you’d like to say to your audience?
I humbly thank you for taking the time to read my interview. My appreciation is endless. Hopefully, one day I will entertain you with my stories!
When I Became an Author 
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