Frequently Asked Questions

These are common questions that I get from readers. The answers come from the Monday Morning Mailbag feature that I post on my Facebook page.

How do you pronounce your last name?

It is pronounced Eee-step — not Essstep.

Do you have any T-shirts or other merchandise for your Elemental Assassin, Galactic Bonds, and other book series?

I have a merchandise shop at Redbubble where folks can get some Elemental Assassin and Galactic Bonds-themed art printed on notebooks, mugs, T-shirts, and other products. I am hoping to add some more designs for my various book series in the future.

Are you still writing your Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series?

Yes, I am still writing my Elemental Assassin series. However, I am taking a break from writing full-length Gin Blanco books for a while. Instead, I am hoping to write some novellas from some of the secondary characters’ points of view, like Heart Stings, which is about Lorelei Parker.

ICYMI, I have also released Spider and Frost, a crossover novella with Gin Blanco and Gwen Frost from my Mythos Academy series, and Stings and Stones, a short story collection, in my Elemental Assassin series.

Why do you use the word “toboggan” in your books to refer to a winter hat? Isn’t a “toboggan” supposed to be a sled?

I get this question a lot — probably more than any other question, which I think is a bit strange. Who knew folks were so interested in regional word choices? 🙂 

In the South, where I am from and where many of my books are set, a “toboggan” refers to a winter hat — not a sled. A sled is just a sled in the South. We do not call those “toboggans”.

Many folks have also asked why I don’t use the word “toque” when talking about a winter hat. That’s a Northern/Canadian word. The Southern characters in my books would never use that word, so it’s just a difference in regional word choices. Here’s a blog post that I did about the subject several years ago.

Why don’t you come to Town XYZ for a book signing? Why don’t you travel more and do more book signings?

I love going to different places and meeting readers, but traveling is expensive, and I usually have to pay for any travel, book conferences, etc. that I do attend out of my own pocket.

Unless you are a mega bestselling author (like Nora Roberts, etc.), your publisher is not going to send you on a book tour around the country. I am not a mega bestselling author, so I have to pay my own way. That’s why I rarely do more than a couple of book conferences a year.

Plus, it’s often difficult for me to make time to travel, given all my writing deadlines. I figure that you guys would prefer to have more books to read than anything else.

Do you have any plans to do an Elemental Assassin cookbook?

No, there are no plans to do a cookbook. I don’t have recipes for everything that Gin makes in the books. Many of the dishes (like Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce) exist only in my imagination or are just things that I think would sound good to eat. I just like writing about food.

Plus, I imagine that writing a cookbook would be a lot of work, and that’s something that I just don’t have the time for, given my regular book writing deadlines.

There are a few recipes posted on my website. Go to the Elemental Assassin series page, scroll down, and click on Gin’s Recipe Box.

I will sometimes share a recipe in my e-newsletter. You can sign up for that on the Newsletter page or by using the widget in the right sidebar on this page.

Will there be any more books in your Black Blade young adult urban fantasy series?

As of right now, I do not plan to write any more Black Blade books. I enjoyed writing the series, but I feel like Lila’s story is finished since she did everything she set out to do, including defeating the villain. I’ll never say never, but as of right now, I don’t plan to write anything else in this series.

Will you be writing any more Mythos Academy books?

Not at this time, although I have released Spider and Frost, an Elemental Assassin and Mythos Academy crossover novella featuring Gin Blanco and Gwen Frost. 

Do you listen to music when you write?

Nope, I do not. I’ve tried in the past, and I’ve found that I’m concentrating so much on what I am writing that I usually end up getting annoyed by the music or tuning it out completely. So I don’t listen to music while I’m writing a book or reading through copyedits/page proofs.

However, when I’m doing other things like e-mail, blogging, social media, etc., I will often listen to music, especially movie soundtracks. Some of my favorite soundtracks to listen to include: Captain America: The Winter Solider; The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly; and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.