February Spotlight - Alex Beecroft

Thanks, Carol Ann! This is great, and I love the questions. Thank you for interviewing me!

1. Please start by telling me a little something about you that most people probably wouldn’t know.
Most people wouldn’t know from looking at me that I consider myself a two-spirit person. That is, someone of both genders (or none). I’m not sure I understand this whole male and female thing, to tell the truth – aren’t we all just human beings together?

2. Is there a genre of book you would like to write but haven’t yet?

I’d quite like to try Science Fiction, but I’m not sure I have the patience to get the scientific details of the world-building right. And I’d quite like to write a murder mystery, but am still a bit puzzled about how to add the clues without making everything too obvious.

3. What is the best and worst advice you have ever received?

LOL! The worst advice was probably ‘you need to stop sitting in your room scribbling, and go out and enjoy yourself like a normal teenager’. I strongly suspect that you can’t make someone ‘normal’ by telling them that’s what they ought to be doing. Best advice would be some of the things my Sensei said when I was doing karate – everyone is capable of doing anything if they are willing to keep practicing. The important moment is the present one, as that’s the only one you can control – so leave the past and the future to sort themselves out and concentrate on what you’re doing now.

4. What was your first published work and when was it released?

Actually it was a story in a RPG gaming magazine, published twenty odd years ago. But the magazine folded before I got paid, and I didn’t try to publish anything afterwards until Captain’s Surrender. I think Captain’s Surrender is the one that counts. It’s a gay historical romance novel, set in the Age of Sail, and that was published on the 1^st of January 2008.

5. What would you like to tell your readers?

I don’t know! I’m not sure I would like to tell anyone anything – I rather resent being told things myself. I suppose I hope my writing will help straight readers to sympathise with and admire the gay heroes, and gay readers to feel good about themselves, but really all I want to do is to entertain people with a gripping story.

6. What is the best way for readers to contact you?

Probably by email at alex@alexbeecroft.com

7. Do you have a website, myspace, blog, message board, or group you’d like to include links to?
I have a website at http://www.alexbeecroft.com/Adventure_and_Romance.shtml

And on a day to day basis I tend to post most often on my Livejournal: http://alex-beecroft.livejournal.com/

I also have a MySpace page here: http://www.myspace.com/alex_beecroft which I update often

8. How can readers find out more about you and your books?

The best place for that is the website http://www.alexbeecroft.com/Adventure_and_Romance.shtml where I put all the important information first.

Thanks for listening to me blather on!

Alex