Welcome to WOLF NOTES, where interview questions stray from the rest of the pack. It’s nice to know the usual stuff like where an author gets their inspiration and why they write, but sometimes we need a little fun in our lives.
Bud Sparhawk has been a three-time novella finalist for SFWA’s Nebula award and has appeared in two Year’s Best anthologies. His short work was recently published in the BEST OF DEFENDING THE FUTURE and MAN and MACHINE anthologies, both by eSpec Books. He has also published a collection of twenty of his “best” short stories published in the last decade as NON-PARALLEL UNIVERSES. His new novel SHATTERED DREAMS will be released this summer. He has previously produced two novels DISTANT SEAS and VIXEN. He has published two collections SAM BOONE: FRONT TO BACK, and DANCING WITH DRAGONS. These and other novels and collections are available on Amazon.
His most recent stories will appear in Analog and Intergalactic Medicine Show later this year.
A complete bibliography can be found in WIKI and at: http://budsparhawk.com. Bud also writes an occasional blog on the pain of writing at http://budsparhawk.blogspot.com
Wolf: If you could be any animal in the universe, what would it be and why?
Bud: Babble fish, just because.
Wolf: That would make communications easier when you travel. What is the nicest thing you’ve ever done to your characters?
Bud: Put them out of their misery, but in a good way.
Wolf: I can see that. What is the meanest thing you’ve ever done to your characters?
Bud: Prolong their agony as long as possible before revealing the resolution. Readers enjoy watching someone else twist in the wind. The trick is to keep them spinning but only for so long, then put both the character in the reader out of their misery.
Wolf: I think writers are part torturers. We’re really nasty to our characters. Do you consider yourself a cat person, or a dog person?
Bud: I’ve lived with both and loved them all despite knowing that they will eventually die and leave me heartsick.
Wolf: I know what you mean. I can’t imagine life without pets. While walking in the woods you come across…
Bud: An anomaly that establishes time, place, character and plot. From there who knows what will happen and where the story will go.
Wolf: I like that. If you could have a super power, what would it be?
Bud: Writing well and more often.
Wolf: I’d like that one as well. There is a door at the end of a dark, damp corridor. You hear rumbling. What do you do?
Bud: Wish I hadn’t eaten that big burrito and hoping this is the door to the toilet.
Wolf: 😊 The world is about to end. What is the first thing you do?
Bud: Proofread the announcement and make a few changes to make it scan better, after all, writers must have standards.
Wolf: I like your sense of humor. What five items would you want to have in a post-cataclysmic world?
Bud: Chocolate, wine, a good book, and two friends.
Wolf: Your cataclysm is much more relaxed than mine. Which of your characters is your favorite?
Bud: The character of Sweeney, an angry grunt who rises above himself and spans the galaxy in his millions. He is the strongest and most interesting of the three protagonists in SHATTERED DREAMS, my new novel coming out this summer from eSpec books.
Wolf: Sounds like an interesting person. What is your favorite body of water and why?
Bud: The Chesapeake Bay, which has the finest sailing in the world. (And the crabs ain’t bad either.)
Wolf: What story are you working on now?
Bud: Currently I’m trying to get two of my novels finished and working on three short stories, one of which looks like it will be a novella.
Wolf: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Bud: Reading anything I can get my hands on, but mostly science-fiction.
Wolf: You can connect with Bud at http://budsparhawk.com and http://budsparhawk.blogspot.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Check out the Epic Science Fiction Adventures Kickstarter campaign which includes Bud’s book, Shattered Dreams, and Christopher Bennett’s book, Among the Wild Cybers. http://tiny.cc/scifi
Andrew McDowell wanted to be a writer since he was a teenager. He has studied History and English at St. Mary’s College, and Library and Information Science at the University of Maryland. He is a member of the Maryland Writers’ Association. He is an associate nonfiction editor with the literary journal 
J. L. Smith lives in Odenton, Maryland. Her works have appeared in many literary journals and magazines, including Cirque, Alaska Women Speak, The Avatar Review, Five 2 One Magazine, Fourth & Sycamore, and more. She is an author of two poetry collections. Her book, Medusa, The Lost Daughter, is a narrative series of poems based on the Medusa myth. Her most recent collection is Weathered Fragments, Weathered Souls, which features previous published poems and a few new ones.
Meg Eden’s work is published or forthcoming in magazines including Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Crab Orchard Review, RHINO and CV2. She teaches creative writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She has five poetry chapbooks, and her novel “Post-High School Reality Quest” is published with California Coldblood, an imprint of Rare Bird Books. Find her online at 
