Three Times A Charm with Eric Price and a Giveaway

Welcome to Three Times A Charm. I love meeting new authors, illustrators, bloggers, agents, editors or promoters from the children’s publishing industry and sharing their careers with my readers.

Today’s guest is young adult author, Eric Price. Welcome to Strands of Thought! Can you tell us a little about you, please?

I grew up in central Illinois, but I now live in northwest Iowa with my wife and two sons. I began publishing in 2008 when I started writing a quarterly column for a local newspaper. My first short story, “Ghost Bed and Ghoul Breakfast,” a spooky children’s tale about a haunted bed and breakfast, came out later the same year. I’ve published more than 30 nonfiction articles/columns, four short stories, and a poem. Three of the short stories have won honorable mention in the CrossTIME Annual Science Fiction contest.

Congratulations on the release of your book, Eric, tell us about Unveiling the Wizards’ Shroud.

As the only son to King Kendrick, Owen despises the idea of being king one day. Magician may be the only career he’d like less. He has dreaded the days leading up to his fifteenth birthday, when his father will certainly declare Owen heir to the throne. But at the birthday celebration, his father falls ill. The only person in the kingdom that may be able to save him is a magician–the very same magician Owen holds responsible for the death of his mother.

Owen and his companions will have to travel the continent of Wittatun in search of the cure for King Kendrick. On the journey, they will battle strange beasts and harsh climates, befriend extraordinary magicians, and meet a dragon before returning to Innes Castle–where much has happened in the days since he departed.

I recommend my book to lovers of fantasy. It has enough twists and turns to satisfy a hardcore fan, and it’s short and fast paced to appeal to fantasy novices or even people at lower reading levels than young adult.

Readers, Eric wants to know your top 3 favorite fantasy novels?

Now, for the Threes. Share with us your top 3’s to help us know you a little better.

• Top 3 books you recommend reading and why you recommend them.

I intended to list three classic novels here, but I do that all the time, and I read Suzanne de Montigny’s post earlier this month, so I decided to plug some authors at my publisher:

Elixir Bound by Katie Carroll—the fast pace and interesting characters kept me glued to this book.

Julius Caesar Brown and the Green Gas Mystery by Ace Hansen—What young guy doesn’t find potty humor funny; now that I think about it, what person doesn’t find potty humor funny?

Kai, I intended to add Beware of the White here, but I figure most of your blog readers have probably read it, so I’m going to deviate from my publisher to a book I grabbed at the bookstore, and had to put everything else I was reading on hold so I could read it.

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher—I’m not even sure I understand how much I loved this book. I think it would appeal to either a fan of Shakespeare or Star Wars, as a fan of both, my copy will be tattered and dog-eared by the end of the year.

• Top 3 tools of the trade you couldn’t live without.

Spell check—I’m a horrible speller. I’m getting better, but I still need spell check a lot.

Dictionary—Sometimes spell check doesn’t work, or it can’t figure out what I’m trying to type. Plus, as a writer you learn some words don’t mean what you think they mean. (oh my gosh, this happens to me all the time!)

Thesaurus—Stephen King wrote in On Writing, you’ll never find the right word in the thesaurus (or something to this extent). The point he made was use the words you know, don’t look up new words just trying to make yourself sound smart. I agree with him 100%. I still need my thesaurus because sometimes the word I need just won’t come to me. I still avoid the words I don’t know—unless they’re really cool; how else is our vocabulary supposed to grow?

• Top 3 super heroes and/or super villains – and why they are your favorites.

I could write on this topic for hours. I could write about my 3 favorite categories of super heroes and break that list into subcategories, but I’ll keep it simple… as best I can. I’ll even limit myself by sticking to Marvel, and further limit it by sticking to the X-Men. (It should be noted, my time with the X-Men was 1992 to 1996. I’m rather clueless as to what’s happened after that.)

Wolverine—He has attitude, an adamantium skeleton with retractable claws (when Magneto hasn’t ripped it out—I’ll get to him later), and a mutant healing factor that makes him nearly immortal.

Magneto—He’s a classic sympathetic villain. He grew up a Jew in the 1940s. His family was torn apart by people who hated those different than them. Now as an adult, he sees a similar hatred by homo sapiens toward homo superiors (mutants). His friend, Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men, dreams of a world where homo sapiens can live in peace with homo superiors, but due to his experience in concentration camps, Magneto cannot share that dream. Plus, he can control magnetism, and he uses it to remove Wolverine’s metal skeleton (see above, see also X-Men #25 and Wolverine #75).

Apocalypse—He’s the baddest of the bad (King of Bad… if you will). The first mutant, born in Egypt around 3000 BC (BCE if you prefer) he eventually takes over the world around 3800 AD (or CE), and at various times throughout alternate timelines… so he’s nothing if not patient and persistent.

One of those alternate timelines is, in my opinion, the best storylines in comic book history: The Age of Apocalypse. Legion travels time to kill Magneto, but accidentally murders Charles Xavier in the 1960s. Xavier never forms the X-Men so Magneto forms them in Xavier’s vision. But when Apocalypse rises in the 1980s, Magneto’s team doesn’t defeat him as Xavier’s team did, so Apocalypse takes over the world. An amazing dystopian world is created where, amongst other cool things, Wolverine and Cyclops finally have it out, resulting in Wolverine losing a hand and Cyclops losing an eye.

As Apocalypse is a firm believer in survival of the fittest, it’s hard to classify him as evil per se, he just tries to wipe out those who are week and those who promote the survival of the week… OK, so he’s evil, but he will team up with the good guys if they are fighting someone even more evil than him (see X-Cutioner’s Song).

Lol. I love that you love comics. And thanks for the nod for Beware of the White. There are so many talented authors at MuseItUp, it makes me feel really good about having a book there.

Where can our tech savvy readers find you online, Eric?

You can find me on my website, authorericprice.com; on Twitter, @AuthorEricPrice; Facebook, Author Eric Price and Unveiling the Wizards’ Shroud; and Goodreads, Eric Price. I’ve also started a group on Facebook called, Young Guys Read, Too. It’s open to authors of stories aimed at young men, as well as people interested in reading those stories. My goal is to increase reading interest in young men by helping them interact with the authors writing their books.

Thanks for charming us on this week’s Three Times A Charm. Best of luck to you and your brand new book.

Readers! Eric is a generous author. He’s got not one but two giveaways going. Check them out!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway
THANKS!

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GUESTS WELCOME!  I am always looking for guests for Three Times A Charm. If you are an author, illustrator or book reviewer, an agent or an editor. If you have something related to children’s publishing that you’d like people to know about, feel free to contact me about a future appearance.