Feature Friday: Author interview with @LadyGwyendd

Nickname or Penname

Lady Gwynedd or Lady G.  Or even Gwyn.  I answer to many variations of the name.  It’s not even close to my real name.

How did you come up with your name?

I have CRS disease. I can’t remember sh*t.  So when I got on the internet back 97, I picked this name for an on line role playing group I was with at the time and just kept it.  I promise, I would never remember a million different screen names. I’ve been Lady G on line since the beginning just about.

What is your favorite color?

Green. It’s the color I see when I look out my kitchen window.

What do you consider your guilty pleasure song?

Hey, Soul Sister by Train.

What is your favorite ice cream?

I like soft serve ice cream the best.

What is your favorite candy

I really love caramel.  Caramel crèmes are my favorite but I also like Turtles: caramel, pecans and chocolate.

What do you consider your favorite drink?

I am a coffee lover.  But I also like good beers.

Do you have a favorite curse word? If yes what is it and why? If not, why?

Futter.  I would like to teach KStew to use that instead of her favorite curse word.

Favorite Holiday and why?

Any holiday that can share it with my family.

Which is hotter the good guy or the bad boy?

Definitely the good guy.  I want someone to look up to and respect rather than fix.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

Home is where the heart is.  Anywhere my husband is, there is where I am happy.  But we really love the UK.  I can imagine having a little cottage in the countryside there.

Do you have any current favorite fics that you have to read every time they update?

All of the fics that I read I read the minute they update.

If you had the chance to meet any author in the fandom, who would it be and why.

There are many but the question really is, would they like to meet me?

How did you get into fanfiction?

I’ve had a Live Journal for more than eleven years and after I read the saga, I went on it to see if there were any Twilight communities. I found one called Lion_Lamb and started reading it.  Fanfic writers would advertise their stories there and after a while I started reading them and found, much to my surprise, they were really good!

What do you do when not writing?

I teach high school.  I am a cantor in church and I am a wife, mother, and grandmother.   I enjoy my life very much.

You've written 11 stories set in both modern times and in historical settings, do you prefer one over the other?

I have no preference as long as the story is good. 

Mail Order Bride and Bear Valley Ranch

So what inspired this unique story line?

I always found the concept of Mail Order Brides interesting and imagined what it would have been like to be one.  I sat down one day on my lunch break and started to write Bella’s letter in response to his advertisement.  It sort of took off after that.

How much research did you have to do to write these stories?

I had a lot of base knowledge from stories my grandmother used to tell me and I seem to have a knack for using Google.

Did you go into the first one anticipating a sequel? If not, when did you decided to write Bear Valley Ranch?

Another writer in the fandom, SammieLynnsMom, asked me to continue the story so I wrote the first chapter of Bear Valley Ranch for her but then the story wouldn’t let me go, so I went on with it.

Parma High

What inspired this story?

My life. I am a high school teacher and I live in a place that is very much like Parma.  This was a story I didn’t have to do ANY research on. ;)

Edward in this story is quite the study of contrasts, where did you come up with the idea for his character?

He’s modeled on my son in many ways.  By the way – there’s no Bella on the horizon to my son’s Edward, so any takers?

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I know it's like picking your favorite child, but if you had to choose which of your characters is your favorite and why?

My secondary characters have always seemed to take a life of their own, from Jasper, currently in Nightingale, to Lauren and Tyler in the BVR series.  I don’t know why exactly.

What is it that you want readers to come away with after reading your stories?

That having standards doesn’t mean you have a boring existence.

If you had to give advice to a new writer what would it be?

Write. Get a good beta. Write.

Do you have any future fics that we should be on the lookout for?

There’s a plot bunny that jumped in front of me when I was writing Bella’s Choice…There may be a third installment to After the Fall.

I want to personally say a big thank you to Lady Gwynedd for volunteering to be our first Feature Friday Author. Her stories really are a joy to read and you should totally go and check her out on fanfiction. Check out next weeks interview with A Cullen Wannabe! You have until noon tomorrow to submit your questions for her! Till then twihards.