Meet Seanan McGuire.

Seanan McGuire writes things. It is difficult to make her stop. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with two massive blue cats, a very angry lizard, and a ridiculous number of books. One day, she’s going to write the X-Men.

Now onto the interview.

In your official biography it mentions that you can be found writing at 3AM. Do you have a specific writing schedule that you stick to or do you write when inspiration strikes?

“In my official biography, it actually mentions that I used to write on my typewriter at three in the morning. I was five. These days, I keep more reasonable hours, because I have developed a fondness for sleep. I generally get up in the morning around seven, spend an hour or so having breakfast and catching up on the internet, and then write until I finish my word count for the day.”

How did your attraction to venomous things come into existence and why write about it?

“Why does anyone write about anything? I write about my love of venomous creatures because I’m interested in them, and writing about the things that I am interested in keeps me interested in writing. I don’t know where my interest came from. It’s always been there.”

I love your comment about perfume lust and the lack of twelve step cure programs in your silly survey bio. What is your favorite oddity you gave to one of your characters?

“I don’t really give my characters oddities? I’m a little confused by this question, I’m sorry. People are people. No two people are the same. I try very hard to make my characters people, since otherwise, they’d be dull for me to write about, dull for you to read about, and generally no fun.”

Is there a particular event, experience, or person that inspired you to start writing? Can you tell us about your very first writing project?

“No. And my first writing project was a short story about my cat and my stuffed animals and a portal to the land of Forever Halloween. I think I was four? My mother still has it in a box somewhere.”

As quoted from your alternative bio page, “Sometimes she tells stories with a smile and a wickedly raised eyebrow. But mostly, she tells stories with words.” Why do you think stories continue to grow in importance in our current society?

“Terry Pratchett called man “the storytelling ape,” and he wasn’t wrong. We tell stories to make the world make sense. Without them, things fall apart, and we get lost. We need stories, and we need to see all the kinds and shapes and flavors of humanity in those stories, to understand the reality in which we live. Representation matters. Narrative matters. In the absence of an audience, we will tell stories to ourselves.”

You can find more about Seanan on Twitter or through her website.