5 Minutes With Carrie Ryan

It’s totally my pleasure and honor to get to do one of the first interviews with fellow Feast of Awesome Debutante 2009, Carrie Ryan. Her novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a remarkable novel, capturing big ideas about faith and free will in a tight, raw story about a young woman who loses everything to the apocalypse, but clings viciously to a dream.

But not only is Carrie an awesome author, she’s a lawyer and I’m lucky enough to get to call her a good friend! We’ve been going through the year leading up to our first books’ publications together, and she’s definitely kept me sane. Now let’s see if I can drive her a little crazy in five minutes!

Stay tuned after the interview to find out how you can win a SIGNED copy of Carrie’s novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth!


In your previous life as an attorney, you did estate and wealth management planning. What’s the most important thing writers should know about planning for their future?


To do it – haha! But I’m being serious, I think many people are afraid to plan for the future (and by future I mostly mean after they die) for different reasons: not wanting to think about mortality, not thinking it’s necessary, thinking there’s plenty of time left, or just basic misunderstanding about what will happen to their property after they die. It’s always so much easier when there’s a will and it’s not hard to make one.

While I totally understand hesitating to get a will because of the cost, there are places online where you can download estate planning documents (but there’s no guarantee those are correct). Even so, I recommend going to a professional at least once to get the basic documents done (just like you’d go to a mechanic, a doctor, etc.)

Specifically, I think that writers also need to think about who should act as their literary executor and manage their literary estates. Neil Gaiman talks about this a lot and he’s right (as always!)

And before you wrote The Forest of Hands and Teeth, you were heavily involved in the RWA and the romance community. How did having that organized writing support help you when you were first getting started?

It helped me tons. This was back in the year 2000 when it seemed like there wasn’t as much online as there is today and I met a lot of really great authors (both online and off). It was through them that I learned so much about the industry from craft to career – everything! In fact, I think that any author who wants to learn about the writing and publishing industry should join RWA – so much of what you learn isn’t specific to romance writing!

As a writer, you tap beautifully into the artistic side of writing, but you also keep really close tabs on the business side of the industry. What’s the most useful bit of information you’ve learned about the business of writing?

Thanks! Hmmm… about the business of writing.. I’m not sure if this counts as the business side or not, but I think for me the most useful thing I learned is to not give up. I know that sounds a little cliche, but I honestly believed that so long as I kept writing, submitting, starting and finishing new projects and improving my craft that I’d sell. Maybe it would take three books or ten, but if I didn’t give up, I honestly believed I’d make it!

So 2009 is a big year for you- your debut novel is coming out, you’ve just finished a pre-publicity tour, you’re getting married- what’s next for you?

LOL, writing, revising, planning said wedding. My mom called a few nights ago (after she’d taken her Ambien) and declared she wanted to go on tour with me. When I informed her that as far as I knew there was no tour, she was adamant that she tour with me. So she and I might drive around doing stock signings for a while :)

And finally- as I know you’re a connoisseur, I have to ask the most important question- which wine goes best with writing about the zombie apocalypse?

Anything with alcohol. Am I allowed to say that as a young adult author? And if I had to choose between red or white wine, I’d go with red. Something about red wine screams zombies :)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan
March 10, 2009 from Delacorte Press
Buy Indie | Barnes & Noble | Amazon

And visit Carrie. on the web at
www.carrieryan.com

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~~Enter & Win~~

Would you like to own a SIGNED, PERSONALIZED copy of The Forest of Hands and Teeth? Well you can! Just leave a comment between now and March 10th, and I’ll enter you in a draw to win a copy of Carrie’s debut novel, signed and personalized just for you!