Here, you can find our chat with our picked authors about their mindblowing and heartwrenching stories about touching friendships, unbreakable bonds, and close tight relationships in the family.
If you want to know more about these authors and thei...
"Nobody's Daughter" is a young woman's coming-of-age saga, set in a hostile and often unforgiving environment, and an ultimate clash between the powerful, ethnocentric (really racist) elite and those willing to challenge corruption and hold them accountable. It's also a journey from a sense of aloneness to one of a greater connectedness with family and community.
Antoinette McCormick is the author of The Haunting of Sky Hollow, the award-winning Dead of Winter, The Dispossessed, The Butterfly Girl, and a short story collection, Night Shades. All are available on Amazon. Her short stories and poems have appeared in many online and print publications, including Mad Scientist Journal, Blood Moon Rising, Halfway Down the Stairs, the Vermont Literary Review, and on the limited-edition "Your Decision" tour poster for the musical group, Alice in Chains. When not thinking up new ways to scare people, she works as a registered nurse in the increasingly frightening field of health care.
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Favorite Quote outside the book from the author:
"Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful." Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein"
- Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Q. What makes you write on Wattpad? Has writing always been your favorite hobby?
I joined Wattpad in 2015, hoping that this would be a way to connect with other writers and grow an audience. At the time, I was in my early 50s and worried about how relatable the work would be to a much younger generation.
Writing started out as a hobby: high school and college newspapers, poetry, and later on, writing fanfiction. Later on, that evolved into more of the marketing/publicity end of things. Around 2010 though, I decided to get serious about writing original work, and had some success with publishing short stories in smaller online venues.
Then, in January 2015, I earned an MFA in Creative Writing, and really started pursuing this as a second career option. Back then, after almost 20 years in nursing, I was starting to sour on being an RN for the rest of my life, and wanted to do something that would feed my creative side. It's been a rough road, but over the last year or so, I've started to make money from my writing, and that's so gratifying as well as humbling.
Q. Why "Nobody's Daughter"? What is the inspiration behind this story title? Do you have any alternatives while writing this book?
Dystopian fiction was a personal challenge (I'm more of a horror buff) but picking the right title for this story was the worst! Almost as hard as crafting its unique world. Since I have a few novels with "the" in the title, I swore I wasn't going to use it this time around. So, I considered things like "Renegade Warrior, Reluctant Assassin," and "Madman's Daughter." Nothing sounded right, though. None of those really had an emotional "tug."
Landing on the right title came through the act of writing, itself. There was a point in the story, in which Tetsuo was telling Renata the story of how he met the Madman of Motosu. When he asked the stranger what his name was, he replied, "Nani mo," which translates to no one or nobody in Japanese. Something just really clicked in that moment, you know? I really liked "nobody" and how it related to Renata, specifically, so that's what I decided to go with.
Q. Your story has influence from Japan, why choose to combine this country with a dystopian setting? Does this choice have a profound meaning on the family relationship between characters in the story?
A case of "go big or stay home," maybe? Hey, if you're going to decimate a country and a culture, why not pick the one with one of the richest histories and the largest city on earth, lol. Considering what the world has been going through with COVID, this was a huge gamble.
Japan has meaning for these characters because it's their home, the country they love and are willing to die to protect.
Q. What is your favorite detail in the story that makes the family bond in this story special to you? (You can add a spoiler alert).
That's a huge spoiler alert! ;D
The Non-Spoiler answer:The secrets, family and otherwise, that drive the story, and how these can be potentially dangerous, even lethal.
The Spoiler answer: Renata, who's been raised by her much-older brother, Satoshi, and who believes her parents died a long time ago, is being sent to kill her own father by none other than an uncle she knows nothing about. To protect her, Satoshi has kept this knowledge from her for most of her life.
So, the story starts out pretty dark but champions family bonds, loyalty, and love in the end.
Q. If you were a character living in the dystopian society from "Nobody's Daughter", who would you be? And why?
I would probably be a peasant eking out a living in a remote village similar to the one where the Otakoga live, but would definitely align myself with the Shinu. I guess you could say that it's part of the whole, "Question Authority" ethic/mantra I grew up with in the 70s, and this has shaped the way I view and interact with so-called authority figures.
Q. As Wattys Winner 2022, what is your first thought when receiving the news, and what will come next in terms of writing for you?
Having received the news shortly before my 60th birthday, after recovering from the initial shock, my first thought was, 'Oh, my God! I must be the oldest person to receive a Watty ever! (Am I? Or close to it? Let me know.)I'm finishing a novella, "All the Colors of Death" (horror) right now.
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Thank you so much for joining, Antoinette!
Age means nothing if you have the passion and talent! A huge congratulation on your winning of Wattys 2022!
Have you checked out her works yet? Be sure to check out at ShadowMaven!
