Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we interviewed author Stella Atrium about her writing and her recently released, Seven Beyond, a metaphorical tale of epic proportions. (Read the review here.)

 

Stella Atrium is a cynical septuagenarian. She has spent a lifetime exploring female characters for real world reactions to obstacles.  Often pushed into submissive and non-verbal roles, women really live in a world of networking among aunties, cousins, wives of husbands, convenient friends and neighbors.  This rich world is largely unexplored.

“I grew up with all brothers, so I knew about women from stories and from school.  What I found at school wasn’t anything like in the stories, so I set out to learn why.”

Recent book links:

Book links: KDP ASIN ebook:      https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Beyond-Stella-Atrium-ebook/dp/B0B8BC3XVW

BookTrib author profile:  –  https://booktrib.com/2022/04/06/stella-atrium/

Self-Publishing Review —  https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2022/06/seven-beyond-by-stella-atrium/

Author Website:                      https://stellaatrium.com

Facebook:                                SAtriumWrites

Twitter:                                   @SAtriumWrites

Pinterest:                                 SAtrium

Goodreads:                             Stella_Atrium

What authors do you like to read? What book or books have had a strong influence on you or your writing?

As a younger person, I read widely in history and philosophy. Such a nerd.  I read some politics, but history was a better source of examples for how countries rise and fall.  Smaller countries like the German duchies in the 30 Years War held many examples of the force of personality to shape a community.

Recently, I read Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, mostly for the bright writing style.

Who and what ultimately inspired you to become a writer?

In my twenties, I was a great fan of Gene Wolfe who wrote grimdark fantasy before that genre was all about magic systems.  Wolfe’s ability to make the reader empathize with a professional executioner as a protagonist was a true appeal, but more his writing style that made me learn to delight in the marching words on the page.

I don’t read grimdark fantasy anymore, too grim. There’s enough violence in our daily lives.

Tell us some more about your book.

This season we are promoting the Third Edition of SEVEN BEYOND by Stella Atrium.  The protagonist Dr. Meenins is 800 year old and from another galaxy. He visits Earth with some companions while trying to escape his many guilty acts in the past. A blood feud follows him to a colony of aliens on Earth while companions guide him into full memory and acceptance of his role in race destiny.

What inspired the premise of your book?

As a young person, I wondered how a career would shape if a person had enough time to master any discipline.  And why not more than one discipline like music or finance or architecture. How would a person’s outlook change? What choices would be delayed or discounted? Leonardo de Vinci, for example, mastered and pioneered several disciplines, but he had no private life and worked for hire making weapons for this lord or that one, just to buy more marble.

Of course, for women the demand for child-bearing years dictate many choices, but what if she could space out pregnancies over centuries? How would her experiences and career and life choices be impacted?

When my father began to age, additional questions piled onto the snarl. How to face daily life when friends are gone, or a homeland is lost, or memory is faulty? What reasons to take up the daily tasks and keep going?

All these concerns were pressed into the plotline of SEVEN BEYOND.

What in particular attracted you to this genre?

I have always written in the fantasy genre because restricted gender roles vanish, and women have access to more instruments of power.

Which character was most challenging to create? Why?

Lady Drasher in SEVEN BEYOND is a delight and a pill.  Readers claim that she jumps off the page and drives the story.  I remember that during the writing, she whispered in my ear about which characters should have more lines of dialogue, or fewer. When Lady Drasher started advising me about sets of characters from other stories, I knew I had to kill her off by the end of the book.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert!  LOL

What’s next for you?

Next quarter we are promoting THE BUSH CLINIC: Book One of the Tribal Wars.  This is a planet story where offworlders from Earth bring technology and corruption to a world where the tribes are not organized into nation-states. We follow Dr. Greensboro, a doctor and research scientist with a grant to study native diseases to develop barriers against pandemics, especially on the orbiting space station.

Dr. Greensboro gets to know some native teens at her bush clinic schools.  Brianna Miller serves her during some of the tribal unrest, and later Brianna travels offworld to visit the homeland of her father who was an adventurer and technician on a space transport. A coming-of-age story for this teen.

And in 2023, THE BODY POLITIC: Book II of the Tribal Wars will also be released.

Visit the author website and sign up for the Stella Atrium Newsletter to get the news about book release dates and more.

Author Website:                      https://stellaatrium.com

Facebook:                                SAtriumWrites

Twitter:                                   @SAtriumWrites

Pinterest:                                 SAtrium

Goodreads:                             Stella_Atrium

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