Hello, Monday! Today I'm featuring Shawn Keenan here on my blog and on NA Alley. He is an NA/YA author, and his 2 books, The Buried Covenant & The Intern's Tale are exciting and creative reads that will keep you gripped from beginning to end. Read on to learn more about Shawn and his writing!
Hello, Shawn! Thanks a million for joining us. Introduce
yourself to the world!
Thanks
for the chance to be featured on your site! I’ve been writing for a few
years now and have two completed novels. THE BURIED COVENANT is about a
teenager who is tied into an ancient covenant and learns he has certain
physical gifts to enable him to fulfill his responsibilities, should he chose
to do so. THE INTERN’S TALE has been described as Camelot steampunk,
which I thought was cool. It’s set in the future after a devastating war
has forced the country to embrace a new feudalistic order. I live in
Florida with my beautiful wife, two kids, and two ungrateful rescue dogs that
surely wouldn’t destroy so much of my house if they understood how indebted to
me they are.
You've said that your books are NA. Although the
characters are younger than most NA characters, they are not in high school and
they deal with edgier issues. Can you elaborate?
While
THE BURIED COVENANT fits the traditional YA mold, THE INTERN’S TALE fits more
comfortably in the phantom genre of New Adult. The protagonists, Kip and
Abbey, are not in school but working in lowly positions at Vassalcorp, one of
the all-powerful corporations whose knight-executives lord over The
Incorporated Realms of America. While Abbey is looking to buck the
restraints of a male dominated society and avoid an arranged marriage, much of
the story deals with Kip’s decision to abandon his childhood dreams of
knighthood. YA typically deals with problems of the moment, crushes, and
peer-pressure issues. I think NA is a place to see characters decide who
they want to be, fall in love for a lifetime, and make sacrifices for a greater
good.
What is The Intern's Tale about?
In
a nutshell (which is a strange place to put anything other than a nut) THE
INTERN’S TALE is an adventure with unlikely heroes fighting a system that no
one dared question for a hundred years. In The Incorporated Realms, power
is held by a few at the expense of the many. Kip starts off inside the
system (albeit at the bottom) and discovers, with Abbey’s help, that he’s on
the wrong path in life. Just like in real life, there’s time for love,
humor, and fast friends along the journey.
I
love the aesthetic of the middle ages and the concept of chivalry. I
wondered what life might be like if in the future something cataclysmic
happened that caused us to go backward, to embrace norms and standards from
that time in a futuristic setting. So in the story, there are mechanical
horses that ride like motorcycles, a tumbler that looks like a dragon, and
swords that retract and extend with the push of a button.
Last question: what are some words of advice that you would
offer to aspiring authors who are writing in the NA category?
I
think I’m the one who needs advice! I love writing in the genre. I
think it’s extremely freeing. You lose some of the restrictions on you in
the YA market, but you don’t have to make everything heavy and deep to feel all
adulty (new word). I think people with a passion for writing about this
time period in people’s lives between childish naivety and adult cynicism
should write these books and the market will follow. I think the genre
will take off when readers see what it offers and inspiring books are in print
that people start talking about.
The Intern's Tale is a great book! I'm a friend of anyone who supports Shawn Keenan, who is a terrific writer!
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog too :-)
New follower via GFC.
Ensconced in YA
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