Author Interview with Ally Malinenko

Hi everyone! Today we have a special guest, author Ally Malinenko. Read along as she talks about her book, Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb. :)

How would you introduce yourself in one sentence?

Scribbler. Babbler. Traveler.

Shoot - there's no verb or subject. That's not really a sentence now is it?

Tell us a little about your book and who are your targeted audiences?

Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb is the first book in a series about a young girl who finds out she is the last descendant of Shakespeare and that she has her very own magical guide - Jonathan Muse, who was Shakespeare's Muse. But it's not all quills and roses when Lizzy finds out that Dmitri Marlowe has a 400 year old grudge that he plans on resolving. Based on both Shakespearean stories and Greek mythology Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb is a story about finding out who you really are and what matters most. 

The book is classified as Middle Grade which is usually 9-12 but in truth, it's a story about family and how complicated family can be so really I think it's a story for anyone.   

I'm sure each story has it's own history, so how and when did the idea of Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb novel began?

I was in a Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn and I came across a book called Eddie Dickens by Philip Ardagh. I thought the idea of a middle grade book with a main character named Eddie Dickens set in Victorian London was great. On my walk home I started thinking about my favorite writer - William Shakespeare and then Lizzy and Jonathan and Marlowe started to take root. Though at the time they were MUCH different than they wound up being in the end. That's what revision is for!

The idea of involving William Shakespeare in the story is really interesting, are you a fan of the man himself? What is your favorite Shakespearean story?

I'm a huge fan of Shakespeare and we fans get a special name - I'm a Bardolator. My favorite play is probably a tie between Hamlet and Mid Summer Nights Dream. But my first experience at the Globe in London was seeing Love's Labours Lost so that one has a very special place in my heart. Actually it's hard to pick a favorite! 

Do you have any future plans of writing a book in a different genre and what is it (if there is)?

In addition to writing the second Lizzy book, I'm working on a YA book about time travel and chess right now. I would love to write an adult book someday but I think it's a matter of having the right story to tell. That said, I love writing Middle Grade. I think it's one of the most magical times in a reader's life and to be a part of that is amazing. The books that I loved the most growing up were all MG. I still wonder each time I open a wardrobe, what if there are pine trees at the back!  

Any message to all our readers out there?

A huge thank you! All writers want to be read - we write stories to share something with our readers and you help make dreams come true with every trip to the library. And to the aspiring writers out there I have one solid piece of advice. Read. Read. Read. It's the only real way to learn how to write. 

Thanks for dropping by the blog :)

Thanks so much for having me! This has been great!

 About the book:

Title: Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb
Author: Ally Malinenko
September 12, 2012
by Antenna books
Add to Goodreads

MEET LIZZY SPEARE…
…a normal twelve year old girl with a talent for writing, who has a very notnormal family secret. And when Lizzy’s father vanishes, that secret will change her life in ways unimagined. (Spoiler Alert!  It turns out that Lizzy, or Elizabeth S. Speare, is the last living descendant of William Shakespeare.  Shhh!  Don’t tell anybody!)Then Lizzy and her best friend Sammy are kidnapped, awakening in the faraway land of Manhattan. Their host is Jonathan Muse, whose job is to protect Lizzy from becoming the latest victim in a family feud going back nearly five hundred years.  Is that why is the mysterious, eye patch-wearing Dmitri Marlowe is after her? (Spoiler Alert 2—he’s the last living descendant of Christopher Marlowe, a friend and rival of Shakespeare’s.  But keep it to yourself!) Is Marlowe after Lizzy’s family fortune rumored to be kept in the tomb of that bald guy with the goatee? Does he seek artistic immortality? Or Revenge (with a capital R) for a death long, long ago?In a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, Lizzy and Sammy are thrust into the realm of the mythical and fantastic—from satyrs and Cyclopses to Middle Eastern cab drivers and Brooklyn hipsters in what is truly “an improbable fiction” as the Bard himself once wrote.