Author Interview: Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown

Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown live and write in rural Georgia. Together, they are the writing team known as Dragon Authors, writing fantasy and science fiction for teens and adults. Please welcome them both to No Wasted Ink.

Author Erin Michelle Sky We are Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown. We live in rural Georgia on a couple of small farms, we both love writing, and neither one of us can resist a good story! Together, we are the writing team known as Dragon Authors, writing fantasy and science fiction novels for teens and adults.

When and why did you two begin writing?

When Steven was nine, he started writing stories for his younger brothers. They got to be the main characters and had grand adventures! Eventually, he turned these stories into plays, which they put on for the neighborhood kids, charging a quarter each to fund future productions.

Erin always loved books, but she didn’t start writing until she read Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series. Devastated that she couldn’t grow up to be a dragon rider, she decided to be an author instead, which seemed like the next best thing.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Everyone is a writer. Telling a story about your day or about your childhood, whether to entertain, to share, or to inspire—that’s writing!

Can you share a little about your current book with us?

Definitely! The Intuitives is a story about six vastly different teens (well, five teens and one tween) who are recruited by Homeland Security to attend a summer program in an isolated lodge in Wyoming. But the program isn’t what it appears to be, and they have to band together to figure out what they’re really doing there. The thing that stands out to us about writing it is how real the characters felt. It was almost as though they wrote the story themselves.

What inspired you to write this book?

We both love writing stories, so that’s always inspirational! But for this particular book, we wanted the story to reflect the tremendous value we see in teamwork—and also to show that no matter how different you might think you are from someone else, that doesn’t have to stop you from being friends and maybe even accomplishing something amazing together. Neither one of us could have written any of our books without the other. We write as a team because our stories are much stronger when we bring our skills, experiences, and perspectives together.

Do you have a specific writing style?

That depends so much on what we’re writing! We have a young adult rewrite of Peter Pan on Patreon. It’s set in 1790 England with Wendy as the hero. The writing is lighthearted and playful, with elements of action and danger and romance for tension. The Intuitives, on the other hand, is written in a modern, straightforward style, with hints of a more lyrical influence. And we have a few projects we can’t talk about yet that are entirely different again. Each story provides the reader with a unique experience, and we want the voice of each book to match that experience.

How did you come up with the title of this book?

Intuitively! But seriously, all six of the kids in the book are highly intuitive, each in his or her own way. The team is the most important thing, rather than any individual character, and the title spoke to us because it captured that essence. As a bit of trivia, the book originally had a subtitle, but we decided it was too much of a spoiler so we cut it at the last minute. We’d tell you what it was, but we hate spoilers!

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

First and foremost, we hope The Intuitives will be a fun and entertaining read. That’s always our main goal! But it’s also a story about how people can work together to accomplish something much bigger than anyone could have done alone. We hope it inspires readers to realize that no matter how small anyone’s role on a team might feel, every single one of those roles matters. What you bring to the world matters. What every single person brings to the world matters.

Are experiences in this book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Of course! And at the same time, emphatically no. All good writing borrows from your own life. A sarcastic comment might remind you of a sarcastic friend, a bubbly outburst might remind you of your bubbly cousin, etc. And yes, a few of the specific things in the novel were taken from our own lives, but you’ll have to guess which ones!

At the same time, none of the characters in The Intuitives is based on any particular person. They are all very much their own individuals, and we can’t help but feel it was the characters themselves who came together to write the story.

What authors have most influenced your life? What about them do you find inspiring?

For Steven, J.R.R. Tolkein, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, and Margaret & H.A. Rey, the creators of Curious George. They all sparked his imagination with magic and adventure, fueling his love of fantasy. For Erin, Anne McCaffrey set her on the path to becoming an author, and Janet Burroway, author of The Truck on the Track, showed her how much fun playing with language could be.

If you had to choose, is there a writer would you consider a mentor? Why?

We mentor each other. It’s one of the best things about being a writing team! Steven says he learns a lot from Erin about making a fictional universe feel real. Erin says she learns a lot from Steven about capturing the reader’s attention and building that tension throughout the novel.

Who designed the cover of your book? Why did you select this illustrator?

We held a contest on 99designs.com for original cover art, and the winning design came from an artist named Eugen Zhuravel. We felt that it best captured the essence of the novel, with a sense of magic and ancient mystery.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Find people who are positive about your writing, support each other, and don’t give up. They don’t even have to be writers! Create your own group of intuitives, and decide together to accomplish your dreams, whatever they may be. Don’t try to do it. Decide to do it. Then work together to make it happen!

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Thank you! You’d be surprised how big a part YOU play in the creation of any book, and no author ever made a living at writing without readers. Every single one of you matters, and we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!

Intuitives Book Cover Erin Michelle Sky & Steven Brown
Georgia farm country, USA