Margaret Weis Interview

There are certain authors that hold a special place in our hearts. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are two of them. So, when Wizards of the Coast came calling and asked if we would like to interview Margaret Weis as part of her blog tour, we jumped at the opportunity. Without any further delay, we are excited to give you our brief interview with Margaret.

Margaret, thank you for taking the time to stop by our not-so-humble blog for an interview. Now, we want you to throw caution and humility to the wind. Here at Elitist Book Reviews we don’t hesitate to pat ourselves on the back, and we want you to do the same (your back, not ours). So tell us, why are you and your co-author, Tracy Hickman, so awesome?

LOL! What can I say? We love our work!

Speaking of Hickman, the two of you have published a ridiculous number of novels together. What do you find the benefits of co-authoring to be, do you enjoy writing alone or as a co-author more, and after all this time working together is it always smooth sailing or are there disagreements?

There are benefits to writing both singly and with a co-author. If I write by myself, I have to come up with solutions to the problems I always create for myself. (Writing myself into a corner.) When I’m writing with Tracy, I can call him and dump the problem in his lap. (Tasslehoff’s going to die unless you find a way to save him!) The biggest disagreement we had was that I maintained that Laurana would never give up being the Golden General to run off to save Tanis. Tracy, being a romantic, maintains that love conquers all.

DRAGONS OF THE HOURGLASS MAGE (Amazon) was released back in August, a full 25 years after DRAGONS OF AUTUMN TWILIGHT (Amazon). We literally owe our introduction into fantasy to you and Tracy (a simple ‘thank you’ just doesn’t seem to do our feelings justice, but, seriously, thank you!), as do many readers. How do you keep those loyal readers satisfied while appealing to this newer generation of readers?

The internet has been a big help to us, especially the community of fans on the DragonLance Nexus message boards. We really try to listen to our fans and, while we may not do everything they would like us to do, we take their concerns and ideas seriously.

Along the same lines as the last question, what do you think it means to be a fantasy reader today and how has it changed from when you started writing fantasy?

Back in the day, the majority of readers of DL were men. So many women used to come up to us to tell us that they started reading DL because their boyfriends/husbands urged them to read the books. Now we see many more women and girls reading DL and fantasy in general.

Do you feel like the genre as a whole is evolving, and if so, how do you feel about it?

I must admit that I don’t read fantasy!

Again, Margaret, thank you for dropping by to show us how great you are. You’ve made our year. Seriously. Any parting words for us and our readers?

Thank you for traveling Krynn all these years with us!

We wished we could have asked more questions, but we were thrilled to have Margaret take time out of her busy schedule to talk with us! We understand Margaret will be online throughout the day, so you may just be able to coax some comments out of her if you ask nicely!

And if that doesn’t work, we have free copies of DRAGONS OF THE HOURGLASS MAGE to give away. Here are a few ways to get your copy. We have chosen, at random, certain comment milestones for prize winners. So come and chat with us and Margaret, and who knows, your comment might be one of the lucky winners. To hook you up, we have also reserved a couple copies to give away for people that make Margaret laugh (or us for that matter), or ask something great, or make an insightful comment. As always we will judge what deserves the last couple prize books, but no need to worry. If you didn’t trust us our enlightened judgement, you wouldn’t be coming to our site.

Seriously folks, we know that a lot of you owe your fantasy readership to Weis and Hickman like we do. Remember, go give them your support. Here are a few links of pure greatness:

Margaret Weis’ Site
http://www.margaretweis.com/

Tracy Hickman’s Site
http://www.trhickman.com/

Wizards of the Coast
http://www.wizards.com/

Sara Easterly (she set us up with the interview… of course we are going to mention her!)
http://www.saraeasterly.com/

And lastly, we have a Dragonlance Novels Guide if any of you crazy readers need one… lets face it, Dragonlance has a ton of books. If you want it, email us and we’ll send you a copy!

This interview was conducted for Elitist Book Reviews by Alan.