Brigade Member, Marlene Harris

Please give a warm, Brigade welcome to our new member, Marlene Harris. She'll be having a blogo-birthday party in April, so check out her link below as well. :) Welcome, Marlene!

Please tell us a little about yourself

I am a blogger, so yes, I am a writer. But I write about SFR, rather than writing SFR. I am also a librarian. I review books for Library Journal, I also provide webinars and workshops for libraries about the importance of genre fiction (like SFR!) and ways to get more and different ebooks into their libraries besides just the bestsellers.

I guess that officially makes me a professional book pusher.

I'm happily married to the love of my life. Who occasionally gets mentioned in the blog. Galen is my husband and also my bestest and most favorite techie. We're both fairly geeky.

On that geeky side, I love role playing games, particularly of the console variety. I am addicted to Dragon Age, and I still get out Final Fantasy X every once in a while. Gaming is one of my vices.

 We also have (or are had by) four cats, Erasmus, LaZorra, Sophie and Mellie, who sometimes get blogged about as well.

I've written about Erasmus' recently in "The Bargain we Make" Erasmus has cancer, and he's living on borrowed time. We're making it the very best time for him that we can.

Besides reading, blogging and being staff for the cats, we move a lot. In the last ten years we've moved from Chicago to Anchorage to Tallahassee to Chicago to Gainesville (FL) to Atlanta. We seem to have itchy feet.

We’d love to hear more about your book, 

Since I'm a blogger and not an author, you're going to hear about my other recent stuff instead that's SFR related, at least if you squint. In an interview over at Lindsay Buroker's site, I was able to answer a lot of questions for indie and self-pubbed authors about getting their books into libraries, answers that would be of interest to SFR authors, I hope!  I review at Library Journal, and my Best Ebook Romances of 2011 included Heather Massey's SFR Queenie's Brigade.  My personal 11 for 2011 Best Reads of the Year list included a lot of SFR and SF in general. I'm a fan. I push SFR on my blog, Reading Reality by reviewing it.

 

Would you like to share any upcoming projects (and links) 

Drumroll, please. I'll be one of the judges for the SFR Galaxy Awards, the brand-spanking new science fiction romance awards just announced by Heather Massey in her post at Mind Meld over at SF Signal and at The Galaxy Express.

I am an ebook advocate. My big project is Ebook Review Central. Every Monday I add to my database of the output of the ebook publishers, listing everything that Carina Press, Dreamspinner, Amber Quill, Astraea, Riptide, and Liquid Silver and Samhain has published since September, 2011. Along with links to all the reviews for those books. I'm working on February 2012  right now because it takes a few weeks for the blogosphere to generate reviews. So every Monday, I feature one publisher and highlight the three books that got the most buzz, had the most and/or best reviews.

What is your favorite SF book or movie?

Only one? Classic Trek. I still want a ride on the Enterprise. Not just because it was such a neat universe, but because everyone seemed to have found their purpose in life, and was working enthusiastically towards it. And because Captain Kirk was probably, I admit it, my first love.

If you could have a robot that did one chore/task and only one, what would you choose?

Housework. I want the maid from the Jetsons. I also want George's car that folds up into a briefcase, but that's secondary.

What SFR book would you most like to be stranded in and with whom?

The Pern saga, which probably isn't fair, but would keep me busy for a good long time. And Dragonflight has to be the first SFR I ever read, even if it wasn't labeled as such. But since I would want to be stranded with my husband, and he likes the Pern books too, it would all work out pretty well. We'd could trade books when we weren't keeping each other...occupied.

Second choice for a stranded partner would definitely be MacGyver. He'd "MacGyver" us out of being stranded pretty quick!

Favorite mode of fictional travel?

I still want a transporter from Star Trek. Instantaneous transport anywhere is still cool.