Author Interview - SJ Kincaid

Today we have the very playful SJ Kincaid on the blog. Poltergeists are revealed!
SJ Kincaid is the author of the electrifying teen sci-fi  novel, Insignia, which publishes in the UK on 2 August (see M's review).



Insignia by SJ Kincaid

Some Insignia book related questions:

M: If you were a plebe at the Pentagonal Spire, what would your Achievements profile say?

SJ Kincaid: LOL, probably, 'Three book contract with Katherine Tegen Books'. ;-)

M: Is your answer to that question true?

SJ Kincaid: No. I'm not getting published. Is my answer to that question true? Total lie.)

M: What Division would you like to have been placed in for training?

SJ Kincaid: Well, the Divisions are basically like dorm names, not significant apart from the theme of guys who are big in military history (and they're all guys with cool names, too - hence 'Hannibal' rather than someone like 'Caesar'). If I just went purely by the awesome names, though, I'd definitely pick 'Machiavelli'. There's something just too awesome about that name.

M: The Combatants go by call signs like Enigma and Medusa. What call sign would you use?

SJ Kincaid: Ooh, tricky. See, when I think of an awesome call sign, I tend to give it to a character. Hmm. How about 'Boris'? I just think it would be funny.

M: Are you any good at computer programming?

SJ Kincaid: I am TERRIBLE at computer programming. I have taken four classes in it. In high school, I did HTML - got an 'A', it was great. JavaScript was harder, but then I got an 'A-' or so. And then I got into real programming and took C++. The first week, I was doing fine. The second week, I showed up at class and suddenly it was everyone else had learned some exotic foreign language and they were all speaking in it. I had no idea what was going on! I had to drop the class.

So, in college, I looked back on that and decided, "I obviously wasn't studying enough, that's all." I took another programming class focused on a language called 'Scheme'. First few weeks, I was feeling pretty smug, and then one day in class, it happened all over again. I suddenly didn't know what was going on. We had this assignment where I had no idea how to even do the most basic level of programming we had to write, and this kid in my dorm (also in the class) had basically responded to the same assignment by writing this elaborate program, just from stuff he'd learned in the last few weeks.

So, yeah. Not my strong point.

M: You have a playlist for the Insignia series.  What are your favourite tunes on it?

SJ Kincaid: Well, the playlist is kind of old in that I've listened to all the songs so often, I'm dreadfully sick of them all-- but I did love most all of them quite a bit for a while. If I singled some out, it would be 'Running to the Edge of the World', 'Forever Yours', 'Tear You Apart', 'Tiny Tears', 'Written in the Stars' and 'Unwell'.

And now for something a bit more scary:

M: You lived beside a haunted graveyard in Scotland! How do you know it was haunted?

SJ Kincaid: LOL, I don't know for sure, but it's a graveyard widely reputed to be haunted, and there was one spooky thing that happened. My friend and I were on this tour of that place, and there's a place called the 'Black Mausoleum' there that's supposed to be very haunted by the 'Mackenzie Poltergeist'. Anyway, my friend was standing next to me, and we were at the edge of the group, and she told me to stop poking her back. I wasn't doing that, and no one else could've been doing it. Then next day, we look, and there was this scratch mark across her back there. Kinda creepy, right?

M: What does SJ stand for?

SJ Kincaid: Shelley Jessica.  Thanks for the interview questions! I'm so glad you enjoyed the book.

*****

Thank you very much, SJ.  That Mackenzie Poltergeist revelation!

Here is our review of Insignia. Insignia is one of the titles that launches Bonnier's brand new publishing arm, Hot Key Books.