CHARACTER INTERVIEW
Interview with Dinah Geof-Craigs, a.k.a. Dynamistress
Welcome!! What a special treat! Thanks for stopping by! So there’s a book about you?
Yes, the first of three, in fact. Though I’m listed as a co-author, that’s just a formality. The books were written by that other guy using my journals and interviews as source material. Reckoning covers my life up through, I believe, late 2007. Redemption, which comes out early next year, covers a rather short period of time – early 2008 through summer of 2009. And Renaissance, I’m told, will bring us up to date and will be released in late 2016. At least, that’s what they’re saying.
Tell us about your abilities and how you got them.
My abilities are energy-based. I generate huge amounts of energy and am able to vent the excess in the form of focused blasts of a sort of bio-plasma. All this is the result of what is allegedly the only known example of successful “live” genetic editing. Meaning, I manipulated my own DNA to bring about the abilities. Not that I knew exactly what the abilities would be, mind you, but I focused on the energy production aspect of things, mucking about with mitochondria and whatnot, so I guess I wasn’t too surprised with the actual results, aside from the fact that it worked. And no, before you ask, I won’t discuss the fire that burned down the lab when I did the experiment, nor the lawsuit that followed.
What was the scariest moment of your superhero life?
There were two other times, very early in my career, that were absolute terror. The first was when a gangbanger had a gun aimed right at my head. It was sheer luck that the bullet missed me by an inch or so. The other time, I wasn’t so lucky. Shot point blank in the chest. It hurt like mad and I thought I was moments from bleeding to death. But these were brief bouts of terror. A more lasting one was when I contracted Cryptococcal meningitis. This isn’t something that’s normally found in otherwise healthy people, so it was a bit of a shock. It was easily treated using common antifungal drugs, but later, it returned. And at that point, it resisted treatment so much that I came very close to death.
Tell us about the absolute BEST fan letter you have received.
Well, it wasn’t a letter. It was a phone call. It happened after my feature in Supers magazine. I wasn’t exactly adept at the whole “secret identity” thing, so it wasn’t long before I was tracked down. It was a teenage girl named Macy, and we chatted for about half an hour. We’ve kept in touch, too, over the years. To this day, she still maintains my website, www.dynamistress.com. So the call was the “absolute BEST” because I got a friend out of it.
New York or LA? Why?
Can I say “neither”? I have this thing about weather. My metahuman abilities cause me to be constantly warm, so I really dislike hot weather. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and while we very rarely saw triple digits like L.A., we did have high humidity, like New York. Just awful. Weather, in fact, was the deciding factor in my decision on where to move to start up my career. (San Francisco, by the way.) But if I must choose between those two cities, then it would be New York. Because pizza.
Have you traveled to other countries? What was most memorable?
My brother and I took a tour of Europe back in ’02. We started in London. We also visited Brussels, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Geneva, Paris, then back to London. That was all a booked tour through an agency, but we stayed longer. We went to Liverpool, of course. Had to cross Abbey Road, y’know. And then we spent some time in Wales, which is where the most memorable thing happened. My abilities began to manifest, about three and a half years after I’d done my little “experiment.”
What is the next big thing?
Um, me, of course.
Reckoning
(The Many Deaths of Dynamistress, Book One)
by Vincent M. Wales
BLURB:
There is much disagreement about when super-powered metahumans began to appear. Most scientists believe the first births were in the '40s, perhaps the '30s, although there is a small (but vocal) minority claiming they have always been among us. More than anything else, young Dinah Geof-Craigs wanted to be one of them, to be famous, to be on the cover of Supers magazine. But puberty came and went without the meta-mutation that would imbue her with superhuman abilities. Mother Nature had cheated her of what she deserved. And that would simply not do.
In Reckoning - the first volume of a trilogy about the metahuman known as Dynamistress - award-winning author Vincent M. Wales (Wish You Were Here, One Nation Under God) gives us the memoir of the world's first self-made metahuman. But it is less a story of becoming a superhero than it is the story of a flawed woman becoming whole.
EXCERPT
My heart almost burst as I blurted it out. “You’re a mutant?”
He winced at the word. “Meta. I’m a meta.”
I was glad I was sitting down, or I might have fallen to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. “Show me!” I pleaded.
“Not so loud!” he said, and then I remembered the promise he’d asked of me. Our parents never had anything nice to say about metahumans. Not even the ones who clearly deserved to have nice things said about them.
Dana glanced at my dresser. Then, right before my eyes, my lip balm tube floated up into the air and over to me. When it dropped into my hand, I about peed myself. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. There was, despite Dana’s concerns, a hint of pride on his face. Pretty cool, huh?
Without thinking, I said, “Yeah!”
It was only after I’d replied that I realized his lips hadn’t moved. I’d heard his voice inside my head. And I boggled again. Telekinesis and telepathy! Dana had struck the mutant gene jackpot, as far as I was concerned.
Lucky bastard.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Vincent M. Wales was raised in the small town of Brockway, Pennsylvania, where he frequently complained about the weather. Since then, he has worn many hats, including writing instructor, suicide prevention crisis counselor, essayist, Big Brother, freethought activist, wannabe rock star, and award-winning novelist.
He spends most of his writing time in coffee shops, since his cats fail to grasp the entire concept of “writing time.”
He currently lives in Sacramento, California, where he frequently complains about the weather.
Website: www.vincentmwales.com
Blog: www.vincentmwales.com/wp/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/vmwales
Facebook:www.facebook.com/vmwales
Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7260379.Vincent_M_Wales
All purchase links: www.vincentmwales.com/reck.html
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GIVEAWAY
Vincent will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
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