I am so pleased to welcome JA McLachlan to Plain Talk. JA is the author of a short story collection, Connections and the scifi novel The Occasional Diamond Thief.
I’m so pleased to be meeting you, and I’d like to thank Gillian and Sherrian for having me here on Plain Talk BM, today. This blog tour is part of my online launch of The Occasional Diamond Thief, and I’ll have something different at each stop – book excerpts, author and character reveals, vlogs, reviews and blog posts – for you to enjoy. You can find The Occasional Diamond Thief at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NF9NYJM And you can find me at: http://www.janeannmclachlan.com
I once heard an interesting idea – that the first thing you remember is the birth of your identity. I assume that means that this is the birth of our self-awareness, our self-consciousness, because you have to be self-aware in order to remember. You are no longer passively taking things in, but consciously noticing them, recording them in your memory from a point of view – yours.
But it’s also the beginning of our identity. Self awareness, having a personal point of view, implies a singular identity, because it includes WHAT we remember. What is so important to you that it actually brings into existence that first spark of self-awareness, that first recorded memory? And why is it so important to you?
My first memory is of my older sister reading to me. We are in her room (a rare treat in itself, being allowed inside her room) and she has brought down one of her books from the shelf in her closet, while I wriggle in anticipatory excitement on her bed. Then she is lying on the bed beside me, reading to me. It’s a chapter book, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series. She tells me how lucky I am to be hearing this story for the first time. I lie still while she reads. I am very grown up, five or six years old. I remember feeling a little surprised and awed by my unexpected good fortune.
It isn’t surprising to me that I remember the attention from my older sister, or even being read to: it’s that I remember the books themselves, the titles, the characters, even some of the words. As though the very words were crucial, the stories themselves becoming part of me, important enough to make me notice, to make me become aware of myself noticing, to strike that spark of self-awareness in me.
By the time I was seven, I was writing very short stories, and bad but rhyming poems. But I was a writer before that. I was a writer the day I became aware that I was in love with words. Our first memory is our identity.
I think the actual book is as important as the memory of the reading. The magic and the mystery of Narnia captured my imagination. Speculative fiction has been my favorite genre all my life, which is why I write it now. And young adult science fiction, like my novel, The Occasional Diamond Thief, probably evolved out my love of those earliest book about the children’s adventures in Narnia.
What’s your first memory? Why do you think that’s the first thing you remember? What does it say about who you are?
Check here for the other places I’ll be from May 18th until May 29th:http://yaboundbooktours.blogspot.ca/2015/03/blog-tour-sign-up-occasional-diamond.html
The Occasional Diamond Thief by J.A. McLachlan
Release Date: 05/15/15
Synopsis
The Occasional Diamond Thief is the tale of Kia, who is courageous and practical with a quirky sense of humor, and a loner.
When 16-yr-old Kia is training to be a translator, she is co-opted into travelling to Malem. This is the last place in the universe that Kia wants to be — it’s the planet where her father caught the terrible illness that killed him — but it’s also where he got the magnificent diamond that only she knows about. Kia is convinced he stole it, as it is illegal for any off-worlder to possess a Malemese diamond.
Even worse, Kia must translate for Agatha, who is as different from Kia as it’s possible for two people to be – Agatha is idealistic, naïve, and compassionate.
Using her skill in languages – and another skill she picked up, the skill of picking locks – Kia unravels the secret of her father’s mysterious gem and learns what she must do to set things right: return the diamond to its original owner. But how will she find out who that is when no one can know that she, an off-worlder, has a Malemese diamond? Can she trust the new friends she’s made on Malem, especially handsome but mysterious 17-year-old Jumal, to help her?
And will she solve the puzzle in time to save Agatha, the last person she would have expected to become her closest friend?
Add The Occasional Diamond Thief to your Goodreads shelf.
Purchase The Occasional Diamond Thief on Amazon
About the Author
JA McLachlan was born in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of a short story collection, CONNECTIONS, published by Pandora Press and two College textbooks on Professional Ethics, published by Pearson-Prentice Hall. But science fiction is her first love, a genre she has been reading all her life, and Walls of Wind is her first published Science Fiction novel. Her new science fiction novel is The Occasional Diamond Thief. She is represented by Carrie Pestritto at Prospect Agency.
Contact the Author:
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