Check out this author spotlight for Abigail Linhardt!
You can find all her links furthest down the page, and don’t forget to check out her books!
1. Hi! Welcome to my humble blog of all things bookish! I would like for us to start by getting to know you. Give us a short bio, please!
Abi has been a writer all her life, but is a mentor at heart. When she is not writing, you can find her slaying enemies online or hunting for the next bohemian adventure. She has published works of fiction, poetry, academia, and even won awards for her short stories in science fiction and horror.
Abi is also a proud mom of two…ferrets! She live streams on Twitch where you can enjoy her terrible gaming skills and join the live discussion. She works part-time as a freelance ghostwriter, editor, and audiobook narrator, hoping to one day make these passions her full-time job. She currently resides in Kansas.
She is one of nine children–all who share the creative spark.
2. To get to know you just a little bit better, I’d like to ask you some this or that questions. Answer 5 of these and explain why you chose this or that, or maybe an entirely different alternative!
Winter, spring, summer or autumn?
Autumn! Not only is it my birthday, but I love the cold air in warm sun. I’ve lived mostly in the American Mid West and we have wonderful autumns. If not colorful and cozy, then dark, dreary, and rainy! All good fuel for the imagination
 Cat or dog?
Dog 100%. Growing up, we had more than 20 barn at any given time and they never loved me like our hound dogs. The dogs would run in the fields with us and the cats couldn’t care less.
Tea or coffee?
Oddly, both! I love tea for its comforting and medicinal properties and coffee is part of my morning writing ritual.
Morning or evening?
Again, oddly, morning. But that’s because I wake up very early to write before I go to the dreaded Day Job. I do not wake easily, but those two hours in the morning and wonderful and precious to me.
Library or museums?
Don’t kill this writer, but I love museums far more! Museums prompt to libraries, if that makes sense. I love history and the stories of people in the past, the things they believed in, their myths and lore. That fuels my library hunts often.
Witches or wizards?
Witches! As a witch, I love the sisterly and feminine community. As a reader and writer, still witches, because they sexy and powerful. A real power fantasy.
Plotter or pantser?
I get very fired about this one so I will just say here: plotter.
Ninjas or pirates?
Anyone who knows me knows I MUST be watched at all times while near large bodies of water because the chances of me commandeering a ship, kayak or rowboat are VERY high. It’s a pirate’s life for me! My next tattoo is actually a pirate flag/ship with a quote from my Assassin’s Creed game.
Mountains or beaches?
Both! I’ve lived all over the US and I love the mountains (in Colorado) and the beaches. My fantasy life is to be able to travel between them whenever I wish and swim and climb to my heart’s content.
Pen and paper or computer/phone?
Computer. I used to write by hand and MANY of my ideas live on hand-written stickie notes all over my house. But my hand cannot move fast enough to keep up with my mind. I’d have never been a writer before computers/typewriters. I would have been a traveling bard who could speak my stories.
Standalone or series?
I’ve recently learned that little indie authors need standalones to sell themselves. Unless I could knuckle down and produce a quick, cheap series. But I can’t. I have a series right now underway, but I’m too determined for it to be the highest quality to make it fast and rapid release. Maybe one day I will do a quick release series to grow my audience. But for now, I think standalones and high quality series are good!
Book or ebook?
Book. Forever and always. I do own ebooks, but they are books I wasn’t sure about or ones I didn’t care enough to get eh physical copy of. I think if you like a book, not only do you read it more than once, but you buy the physical copy.
Hero or anti-hero?
I love anti-heroes. I write a lot of them. I’ve come to realize though that, as much as people say they love an anti-hero, they really do want a Good Guy main character. It’s hard to follow an honest anti-hero for several books. People want something easy and good. But I love my dark heroes and heroines.
3. When you look for books to read, what trope or type of story will always catch your attention?
The idea of searching by trope is new to me. I first encountered it my romance writing groups. But that makes sense to me. For tropes, I like to read what I write: strong, brooding, secretly affectionate men. I love leading men who struggle in their fights, are powerful and strong, but also can be tender. I think most men are like that and are underrepresented in literature. I love gritty stories but I love the occasional Highland romance novel!
4. What do you write? Tell us about your current projects and the latest happenings!
I write dark fantasy primarily. My main series, Season of the Runer, is a lot like The Witcher: dark, monsters, gray main characters, and lots of blood and violence. Also, necromancers. Most of my stories, like my supernatural YA horror coming out next year, involves ghosts and vampires. Even my romance novel, These Darker Streets which comes out in February, is dark fantasy.
I also write weird west or wild west steampunk (not sure what the masses call it). In July of this year (2022) I have a novel coming out in that genre. It’s experimental in a few other aspects but of course features dark characters and low magic. I have several short stories in this world that I am compiling into an anthology.
5. What is your most recent release? Give us a short presentation, cover, and a link for where to buy it!
In February, These Darker Streets comes out!
Universal link (which will be updated as we get closer to release date): https://books2read.com/thesedarkerstreets
This is a dark fantasy romance that takes place in modern day Ohio. It follows Brigit, who has lost all love of magic and no longer believes in love. She encounters Ildanach, a mysterious man tasked with protecting this side of the veil from the fairy folk. Together, they have the power to stop the god of the fairy underworld from taking souls before their time, if only Brigit can come to grips with the magic inside her.
6. What real-life inspiration do you draw from, and what are your primary fictional sources of inspiration (books, authors, films, music, etc.)? Name a few!
In real life, I draw mostly on my own struggles with isolation, living with clinical depression, and the tragedies that I have experienced. Like most, I also draw on real-life history as well for larger plots.
I draw excessively from films and music for characters, plot points, and flavor. I draw on books more for the technique. As someone with two English degrees, I read differently than most, looking for structure, flow, phrasing, symbolism—all that stuff your high school English teacher taught you that mattered. I don’t really have a favorite author as I like and dislike certain elements of everyone I read. If I HAD to pick a favorite, it would be Cornelia Funke just because of how closely her books and philosophy match that of Michael Ende, the master behind The Neverending Story—my favorite book.Â
7. What is your writing routine? If you have one, give us the run-down!
With the Day Job, I have to plan my time very carefully. I am not allowed to sneak in writing at the office, even if I have nothing to do. So I wake up between 5-5:30am to write before work. During my lunch break is when I work on freelance (I freelance edit, ghostwrite, and mentor through Fiverr and my personal website). When I get home from the Day Job, I record chapters for my audiobook clients. By then, it’s about 7pm. So I eat and play some video games to wind down. The freelance covers most of my own book production (editors, cover artists, narrators, and marketing) so it’s vital to my writing and books.
I’m very busy and it’s awful sometimes, but I’d not give it up for anything. Except maybe a full-time writing job, haha!
8. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice as you started out on the path to becoming an author, what would it be?
I’d tell 11-year-old me writing her Lord of the Rings rip off: “It is brilliant.” Too many authors these days are crippled in their search for originality. Bad writing is better than no writing. If you want to write a thirsty fanfiction—do it! Want to write just one scene of survival in the woods you imagined up—do it! You cannot make a blank page better, but a page with not good words on it can be easily made into a page with thrilling words on it.
I tell this to people when it comes to writer’s block, too. Write literally anything. It’s like exercise. Don’t wait for inspiration. Practice and it will just flow.
9. Last but not least: where can we find you? Drop those links!
I am everywhere!
