Mystery author Nicole Givens Kurtz is chatting about her new sci-fi mystery, Fabricated: A Cybil Lewis SF Mystery.
During her virtual book tour, Nicole will be awarding a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn participant. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Nicole Givens Kurtz has been called “a genre polymath who does crime, horror, and Science Fiction and Fantasy (Book Riot).” She’s the recipient of the Ladies of Horror Grant, the HWA’s Diversity Grant, and a two-time Palmetto Scribe Award Winner (2021 and 2022) for her short stories and her novella. She’s written for Pseudopod, Apex, Fiyah, White Wolf, The Realm, Baen, Subsume, and MV Media. Nicole has over 50 published short stories, including her story, “The Way Home,” in Marvel®’s Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson anthology from Titan Books.
She has conducted workshops for Writer’s Digest Online, Clarion West online, SAGA, and is the owner of Mocha Memoirs Press. Nicole is professional level member of SFWA and HWA. You can find her at www.nicolegivenskurtz.net.
Welcome, Nicole. Please tell us about your current release.
My latest work, Fabricated: A Cybil Lewis SF Mystery, is the next installment in my Cybil Lewis SF Mystery series. Each novel is a standalone case, so they do not have to be read in order.
Cybil follows her own moral compass, but she definitely doesn’t work alone. She has a partner, Jane, and now Kimmila. In the future, the District, the former capital, District of Columbia, has become its own territory. In fact, the entire country has divided into territories with their own governing practices, laws, etc.
Agents from the Midwest Territory invite Cybil to help them locate a missing violator [prisoner]. Cybil reluctantly accepts, but as she investigates, she discovers all is not what it seems, and soon she’s swept up in a whirlwind of conspiracy, betrayal and death violations [murder].
Excerpt from Fabricated:
“Wakey. Wakey.” The voice sliced through my slumber.
I bolted awake beneath the cracking threat of danger too late. The laser gun was mere inches from my face. I peered down the barrel and into the crinkly eyes of the taxi pilot. He’d parked some place remote that I didn’t readily recognize. Abandoned dive bars and decaying vehicles meant no active video footage or feed. There wasn’t anything here but death by the smell of it. Finding him in the backseat with a gun to my face, in broad daylight too, set me on edge. Add that to the hot air blowing through the open door and I went from rested to furious.
A smile graced his face. “Get up. No sudden moves.”
I eased to an upright position, my hands in the air. As I did so, I noticed my shoulder felt lighter, and realized to my horror, my own laser gun was gone.
For once, I’d like Lady Luck to stop giving me the bad shit.
What exciting project are you working on next?
My next upcoming release is the third installment in my Kingdom of Aves series, a fantasy-mystery series featuring a matrilineal society of people classified by their bird clan. Magic, mystery, and murder unfold in the kingdom as Hawk Prentice Tasfia, she who sees the unseen, investigates a series of arsons in the capital city of Lanham. It is slated for release in 2026.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I considered myself a writer when I won a district level essay contest in tenth grade. I won $100 and my picture was in the newspaper. Then, I felt it was possible to earn a living at writing.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I have a day job where I am a program manager for a software company. I write during my lunch break, during the weekend, and on Thursdays when my writing group meets.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
One of my writing quirks is that I write by hand. It forces my brain to slow down. As I mentioned earlier, my day job involves a lot of screen time. When I get time to write, I don’t want to look at another screen.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a child, I wanted to be Wonder woman or a cowgirl. I loved boots and that’s where the Venn Diagram overlapped. LOL!
Links:
Website | Instagram | TikTok | BlueSky | Facebook | Buy Nicole a coffee at Ko-fi/nicolegkurtz
Thank you so much for featuring FABRICATED.
I appreciate you hosting Fabricated today!