April Daniels graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in literature. She completed her first manuscript by scribbling a few sentences at a time between calls while working in the customer support department for a well-known video game console. Her debut novel, the YA superhero adventure Dreadnought (Diversion Books), was published on January 24, 2017.
On your nightstand now:
Just today I came back from the library with Bad Bishop by Irene Soldatos and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I am heroically terrible at picking favorites, but if I had to, I'd pick Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which I began rereading the moment I finished. This is the first book I can remember rereading at all, much less immediately.
Your top five authors:
Madeline Ashby, Antony Beevor, Holly Black, Warren Ellis, Glen Cook.
Book you've faked reading:
Virtually the entire literature curriculum at U.C. Santa Cruz. I was reading all the time, just not my assignments. Somehow I graduated with a fairly strong GPA. Depending on how you look at things, I'm either a terrible student or a really frighteningly good one.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Not a book, but a concept. (See above about my difficulty picking favorites--and Harry Potter does not need people sticking up for him.)
Authors must read nonfiction. The broader your understanding of the real world, the better your books will be. To an extent, this can only be done by living--by trying new things, stepping beyond your comfort zone and so on. But there are many things, especially with regard to historical events or activities you just won't have access to, that you can best learn about by reading.
Fiction is fun and I love it, and I would never say stop reading fiction, but if you want to be an author you need to be reading at least 50% nonfiction, and it should probably be higher than that. If you've got writer's block, nonfiction is how you unblock yourself. Conversely, if all you read is fiction--especially if all you read is the genre you work in--then your writing will become ever more inbred and flimsy. You'll notice this, and that will block you.
Read nonfiction.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Charles Stross's Saturn's Children. I think I've got to be the only person on Earth who actually liked the cheesy sex robot cover, but then again my judgment in these matters is notoriously suspect.
Book you hid from your parents:
I never had to do this. My mom was notably laissez-faire about what I read. As long as I was reading, she was happy. And how did I use this gift? I squandered it! I was such a goody two-shoes! Think of all the horrible things I could have been getting into behind her back, and I passed them all up! Don't be like me, kids! Be a delinquent while you still can! Once you're old it's not contraband, it's just trash!
Book that changed your life:
Julia Serano's Whipping Girl. Look, it's not perfect. And with almost a decade of hindsight, its flaws glare ever brighter. But you know, there aren't many books out there about being a trans woman that don't present it as some inevitable and inescapable tragedy. When I found this book, I was homeless, living in a very sketchy situation and completely at a loss about what I was going to do or how I was going to survive to the end of the year. Whipping Girl gave me a sense of dignity and hope that I could find a way to survive and prosper. So, uh, yeah. Recommended.
Favorite line from a book:
I can't repeat it here, my publicist would kill me.
Five books you'll never part with:
Over and over I tried to understand this question. Over and over I failed. I live a quarter mile from Powell's. Why limit myself to five?
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Black Company by Glen Cook. No other book electrified me the way this one did. It was everything I'd been missing in fantasy. The Lady remains my favorite character ever, and I loved this book so much that it broke me out of a two-year stretch of writer's block--I had to write something in response, I had to see if I could measure up. Of course I couldn't, but that's okay, because this book already exists.
What you would wish if you could wish for anything:
To have one of those cool full-body prosthetics from Ghost in the Shell. Maybe with, like, color-changing hair or something. That'd be badass.
