Hello Ms. Bacarr and welcome to Fallen Angel Reviews. Thank you for taking time to do this interview.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

You're asking an Irish lass to tell you a little bit about herself? That's like asking one of the wee people not to play tricks on you. As you can guess, I'm Irish -- the red hair and green eyes usually give me away, but it's the gift of the gab that does me in every time. Like most of my countrymen, I can never keep my two feet from dancing. I've danced around the world: I've lived in Europe, traveled to nearly every state in the U.S., and studied and worked in Japan. I live in Southern California now, close enough to the ocean to fill my lungs with salt air and my spirit with dreams of faraway places when the hankering for the sea gets to me.

How long have you been writing?

I've been writing since I read my first fairy tale as a little girl and I wanted to change the ending (It was The Twelve Dancing Princesses -- I wanted the youngest princess to keep dancing!)

Have you ever based one of your characters on yourself?

All the time! I'm working on a story now about a playwright -- I just had my third play produced, so I'm using my theater background in shaping her character.

Do you set goals with your writing career?

I set short and long term goals. What I mean is, short-term re: finishing a project by a certain deadline; long term re: writing fiction and nonfiction books. My new nonfiction book comes out in May, The Japanese Art of Sex" How to Tease, Seduce, and Pleasure the Samurai in Your Bedroom, and my long-term goal is to write more fiction.

Do you have a favorite book that you written?

I believe most authors love the book they're writing at that moment. It's like being in a play -- you're living in that character's skin so you tend to make that story your primary focus.

Do you have a favorite author, and if so who is that author?

Another tough question -- I love Janet Evanovich. Her Stephanie Plum heroine is sassy yet vulnerable. I love her humor. If she's not Irish, she should be.

How long does it usually take you to finish a book?

From the idea to "The End?" Oh, my, that can take anywhere from six months to years. Some books take shape quickly, the writing, etc., but selling them or revising them often takes longer.

What do you consider to be the hardest part of writing?

Knowing when you're ready to get that first draft down on paper -- what I mean is getting an idea, playing with dialogue, thinking about the story, oh, this is going to be such fun! you tell yourself. You sit down, the computer screen lights up, and you jump right in without thinking it through. Ker-plunk! you sink to the bottom, your idea stalled because you don't know enough about your characters, your story, your research.

An acting teacher once told me re: getting into character: "Know where your character has been before you walk out on that stage." It's true in writing, too.

You write for many different genres do you have a favorite to write for?

Chick lit -- I discovered my penchant for humor in the seventh grade when Sister Carmela Marie at St. Michael's told me to stop writing jokes in my essays or she was gonna flunk me: when I worked as a law clerk and the attorneys in the office enjoyed my humorous side notes more than the briefs I wrote; when I wrote stand-up for a famous comedienne and the pay was so awful I had to schlep cocktails at the club to pay the bills.

I know you speak many different languages, what was the hardest to learn?

Japanese -- I learned to speak "male" Japanese when I did commercials à la Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. When I was interviewed by a Tokyo financial newspaper for one of my Japanese books, I asked the secretary something in Japanese -- what I said was very risqué though I didn't know it -- she was so shocked she ran out of the room. I enrolled in Japanese language school after that and learned proper Japanese, though I'm still not anywhere near fluent. It's a very difficult language.

Do you have a biggest fan, and if so who is it?

It's got to be a leprechaun who keeps moving his pot of gold so I can't find it and I haveta keep writing.

Is there something you would like to do but haven't yet?

I wanna be on Oprah!!! I've had my old home movies on Oprah, my Christmas tradition on Oprah, but I haven't been live in studio on the show…yet.

Was it difficult to write the book Chiva given the subject matter?

I've been involved with helping teens since my play "Crystal Girl" was produced (I won a Prism Certificate Award for my website from the EIC [Entertainment Industries Council] and National Institute on Drug Abuse)-- a Prom Queen wannabe sells her soul to the Devil (crystal meth) to get thin; Chiva is the story of a teenage boy who is hooked on chiva, black tar heroin. Both drugs take away young lives, something I saw all too frequently in my years working in criminal defense. Yes, it was hard to write Chiva, but I wanted to tell this story to help teens learn the danger of drugs and also to show the strength and importance of friendships in overcoming our fears (the hero's best friend OD's and he comes back as a ghost to help him kick his drug habit).

Can you tell me what you are currently working on?

A coupla Chick Lit projects -- The G-Spot Chronicles (a playwright interviews women about their G-spots and writes a play about it) and The Spy Who Dumped Me, (based on my adventures in Rome with a Soviet major).

Is there anything you would like to add?

Thank you for having me! There's an old Irish saying (which I just made up) -- you can warm your hands and feet beside a fire, but you enflame your soul with passion when you read a book!

Read, read, read…

Thank you again Jina, for taking time to do this interview. I had a lot of fun.

Interviewed by:
Jill