Multi-genre author Mayra Calvani has been a reviewer for ten years. She’s the author of the supernatural thrillers, Embraced by the Shadows and Dark Lullaby. A regular contributor to Blogcritics Magazine, she’s also a member of Broad Universe, Authors Coalition, and The Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators. Visit her website at: www.MayraCalvani.com. For her children’s books, visit www.MayrasSecretBookcase.com. Mayra also keeps a blog, The Dark Phantom Review, where she regularly posts reviews and author interviews. To learn more about The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing, visit www.slipperybookreview.wordpress.com.

Thank you for this interview, Mayra.  Can you tell us a little about yourself and how long you’ve been writing?

I’m a Puerto Rico native, multi-genre author who loves to dabble into horror, suspense, paranormal, fantasy, satire, and nonfiction, from adults to young adults to children’s picture books. I have a BA in Creative Writing and have lived in various countries, an experience that has deeply influenced my writing. I’m also a book reviewer and interviewer for Blogcritics and my own blogs, Mayra’s Secret Bookcase (www.mayrassecretbookcase.blogspot.com) and The Dark Phantom Review (www.thedarkphantom.wordpress.com).

I’ve been writing since I was about 12 - short stories and novellas which were passed around the class during lesson time, and plays that were produced for the end of the school shows. This was pretty much at secondary school level. I wrote my first novel during my sophomore year of high school. Needless to say, that never got published! Back then, I was influenced by Barbara Cartland and Agatha Christie, my two biggest ‘mentors’ during my early teens. I read their novels ravenously. I had the entire Christie collection of books translated into Spanish. I continued writing through college and it was then that I began writing seriously for small literary magazines. Those days I mostly wrote short fiction of the literary type. My tastes turned more eclectic and I became a big fan of Tama Janowitz, Robert Penn Warren, and Kate Chopin. Warren’s amazing novel, The Cave, as well as Chopin’s The Awakening, were revelations to me. It was later in my mid-twenties that I began to concentrate on writing novels, but it wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that I published my first book - which actually was the fourth book I wrote. So if you count those first attempts in middle school, I’ve been writing for almost thirty years. 

Do you write full-time?

Yes, I do, though I wish I were more of a disciplined writer. Being able to make your own schedule has its disadvantages, as I often get distracted by housework and other family-related errands. My house is often messy, but I’ve come to realize that a messy house is part of the life of a wife/mother author. There are those times when you have to choose between doing laundry and writing that chapter, and if you’re serious about writing, you better choose that chapter!