Guest POST: Tamworth Grice (aka @tamworthgrice)

Hello everyone. I am Tamworth Grice’s Evil Twin. Recently, we sat down together for an interview. Here’s a transcript of that talk:


Evil Twin: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Tammy.
Tamworth Grice: Please don’t call me Tammy. You know I don’t like it.
Evil Twin: Oh, sorry. (Malicious snicker) Tell us about yourself.
Tamworth Grice: I don’t like to talk about myself too much, because I like to keep the focus on the book. But here are some stats: I’ve got brown hair and eyes. I wear glasses because I’m blind as a bat without them. I live in the western part of the U.S. I love animals, although I don’t have a pet right now. I’m still mourning the passing of my beloved dog and cat—
Evil Twin: (Interrupting) So what is your book about?
Tamworth Grice: It’s about an eighteen-year-old girl who thinks her favorite rock star is sending her messages through his music to kill people. She’s going through a very difficult time: her father has died, the family has suffered economically, she’s at her third school in two years, she’s taking summer-school classes to make up credits so she can graduate, she’s dealing with living in a new town where she doesn’t know anyone, and so on. She fixates on Ian Magick, a “bad boy” rock star with a sort of Satanic image, because his music seems to speak to her. And then she begins to think that literally he’s speaking to her.
Evil Twin: Sounds boring as hell. Except the Satanic part, of course. What inspired you to write this book?
Tamworth Grice: Several things. I read about how Ozzy Osbourne had been sued by a father whose son committed suicide. Osbourne had a song called “Suicide Solution,” and a depressed teenager played the song as he shot himself in the head. The family said Osbourne was subliminally, through his music, telling his fans to kill themselves. Osbourne won the case, but the idea of rock stars sending subliminal messages intrigued me.
Evil Twin: That’s it? That’s all that inspired you? How dull.
TG: That’s not the only thing. At around the same time, I got two DVDs from the library. One was a docu-drama about Frank Sinatra, and I was fascinated by the behavior of his fans. These girls—who were called the “Bobby Soxers” —would scream, cry, scratch their faces, and tear their clothes off at his concerts. Some writers described it as “wartime hysteria.” This was during World War Two when the girls’ fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and husbands were literally risking death on the battlefield. So I put the subliminal messages idea together with the concept of a girl who fixates on a rock star at a difficult time in her life.
ET: (Yawns)
TG: And the other DVD was about Charles Manson.
Evil Twin: (Perks up) Now that’s interesting. Tell me about that.
Tamworth Grice: I was intrigued by the fact that Manson—this little and kind of creepy-looking guy—had such personal charisma and such a hold over his followers that they would even kill for him. I would maybe understand if they killed people when Manson was right there, thinking it was “kill or be killed.” But he wasn’t even there for the murders. And the victims were innocent people Manson didn’t even know—so there was no motive for the murderers of avenging a slight against their leader. Plus, Manson was a rock-star wannabe. So all three ideas—Osbourne’s subliminal messages, Sinatra’s charisma, and Manson’s murderers—came together in Listening to Ian Magick.
Evil Twin: I wish we had more time to talk about Manson. . . .
Tamworth Grice: Would you like to hear about what I’m working on next?
Evil Twin: Not really. But tell me anyway.
Tamworth Grice: My next book is about a Goth girl whose estranged older brother, a cop, dies under mysterious circumstances.
Evil Twin: Anything about Satan in that one?
Tamworth Grice: You’ll have to wait and see.
Evil Twin: (Groans) Well, that wraps up our interview. (Dismissively) Good bye.
Tamworth Grice: Wait. You didn’t say how to get the book—
Evil Twin: I said we’re done.
Tamworth Grice: (Speaking quickly) The book is called Listening to Ian Magick . . .
Evil Twin: It’s over.
Tamworth Grice: . . .and it’s available through Amazon as an eBook for Kindle at ninety-nine cents.
Evil Twin: (Angrily) That does it! (Vanishes in a puff of smoke)
Tamworth Grice: Uh, um, well, thank you for the interview, Evil Twin. Bye


Tamworth is giving away a copy of her book too!! You know the rules! You MUST be a follower, you must tweet "Happy Birthday Week @luvlovemedew!! I want a copy of LISTENING TO IAN MAGICK by @Tamworthgirce hellota-ta.blogspot.com!" last but not least...you must comment with email and GFC name!