It wasn’t easy but, to my delight, today on the blog I managed to get an interview with Marci Guerrero.

Marci is a 16-year-old girl who lives in Seattle. She’s a black belt in karate, loves to ride motorcycles—recently bought her first one, btw—and has mad computer skills, so mad that in hacker circles she’s considered the one to beat. Among all these qualifications, Marci is also the protagonist of Ignite the Shadows, a young adult science fiction novel by Ingrid Seymour ( a.k.a. me 🙂 )

Thanks for agreeing to an interview, Marci!

Sure. I’ll give it a try, I guess.

So Marci. I’m a huge reader and always try to make time for books. With all your extracurricular activities, do you find time to read?

Hell yeah. Love to read. Sci-Fi, fantasy, thrillers . . . that sort of stuff. Gives me a nice break from all the crap life throws my way.

So who’s your favorite author?

My favorite author is really a poet, Paulo Neruda. I have Dad’s copy of “Neruda: Selected Poems” and I read it all the time. Dad admired him because Neruda was Chilean, like grandpa was. It’s our heritage, you know, but that isn’t the only reason. Neruda is wicked talented. If you read his poems—I mean really read them—his words will touch you. And if you’re a romantic, well, then you’ll be lost for good. So yeah.

Do you have a boyfriend?

No. I don’t. Don’t have time for a boyfriend. Boys are too much to handle. I see it with Xave and he’s just a friend. He’s all grunts and enigmatic half sentences. He drives me crazy most of the time. I’m sure a boyfriend would be like Xave times ten or something.

What was the scariest moment of your life?

That’s easy. It was the day of my five-year-old birthday party.

I remember that day as if it was yesterday. It was the first birthday where I had a real party, a princess party with tiaras, pink tutus and all the girls from my kindergarten class.

We were playing “pin the scepter on the queen.” Mom blindfolded me and after only a few steps, shadows seemed to crawl up my eyes and into my brain. I started screaming, pulling at my hair, cursing with words I’d only heard grow-ups say. Dad scooped me up in his arms, tore the blindfold from my face and asked what was wrong.

When I saw all those pink tutus running away, I lost it. I started crying, gasping for air. Dad stuck his face in front of mine. He steadied me with his eyes and reassuring words. To this day, just thinking about those shadows and all that freakin’ pink still puts my hairs on end.

That does sound quite scary and . . . weird. Um, what is something people would be surprised to know about you?

I guess that I’m a hacker. Well, no, that’s a lie. I wouldn’t like for anyone to know I’m a hacker, but I’d survive that. No big deal. The truth is that there’s something else, something no one, and I mean no one, knows. Not Mom, not Xave. No one! And if they found out, I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t look them in the eye again because they would hate me and fear me and shun me forever. Yeah, they’d be surprised all right. Sorry, next question, please.

Okay, no problem. Let’s see . . . why don’t you tell us about your family

My family . . . Well, I feel my family was . . . never meant to be. When my twin brother and I were born, I guess there was a moment during which that word meant something. FAMILY . . . sounds like a big, lost dinosaur or something. Ha! But for us, being a family didn’t last, maybe a few hours—at most. ‘Cause right away we were torn apart. Dad and Max were . . . they didn’t . . . Anyway, now there’s only Mom and I, and I’m just not enough for her, never have been . . . she just . . . You know what? Never mind, I don’t want to talk about it. It hurts too damn much! I’m sorry. This interview was a terrible idea, I don’t want to answer any more questions.

I understand. No problem. I’m very glad you took the time to be here with us. We’ll just have to learn more about you on April 23th, 2015 when Ignite The Shadows comes out. Can’t wait!