Belle Whittington

Today I have Belle Whittington author of Cicada in the spotlight!

Welcome to the blog Belle, What inspired you to write CICADA? 

There’s not any one thing that inspired me to write Cicada. I find inspiration in everything around me, and there are a lot of cumulative memories of inspiration from over the years that all culminated 

Growing up in Nacogdoches, the oldest town in Texas, afforded me summers full of adventure with my friends. I call on those adventures and memories a great deal for my YA stories. Cicada has a lot of the energy of those childhood adventures spun throughout. One of them is something that actually happened to me when I was thirteen years old. I was on one of my adventures in the woods with my dog, Dusty. We made our way through the woods to a neighboring pasture and crawled through the barbed wire fence. When we got to the top of one of the rolling hills in the grassy field, I realized I was standing in the middle of a giant circle imprinted in the pasture grass. No one had ever told me about crop circles at that time in my life, so I just thought it was an odd occurrence that there was a strange circle in the tall grass. Now that circle is forever memorialized in a YA novel, Cicada! 

Indie publishing- Why do you think it’s becoming so popular? 

Traditional gatekeepers (agents, etc.) have long held the power of setting trends of what was published and when it was published, thereby deciding for the masses what would be in vogue in the writing world. The pendulum has swung toward the readers and book bloggers/reviewers, who are now the new gatekeepers. I think Indie Publishing is becoming so popular because authors finally have a venue to publish their works without having to conform to what the traditional gatekeepers want. Indie authors are now able to offer readers a wider variety within each genre, which is better for the reader. Also, there are so many viable options for indie publishing available now, allowing authors to create quality books for readers. That’s my two-cents-worth! 

CICADA has become a movie, who is playing your main character and why? 

Oh, I really do love this question, because I actually have in mind a list of actors who could easily step into the shoes of my characters. By no means did I pattern my characters after these actors though. However, I feel they would fit the parts very well! How about I go a step further and show you who I think could fill all their shoes? Drum roll………..