With me today is author Jennie Dorny, whose latest book Hybrids (volume 1) is available now in paperback or in ebook formats. You can order a copy online here: Hybrids Today she’s sharing #TenThings she’d like her readers to know about her including her love of African dancing, celebrating her white hair and the joy of writing.
- Writing brings joy. It brings balance. It fills me with mental vitamins. I haven’t faced so far the problem of the blank page. My problem is that I don’t have enough time during the day to write (as I work full-time).
- Right now, I am rewriting in English a novel I wrote in French over ten years ago. I plan on publishing the two versions simultaneously in 2021. And as I translate, I am thinking of a sequel that could take place ten years later. This is a contemporary novel about love and gender in all their facets – themes similar to those found in Hybrids.
- The visual world – in a very extended spectrum that includes movies, TV series, travels, seascapes and landscapes, as well as gardens – is a wide source of inspiration.
- I’ve travelled in many countries. I visited Ireland several times, starting at 16. I lived in Dublin for a year. Here are some of the places I visited so far for pleasure: Norway, Poland, Italy, Scotland, India, Spain, The Netherlands, Kosovo, Belgium, Japan, Canada. I travel also for my work.
- I visited Calcutta’s botanical gardens under pouring rain (late June, close to the monsoon season). Another time, I explored during a drizzly afternoon the South Park Street Cemetery and Bhowanipore Cemetery. I felt at peace among the soothing quietness of trees, leaves and grass. Calm moments far away from this noisy city.
- Besides English and French, my maternal and paternal languages, I also speak Italian, and I studied Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and French sign language.
- My African dance class is one of my weekly highlights – a dynamic and fun hour and a half. Our professor comes from the Ivory Coast. We dance, always as a group, to both traditional music (generally drums – djembe – for the beat and rhythm) and contemporary music. The moment the music starts, my heart, my brain, my whole body are already dancing!
- I have three female cats, all adopted, two from a shelter, and one – the youngest, Lulu – that I found on my way to work. She was tiny, stuck with a highway behind her and an avenue before her, and moaning with some desperation. Lulu turned out to be a lovely cat with very soft, long hair. She remains small, but she possesses an indomitable character. Every day, she challenges one of the older cats and delights in ambushing the shy other.
- My first strands of white hair appeared when I was 16. My hair has been white since I was 25. I love it. I could never imagine dyeing it.
- I enjoy cooking and inventing recipes.
From the back of the book
She sought refuge on an ocean-covered planet. She didn’t learn its codes until too late. Now she must leave to survive.
Theo’s dreams of exploring distant lands are cut short when her father betrays her.
On the run, she flees to Eridan, where Washone, the spiritual leader, is expecting her. As she is about to reach this ocean-covered planet inhabited by telepaths, she is kidnapped by a bounty-hunter. Ashta, an Eridani Savalwoman, befriends Theo, rescues her, and they land together on Eridan.
While Theo trains to become a Savalwoman – a warrior – bleak memories of past hurts relentlessly disrupt her attempts to trust herself and others.
She is unaware of her own mental powers, so when she believes that she has been betrayed once again – this time by Ashta – she nearly destroys her friend’s mind in a fit of wounded rage that blazes across the planet.
To protect Theo from those who, like ambitious Keith of Rain Forest, would like to use her powerful mind for their benefit, Washone decides that she must leave Eridan.
Can Theo convince Washone to let her stay? Or will she have to leave her new friends and go on the run again, with no place to go?
About the author
Jennie Dorny was born in 1960 in Newton, Massachusetts. She lives and works in Paris with her three cats. She is both French and American. She studied American literature and civilization, Italian and history of art at three Parisian universities. She wrote her Master’s thesis about contemporary Irish poetry after spending a year in Dublin. She loves words and languages, and she can spend hours exploring a thesaurus. Over the years, she has studied Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and sign language, and recently took up Italian again. She has published in French Gambling Nova (1999), Eridan (2002) and Les Cupidons sont tombés sur la tête (Mischievous Cupids gone Crazy, 2007). Gambling Nova and Eridan are partial, earlier versions of Hybrids; science-fiction novels that in many ways deal with the question of gender.
Find more at www.jenniedorny.com and feel free to join the club.
Like Jennie Dorny’s Facebook page: facebook.com/Jennie-Dorny-Author-Auteur-
Instagram: @jenniedornyauthor
You can visit the blog that Jennie kept for about ten years, which serves as a picture memory of the various places she has visited:
http://lescupidons.canalblog.com/
Portobello Book Blog 