Hello, from Pennsylvania! From Cindy Speer

I am really happy to be able to talk about my state!  I grew up here, and have lived here all my life.  That does not mean I’ve not traveled…I’ve road tripped across the US and into Canada several times, and while I have seen wonders that fill the heart with such joy at their beauty, I find that I love this area the most.  I love how very green it is – the deep forests, the limestone rocks and their random formations, the roller coaster hills.  This part of PA has the Appalachian Mountain chain running through it, so flat we are not. 

I live in a valley a bit away from people…on a very hilly bit of land.  When the windows are open and if it’s been raining, there is a creek (crick, if you are from this part of the state) that runs and you can listen to the water, which is so soothing to my heart.  Right now we are waiting for a good frost so that the leaves turn bright, but it is still fairly green here, fairly warm for late September.

My modern stories…Blue Moon and Unbalanced take place in south western PA.  Libby from Blue Moon shops in Uniontown, Andromeda from Unbalanced works out of the Pittsburgh office, her boyfriend Alaistair owns a storefront that can be along any of the river towns that fill the area.  (We have three rivers – the Monongahela runs not far from my house, and there’s the Youghiogheny and the Ohio) and Alex, the protagonist from Blue Moon gets tied up, movie villain style, on train tracks that could have run along any of those rivers. 

Those elements seem so very normal and every day to me, but I know from my travels that other parts of the US are quite different.  Right now I hear the night bugs chittering away through my open window.  The barge works down at the river booms as something is sent into the water of the Mon.  One of the long coal trains wails its warning as it trundles through the dark.  The leaves will fall, the bugs will be silent, but the boom and wail will continue on, muffled as my windows close against the cold, but still there.

They don’t have much to do with my most recent book, though a river divides the lands of the Fae and Human, and it is airships, not trains, the dominate the land.  But I suspect the deep forests of the north are the deep forests of my Laurel Highlands, the green gold light through the trees the same I have seen on many occasions as I drive through the forest roads and home.

If you would like to catch up with me sometime, please visit my webpage, www.cindylynnspeer.com – there you will find links to my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, though if you search for me by my fill name I am sure you will find my easily.