Seressia Glass’s proudest writing moment remains winning the first Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday “Living the Dream” essay contest as a high school senior and then getting to meet Coretta Scott King and read her essay to the King family. Since then, she’s gone on to write a motley crew of characters and creatures, including werewolves, djinn, demons, Egyptian deities, and jackal shapeshifters with a few humans thrown into the mix. No matter who or what she’s writing about, Seressia weaves in the universal themes of acceptance and being comfortable in one’s own skin. Her stories have won numerous awards, including an RT Reviewer’s Choice Award and Maggie Award of Excellence, and have been finalists in a variety of contests.

Daily Dragon (DD): Who is Kira Solomon?

Seressia Glass (SG): Kira Solomon is the protagonist of my urban fantasy series, Shadowchasers. She can “download” information from anything she touches and defuse its energy, including magic. This ability has a devastating impact on her interaction with humans. Once her abilities manifested, she was taken from her foster home and grew up in Gilead, the stronghold of Light, with its leader Balm, who is the physical embodiment of Light.

DD: What sorts of problems does Kira tackle?

SG: Kira’s day job is as an antiquities expert, but her true calling is being a Shadowchaser. Trained from youth to be one of the most lethal Chasers in existence, Kira serves the Gilead Commission, dispatching the Fallen who sow discord and chaos. Of course, sometimes Gilead bureaucracy is as much a thorn in her side as anything the Fallen can muster against her. When not Chasing the Fallen, she works on keeping the peace between the supernatural beings in her adopted home of Atlanta.

DD: Shifting from urban fantasy to paranormal romance, you wrote the Sons of Anubis series for Harlequin. Please tell us about that series.

SG: The Sons of Anubis are jackal shapeshifters—they have a human form and a jackal form. Millennia ago, the god Anubis called jackals from the grasslands beyond the Great Western Desert and imbued them with his power, giving them the ability to assume human form and charging them to aid him in his duties as lord of the underworld, mainly by protecting the living from the undead who refused to complete the journey through the Underworld to the afterlife.

Helping them do this were the Daughters of Isis, priestesses adept in magic. For thousands of years they worked together, lived together. Some even loved together. Then their alliance was destroyed by betrayal, and the two groups have been enemies ever since.

DD: What inspired you to use Egyptian mythology in your work?

SG: I’ve always been fascinated by ancient Egypt: its history and its mythology. Even as a kid I would watch whatever documentaries I could. So I’d say it was a natural fit to use Egyptian mythology to flavor my take on the paranormal and urban fantasy genres.

DD: You also write contemporary romance, the Sugar & Spice series and the Billionaire Boxers (as Mallery Malone). How does building those series worlds differ from building the Egyptian-themed ones?

SG: I would say my contemporary romances don’t require nearly as much research! The Sugar & Spice series is set in a fictional California coastal town. The Billionaire Boxers are set in New Orleans, a town I love and have visited numerous times. For my Egyptian-themed series I’ve taken courses at the Michael C. Carlos Museum on Atlanta’s Emory University campus. I’ve read Petrie, gotten information from the Great Courses, and have a stack of research books.

DD: What are those series about?

SG: The Sugar & Spice series revolves around four friends in various stages of recovery from prescription and illegal drug abuse, alcoholism and other addictions as they navigate life and love in the fictional California town of Crimson Bay. It’s a progressive college town so I people it with a diverse population of people just being themselves.

DD: Why did you decide to use a pseudonym for the Billionaire Boxers?

SG: It was part of an experiment. I wanted a completely separate nom de plume that wasn’t necessarily ethically identifiable. Although I have the Sugar & Spice series now, my legal name is associated with primarily African American characters. I wanted to see what sort of success I could have writing non-black characters under a non-black name.

DD: Your blog says you’ve fallen in love with planners. What draws you to them?

SG: The promise of organizing my life! Sometimes you wonder how you spent/wasted a day, and a planner can help you track your activities, hold you accountable, and give you a sense of accomplishment when you mark a task completed! I also attempt to track health stats, daily word counts, and mood as well as meetings and stages in a project for my day job.

I’m also old school, so writing things down makes them more concrete for me than typing them into an electronic calendar. And I get to pretty the pages, so it’s also another creative outlet!

DD: What’s next for you?

SG: After I finish the Sugar & Spice series (with Naughty and Nice), I plan to begin research for a Young Adult fantasy series that takes place in a magical medieval Meroe, featuring twin princesses thrust into the spotlight when their mother, the Kandake, is killed.

I also plan to return to the Shadowchasers universe with another three-book arc, beginning with Shadow Hunt, and my Sons of Anubis series is calling to me. I would love to expand from novella length and add in more world-building and mythology, as well as introduce new characters. I mean, if I have Sons of Anubis and Daughters of Isis, why can’t I have Children of Set who are vampires?

DD: Thanks for your time!

SG: Thank you!

For more information about Seressia Glass and her books, visit her website, https://seressia.com/.