Meet the Bastions: Kat and Stone Bastion Discuss NO WEDDINGS & More

We at Fresh Fiction are thrilled to interview writing duo (and happily married couple) Kat Bastion and Stone Bastion regarding their new contemporary romance series, No Weddings. Welcome, Kat and Stone!

First of all, thank you Pasha and Fresh Fiction for inviting us to interview with you. We’re thrilled and honored to be here.

It's our pleasure to host you! So let's get to it. You two have been married for over 20 years, and you are co-writing the No Weddings series. How did you decide to begin this project together?

Stone: Kat first tossed out the concept of the unique NO WEDDINGS story line. Then the discussion angled toward having a portion of the story told from male POV (point of view.) Kat suggested we write the series together. I agreed.

Kat: Yep. Over a great pizza dinner, we bantered back and forth about the entire four-book series, from titles to characters. The very next weekend, we started drafting NO WEDDINGS.

What does your process for writing as a team look like?

Stone: We sit in our writing cave. And I yell, “Squirrel!” often. (If you’ve seen the movie Up, you’ll know what I’m talking about.)

Kat: {laughs hard} I’m a very early morning person. By the time Stone wakes up, I’ve drafted thousands of words based on what we’ve discussed for scenes. Then we sit together to rework them and make sure we’re hitting all the important points, including nailing the male POV. (And Squirrel! is code in our world for “Don’t get distracted! Save that bad boy.” … as in: save the manuscript.) *grins*

What were the challenges in writing the No Weddings series?

Stone: Staring occasionally at a large wall corkboard covered in monthly calendar pages while keeping our sanity. The calendar pages are marked in four different colors that depict the deadlines for each book and where they overlap in the schedule. I do smile when I see on the calendar the release dates of the four books three weeks apart and realize that a much-needed vacation soon awaits.

Kat: Yeah. That. We’ve said repeatedly, “We signed up for this craziness, right?” With the four novels of the No Weddings series all releasing in such a tight timeframe, we’ve been juggling books and responsibility balls, doing our best not to drop anything. This year has been a wild marathon of writing. And I like your last sentence, Stone. {plans to dig toes in sand}

Tell us about Utterly Loved, your poetry book for charity.

Stone: Kat surprised me for our 20th wedding anniversary with a collection of poetry that she had written, each poem inspired by milestones in our lives. The second surprise was also a cool one. She asked me if it would be okay to share what in essence is something private with the world, publishing it and providing 100% of net proceeds to charity. I was overwhelmed and very grateful for the gift and impressed with her generous spirit.

Kat: The story of how UTTERLY LOVED came about is an interesting one as well. I’d never written any poetry prior to UTTERLY LOVED. Inspired by a post by Sylvain Reynard that included Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” my first poem unfurled into my mind, one line after another. That poem is “Heaven…Found.”

In addition, when I noticed Sylvain Reynard using his author platform for charity—at a time in my life when I’d been seeking to become a more selfless person—the idea clicked to share UTTERLY LOVED to benefit others. We approached Sylvain Reynard, and he was gracious enough to write the inspiring foreword.

After publishing UTTERLY LOVED, we decided a portion of the net proceeds of all the books we publish will be donated to charities, specifically those charities who fight against human trafficking and support its victims. A list of those charities can be found on the Charity page on our website and blog.

What is up next for you both, as a team and individually?

Stone: As a team, we’ve discussed and “squirreled” away notes on several romance series ideas and some thoughts on standalone novels. I think we will hold on to that large calendar corkboard for a while. *grins*

Individually, I’m creating an action-adventure novel that is requiring an extensive amount of research. Kat will surely become part of the process once I begin drafting and editing.

Kat: We have one more book in the No Weddings series, a steamy nightcap novella entitled For Valentine’s. It is scheduled to release January 5th.

I’m also very excited about the next projects we have lined up to create as a team. An entire spinoff series came to our minds as the No Weddings series took shape and the secondary characters came to vivid life, nearly stealing many of the scenes in No Weddings. Cade’s sisters Kiki and Kendall will get their own books, as will his best friend, Ben, and his roommate, Mase.

As for my own projects, Skorpius’s story is next up in the paranormal time-travel Highland Legend series. The book, BORN OF MIST AND LEGEND, is loosely scheduled for release in March of 2015.

Fresh Fiction readers want to know: When you aren’t writing, what do you like to read?

Stone: I’m somewhat all over the board on this one. Currently, I’m reading Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations translated by Maxwell Staniforth, some of the best collections I’ve read. Before that, was Wool by Hugh Howey, a great world builder. Romances I’ve recently read and enjoyed were Tangled by Emma Chase, Wallbanger by Alice Clayton, and Sylvain Reynard’s Gabriel’s Inferno and Gabriel’s Rapture. My guilty pleasure is anything written by Clive Cussler.

Kat: I’m an addict for everything Karen Marie Moning has written. Her Fever Series is my favorite series of all time—brilliant writing. I love reading paranormal romance from authors like Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter, and recently, Nalini Singh. And I’ve fallen in love with Meljean Brook’s The Iron Seas steampunk series. I also love Sylvain Reynard’s Gabriel’s Inferno series. My guilty pleasure? Kit Rocha’s dystopian erotic Beyond series.

Thank you again for having us on Fresh Fiction. Stone has a fantastic guest post that will appear shortly on the Fresh Fiction blog, so stay tuned for that treat. And we hope you all enjoy our upcoming No Weddings series.

Buy NO WEDDINGS on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iTunes. All digital purchases during pre-orders and the release-week launch are a promotional $0.99 and signed.