New Contributor Onboard

You may have caught previous posts by other new contributors introducing themselves, so I thought I’d take their leads and do the same. I’m excited about participating with such a diverse and interesting group of writers on Paranormal Romantics.

I write as Mimi Sebastian, but my real name is Noemi Ghirghi. Mimi is actually my childhood nickname, and Sebastian came from a place we used to fish when I was a kid growing up in Florida called Sebastian Inlet on the Atlantic Coast. I spent some great times with family fishing and camping on the coast and definitely miss the ocean. I spent entire days with my brother floating on a raft out past the breaking waves, and now I live in the desert. Not sure how that happened, but here I am in Phoenix, Arizona with my family, working my day job in addition to juggling this writing gig.

Before coming to Phoenix, I lived and worked in Brazil, and before that, I served in the Peace Corps in West Africa. I love immersing myself in other cultures. It’s an amazing world with amazing people. I often include little tidbits from my travels in my stories. A short story that I’m going to release this month, based off my Necromancer Series, is set in Brazil where I worked. The story, titled The Werewolf’s Devotion, focuses on one of the minor characters, a werewolf named Brandon.

I’m pretty much a geek, and aside from coffee, have a serious addiction to movies, fantasy, sci fi, comics, and the paranormal. I have always loved a good atmospheric horror story or movie. Before cable tv, I used to watch these crazy horror movies on Saturday mornings after the cartoons on the local non-network channels. I’d close myself off in our guest room and watch them while gnawing on my fingernails.

I’m drawn to the paranormal because we know very little about our world, and maybe I watched too much Scooby Doo and read too much Nancy Drew, yet we’ve only scratched the surface of understanding about this planet and the greater universe. Animals have senses that we don’t have and can see the world differently. (I have this fantastic Amazon parrot and she has this sixth sense about things.) Mysteries about our planet are fascinating. (Remember In Search Of??? Leonard Nimoy!!) What are UFOs? What are ghosts? What do these mysteries tell us about our world? These questions inform much of my writing.

Since I can remember, as a kid, I always wrote in journals, wrote short stories, and always had movies playing out in my head. I guess it was inevitable that I’d eventually write out one of those stories and that it would involve the paranormal. I didn’t think I’d write about a necromancer, but as Ruby, the necromancer, spoke to me, I found her and her power intriguing. Her power almost has a mind of its own and influences her in negative ways. And there are definitely limits set, lines that a necromancer should never cross, because it warps them, so it’s fun to explore what happens to her when she crosses those lines. In my mythology, without giving too much away, necromancers were born from the interference of the demons in the human realm and have the ability to reanimate the dead, create zombies and revenants.

In addition to demons, witches, and zombies, the series also involves vampires. I wanted to include them because they form part of that greater mystery, that creepiness, but also represent dangerous passion. Look at how Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, Bela Lugosi’s portrayal, and Anne Rice’s Lestat. (I also love the original Fright Night movie!! Chris Sarandon is awesome as the vampire Jerry Dandrige.) They were dangerously attractive to both their male and female victims. I don’t like how some modern interpretations have stripped them of this primal passion, which stems a lot from the blood drinking, stealing that vital life force. When you take away the blood drinking, you take away part of what makes a vampire dangerous and primal.

However, I don’t write only paranormal. In between the necromancer books, I’m trying to fit in a pirate historical, titled Devil’s Island. I can’t wait to get it out because it was such fun to write. In addition to watching scary movies, I also loved the Errol Flynn and Tyrone Powers pirate movies, which spurred my imagination for romantic adventure. The more I read about pirates, the more intriguing they become. They were the rebels of their age, and I tried to bring that out in Devil’s Island.

So that’s me in a nutshell, I guess :). Oh, I’m also a Romance Writers of America member, belong to the local Desert Rose chapter, and the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter. Thanks for spending these few moments with me and I look forward to engaging with this great group of writers and with readers who stop by!