Portrait of Author Charlotte Nash
Today, the multi-talented Charlotte Nash (brain the size of a planet) talks about her tale in Focus 2014.
What was the inspiration for your story “The Ghost of Hephaestus”?
A mash together of two things – firstly, what might have happened to all those Greek gods after the ancient era?; and secondly, a steampunk cyborg. I thought that could be cool.
What should new readers know about you?
I always like to read stories without knowing much about the writer first. But to give you an answer, I’d say that I’m still exploring around with genre, so my back-catalogue is somewhat … eclectic. A bit like my whole work career, really. I blame being a Gemini. And the rational part of my mind groaned when I wrote that.
Can you remember the first story you read that made you want to be a writer? 
Jurassic Park.
Name your top five favourite authors.
Neal Stephenson
Ted Chiang
Michael Crichton
Jilly Cooper
Liane Moriarty
The future of Australian spec-fic is …?
Just around the corner. 😛
Charlotte Nash is an Australian writer with degrees in engineering and medicine. Her short stories have been published in Every Day Fiction, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Dimension6, Dreaming of Djinn (Ticonderoga), Use Only as Directed (Peggy Bright Books), and Phantazein (FableCroft). She is also the author of best-selling rural medical romance novels (Hachette). She confesses a special love for motorbikes, heavy machinery and mock cream donuts, and isn’t sure which is more dangerous.