Everyone, please give a warm welcome to J. Bridger, author of Shifted Perspective, one of my favorite reads of 2012. As can be found on Bridger’s website, this is her first novel, which is about a young man, Caleb, who discovers that he is a shifter, that it runs in his family on his mother’s side, and that he turns into an adorable Cocker spaniel. Please enjoy; I know I did. 1) I have noticed a trend in Paranormal Fantasy over the past several years to nearly always have the main paranormal character to be really powerful and also eye candy. I can’t but help that you did something very different in Shifted Perspective. Will you tell us why you walked a different path with your Cocker spaniel hero?

Well, I do love those stories about a “Chosen One.” I do want to make that perfectly clear. I adore Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I like Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is one of my favorite novels of all time. I think there’s definitely a time and place for the strongest or the predestined hero. This just wasn’t that story.

I figured in the supernatural world, there just had to be an every man (or every woman) type who was just spending the days trying to do everything he could to avoid having his butt kicked.

Also, I think it’s an Edward Cullen knee-jerk reflex. I don’t think Caleb is unattractive in my novel, if a little gangly. I just sometimes get tired of the dark and mysterious brooding teen guy archetype so Caleb’s definitely not that either.

2) Having spent time as an intern in a Bolivian mental hospital and also as a tour guide at a lemur research center, can you tell us how these experiences have/still are influencing your writing?

Right now? Not as much since I haven’t explored mental conditions or, well, lemurs in my writing. However, I do think working in the psych field in general has given me a good idea for how people do act and what’s just a true-to-life reaction and what’s just over the top fantasy/falls flat.

3) In Shifted Perspective, one of the shifters decided to have her tail bobbed. In general, how does that work with the healing and regenerative abilities of shifters in the world you created? Ha-ha!