Category Archives: creativity

December 3, 2011 · 9:33 am

Meet Fiona McIntosh …

As the next of my series featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) but this has moprhedinto interesting people in the speculative fiction genre. Today I’ve invited the talented cross-genre author, Fiona McIntosh, to drop by.

Watch out for the give-away question at the end of the interview.

Q: You are well known for your fantasy novels with four trilogies, Valisar, Percheron, The Quickening and Trinity, plus a children’s fantasy, Whisperer. You cut your teeth on big fat fantasies. Do you keep a flow-chart to keep track of all the characters, the relationships, the timelines and the festivals of your invented worlds?

I wish I did.  No, I’m a vicious freefaller.  My reality as a writer is that no matter how hard I try to plan, my subconscious refuses to play along.  Even glossaries are beyond me and while the notion of a document on my desktop filled with lots of helpful facts about my own story and its characters makes such perfect sense, I fail miserably at it. Given that in between volumes of fantasy I’m working on other books, you’d think a plan would be vital…at the very least a working file but no.  My consolation is that I’ve now written 22 novels in this manner and it just seems to work for me.  If you’re wired similarly…it’s hard to change – but for those of you nodding your head take heart, it does have some advantages.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xZ1fw8KkU&feature=related]

Q: I attended Shekilda the Sisters in Crime conference a few weeks ago and met many wonderful crime writers, all smart articulate women. Now I discover you write crime as well. There’s your DCI Jack Hawksworth books Bye Bye Baby and Beautiful Death. Many of the fantasy writers I’ve met also write crime. Why do you think this is?

Crime is a genre that just about everyone reads at one time or another and also the sort of stories that most people pepper through their reading year even if they’re not committed fans of the genre that reads their way through various writers’ bookshelves.  It can harmoniously blend into mainstream because of that wide appeal so I think many of us are likely writing it because we enjoy reading a good crime novel and thus understand the expectations of readers.  I also believe that crime writing is a fantastic counterbalance to fantasy writing.  Fantasy is all about how far can you push your own creative/imaginative powers and ideas.  With crime it’s grounded in reality – so for me it’s the two opposing poles of the storytelling world and I like playing with characters in both.  I guess it must be the same for other fantasy writers who, like me, enjoy the mix up of genres.  Keeps us sharp in each area!

Q: You say you research extensively for your crime novels, going to London and walking the streets where you set the books. You used to work in the travel industry and I know you travel a lot. Does this mean you can write your trips off your tax? And having been born in Britain, does it feel like home to you when you go back there?

I have been a traveller all of my life.  As a child I travelled with my father’s work, as soon as I was old enough to fly the nest I was heading off to France and then further afield to Australia, arriving here at 20.  I deliberately made a beeline for the travel industry, working for a tourism authority, an international airline and ultimately with my husband in our own travel publication.  I left the magazine to write books but I’ve never lost my joy of travel and it’s true that all of my books tend to be Euro-centric because I do believe we’re all mostly a product of our upbringing and I was raised on the other side of the world.  And so because my historical sagas have a broad international focus, my crime is British based, my fantasy has a faux European medieval world, it does mean I’m usually heading off on a plane somewhere to gather up the research material.   Does Britain feel like home?  Yes and no.  I’m one of those people for who home is where my closest loved ones are and so my heart is definitely in Australia with my immediate family, all Aussies and fortunately my parents and brother emigrated out here too.  However, I think there’s such a thing as a ‘soul home’ and for me that’s Britain.  When you spend 20 years of your life growing up somewhere, you can’t pretend that it isn’t imprinted on your soul.  That doesn’t mean I prefer it or necessarily want to live there – I’m happy to visit but I do like to get my fix.  Let me assure your readers that because I travel the world extensively and always have, I can confidently say we all live in the best country on the planet.  Anyway, I do love to get back to London regularly and particularly to Sussex where I was born.  I have lots of lovely family still in the UK so that’s the major drawcard…and Colin Firth, of course.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hasKmDr1yrA]

Q: Not only do you write crime and fantasy, but also write historical fiction in Fields of Gold, which is set in India in the 1920s. Historical fiction is another area that is dear to many of the fantasy authors I interview. I see you based this book on a fictionalised account of your two grandfathers with a bit of poetic licence. Was it fun doing the research?

I love history so digging around in the past is pure pleasure.  But to be digging around in my family’s past was fun but also confronting at times.  I learned plenty that we didn’t know about, some of it painful.  I was able to walk in the footsteps of my four grandparents in places like Cornwall and Sussex in the UK as well as Myanmar and India.  I met family in India I barely knew existed and that was an emotional and unforgettable experience.  Walking the streets of Bangalore in southern India that my parents knew as children was filled with poignancy and frankly any trip to India – for whatever reason – is enriching, challenging, memorable.  I would go back in a blink…and will sometime soon.

Writing Fields of Gold showed me that historical fiction is probably the area of writing that most interests me and it’s because I am writing about a different era.  It’s likely why writing fantasy set in medieval times comes to me with a fluidity that I know wouldn’t be there if I attempted contemporary fantasy.  My next project is a WWll novel that was a joy to write because it has allowed me to set a book in France during a crisis era – learning about occupied France – and particularly Paris – has been an education and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  It meant a tower of books to read and of course visits to the locations in the books, lots of interviews with locals and what has felt like endless research on so many small details.  It’s finally done – and in fact as I answer this question I’ve just finished reading the page proofs today so the novel is ready now and I shall set it free.  It is published in April 2012 by Penguin.  And will roll out internationally from later in 2012.  I’m writing its sequel now, set in the 50s and 60s in Britain, Australia and France.  I hope to have that finished to first draft by the end of November 2011.  This sequel required me to travel to some new destinations including Austria and Poland including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Schindler’s Factory.  Although this is not a Holocaust story, I’ve read, seen, experienced a lot about the Holocaust in a compressed period preparing for these books; I felt I needed to know far more more than I did so that I could understand better the psyche of one of my characters profoundly affected by it.  It’s been a stunningly emotional period as a result and I suspect this area of research is going to travel with me all of my life now.

Q: I find it interesting that you write the crime, historical sagas and your fantasy all under the one name Fiona McIntosh. Your first crime book appeared under Lauren Crow but you reverted to Fiona McIntosh. Why did you do this?

I always believed it was ill-advised to use a pen name.  I was thrilled when we changed back to one name across all books. In fairness to my publisher, it was only trying to protect the fantasy books, which had such a strong following.  I believed then and still do that readers are discerning creatures, more than capable of deciding to read my fantasy while not being offended that I choose to write across genres. The Lauren Crow experiment only lasted a few months I’m pleased to say but it was never my idea or desire.

Q: You say you are a person who rushes into things and in an interview on SF Site you said: ‘It’s very easy to stand back and say ‘oh that was an odd decision by Wyl’ but this is deliberately allowed by me to ensure he doesn’t always follow the ‘intelligent’ pathway that someone who is utterly objective can. Wyl is not objective most of the time. He’s never out of a bad situation in this story and constantly required to make decisions under enormous pressure not just for his own survival but for the safety of others. I like a bit of confusion — makes it more realistic because life is never straightforward.’ So your characters make mistakes. In real life we all make mistakes. Are there things that you wish you could go back and change in your life?

Decisions are presented to us everyday – sometimes they’re small, other times overwhelming. And taking the ‘right’ pathway is always going to look a lot clearer in retrospect.  I am a decision-maker.  I don’t dither and I’m always comfortable that I’m making the best decision with what I know at the time.  As the writer, it’s easy to be the puppet master and look ahead for characters – save them heartache and bad moves – but I’d rather they behaved as we all do; age, maturity, wisdom all comes into it, plus only knowing so much about a situation and basing their decisions on that.  Otherwise for me it doesn’t feel real.  Nevertheless – sigh – some reviewers still find the need to point out that some characters make odd decisions.  Yes they do…and that’s life.

On a personal note I can’t think of many poor life decisions, that would require me to time travel and re-write my own history and besides, each decision has led to the next set of circumstances and I’m pretty happy with where I am right now.  I believe in doors openings as others close and that making a decision and taking a step forward is far better than being frozen in indecision. So to answer your question, no I don’t wish to go back and change things but there are occasions I guess when I could wish to have been wiser at the time.  But, as I said, that’s life….

Q: You said in an interview on the ABC that your father (who is half Indian) didn’t come to anything at your school because he didn’t want to compromise you. ‘When I was at junior school, seven or eight years old, and there was an outbreak of lice in the school. And they just automatically blamed the Indian family. And so the health inspectors came to our house. In fact, we were the people who were bathing more than the Brits.’ Are you drawn to explore discrimination and persecution in your books?

No.  And I would never set out with any sort of agenda for my novels.  I write popular fiction and the whole point of that – for me anyway – is that my job as the writer is to be an entertainer. I’m happy to be a writer who crafts books that will keep a reader engaged and turning pages during a long flight, a tedious delay, or be that book that someone can’t wait to get back to during their lunch break. So long as my books provide that escape, I’ve done my job.  And really, if I look back over all my novels, the common theme seems to be revenge! <grin>  However, I suspect discrimination and persecution enter my stories because in the historical periods that I draw from life was not nearly so politically correct or protected.  In fact in the middle ages life was cheap and vulnerable people were persecuted daily and discrimination of all kinds was rife.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Possibly.  But these days although I’m writing it, I’m not reading enough fantasy to know.  However, I would suggest that traditionally – and here’s a huge generalisation – male writers do the whole battle thing with aplomb, while female authors really know how to plumb the emotional depths of a fantasy story.  That said, I think women have become rather adept at writing wars and bloodletting and men have wrapped their storytelling abilities very nicely around more emotional characters and storylines.  Take Guy Gavriel Kay, for instance.  I don’t think I’ve read one of his fantasy stories and not wept with or for a character.  So, I’ve not really come up with an answer for you, have I? Not wishing to fence-sit – and I could be way off – it strikes me that the male writers I meet – particularly the emerging ones, yet to crack the fabulous publishing contract – are more into the world building stuff and perhaps delivering complex worlds. There, that should have people howling for my blood!…my experience only.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not any more.  But perhaps it used to 30 years ago – men did battles, women did emotion well…that’s what I thought.  I remember reading BattleAxe when it was still in draft and feeling utterly gobsmacked to learn afterwards that it was a female author.  Similarly, I was thrilled to learn that Robin Hobb was a woman.  Both of them inspired me to give writing fantasy a go.  Over the last two decades that I’ve been focused on fantasy, gender has not been an issue for me – it’s not ever a consideration when buying a book in any genre. I’m far more intrigued by a cover, the blurb and its opening few pars than by the name on it

Q: So what’s next…more of the same? 

I enjoy writing fantasy so that’s not going to stop unless I sense that I can’t maintain a freshness in my stories any longer.  And writing historical fiction is a big personal buzz because each book’s research educates and enriches me and at the age I am now, I take great pleasure in learning new ‘stuff’, so that will continue.  I would like to craft more crime but that will depend on publishers who would probably prefer me to knuckle down and just write crime exclusively for a while but that’s unlikely given my track record. While other genre writers dabble with crime, in the main I hope it’s fair to say that crime writers have a tendency to keep writing crime exclusively.   I can’t commit wholly to one genre.  I’ve been writing some children’s fantasy, which is fun – it feels as though it has no bounds and I’ve had a good time with the characters.  I would love to write a thriller and also a big emotional romance.  I have a dream to write a cookbook and an even bigger one to write a screenplay.  I’d love to be part of a writing team that collaborates on a TV script.  So my ambitions are broadening, which is healthy I believe, and I probably take this attitude because I would hate to get stale in one area and risk losing the joy of storytelling.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Blimey, there are so many eras I’d love to travel back in time to experience and so many people I would want to meet and as I thought about this it became so overwhelming with the freedom of choice you’ve given me that I couldn’t settle on one – do I meet Henry VIII? Do I drop in on Hitler’s Europe that I’ve been researching so much and try and understand that madness? Do I walk around 11th century Constantinople? Fun to eavesdrop the Romans, or meet Cleopatra!  Do I go back further still in search of some answers to big questions?  In the end I simplified it, brought it all closer to home, and as odd as it sounds I think I’d want to go back to my early childhood and be aware enough to pay more attention to it.  I have a shocking memory at the best of times so to be able to relive – as a voyeur – some of the great times of childhood would be incredible and I think to spend time again with my granny, whom I was close to and who was a tremendous influence on my life, would be exquisitely special knowing what I know now. I’d quite like to appreciate my parents as much younger people too – in their thirties – full of life and energy, dressing up and going out dancing, drinking, playing, entertaining.  We can often forget our seniors were once young, crazy and dreamy.  Although we didn’t have much money I had a busy, fun filled and happy childhood and so I’m not surprised that I find myself thinking it would be a grand romp to revisit it but as an omnipotent observer rather than a participant.

 

A copy of Royal Exile, book one of the Valisar series could be yours, dear reader, by sharing the following:

If you could be a character in any book, who would you be and why?

Follow Fiona on Facebook – I have two pages….and you are welcome to join me at either, or both:  Fiona McIntosh or at Fiona McIntosh Fans Group.

 

http://www.fionamcintosh.com

23 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Children's Books, creativity, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Historical Books, Thrillers and Crime, Thrillers and Mysteries

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 30, 2011 · 11:07 am

Meet Mark Charan Newton …

I have been featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) but this has morphed into interesting people in the speculative fiction world. Today I’ve invited the talented Mark Charan Newton to drop by.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

Q: I see we are cousins of a sort. I’m published with Solaris. I didn’t realise that you helped create this press. That must have been exciting. Did you have a Mission Statement when you put the editorial team together? And what are your thoughts on how the publishing world has changed in just the last five to ten years?

Yes, guilty as charged! As for a mission statement – if I remember correctly, at the time we were aware of a widening gap between the big mega publishers and the small press; that left a gap for mid-list authors or those authors who write more than one book a year and didn’t have a venue to publish. That lacuna was our publishing niche.

As for how publishing has changed? Well, it’s been doing the same thing solidly for the past ten years. Trends come and go, of course, and now we have ebooks which are simply another format like hardcover or paperback. There are fewer places to buy on the high street, and Amazon now has a powerful influence over the industry. It is tougher than ever for publishers at the moment – but it’s been tough as long as I can remember.

I think, if anything, I’ve become a little wiser of the past few years – in that I know not to react quickly to hype and panic. Things change. Trends come and go. Publishers are still here though.

Q: After working on one side of the fence as an editor, you then sold three books to Pan Macmillan. Did your experience as an editor give you any advantages when it came to writing your own book? And, conversely, did the experience of going through the editing process as an author, make you think, Oh, I wish I’d done things differently in the past with authors?

Probably no more than someone who reads a lot of fantasy and SF anyway. The only advantage I can really think of was to realise that there is a huge amount of creative freedom in both writing and the genre. There are so many critics out there who talk through their bums about prose – as if the art of fiction was some concrete bunch of criteria. How dull would life be, if fiction was a checklist of boxes churned out by a creative writing article?

Most of what’s written about fiction is nonsense – novels can take a huge number of forms, and that was a very pleasurable experience as an editor: to see those many different forms taking shape.

But to be honest, I always tried to keep those worlds separate: for the sake of both myself and the authors I worked with.

Q: You wrote a post about Genre Diversity called Bloggers’ Frontlist Fetish. This is where bloggers review and talk about the latest releases. You suggest we should be talking more about the great speculative fiction books that moved us so that new readers can find these authors. (For instance Joanne Russ and Tim Powers. To which I would add Mervyn Peake and Fritz Leiber. Certain scenes from Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books have stayed with me 30 years later, same with Joanna Russ.) You suggest that bloggers also take the time to search out interesting books from small press. I love it that small press can take a gamble on books that push the genre. Which authors opened your eyes to the genre?

I’ve mentioned several times about the impact that reading China Miéville’s The Scar had on me (suddenly I realised just what fantasy fiction could achieve). But the authors who opened my eyes the most are problably M John Harrison, Christopher Priest and Steven Erikson; for older authors, Michael G. Coney.

There’s just so much out there that is going to be forgotten in the scramble for the promo tables in bookstores. Sometimes I think bloggers should simply head into a second hand store and find something unusual to review. It’d make the blogosphere a more interesting place.

Q: You have a background as an environmental scientist. I can see shades of this surfacing in your first book, Nights of Villjamur, with refugees fleeing an encroaching ice age.  Did you set out to write this theme into the book, or did it happen when you weren’t looking?

Not especially, I don’t think. I studied Environmental Science at degree level, and I think that does inform my fiction in a more subtle way: that is, a realisation of how politics, economics, climate and so on are connected and that realisation has an impact on the plot.

In Nights of Villjamur, there is an ice age that is predicted by astrologers, as opposed to scientists. But the challenge there is the polar (forgive the pun!) opposite of the challenges our society faces today: there the huge amount of scientific evidence (dating back 200 years) supporting the concept of a planet warming significantly. There’s also the battle against the doubt in the media, which is funded by oil companies and the like.

Q: City of Ruin is a stand-alone book. You say that if anyone is going to read just one of your books, you’d like it to be this one. Why is that?

It’s just a better book by a long way, in my opinion. Technically it’s better, the prose is stronger, I’m less self-conscious, I’m having more fun. Also, you don’t need to read Nights to enjoy City. So I’ll always encourage readers – if they’re going to experiment with my fiction – to head for that book. I’m more proud of it – and it’s got more of a wow factor, in my opinion.

Q: The Book of Transformations revolves around Villjamur and the encroaching ice-age, politics and the consequences of decisions. Do you plot your books in detail or do they evolve as you write?

A bit of both, to be honest. I plot, I write a bit, I revisit the plot to see if can be expanded upon… And it changes from book to book. For my new series, because of the complexities involved in the plot, there is a lot of planning to be done.  I find my approach tends to fit what the book demands.

 

Q: I just discovered you have an earlier novel, The Reef, which has been re-released as an ebook.  Does it also explore the themes of environmental impact on people and society?

Yes, though I wrote it a long time ago, so much of the specifics escapes me! It’s more to do with ecology and botany than environmentalism per se. Those themes were much more stuck in my mind (fresh out of my degree) than for Nights.

Q: You recently signed another 3 book deal with Pan Macmillan. Can you tell us a little about this new series? Will it be set in the same world as Villjamur or a completely new world?

It’s a completely new world – nothing whatsoever to do with the Red Sun books. I’ve drawn a line under those now and want to move on (for my own sanity!).

The world is very much inspired by the classical world, particularly the Roman republic and Empire – there’s so much there which fascinates me, such a level of sophistication and culture, which puts later centuries to shame.

The lead character, Lucan Drakenfeld, is a bit like a young lawyer-slash-detective, and certainly the polar opposite of a private eye (if anything, he’s a public eye). I’m really trying to steer away from noir pastiche because I feel that would be disrespectful to crime readers. The book is as much a crime novel as it is a fantasy novel. Imagine a mainstream writer trying their hand at a fantasy novel, and filled it with a paint-by-numbers story – they’d be strung up by the fanbase, which is why I’m not doing a paint-by-numbers crime novel, either.

So it’s a pseudo-classical-crime-saga!

Q: I’ve been following you on twitter and you often provide links to interesting articles on environmental topics.  Do you think that writing books with these kinds of themes is a way of reaching out to people?

Not especially. I don’t think a mild environmental streak in the novels will reach out in a meaningful way to people; one is fiction, the other is science. Which is not to say it can’t be done, but it seems unlikely. If I want to write about the environment, I’ll write a blog post on it – that’s a much more effective way, in my opinion.

Q: Your mother was Indian and your father English. You grew up in a bilingual household with parents from two different cultures. Do you think this gives you a unique advantage when it comes to writing ‘alien’ worlds?

My mother rarely spoke her native tongue growing up; I had a very English upbringing, as it happens, so I can’t really claim an advantage with alien worlds. I’m not sure I do aim to write alien worlds to an extent – everything I write about is vaguely familiar, or based on our own culture.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

I don’t think there’s a gender difference in why people write. I’d like to think that people write because they want to write, irrespective of gender. As an editor I could certainly see little difference.

The boy’s club aspect probably comes from society wide prejudices – it’s still tough for girls/ladies/women out there, in any industry, and only a conscious effort from readers can help stop that.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not at all. If it’s fiction, my first concern of a writer is: can they inspire me with a paragraph?

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Ancient Rome! Probably from just after Caesar stepped across the Rubicon, until Augustus died – can you imagine a more exciting period in history, with such a profound change?

And I’d need to start off as a wealthy citizen of the Republic, of course. If you were poor, you didn’t tend to fare too well…

 

 

Giveaway Question:  If you could bring back a figure from history, to rent your spare room or crash on your sofa, who would that be and where would you take them?

Read Mark’s Blog.

Catch up with Mark on Goodreads –

Follow Mark on Twitter. @MarkCN

15 Comments

Filed under Book Giveaway, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Gender Issues, Publishing Industry

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 26, 2011 · 10:42 am

Meet Felicity Pulman …

I have been featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) but this has morphed into interesting people in the speculative fiction world. Today I’ve invited the talented Felicity Pulman to drop by.

Watch out for the give-away question at the end of the interview.

Something’s gone wrong with my blog’s ability to embed videos. Here’s the link to Felciity’s great new promo for the Janna Mystery Series.

 

Q: We ran into each other at SheKilda, the women’s crime writers conference, but you write across a number of genres and ages. Your first novel (to appear under your own name) Ghost Boy was set in two timelines, the present and the past set, in part, around the small pox outbreak in 1881 when travellers were quarantined on arriving in Australia. There is a special Ghost Boy tour for school children at the Quarantine Station. It must be a real thrill to make a connection with children and bring the past to life like this. Have you been on the Ghost Boy tour and do you get a lot of emails from school children?

A: Yes and yes to both questions.  I found it very moving to watch my novel come to life up at the Quarantine Station. It’s a wonderful place to visit, very atmospheric.  It gives students a real feel for what life was like back in those times and of course they’re always sure they’re going to see a ghost!  (The guides themselves are quite sure the place is haunted!)

Q: In your Shalott Trilogy, which was inspired by Tennyson’s The Lady of Shallot a group of five Australian teenagers try to rewrite the legend and save the Lady of Shalott. Have you always been fascinated by the King Arthur legends? Have you been to the UK to see Tintagel Castle?

A: I wrote the Shalott trilogy because I was being bugged by the questions: why was the lady trapped in the tower, why was there a curse on her, plus the questions that followed on from that: what if it’s possible to go back in time and change history (or a legend);  what if you’re also rewriting your destiny at the same time? I didn’t know much about anything at first so it was a HUGE learning curve. I began to acquire a library of Arthuriana old and new, plus books on magic, on life in medieval time, and so on. And I went on my first research trip, following the ‘Arthurian trail’ through England, Wales, Brittany and France.  Tintagel was only one of the marvellous places I visited; other sites included Merlin’s ‘cave’ and Merlin’s ‘tomb’, Glastonbury and the Isle of Avalon, the ‘home’ of the Lady of the Lake, plus South Cadbury Castle, Caerleon and Winchester, all of which have been variously named as Arthur’s seat of power, sometimes called Camelot.

Q: Your current series The Janna Mysteries are set in England in the 1140s during the King Stephen/Queen Matilda civil war. This series contains a number of mysteries which the main character, Janna, has to solve. I think I’m seeing a theme here. You have a BA in Communication and an MA in Children’s Literature. Were you ever tempted to do further study in the area of history? (See Felicity’s Tips on Writing Historical Fiction).

A: Actually I’m a late convert to history; I found it so boring when I was at school, probably because my teacher didn’t teach it as the continuing soap opera it really is!  Those who marry – or murder for a crown, those who drive themselves to acts of great courage or bastardry for the sake of love, rivalry, power or wealth. Those idealists who dream of a brave new world, sometimes at a price too terrible to bear … the history I study is the history that informs my books. If I wasn’t so busy writing I’d love to go back to uni and immerse myself in the middle ages – or ancient Greece – or Egypt – or …? So difficult to know where to start!

Q: You wrote two of the Guinevere Jones books, based on the hit TV series. Was it hard to immerse yourself in the series and the back-story, then write creatively about characters you didn’t invent?

A:  Sophie Masson and I wrote the four books based on the series, working from notes, scripts and recorded episodes that were sent to us.  Writing the GJ books was a very different experience from anything else I’ve written.  The books also had to be written very fast so there really wasn’t a great deal of time for angst over characters and back story, we pretty much had to work with what we were given. So there wasn’t a lot of scope for imaginative input; it was more a recording of other people’s lives.  One of the things I need to do is walk the place I’m writing about, but this wasn’t possible as GJ was filmed on set in Melbourne (I live in Sydney) so I found that a real challenge – where do the characters go and what do they do once they go ‘off screen’?

Q: In an interview on Need to Read This, when talking about your new  book you say: ‘Most recently, I went to Norfolk Island. Hearts in Chains is a time-slip romance going back to the mid-19th century and the time of the brutal second penal settlement. I visited the museums, the ruins of the gaol, the houses along Military Road (now called Quality Row) and also Government House (and I am deeply grateful to the administrator and his wife for allowing me free access and even finding for me a hidey-hole for Alice to hide her diary!)  I think it’s essential for me, as an author, to walk in my characters’ footsteps, to experience the landscape and identify what he/she might have seen – wildlife, trees, flowers, buildings (or their ruins), weather and the light, etc.’ (Felicity has a whole page dedicated to research on her web site. See here). I envy you the chance to do this. Where will you be going to next to research?

A:  I loved writing the Shalott trilogy so much, and became so immersed in Arthurian legend that I’m thinking of revisiting that time and place, with hopefully the chance to explore the Arthurian trail once more.

Q: You write books with a strong historical base. In the past females had many restrictions on what they could do from the inability to own property to the choice of who they married. Do you ever worry that young readers could have trouble identifying with a female character whose life choices are limited?

A: Society might change but human nature doesn’t, so my belief is that readers identify with and feel sympathy for Janna’s predicament, left alone in a hostile world with only her skills and her courage to save her; her life constantly under threat from everything from wolves and wild boar in the forest to an assassin on a mission to silence her – quite apart from having to find such basic necessities as food and shelter to keep herself alive. And then there are the three young men in her life – who will she choose?  Readers are certainly VERY interested in that question!

Q: I’ve been interviewing quite a few authors and discovered many of them combine similar genres, mystery, fantasy and history. Why do you think these genres blend so well?

A: Good question! It’s not something I’ve considered before, but I think in my case I enjoy reading and writing all these different genres, and if you can combine them, so much the better! I particularly enjoy time-slip stories, combining history with fantasy although of course they can also encompass the future (like my favourite author Connie Willis, for example.)  Plus a mystery to solve or some sort of quest to fulfil is usually at the heart of every story, especially a fantasy.

Q: You go by the nick-name Flick. Did you have an annoying older brother who teased you and the name stuck? How did this come about?

A: I actually had an annoying older sister who called me ‘Fwiz’, which became the family nickname, while I was Fuzz (pronounced Fooz) to everyone else.  My family still call me that but anyone else does so at their peril!  I became Flick when I went to uni (in my late teens) and was christened thus by a girl in my res who subsequently became my best friend and who had known a Felicity/Flick at school.  Infinitely better than Fwiz, so I don’t mind that the name has stuck. ‘Felicity’ is far too formal.

Q: I understand you are cooking up a new project to write about. Can you share it with us?

A: It’s still in the cooking stage but, as I said earlier, it will be centred on King Arthur and Camelot, exploring in more detail some of the issues I found so fascinating while writing the Shalott trilogy – but this novel will be for adults.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

A: I don’t read ‘high fantasy’ at all, so this is not a question I can answer, except to say there do seem to be any number of wonderful women fantasy writers around so I’m surprised by your observation. Perhaps female fantasy writers need to establish a Sisters in Fantasy, the equivalent of the international Sisters in Crime movement?

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

A:  Perhaps subliminally, not consciously.  If I find an author I like I’ll keep going, in which case I know what to expect.  With a new writer, I’ll go with the blurb and whether it sounds like an interesting story rather than defining it by gender.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

 A: Fun??  That’s a very difficult question with so many people and places to choose from!  Backwards?  Forwards?  Decisions, decisions…and the temptation to try to change the course of history while you’re at it!  I might opt for Jerusalem at the time of Christ. I always wondered how I’d have reacted to the Messiah if I’d been around then. I’m sure it would be a very interesting time and place to visit.

Give-away Question:  Following on from the question above:  if you could meet anyone past or present, who would it be … and why?

Felicity’s Blog

Follow Felicity on Facebook

Network with Felicity on Linked-in

Catch up with Felicity on GoodReads

4 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Children's Books, Collaboration, creativity, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Gender Issues, Historical Books, Movies & TV Shows, Thrillers and Crime, Thrillers and Mysteries, Tips for Developing Writers

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

November 19, 2011 · 11:46 am

Meet Yvonne Navarro …

As the next of my series featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) I’ve invited the talented Yvonne Navarro to drop by.

Watch out for the give-away question at the end of the interview.

Q: You originally wanted to be an artist. I’ve done some surveys of writers and found four out of five are aural – they listen to music when writing, but the other one out of five are visually – they collect images and ideas spring from visual sources. Do you collect images that haunt you and trigger ideas? When you write a book do you collect a file of images that you associate with that book?

I did, although I currently consider myself as a “sort-of” artist now.  I’m lucky enough to be at a point in my life where I can go back and actively chase a dream that might have otherwise slipped away.  I’ve finally taken some painting classes and collected some output, and we’re perhaps a month away from me having a formal art studio in which to work.  I guess that answers your question in a roundabout way—I’m a very visual person.  As that applies to writing, you hit it on the proverbial head: I collect all kinds of images.  Sometimes the images inspire me, sometimes I seek them out to go with a work already in progress.  When I wrote Mirror Me, I had a notebook with photographs of the characters, neighbourhoods, even the kind of furniture in some of the characters’ homes.  Now that I think of it, going all the way back to my first novel, AfterAge , I did the same thing but for the city itself– I got up on Sunday mornings and went downtown in the dark so I could take photographs of a completely empty downtown and get the “feel” of what Chicago might be like if it was empty of people.

Q: You’ve written four books in the ‘Buffyverse’ and contributed to three anthologies. I know a couple of authors who write for Starwars, or Stargate, or the Buffyverse. It always strikes me as taking a lot of discipline. You must need to immerse yourself so thoroughly in the Buffyverse that writing those characters becomes instinctive. Do you do a lot of research before you start?

Actually, I’ve written seven when you include the Wicked Willow Trilogy.  It’s been awhile since I’ve written a Buffyverse book, but I can say that I did research as necessary when I was involved in the projects, specifically to make sure I kept all the details and interactions correct.  However, I was definitely immersed in the Buffy universe, in that completely geeky way that someone lives and breathes a series or movie that they absolutely adore.  (I was the same way with Babylon 5.)  I can still quote lines from Buffy shows (“Those are my chicken feet!”), just as I can from certain Aliens movies.  :o)

Q: You have an impressive list of awards and nominations to your credit. Several final-listings in the Bram Stoker Award, a win for the Women In Publishing Award and a win in the National Federation Press Women’s  Award in the Juvenile book category, to name a few. I guess the champagne corks have been popping in your house. Does it help to raise an author’s profile when they place or win in these awards?

Perhaps, although I haven’t really been aware of it.  Willow Files, Vol. 2 won the Bram Stoker Award in the category of Young Adult Fiction, and yet it was the last YA book I wrote until co‑writing a YA adventure with my husband, Weston Ochse.  I will say that it’s awfully nice to have all your hard work recognized publicly.  Hopefully there’s a certain ex out there somewhere who sees it and gets a silent moment of “She told me so.”  Oh, wait—was that my out loud voice?!

Q: You’ve also written for Species and Ultraviolet. Does this mean that you see the movie before it is released, or do you work from the script? What happens if scenes get left out on the cutting room floor?

How interesting that you chose Species and Ultraviolet, which were polar opposite experiences for me!  First off, all of the movie tie‑ins are written from the script, before the movie is released.  The object is generally to get the book out preferably before the movie is released, or at the very least, at the same time.  With Species, I worked very closely with Dennis Feldman, the scriptwriter, and we had the best time.  He actually read the manuscript and would call me directly and make comments; by the same token, I could call him anytime and ask questions.  One particularly telling question he asked me after reading the manuscript was, “What about the bus stop scene?”  To which I replied, “What bus stop scene?”  This, apparently, was something that had been added into an updated version of the script after I’d already written the first draft of the book.  That he and I were able to talk back and forth like that is a real rarity in the world of movie tie‑ins, and it really helped to make the book the best it could be.  Folks who read tie‑ins know that the best thing to do is to see the movie first, then read the book.  Invariably things are cut from the movie script because of time and money; if you read about them first and then see the movie, you’ll be disappointed that they aren’t included. If you see the movie, then read about them in the book, you’ll be delighted at the extra stuff in the book.  Which, by the way, isn’t just deleted scenes—authors often include past history, universe‑building, and detailed characterization.

Ultraviolet was interesting because I never received a single comment or change request on the manuscript.  I know I’m not a perfect writer, and that’s happened to me a couple of times (it also happened with Hellboy), but feedback is always a good thing, you know?

Q: In a review of your book Highborn, the reviewer said: ‘The term ‘Urban Fantasy’ can strike fear into the heart of many people, and not in a good way. Thankfully, this first novel in Yvonne Navarro’s Dark Redemption series (which is now followed by CONCRETE SAVIOR) is an example of the genre not only done well, but done damn near to perfection.’ They go on to say that the book is refreshing. Was it hard to come up with a fresh take on this genre?

I remember that review, and to say I feel flattered by those nice words would definitely be an understatement.  But I also have to admit that I wasn’t aiming to write an urban fantasy.  When I thought of the basis for HIGHBORN and then planned it out, it was just the book I wanted to write.  It wasn’t specifically geared to any genre, and it wasn’t until my agent sold it and the purchasing editor called it an urban fantasy that I even thought about where it might fit in terms of sales.

Q: You’ve written over a hundred short stories. It looks like you are most comfortable writing what is called Dark Fantasy now, but used to be known as horror. What’s led you down this path? Did you discover Poe when you were thirteen and have never been the same since?

My Mom and sister always liked scary stories.  I grew up watching Creature Features, reading Creepy and Eerie magazines, and looking for the spookiest fiction I could find in the library.  The first movie I remember watching was Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” at the drive-in.  I like a good, scary story because it gets your blood running and your mind working, and you don’t always know there’s going to be a happy ending.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

I think people write the way they want to, and if there’s any difference, it’s because the writer does it intentionally.  There are men writing romances under pseudonyms and women writing crime thrillers using their first and middle initials whose own readers don’t realize are female.   If a woman believes she shouldn’t write about certain things because she’s a woman, she’s imposed restrictions on herself… and she’s the only person who can break those chains.  I don’t write like a woman.  I don’t write like a man.  I write like a writer.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

No, but I know that it does for some people.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Well, it’s tempting to say I’d go backward and fix a few of my bigger mistakes in life, but then I’d probably just make different ones, right?  I tend to look at that on more of a personal basis than you’re probably intending.  If I stick to the fun side of things, I think I’d like to go into the future a hundred years or so, just to see where technology has taken us.  Of course, a thousand years from now we might actually have space travel.  Hmmmm…

Give-away Question:

Who’s your favorite female movie star heroine, and from what movie?

Yvonne says: If I was to answer this, it would be a tie between Sigourney Weaver from Aliens and Kate Beckinsale from the Underworld movies.

Follow Yvonne on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/YvonneNavarro

See Yvonne’s Blog and Website.

Catch up with Yvonne on Facebook.

Catch up with Yvonne on GoodReads.

23 Comments

Filed under Awards, Book Giveaway, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Fun Stuff, Gender Issues, Genre, Movies & TV Shows, Publishing Industry, Young Adult Books

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 16, 2011 · 8:05 am

Meet Chuck Wendig …

I have been running a series of  interviews with female fantasy writers to redress a perception I came across – that fantasy was a bit of a boy’s club. It really isn’t like that here in Australia. We have many wonderful fantasy writers who just happen to be female.

Today I’m interviewing Chuck Wendig because of his amazing ability to come up with 25 things about all aspects of writing, (for instance 25 Things you should know about Self Publishing) and also I thought I’d ask him the same questions I’ve asked the female writers about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Q: Your ‘Vampire Zombieland’ novel, Double Dead will be released in November 2011. That makes it sound like it is being unleashed on the world and we had all better look out. Having supplied a cover quote, I can say it promises to be a rollercoaster of a read. Did you find that this style of story came naturally to you? As I read it felt like it just poured out of you.

It did come naturally to me. The vampire Coburn is damaged goods, and I find it terribly entertaining to write broken people. Plus, there exists a powerful and obscene joy in writing about vampires and zombies – especially any time you can bring something fresh to it. I’m glad it went down easy.

Q: You’ve signed a two book deal with Angry Robot for Blackbirds and Mockingbird. Are these books very different from Double Dead? What’s the premise?

My initial – and, as it turns out, incorrect – response is that they’re pretty different.

Miriam Black, the protagonist of BLACKBIRDS and MOCKINGBIRD is a girl whose fate and the fates those around her seem woefully carved in stone: she can touch others and see how and when they’re going to die, and by the start of the first novel any attempts to sway death and change the course of fate for these people has only earned her misery. So she subsists as something of a vulture: she steals from the dead.

Of course, then it clicks: in a way, I’m writing about a vampire. A human vampire, one who’s very much alive and with a singular power that differs from the cabinet of horrors most vampires possess, but even still – she is a creature of death, marked by it, and she feeds off of it.

And, in a way, both of these novels ask—for Coburn the vampire and for Miriam the psychic—can they change who they are? Or are they really just monsters all the way to the marrow?

Q: They used to say being good at playing Pool was a sign of a misspent youth. You’ve written RPG games and contributed to over 85 game books. You developed the entire Hunter:The Vigil game line for White Wolf Studios. Is this a sign of a misspent youth? (For an interview on Chuck’s work in the medium see here).

Gosh, I hope it wasn’t misspent, since game writing is how I’ve been making a living writing! And, I’ll add: I seriously believe that all writers would do well to play games. Not just video games or board games, but actual pen-and-paper polyhedral dice role-playing games. Really gets your head around storytelling for an audience.

Q: The Chuck Wendig persona who writes for the Terrible Minds blog is profane, in-your-face, sharply insightful and funny. You have a real flair for humour. Often comedians say their humour springs from a dark, dark place. Is there a dark, dark place deep inside Chuck Wendig?

Thank you! It’s worth noting that the persona is pretty much the reality, though perhaps with the volume knob turned up a bit. Ask my wife – who I am on the blog is the guy she gets every day. (And woe, woe for her.)

As for, is there a deep and dark place inside me? Dang, I dunno. I wouldn’t say any deeper or darker than you’d find in other people. Sure, I hollow out the corpses of government workers and use them as bob-sleds, and I get sexual pleasure from watching owls eat mice, but that’s normal. Right?

Q: Other than the fact that you live on the west coast are married and have a small son, there is very little information about your live available on the net. Is this a philosophical stance you have taken?

I live on the East Coast, actually! Pennsylvania.

As for information about my life – I don’t think it’s all that scarce. I’m pretty bold and forthright about my existence across social media. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook. I don’t keep much of it a secret. I talked at length about when my dog died, about my father, about the trials and tribulations of being a penmonkey parent. About how I got drunk that one time and was found in a New Jersey rest area with an Ambien-dosed llama.

I’m fairly open.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Oh, jeez. I don’t actually read much fantasy. Though I will say that one of my favorite fantasy writers is a woman: Robin Hobb. I don’t know that it has anything to do with her, ahem, femaleness, but her characterization (particularly across both the Fitz-Chivalry series) is deft and elegant.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

I don’t expect that it does. When I read ZOO CITY by Lauren Beukes I wasn’t expecting anything because of her being a woman.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Nebulous answer: the future. Let’s go with 100 years. Just to see how it all ends up. The past is interesting but ultimately, it’s done – it is what it is and where we are now is a result of that. The future, though, that’s where it gets interesting.

 

Catch up with Chuck on Google+.

Follow Chuck on Twitter. @ChuckWendig

Chuck Wendig’s Blog.

For a complete list of Chuck’s work across the mediums, see here.

For Totally Free Shit from Chuck see here.

6 Comments

Filed under creativity, Fantasy books, Fun Stuff, Gender Issues, Movies & TV Shows, Music and Writers, Publishing Industry, Tips for Developing Writers

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 8, 2011 · 10:52 am

Meet Ian Irvine …

Today I’m interviewing Ian Irvine because someone where I work turned around this week and said, I don’t read much fantasy, but I love Ian Irvine’s books. I’m also asking Ian the same questions I’ve asked the female writers about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

Q: You have a PhD in Marine Science (plus you’ve travelled a lot in your capacity as a marine scientist). The PhD must help when you’re writing your eco-thrillers (Human Rites series), but did the scientific mind get in the way when you are writing your Three Worlds Cycle, fantasies?

I’ve been interested (indeed, fascinated) by science since an early age, and decided I wanted to be a scientist around 13 or 14. And since graduating, I’ve worked in the field for the past 30 years, as an expert on contaminated sediments in the bottom of harbours (a world-wide problem). My background was of particular help in writing the Human Rites trilogy, which is set in a near-future world of catastrophic climate change, not least because I did a research project decades ago researching ice ages over the past 5 million years, and I’ve maintained an interest in climate change ever since. My scientific experience and knowledge proved useful in trying to predict what the world of these books would really be like, and how that would affect the lives of the characters.

Actually, my scientific mind proved particularly helpful in writing my Three Worlds fantasy novels, in world-building, for instance. Because I’d studied all the major scientific disciplines, I was well-equipped to design both plausible and realistic worlds for the series, and a variety of intelligent species to inhabit these worlds.

It was also invaluable because the life experience a writer has determines the kind of books he or she writes, what he writes about and how he sees the world. For instance, Tolkien was a philologist – he studied languages – and he created the languages of Middle Earth before he wrote the stories. A lot of fantasy writers (eg George RR Martin, Sara Douglass) have studied history, and this colours the stories they write. Other fantasy writers draw inspiration from myths, legends, fairy or folk tales, ancient literatures, and so on. But I’ve never wanted to draw on history, mythology or literature for my stories, and neither did I want to write in traditional settings. I wanted to tell my own stories in my own way, in worlds I’d created myself.

Two writers I particularly enjoy who have a strong scientific background are Laura Kinsale (romance – she was a geologist) and Diana Gabaldon (genre-crossing stories – Ph.D. in marine biology). Personally, I find that my scientific background gives me a unique perspective in writing fantasy, and that’s a good thing, because it makes my writing different to other authors. For instance, if I’m describing a common fantasy phenomenon such as a portal, I imagine what it would really be like – differences in temperature, humidity, air pressure etc between the two locations could lead to a gale howling through the gate as soon as it opens, or water vapour condensing in clouds of fog etc. This kinds of realistic details help to make the story more grounded and real.

Q: You’ve written 27 books including fantasy, eco-thrillers and children’s books. Do you find readers follow you from genre to genre? Do you think kids who read your children’s books will grow up to be readers of your fantasies and/or eco-thrillers?

Most readers don’t genre hop, unfortunately, and few of my readers who are fantasy fans will ever read my eco-thrillers. I know this because both fans and booksellers have told me. For this reason, publishers don’t like their authors (especially the big name authors) writing in other genres, because they know most of their readers won’t follow. Raymond Feist once said that it took years before his publishers would agree to let him write Faerie Tale, because it was so different to his other work.

Having said that, children are less fixed in their reading tastes than adults. And all twelve of my kids’ books have been fantasy in one form or another, so I’m hopeful that many of those readers will read my epic fantasy stories when they’re older.

Q: Your office looks absolutely wonderful! Such a peaceful place to write. But you didn’t always have a fancy office. In an interview on Tristan Bancks‘ blog you say: ‘I wrote the whole first draft of one of my big fantasy novels, The Way Between the Worlds, in my spare time on a consulting assignment in Fiji. I’ve also written in a sweltering mine site donga on Horn Island in Torres Strait, at the top of a mountain in Papua-New Guinea, in Mauritius, Indonesia and the Philippines, and on long jobs for the World Bank in Korea.’ Would you say if the story is compelling enough a writer can write anywhere?

I am blessed in my office; it’s where I’ve done almost all my writing for the past 20 years. Though it didn’t start out a writing office and, when it was built I couldn’t have justified the expense (being unpublished then) as a place to write. It was built as my consulting office, and it’s where I went to work every day as a marine scientist until I became a ‘full-time’ writer in 2000 (I still do quite a bit of consulting; I have 1.5 full-time jobs).

I wouldn’t say that if the story is compelling enough a writer can write anywhere. Rather, that if the urge and need to write is desperate enough, a writer can write anywhere. In those days, working as a marine scientist, I had to make use of every free second to do my writing otherwise I would never have got it done.

 

Q: You children’s series Grim and Grimmer sounds like a heap of fun. During an interview on DG Yarns you say:  “After about twenty-four hours of hard labour I came up with a great title, Grim and Grimmer, and every time I mentioned it, people smiled. See, you’re doing it now.

So I sat down, invented the silliest and most extravagant characters I could think of, then sketched out a fiendishly complicated plot where they only got out of one desperate trouble to plunge immediately into a worse one. And every time I thought, no one should ever suffer like this, I went har, har, yes they should, and thought of a hundred and three more ways to torment them, working on the principle that if the characters are having a good time, my readers aren’t.’

After your serious eco-thrillers, do you have to do anything to get into the right frame of mind to write your Grim and Grimmer books?

Not really – pain and torment does it for me every time (author sniggers at the thought). Seriously, I was overcome by the opportunity to write a kind of book I’d never written before – humorous adventure fantasy for children – and when the chance came up, I grabbed it. The only problem was that I was frantic with other deadlines and it was difficult to set aside the uninterrupted time to write and edit each book. But when I got the time, and planned the books in detail, they flowed quickly. They were the most fun I’ve ever had writing and I’m sorry the series is finished.

Q: In your Runcible Jones stories you follow the plot device of having an ordinary boy go through to another world. Were you a big fan of the Narnia books growing up?

Oddly, though I was a voracious reader from an early age, I didn’t read fantasy as a child – neither The Hobbit, the Narnia books nor any other fantasy I can remember. I don’t know why, because I loved fairy tales and mythological tales. I can only assume that those books weren’t in the school library (I went to a couple of one-teacher primary schools as a kid, where the books came in book boxes and the choice was quite limited).

I loved SF when I was at school but only discovered fantasy at uni – Tolkien, Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea series, etc. As for the Narnia books, which I also started at uni, I absolutely loathed them – perhaps one has to read them in childhood. I found them sanctimonious, moralising, sexist and thoroughly disagreeable. I think my view of characters travelling through gates or portals came from SF rather than fantasy – I guess, in particular, CJ Cherryh’s Morgaine trilogy (Gate of Ivrel, Well of Shiuan, Fires of Azeroth) which I read in the late 70s.

 

Q: I like your premise for the Sorcerer’s Tower series. Your main character is ‘the only kid in the world who can’t do magic’. It immediately turns the trope of ‘the chosen one’ on its head. Do you like to play with the genre tropes?

Not deliberately. To be honest, I’m not sure I understand what a trope is. Having Tamly being the only kid who couldn’t do magic just ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’. But I hate writing stereotypical or archetypal characters – princess, magician, warrior etc. I avoid them if I can, or if I can’t, I like to twist or invert them. Hey, maybe I am playing with the genre tropes without knowing it.

Q: You’re working on a new fantasy series, the Tainted Realm, with the first book, Vengeance, due out in November 2011. Do I detect a hint of world under threat by natural disasters? Do you find your world-view as a marine scientist creeping into your writing of fantasy?

To your first question, yes. To the second, no, I don’t think so. My first degree is in geology and I think it has more to do with my fascination with geological disasters.

Earth’s history is peppered with life threatening catastrophes, whether due to earthquakes, super-volcanoes, abrupt climate change, enormous tsunamis, droughts that lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, catastrophic floods the like of which we’ve never seen, comet and meteor impacts like the one at Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. Human civilisation has grown up in an extraordinary benign period over the last few thousand years and we assume that this is the norm. But it’s not, and disasters that could wipe out civilisation are actually extremely common in Earth’s history.

Such a disaster would make a great story setting, and that’s where the interest lies for me – telling stories in settings no one has used before.

For those who are interested in this topic I can recommend Professor Bill McGuire’s terrific little book, A Guide to the End of the World. The Armageddon Online site is also full of inspirational joy.

 

Q: Ian, you’ve been very generous in sharing your expertise. You did a great post on the ROR blog about your Adventures on Facebook and you have a whole page dedicated to Writing Tips on your blog. Do you get approached by aspiring authors at events?

It’s hard to succeed at writing and I like to help people where I can. Over the next few months I’ll be expanding the Writing section on my site to several hundred pages.

I’m approached by authors at cons and events from time to time, though I’ve invariably found them to be polite and interested rather than pushy. But the problem I have (and many other authors are the same) is that I have to say no to people who ask me to read their work, because if I said yes I wouldn’t get any of my own writing done.

Q: I see you have a competition running to Win an iPad. (Tell you what, I’d love an iPad). Do you find that running competitions like this help you reach out to readers?

I’m not sure that competitions help me to reach out to readers, but I’m convinced that social media do. The main reason I’m running the competition is to attract my existing readers to my Facebook author page. I was rather late in coming to Facebook but I’m totally converted – it’s a fantastic way to communicate with my readers, to hear what they’re interested in and create a genuine community of like-minded souls. It’s much better than email or blogging. And if I have a question, I often get dozens of great answers.

I’m also running the comps to attract new readers, of course.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

I’m not aware of that perception (about a boys’ club), but I haven’t been to the US for decades, and to the UK only once in the past 30  years. And I’m not an active member of the fantasy professional community so I don’t know what people are currently talking about. Having said that, I certainly formed the view, when I was starting out in writing in the 80s, that fantasy was a boys’ club, since a majority of the big name writers were male.  I think that’s changed a lot over the past 15 years, and definitely in Australia where most of the bestselling writers (eg Sara Douglass, Kate Forsyth, Juliet Marillier, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Fiona McIntosh, Trudi Canavan, Karen Miller, Kylie Chan, Marianne de Pierres) are women. Perhaps less so overseas.

I have five sisters, and my wife has three, and I have two daughters. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why I never wanted to write macho fantasy shackled by historical stereotypes, where the blokes had all the adventures while the women did traditional women’s stuff. It’s fantasy, for God’s sake! The author can create any kind of society he or she wishes.

Back in the 70’s and 80s, when there was a fair bit of feminist fantasy around, I used to think there was a big difference between fantasy written by males and females. But now I’m not so sure. There are plenty of women writers who are writing more violent and less emotional fantasy than I do.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not for me. I love Robin Hobb’s writing, and JK Rowling’s, and Lois McMaster Bujold’s (her fantasy eg The Curse of Chalion, not her SF), among many other female writers.

The only thing that changes my expectations is the author’s ‘brand’, ie the associations of what kind of a read I can expect based on the author’s name.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

Probably to the lottery office or the stock market. Definitely NOT to the races – I’m particular about who I hang out with.

Or to the great library at Alexandria to pick up some originals before it was burned.

Failing that, to the core of the galaxy to touch up my pallid complexion in the light of a million suns. Or back to the time of the Cambrian Explosion where there was a fantastic and never since equalled burgeoning of life of all kinds – though I’d probably be eaten by a trilobite. It would also be interesting to be on site a few minutes before the Big Bang – though I expect I’d (briefly) regret it, lol.

 

To win an advance copy of Vengeance, Book 1 of Ian’s new epic fantasy trilogy The Tainted Realm:

Giveaway Question:  Name the most irritating character in a fantasy novel. What cruelly ironic fate would you like him/her/it to suffer?

 

Ian’s website

Catch up with Ian on Facebook

Ian’s Books and Writing Blog

Catch up with Ian on Goodreads

Catch up with Ian on Google+.

Follow Ian on Twitter   @ianirvineauthor

14 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Children's Books, creativity, Fantasy books, Gender Issues, Nourish the Writer, Thrillers and Crime, Young Adult Books

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 6, 2011 · 8:57 am

Winner Anita Bell Give-away!

Anita had a huge book deadline this week but she has had a chance to read the comments now and she says:

Couldn’t decide. All so good, but I happen to have 5 copies, so happy to announce 5 winners:
Tsana, Sean, Melanie, Lexie and Shadowwrytr.

So email me with your addresses and let me know what name you would like Anita to address the book to.

rowena(at)corydaniells(dot)com

3 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Covers, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Readers

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 2, 2011 · 8:31 am

Meet Alan Baxter …

I have been running a series of  interviews with female fantasy writers to redress a perception I came across – that fantasy was a bit of a boy’s club. It really isn’t like that here in Australia. We have many wonderful fantasy writers who just happen to be female.

Today I’m interviewing dark fantasy author, Alan Baxter. I thought I’d ask him the same questions I’ve asked the female writers about fantasy writing and gender, to get his perspective as a male writer.

Look out for the give-away at the end of the post.

Q: I see you live on the South Coast of NSW. Does that mean south of Sydney? This area there, in fact the whole coast, is very beautiful. Do you find that, as a creative person, you’re influenced by your surroundings?

Yes, south of Sydney by about an hour and a half. It’s dairy country, wide open, rolling hills. We’re in a valley with the escarpment at our backs and a five minute drive to the beach. Best of all worlds and absolutely beautiful.

I am very much influenced by my surroundings, but I still tend to write a lot of urban-based stuff. The city is an incredible muse for me, a living entity with everything that goes along with that. But living in the country gives me the headspace and peace conducive to writing. I lived in the city for years and loved it, but I’m a country boy at heart. Even if the city does still inform a lot of my work.

Q: You write Dark Fantasy books , what used to be called horror. RealmShift and MageSign look like they follow the one character. Is this an ongoing series like Jim Butcher and Simon R Green’s work?

I question the distinction you made there. I write horror too, but dark fantasy and horror are different things. A lot of what’s generally referred to as horror is better classified as dark fantasy in my mind. Other examples would be a lot of Stephen King’s work (Dark Tower, for example), a lot of Clive Barker’s stuff (like Weaveworld). While these people are often thought of as horror writers, and they are, they also work in dark fantasy. There’s a difference between two for me. My publisher actually refers to my novels as dark fantasy thrillers, which is the best description in my opinion.

RealmShift and MageSign follow the main character of Isiah and are a duology. While each can be read alone, MageSign follows directly from the events in RealmShift. But I don’t know if there will ever be more Isiah books. A couple of Isiah short stories have been published here and there, but I’d need a really solid idea to write another Isiah novel. Never say never, but it’s not happening any time soon.

In the meantime, I’m working on a new series, a trilogy in the same world as the Isiah books, with entirely new characters. But Isiah does make a brief cameo in the first one.

Q: There’s a particularly British sensibility about Simon R Green’s Nightside books. You are British-Australian. Would you say your book reflected this hybrid sensibility?

Definitely. I’m pretty well travelled and will get away to walk the Earth at the drop of a hat. It’s only money that prevents me from living a life constantly on the road. With RealmShift I was very deliberate about not identifying the opening city. The book moves on and the characters go to places like Guatemala, but the initial part of the book is in “the city”. It could be Sydney, London, New York – I wanted it to be everyone’s city.

MageSign is different. It’s very much an international book, but Sydney and the NSW outback play a major part and the whole book heads to those places. But it starts in Britain and I draw a lot on my experience of different countries to flesh out my stories as much as possible. I’m very keen on a sense of place being prevalent in my work, whether that place is actually identifiable or not.

Q: As well as books you are also a short story writer. I notice you have a story in Keith Stevenson’s new anthology Anywhere but Earth. I take it this is a science fiction story. Are you an SF fan from way back? Did you grow up in a house filled with books or did you discover Asimov (for instance) in a second-hand book shop?

I’ve been a fan of everything fantasy and science fiction since I was a kid. But I didn’t grow up with it – my parents were keen readers, but definitely not genre fiction. They always encouraged reading, pushed me to improve, and I fell in love with it instantly, but I found genre fiction myself somehow. From a very young age I devoured things like Lord Of The Rings and Earthsea. I graduated to sci fi and horror and never looked back.

Q: You have also written a serialised story about bounty hunter called Ghost, Ghost of the Black: A ‘Verse full of Scum’. What prompted you to follow in the footsteps of the greats like Charles Dickens and write a serial? Was it hard to keep up the pace?

I wanted to generate some more interest in my website and promote my other work, so I used the old marketing ploy: Give some stuff away and hope people come back to buy more. I really liked the idea of writing a serial and posting a new episode every week. Apart from the increased site traffic, it appealed to my love of the old series like Flash Gordon and Rocketman that I loved as a kid.

But I cheated. Ghost Of The Black is a roughly 30,000 word novella, which I serialised, but I wrote it all in advance. So keeping the pace wasn’t an issue. I had the whole thing ready to go and started posting a new ep every week throughout 2008. I would tweak and edit a bit each week, but it was largely a done deal. I’m not sure I’ll do it again though!

I’d like to write more stuff with Ghost and his exploits. Hopefully I’ll get around to that some day, but I won’t serialise it again. Maybe I’ll self-publish his further exploits as ebooks to accompany the existing ebook I released once the serial was finished.

Q: I see you work as a martial arts instructor and personal trainer – you disprove the sedentary writer stereotype. Your martial art is Kung Fu. I’d studied each of these martial arts for five years: Tae Kwon Do, Aikido and Iaido, the art of the Samurai sword. Plus I dabbled in Ju Jitsu. What drew you to Kung Fu?

Monkey and Hong Kong Phooey. If you don’t know those things, you must check them out. I started in Judo as a kid of about 11 or so. Then I tried Karate when my Judo teacher moved away, but I didn’t like it. What I did like was Monkey fighting off demons with his magic staff, and Hong Kong Phooey with his Hong Kong Book Of Kung Fu. So I went out seeking a Kung Fu school and found my physical and spiritual home. I’ve done it ever since.

I’ve studied a variety of Kung Fu styles to one extent or another, but for the last 15 years or so I’ve studied and taught Choy Lee Fut Kung Fu.

Q. You recently presented at the Emerging Writers Festival in Brisbane, a crowdfunded event. How did that come about and what was your part in it?

The EWF is a great initiative putting on events all over the country for writers. It’s obstensibly for emerging writers, but it’s really of great value to all writers. The Brisbane event was all about digital writing – writing for online markets, promoting yourself and your work online and all the opportunities and pitfalls around those activities. I was invited up to present as part of the panel on using the online environment to promote your work, to get work and to work for you. I blogged about it quite extensively here.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

Yes and no. Some people write in a very gender specific style, and I know I’ll cop some shit for saying that, but it’s true. Some female writers, for example, have a style that’s extremely feminine and targeted mainly at female writers. Some males have the same things going on for the men. Of course, that doesn’t mean the other gender can’t read and enjoy those things, but there is a definite difference.

But other writers are completely gender-neutral in their style, to my mind. Whether they’re male or female is irrelevant to their writing and their readers and they’re just telling good stories. The vast majority of writers fall into this category, I think.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

Not in the least. If the book appeals – the blurb grabbed me, the cover interests me, friends have recommended it or whatever – then gender is irrelevant. And if it’s a style of book I don’t enjoy it’s rarely, if ever, a gender-based decision. Some things work for people and some don’t – no writer can appeal to everyone all the time.

Some of my favourite writers working in genre fiction at the moment are female, in fact, and I agree with you that whatever the perception globally about SF being a boys’ club, that’s definitely not the case here in Australia. We have a plethora of talented female writers. A look at recent publications in SF in Australia would probably lean heavily to a female predominance, in fact.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

This is a tough one. So many possibilities. The answer that sprang immediately to mind is that I would go far into the future where time machines are ubiquitous, buy one and carry on exploring. But that’s like wishing for more wishes.

If I had just one time jump, much as it would be fantastic to go back and see ancient civilizations and all that, I would have to go forward. Jump a thousand years into the future, maybe, just to see what humanity has done with itself.

The dark fiction writer in me sees my arrival in a barren, wasted landscape, destroyed by the folly of man, where I would instantly die, poisoned by the toxic atmosphere of a world we’ve destroyed. But the optimist in me sees vast cities, interstellar craft exploring the galaxy and wonders of science that would seem like magic to us now. That’s something I would love to see. Still, I suppose I can just wait instead.

Giveaway Question: 

A copy of RealmShift to whoever can best capture the difference between horror and dark fantasy in a single sentence!

Catch up with Alan on Facebook

Catch up with Alan on Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/917335.Alan_Baxter

Catch up with Alan on Google+.

Follow Alan on Twitter. @AlanBaxter

Alan’s Blog.

14 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Gender Issues, The Writing Fraternity, Thrillers and Crime

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 29, 2011 · 9:39 am

Meet Kim Wilkins …

As the next of my series featuring fantastic female fantasy authors (see disclaimer) I’ve invited the talented Kim Wilkins to drop by.

Watch out for the give-away question at the end of the interview.

Q: I once heard you describe yourself as a girl from an average family in Redcliffe (a bayside suburb of Brisbane). For someone who won the University of Queensland Medal for Academic Achievement and went on to do a PHD, this is a long way from the long hot summers of your childhood. If you could go back to that little girl and give her one piece of advice, what would it be?

Chillax, little girl. I grew up with an alcoholic dad, we never had money, I was unpopular at school, so all I ever did was fantasise about escape. I was drawn to books because I could disappear into them, and found the disappearing act was a billion times more brilliant if I was writing the story instead of reading it. I was so desperate to get away from that horrid life, and I worked so hard to be free of it. I still have a tiger on my tail, and still wish I could chillax even as a grown-up.

Q: Your first book The Infernal won the 1997 horror and fantasy awards. In an interview on Tablua Rassa you said: ‘I’m still waiting for someone to describe my work as Stephen King collaborating with the Brontë sisters. There’s such a strong feminine element, and often a strong historical element, and horror as a term isn’t elastic enough to cope with those extra elements.’ I love the description f Stephen King collaborating with the Bronte sisters. With your love of history and literature were you ever tempted to take the Bronte sisters and give them a more exciting life? (I’m thinking what you did in Angel of Ruin with the Great Fire of London and Milton’s daughters).

I was tempted, yes, but then somebody did a similar story (something about Charlotte being a murderer?) and I’ve never been all that interested in writing about the 19th century. I’d already written Grimoire, which was partly set in that period, and that had scratched the itch sufficiently. I tend not to go back to a historical period twice without a compelling reason. That would be like going to the same place over and over on holidays.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GubOhvDxvE]

 

Q: You wrote 7 dark fantasy books in 8 years. Since Rosa and The Veil of Gold came out you haven’t written another adult dark fantasy. Have you been letting the ground like fallow so that when you come back to the genre you’ll feel refreshed?

I started writing another, but every time I sat down to work out how it might end, or what kinds of events might structure it, I kept repeating myself. I found this utterly dismaying and lost my confidence and hid in my bed for a while. Then I came out and said to my agent that I wanted to do something else for a while. That’s when I started writing the Kimberley Freeman books, which are epic romances, I guess, or adventure books for women. The problem (if it can be called that) was that Kimberley Freeman has done very well, so I was signed up for more of those. But I have recently finished a novel, a straight-up historical fantasy (nothing dark or urban). I published a novella that is kind of a prequel in 2010’s “Legends of Australian Fantasy”. I would like to write at least one more book set in that world. I still think I might come back to my original dark fantasy idea, but we’ll see where life takes me.

One thing that does annoy me is when people say, “you ought to write a book with angels in it” or the like. I have to say, “I already did.”

Q: You write for both Children and Young Adults. Your stand alone YA book The Pearl Hunters is set in 1799. I know have a deep love of history. In your YA series The Sunken Kingdom there are castles and ships and children in peril. Does having a good grounding in history help you produce well rounded fantasy worlds?

I’m just too lazy to create fantasy worlds from nothing. Seriously. The thought makes me feel completely drained. So I find a historical period and add magic. I find historical research easy and stimulating, and it makes me great at Trivial Pursuit.

Q: The Gina Champion Mysteries were contemporary YA with a supernatural twist. ‘From witchcraft to ghosts, from curses to spirit possession, the Gina Champion books are smart, sassy, and very scary.’ There were five books in the series and the last one came out in 2006. Are you tempted to dip into Gina’s world again?

No. I’m too busy. Too busy. I work at UQ, I teach at QWC, I am two authors. I can’t write for children as well. I feel as though I have the brakes on when writing for children or young adults. I find it very stifling.

Q: You also write women’s fiction as Kimberley Freeman. That’s a big leap from horror and YA paranormal-crime. Do you feel like you have to think yourself into a different head-space to write the Kimberley Freeman books?

Yes and no. Wildflower Hill is just The Resurrectionists without ghosts. The stories are very similar, just some of the conventions are different. I love being Kimberley Freeman some days, and other days I want to kill her. But it’s still writing; it’s still that immense pleasure of making up stories that I have adored for as long as I can remember. There doesn’t always have to be dragons.

Q: I was prompted to start this series of interviews because there seems to be a perception in the US and the UK that fantasy is a bit of a boy’s club. Do you think there’s a difference in the way males and females write fantasy?

I couldn’t say with any confidence. I don’t think fantasy is a boys’ club by any stretch of the imagination. When I think of contemporary fantasy writers, the first 10 names that pop into my head are women.

Q: Following on from that, does the gender of the writer change your expectations when you pick up their book?

It’s nothing to do with the writer. It’s to do with whether the book has a female lead. I have to have a female lead. Women generally write better about women. So in a roundabout way, maybe the answer is yes.

Q: And here’s the fun question. If you could book a trip on a time machine, where and when would you go, and why?

England, 8th century. But just for a few days.

Kim has a copy of Rosa and The Veil of Gold to give-away. The Give-away Question is: If you could meet one of the Bronte sisters,  Jane Austen or Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who would it be and why?

 

See Kim’s Blog

Catch up with Kim on Facebook.

 

.

22 Comments

Filed under Australian Writers, Book Giveaway, Characterisation, Children's Books, creativity, Dark Urban Fantasy, Fantasy books, Female Fantasy Authors, Gender Issues, Genre, Historical Books, Publishing Industry, Readers

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

October 27, 2011 · 7:45 pm

My Obscure and Interesting for the day …

Every day on twitter I look for something Obscure and Interesting (sometimes it turns out to be obscure and worrying). Today, through links I found this. It belongs to the Obscure and Wondering category.

Alesandre Farto aka Vhils – artist – he creates portraits by scratching paint off building walls.

Lovely stuff. You can view more on his website here.

Obscure and Interesting is a form of mental yoga. I recommend doing it at least once a day.

9 Comments

Filed under creativity, Fun Stuff, Inspiring Art, Obscure and Interesting, The World in all its Absurdity

Tagged as , ,