Today's guest is
R J Anderson, who's taking time out from
revising her third Faery Rebels book in order to chat about
the first two volumes in the series.
LEC: You had a very nomadic childhood, because your family moved every couple of years. I myself attended nine schools by ninth grade (none of which were in places as exotic as Uganda, although I did do a three-year stint in Yellowknife), and quickly found that books were the most stable of all my friendships. Can you speak to the importance of books in your own childhood, and how they influenced your decision to become a writer?
RJA: Wow, nine schools in nine years -- you definitely have me beat there! I only went to four different schools between the ages of five and sixteen, so it wasn't quite as unstable as it sounds. But I did have a real difficulty making friends (and whenever I made one, it seemed, they moved away the following year) so books were definitely more reliable companions for me.
My early love of fantasy was kindled by hearing my father read Lewis and Tolkien aloud to our family, and then seeking out the Narnia books and the tales of Middle-Earth for myself to read them over again. I also remember taking out every single one of Andrew Lang's collections of fairy tales from our local library -- The Blue Fairy Book, The Yellow Fairy Book, and so on -- and then ransacking the folklore and mythology sections for tales from other lands and cultures.
After all that reading, I'm not sure I consciously decided to become a writer so much as it seemed like the natural thing to do. By eight I'd already started writing and illustrating a series of fantasy stories for my own enjoyment -- and that's what it really was; something just for me. Asking someone else to look at it and tell me whether it was any good would have been like asking permission to breathe.
I still believe strongly that the best possible preparation for becoming an author is to read. Books in your genre, books out of your genre, books for every age and demographic, non-fiction, graphic novels, poetry, plays, classic fiction, pulp fiction, everything. Everything you read teaches you something about how to (or how not to) write a story, and those principles will be in your mind when you sit down to write.
LEC: Several aspects of the Faery Rebels series sets it apart from the many other faery books currently available. For starters, your faeries are small and winged, as opposed to the humanoid faeries found in paranormal romances. More significantly, you approach the story from the point of view of the faeries, not the humans. Tell us how you arrived at this approach, and how it led to the worlds and stories you've created.
RJA: I came up with the idea for the book that became Spell Hunter back in the early 90's, long before paranormal romance was an established genre and certainly before I'd read any stories about tall, dark, sexy faeries. So most of the faery representations I'd seen were very much in the Thumbelina and Tinker Bell mold. What interested me was the idea of writing about a character who was small in size but also fierce and deadly, perhaps even to humans if they became a threat. So right from the beginning, I knew I wanted to write about faeries as the main characters. And when I thought about it, I realized the story would be even more interesting if I turned the usual trope on its head and portrayed humans, rather than faeries, as the mysterious, fearful, fascinating Other. I wanted to do something different.
LEC: One of your most memorable characters is Thorn - the cranky, snarky, charismatic Queen's Hunter who trains Knife. You've mentioned in other interviews that she's one of your favorites. How do you give depth to your secondary characters? And how do you keep the fun ones from taking over the action?
RJA: I feel in a way like I can't take credit for a character like Thorn, because she just walked onto the page and took over. I wasn't conscious of having to think about how she would talk and act at all, because she was just
there. And sometimes that happens with characters and it's wonderful, but it doesn't always happen. Sometimes characters take a long time for me to get to know, and I find that the things I thought I knew about them were all wrong, and it can be quite frustrating. But for me it's an intuitive sort of process. Either a character is alive and real to me, or they aren't quite there yet and I have to give them more time and space in the writing process to get to know them.
But if they're alive, I like to give them their heads and see what they'll do. There's a character in Wayfarer who was supposed to be just an incidental villain, but the moment he stepped on stage and I started writing his description I thought, "Hoo boy, this is a live one." And sure enough, he not only sneaked his way into making another appearance later in the book, but he's showing up in the sequel as well. But was I ever tempted to let him take over? No, because I loved my main characters and I wouldn't have written Wayfarer in the first place if I didn't think Timothy and Linden were strong enough to deserve their own story.
LEC: The UK edition of Spell Hunter, entitled Knife, was nominated for the Carnegie Award. After devoting fifteen years to the writing (and publishing) of this book, what was your reaction to that news?
RJA: I got the news from
Carrie Ryan (author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth) while standing in line with her for breakfast at the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) conference, and I may have swooned a little. I didn't even know the book was eligible, let alone that it would have enough support to make the longlist. And for my very first award nomination to be such a major prize was doubly unexpected. But it was a wonderful affirmation of what I'd always hoped and dreamed for the book, that readers and librarians in the UK would love it that much. I felt quite certain that I'd never make the shortlist, not with heavy hitters like
Terry Pratchett and
Neil Gaiman and
Laurie Halse Anderson on the ballot, but that didn't diminish my happiness one whit.
LEC: When will Arrow be available? Can you give us any hints about what's coming next?
RJA: The UK publication date for Arrow is January 6th, 2011 -- I don't have any information on the North American release as yet. It follows a similar pattern to Wayfarer, in that it takes an incidental character from the previous book and makes her the heroine; Rhosmari has all of one line in Wayfarer, but rest assured that in Arrow she has a big role to play in the future of the Oakenfolk and their struggle against the Empress. And of course, we'll be seeing the characters from the previous two books again as well... some more than others, but they'll be there.
LEC: Thanks Rebecca! Good luck with those revisions!
