The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson - Interview on Queer YA

Hi all,

I'm just posting here to send you over to Queer YA where I've posted my interview with Lisa Williamson, author of the wonderful book out this month The Art of Being Normal about a transgender teen. I've adored the book and I think it's a brilliant addition to LGBT YA books. Head over [here] to read all about her inspiration for the book, how she researched for some of the scenes and her bookish recommendation.

Caroline x

Guest post: Zoe Marriott on her passion for Japanese culture

This post is part of the Japanese Fiction Week, hosted here.

For more information about the week, head over here.

~~~

Today I am thrilled to welcome Zoe Marriott, author of the fantastic Shadows On the Moon, to Portrait of a Woman. She will be talking to us about her passion for Japanese culture and her favourite books.

I'm really not an expert on Japan. People think that I am because I wrote Shadows on the Moon, which is set in a faerytale version of Feudal Japan. I've been praised for the amount of historical detail included, and sometimes people assume I must have visited Japan many times. But the fact is that I've never been there even once, although it's my life's ambition to, one day. And I've barely scratched the surface of this fascinating culture. 

I actually kind of like it that way. It means I've got so much more to learn, and that's the best way to feel about anything you love the way I love Japan. Because I really do. If Japan were a person and not a country, I would totally be it's stalker (also, wouldn't he or she be *gorgeous*?). Japan's many years of conscious and careful isolation up to the nineteenth century have resulted in a wealth of music, art, folklore, shared images and dreams and history which literally have no counterpart in any other country. In Europe and the Americas, in Russia, even in the middle east, it's possible to trace a mythological figure from nation to nation, transforming as he goes, or find a hundred different versions of the same story. Even China shares some of this. All that stops when you hit Japan. The fairytales and under-the-bed monsters, the turns of phrase that the Japanese people take for granted are utterly new and alien and all the more breathtakingly lovely and terrifying for that! 

The only other country I can think of with this kind of unexplored culture is Australia. But the aboriginal peoples of Australia were slaughtered and oppressed by white settlers who tried their best to stamp out the history of the land they had taken by force. The surviving indigenous people resent appropriation fiercely (for good reason, since they are trying so hard to recover and conserve that culture themselves!). The Japanese, on the other hand, still have a dominant and evolving cultural identity within their own nation. This allows them to appropriate freely from the rest of the world in their own media, and so it seems fair to borrow a little of their culture in return, even as an outsider. 

The obsession started young for me. Really young. So young that I can't tell you how old I was, only that I was small enough to sit cross legged in front of the television set and not get yelled at because my head was in the way. It was a Sunday afternoon and I'm pretty sure it was raining, but that's pretty much the only stuff I can remember about that day because every other braincell I have is taken up with the glorious, amazing, life-changing thing I saw. Hayao Miyazaki's animated film Laputa - now known as Castle in the Sky.

It's the story of a little orphan girl who is abducted by ruthless and ambitious men who intend to force her to reveal the secrets of her ancestor's power - the power to command a mythical floating city filled with unimaginable treasures and weapons of unbelievable power. There's a sweet, innocent love story, and sky pirates, and a moment when this tiny, round faced child stands resolute before a man who shoots off both her braids because she refuses to give up her secret to someone who will abuse it.

I'm pretty sure I never recovered. I mean, Disney was all very well (and you'll have to pry my copies of Beauty and the Beast and Tangled out of my cold dead hands) but COME ON. I'd never seen anything like Laputa in my life before. Beautiful, funny, disturbing, tragic, terrifying, unique and bittersweet, it exposed me to emotions and images that stayed with me for life. The girl flinging herself from the plane in desperation. The pendant glowing with a beautiful and sinister glow and her featherlike floating process through the sky, peaceful and serene. The glowing crystals in the underground caverns. The strangely lovely and mournful robots and their bird-like mechanical voices. The great city fallen to ruins, all covered in giant trees the size of skyscrapers and thick, jewel-like moss. When my brother tracked down a copy of this on DVD for me for Christmas one year (back before it was widely released in the English speaking world) I cried all over him. Not the reception he was probably going for. But it meant that much to me.

I think I've spent the last twenty-odd years of my life searching to recapture that feeling - the feeling of diving headfirst into a magical and unexplored country - again. Once I figured out who'd made Laputa I tracked down every other film he'd ever made and devoured them. Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Nausicaa, My Neighbour Totoro, The Cat Returns. And when I ran out of Hayao Miyazaki I moved onto Paprika and Millenium Actress by Satoshi Kon. All these are a great place to start exploring this powerful artform and beginning to gain an inkling of how fascinating Japanese culture is.

But all these are, to a greater or lesser extent, fantasy. You can pick up a lot from fantasy, but let's say you'd like to start with something a little down to earth. How about trying one of of my ultimate all-time favourite mangas? The Flower of Life by Fumi Yoshinaga. Readily available in English, it's a four volume 'slice of life' series about a diverse group of friends and acquaintances (and their teachers) in the first years at Japanese high school. It's a poignant, touching, hilarious and wonderful portrait of how it feels to be young, with the constant rush to grow up doing battle with a nostalgia for fragile innocence which is inevitably slipping away. It's also beautifully drawn, and a great introduction to manga conventions, like reading from right to left.

Or perhaps you're in the mood for a romance - with a paranormal twist? How about Fruits Basket? It's a long running (now complete) series about a family who bear an ancient curse: they turn into animals from the Chinese zodiac when someone of the opposite sex hugs them. The story follows the misadventures of a young girl who gets mixed up with them by chance, grows to love several of them in different ways, and tries to help them overcome the curse. It starts out cute and fluffy and gets gradually darker, and is like a masterclass in subtle characterisation, presenting easy stereotypes to the reader and slowly peeling back the layers to reveal the contradictory, complex, real person beneath. Don't watch the anime though; it cuts off with a nonsensical ending nothing like the manga and left me very frustrated. 

Not keen on paranormal? Then how about just plain old hilarious? Ouran High School Host Club (again, a long running series that is now complete) is probably one of the the best mangas I've ever read. It freely mocks and subverts normal shojo (that's girl's manga) tropes while at the same time squeezing laughs out of them. Haruhi - a poor, out of place, genius scholarship student at a prestigious school full of the superrich - stumbles into the middle of a group of bored, privileged kids who run a 'host' club to amuse themselves. The tables turn constantly. One minute Haruhi is beliguered and bullied by the rich kids, the next they're scrambling to impress Haruhi. The anime for this is also superb, though it cuts off waaaay before the manga finished, so be prepared.

For shounen - that's 'boy's manga' - my recommendation is Bleach (which is also a very decent anime, if you skip the filler arcs where they were waiting for the manga to catch up and just shoved any old nonsense in there). It's a great, action-packed manga about Shinigami, Japanese soul reapers, and a young human boy who ends up accidentally taking on some of their powers and - well - kicking monster ass with a huge-ass sword. Can you ask for more? Neither the manga or the anime are complete though. I'm personally freaking the heck out over current developments, so be warned.

Now for a few recommendations in one of my favourite manga and anime categories. Yaoi. That's gay romance featuring blokes. Hyouta Fujiyama is a brilliant mangaka in this field - her books are sweet, funny and feature some of my favourite art. Spell, Lover's Flat, Freefall Romance and Ordinary Crushvols. 1 and 2 are a good place to start, if you can get them. Fumi Yoshinaga, the author of The Flower of Life, that I mentioned above, also dabbles in this field. She wrote Moon and Sandals vols. 1 and 2 and The First Class is Civil Law vols. 1 and 2, brilliant works about learning to accept other people for what they are, if you wish to be loved the same way in return. Lily Hoshino is another mangaka whose art is breathtaking. I love My Flower Bride, My Flower Groom and Love Quest. Another favourite is Little Butterfly, by Hinako Takanaga, which is three volumes, but available in an omnibus edition - a truly epic, and yet completely down to earth story of the transformations caused by true love. For anime in this field? If you can find a copy of Winter Cicada - the story of two young Samurai on opposite sides in the Japanese civil war, who fall in love - you're in for a treat, although you should have tissues handy. LOTS of tissues.

Some of these are available on Amazon or even in your local bookshop. For others you might need to go to specialist manga and anime sellers, or buy secondhand. But I promise that you will be well rewarded! Exploring Japanese culture is a journey which I don't think I'll ever come to the end of, and the more people who are travelling with me, the more fun it will be.

Zxx

~~~

Thanks Zoe for this post! I now have quite a few books (and anime) to track down on Amazon!

You can stalk Zoe:

www.zoemarriott.com
The Zoe-Trope Blog
YouTube

Interview with Andrew Prentice and Jonathan Weil about Black Arts

After gushing about the book, the trailer and the book launch of Black Arts (here), I am positively thrilled to received the authors on the blog today to answer a few questions about their writing.

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Hi Jonathan, Andrew,

Congratulations on your wonderful book and welcome to Portrait of a Woman!

It was lovely to meet you at your book launch and I devoured the book in just a few days. I loved how rich, atmospheric and dark the story was and I can't wait to read the second book in the Books of Pandemonium series!

My first question to you would be: how did you meet and how and when did you decide to write a book together?

We first met at school: we got to know each other better in our sixth form English class, and editing the school newspaper together. After school we went to different universities, but stayed friends, and when we finished we decided we wanted to write an epic graphic novel that reimagined all of human history. We got about sixteen pages in until reality intervened and we had to get jobs. After floating around a bit we landed a very strange job for an aquarium/sushi tycoon: we wrote dialogue for robots and put on Nativity circuses in the snow in December, as well as scripting animation and comics. We learned a lot about how not to do things there. When we were sacked in one of the blood-lettings that periodically swept the company, we tried to write comics again. It was then our agent spotted us. She hinted that we might make better authors than artists, which was a very wise suggestion. With her encouragement we decided to change our comic proposal into a novel.  

Very wise suggestion indeed! I really loved the book and really liked how you managed to write with one voice. Writing a book together, how easy is it? Do you split the tasks or scenes by "specialty" or do you write everything together?

It took us a while to iron out the kinks in the system, but we've been collaborating on various projects for nearly fifteen years, so we know each other pretty well.

We don't have specialties - we just split the chapters between us, and then rewrite each other's drafts. In the end, we've found that writing with one voice is a matter of bashing each chapter back and forth - like a long tennis rally. We both have an idea of the tone and rhythm we are aiming at. It's very hard to get there at first draft, but by the time a chapter has been swapped seven or eight times, it usually gets the zip and zing that we are listening for.  

That method clearly works! What are the hardest and the best parts of writing a book with another person?

The hardest part is accepting that one of your treasured phrases or pet ideas Just Isn’t Right.  The best comes when ideas start to spark off each other – a semi-serious remark by one person gets misunderstood by the other, in a way that actually makes much more sense than the original . . . and ends up leading both of you to something great that neither could have achieved alone.

It does sound like you two could invent quite a few things together. When I was at your book launch, you hinted that the story hadn't started exactly like it is now, what was your initial idea?

We've always been writing about a vast historical conspiracy, magic, and mayhem, and the book has always been set in the grotty, treacherous streets of Elizabethan London. The initial plot was a very different beast. There was more high politics (Sir Francis Walsingham, the Armada, religious persecution and court intrigue) and the magic system was completely different.

That said, through five major redrafts, we've slaughtered a dozen different plots, hundreds of characters and millions of words. Their frozen corpses lie behind us like French troopers on the retreat from Moscow. We particularly mourn Sir Julius Jamstock, the talking dog from drafts four through to eight. He was amazingly fun to write.

Well I do hope we'll get to see Sir Julius Jamstock in action in future books. How much research did you do on the period and on magic / black arts in general? Was being historically accurate an important concern for you?

Real historical detail is usually richer, sicker and more unexpected than anything you could come up with yourself. A really important change came when we decided to base the magic in what they actually believed at the time. We'd been using a completely made-up system until that point, but the story really came alive when we decided to take on the central belief of historical renaissance magic – the idea that you did magic by striking deals with devils.

That said, you don't want to clog up the story by showing off how much research you’ve done. We try to use real historical details like a spice, adding to the fun and lending their flavour to the things that we invent ourselves.

Which part of Jack's story did you enjoy writing the most?

Dialogue is always the most fun, especially thieves' cant. Mr Smiles' and Sharkwell's conversation became a kind of competition between us as to who could come up with the most elaborate villain-speak.

Dialogues definitely were some of the best parts of the book! Beth Sharkwell is quite possibly one of my favourite characters; she is strong, passionate and full of surprises. How did she come to life and was she inspired by anyone in particular?

In some of the earlier drafts we had two female characters – Beth Plaistow, a slightly priggish sailor’s daughter who hated all thieves, and an older character called Queen Moll.  She was based on ‘Moll Cutpurse,’ a real historical figure from the early seventeenth century – a cross-dressing, pipe-smoking bandit queen who once robbed the roundhead General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath. She didn't quite fit into the final version, so we took what we liked about her and put it all into Beth – and that was when the character really came to life. Stuck-up Beth Plaistow became stick-’em-up Beth Sharkwell, thieves’ princess – but still with a bit of the old Class Monitor, follow-the-rules-or-else quality that we’d put into the original character. 

So now I'm fascinated by Mary Frith aka Moll Cutpurse ' I'll definitely be looking up some books to read on her. What was the strangest idea either of you came up with for the book (which may or may not have ended up in the final version!)?

In one of the early drafts there was a scene where Jack jumped a galloping camel (which was on fire) off a cliff to escape from pirates.  There was a football match where the goals were giant wheels of cheese three yards across.  There was a man who had to be tethered by a rope to the ground at all times, or he'd fly off and hit the moon.  There are loads more, but it’s a little depressing to list them: hopefully we can recycle the best bits in later books. 

A galloping camel on fire? Yes please! You mentioned that it took 5 years for you both to write the book. What did you learn during those years as writers and what did the story and the characters bring you on a more personal level?

We definitely thought that writing a book would be easier than it turned out to be. We learned an enormous amount – much of it through the sage advice of the editing team at David Fickling Books.  Perhaps the biggest lesson we learned was about consistency. To start with we were trying to do too many things. The story oscillated between comedy and horror, joke-driven magic and serious world-building. The result was a mess. We've learned to pare our ideas down, and be much more ruthless. The book is better for it.

Although this process has been frustrating at times, we're so lucky to be allowed to do this.  Writing a book with your best friend is the best job in the world.

Yes indeed, sometimes less is more. You are currently writing the second book in the Books of Pandemonium series, what can you tell us about it? Is it set in the same time period? What will Jack, Beth and the Intelligencer have to face?

It's going to be immense. Beth is trapped in the eighteenth century – Jack wants to rescue her from the clutches of the Worst Man in London – but Beth ain’t so sure she needs rescuing. Meanwhile, the imp is threatening rebellion and Kit is working on a time-travel scam to become the greatest gambler ever. Oh, and they’re going to find out who the real bad guys are. We are having so much fun!

~~~

Wow! That sequel sounds positively awesome! Thank you both so much for answering my questions and good luck with the writing (and don't forget the galloping camel!)! 

You can follow the authors on Twitter (@prenticeweil)

LGBT YA Week - Guest Post by James Dawson

This guest post is part of the LGBT Teen Novels Week, hosted here.

For more information about the week, please head over here.

Hello,

Please welcome James Dawson, author of Hollow Pike, who will talk to us today about queer characters in YA books.

~~~

UKYALGBTOMGWTF!

I recently had the best email from a bookseller who had just finished Hollow Pike, my debut novel. she was thanking me for the inclusion of the three queer characters in the book. She said that when she was at school there weren’t any characters like her to relate to in books, and it was fantastic that today’s young adults were being represented in fiction.

If I may, allow me to introduce you to the characters she means. Hollow Pike sees a young Welsh girl called Lis arrive in the mysterious town of Hollow Pike where she is spellbound by the school outcasts Kitty, Delilah and Jack. Kitty and Delilah are a couple while Jack clearly hasn’t made his mind up whether he likes boys or girls yet.

The characters were vaguely based on people I knew at school, so their sexuality was a no-brainer. At my very ordinary school in West Yorkshire, a lot of young people were figuring it out. Those are experimental years. Some of us ended up gay, some ended up straight, a lot ended up somewhere in the middle, winding up in relationships with men and women – but then, as sixteen year olds, we were finding our way.

It makes sense to me, therefore, that a lot of young people are still finding their way and should be able to see themselves in the books they are reading. Something that I found hard back then was that LGBTQ relationships weren’t really presented as an option. You were straight or ‘wrong’. It would have been cool if there had been young gay or bi role models in films and TV shows and books for me to go, ‘ah he likes boys, so it’s probably OK that I do too.’ I have always been gay, but I might have figured it out sooner with more visible role models.

The main goal when writing Hollow Pike was to tell a cracking scary story, but I was determined that Kitty, Jack and Delilah would retain this element of ‘figuring it out’. These were never meant to be books about ‘coming out’. Issues books have their place, but I didn’t want it to be a sad, sad story about how hard it is to be young and queer. It is difficult, but being a teenager is always hard. In Hollow Pike, frankly, the characters have bigger things to worry about! What’s more, issues books often become ‘gay books’. I was gay and I wouldn’t have read a ‘gay book’ out of fear of having the shit kicked out of me. The hope is, that young readers will see Kitty, Jack and Delilah going about their business and simply think –‘ they’re OK, I’m OK too’.

But for this to really work, it needs to be on a much bigger scale than my lone book can achieve. We need more books, TV shows and films with queer characters front and centre. Not in a token, box-ticking way (no more sassy gay sidekicks, I implore you), but in presenting characters who are more than their sexuality.

 I can’t wait for you to get your hands on Book Two – Book One has only begun to scratch the surface of these complex characters! Writers shouldn’t be scared to reflect diversity – we live in diverse times so all we’re doing is painting an accurate picture. If it seems that young queer people are in a minority it’s probably because they aren’t empowered to be more visible in schools. We can help overcome that. I’m so thrilled that both Attitude and Diva magazines have chosen to review Hollow Pike alongside Bliss and SFX, this is recognition that a very mainstream release from a major publisher can feature queer characters without becoming niche gay fiction.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – presenting young gay characters in the media is the best way to make being young and gay normal. Because it is.

~~~

Thank you James for this fantastic post - I can't agree more on the media needing to include the diversity which exists in real life!

Hollow Pike is already out in the UK

Find James on:

His website

Facebook

Twitter

Joanne Harris Interview!

Hello book lovers!

Today I am deeply honored to welcome the one and only Joanne Harris on Portrait of a Woman to talk about her fascinating fantasy series of which the second book, Runelight, is out today!

Very different from her more contemporary novels, Runemarks and Runelight tell the tale of feuding gods, long forgotten prophecies and feature some feisty heroines.

~~~ 

Hi Joanne,

I have literally devoured Runemarks and Runelight in just a few days and have fallen for your fantastic characters (Loki!) and fascinating story! Thank you so much for answering a few questions about them!

Portrait of a Woman: I read on your website that you've always had a fascination for Norse Myths, but what attracted you to them at first?
Joanne Harris: I've liked them ever since I was seven years old, and read a library book called THUNDER OF THE GODS.


PoaW: If Runemarks was set in a very organised and regulated world, Runelight, which takes place three years after the first book, starts off in a chaotic, violent and grim setting - what can the reader expect from this new story and which challenges will await Maddy and the other characters?

JH: If RUNEMARKS was about self-discovery and the power of stories, RUNELIGHT is about finding out how we fit into the world, the power of friendship and community. Maddy has grown into young adulthood, and must now face the responsibilities of her new role among the old gods of Asgard.


PoaW: In Runelight, we meet Maggie Rede, how different a heroine is she from Maddy?

JH: The girls are in some ways very alike; independent, imaginative, strong. But Maggie has been brought up in the Universal City, among the Order, and her beliefs and attitudes have been shaped by her upbringing. In some ways Maggie can be very naive, and her fear of magic and of her own powers puts her into danger, both physical and emotional.


PoaW: How did you approach the writing process in Runemarks? Did you have to make a lot of research on Norse myths or learn runes?
JH: I didn't really do any specific research. My knowledge of Norse culture is the product of many years of interest and study; I've been learning Old Icelandic for 5 years, have a reasonably knowledge of runic systems and have brought a lot of what I've learnt into the books.


PoaW: Also, how different was writing Runemarks and Runelight from your other books? Do you plan on writing more fantasy books (not necessarily in the same world)?
JH: It's the first time I feel I've had the freedom to write out-and-out fantasy; imaginary worlds, alternate realities, other races; magic as a part of life. It's liberating to be able to do that, and on such a large scale; although I think that thematically my fantasy books and my mainstream books still have quite a lot of themes in common. Alienation; the outsider; tolerance; the power of words. There will almost certainly be at least one more book in the RUNE series - I'm having such fun writing these books that as long as people want to read them, I'm more than happy to keep writing them.

 

PoaW: Are there some aspects of Norse myths that you changed to suit the story or did you try to stay as close as possible to the myths?
JH: I have stayed fairly true to the original myths, but these stories are new, set in a post-Ragnarok world to reflect the changing roles of the gods in a society that has mostly forgotten their legends.


PoaW: Your interpretation of Loki is one of the best I have ever read and he is such a fascinating character in your books - which aspect of his famous personality did you want to put forward in the story?

JH: Loki is is such an ambivalent character - by far my favourite among the Norse gods - that I wanted to portray his complexity rather than (as most interpretations do) simply set him up as a villain. He's a very modern antihero in some ways; an outsider; rejected both by his own people and the community he inhabits and permanently conflicted about his role in the world. He's also a natural comedian - using his profound insight into human (and god) nature to find the best ways to ridicule and to upset his fellow-gods. And unlike the others, he is not a fighter; his weapons are not swords, but words. That's a theme that runs very strongly through both books; the power of words.


PoaW: The book has some very serious themes woven in the fantasy story - why did you want to illustrate the fact that "Not kings but historians rule the world"?

JH: We're back to the power of words again. I wanted to write about the nature of history and that of story, and how we, as a culture, are defined by what we choose to celebrate and the stories we pass onto the next generation.


PoaW: Last but not least, if you could invite one of the characters of Runemarks and Runelight, which one would it be and what would you cook?

JH: I'd invite Thor, who wouldn't care what I cooked (as long as there was a lot of it), but who I sense would be a fun drinking companion...

***

Stay tuned for reviews of Runemarks and Runelight on the blog if you haven't already been convinced to read them!

Where you can find Joanne Harris:
Website: http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/
Follow me on Twitter: @Joannechocolat

Thanks a million to Joanne and RHCB!



Christopher Paolini Blog Interview + GIVEAWAY!!!

Hi everyone,

I have read Eragon for the first time when I was 15 and I have been a massive fan of Christopher Paolini ever since!

Earlier this year I've been so *excited* (read: hysterical) about the upcoming release of Inheritance - the final book in the series that I have been consistently pestering every single person I know with it. I went to the event at Forbidden Planet (article and pics to come soon!) where I got my books signed and could meet Christopher!

I also have had the absolutely amazing opportunity to ask Christopher Paolini a few questions prior to the release of Inheritance (8th November people - only a week left!!!) and here is the video of the interview!!

Find out what to expect from Inheritance, if Christopher will continue writing , what he does when he has writer's block, which character from the Inheritance Cycle he would like to be, how different was writing Inheritance from the other books and his tips for aspiring writers!

 

Also, because I am a huge fan of his and I can't NOT share the amazingness that is Eragon's story, I have some signed books to giveaway!!

GIVEAWAY:

I have two sets of signed Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr with coloured edges to giveaway for 2 lucky UK and Ireland fans of Christopher Paolini!!!

A massive thank you to Christopher and the entire RHCB team for this interview!

To participate:

Send me an email (here) with "INHERITANCE COMPETITION" in the subject.

If you spread the Inheritance Cycle love by blog, tweet, tumblr, facebook, etc. talking about Christopher or the release of Inheritance, do add the link to your email as you will get more chances to win!
(The email counts as 1 point, a tweet counts as +1, tumblr post as +1, etc.)

Add your name and address so that I can send the books to you as soon as I can!

Competition ends 13th November 2011.

Here are some links if you want to stay on top of all the Christopher Paolini news:

Like Christopher Paolini on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/theinheritancecycle

Go check out the fantastic facebook page for fantasy books Other Realms:
https://www.facebook.com/OtherRealms

A Tangle Of Magicks blog Tour - Interview with Stephanie Burgis

I am thrilled to receive today Stephanie Burgis, author of A Most Improper Magick (my crazy fan-girl review here), to talk about the release of the second book in the Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, A Tangle Of Magicks. I have finished reading the book and I loved it so much! I'll post my review during the week so you can see how in love I am with the story :)

~~~

Hi Stephanie, 

I am absolutely thrilled to welcome you to Portrait of a Woman for the release of A Tangle Of Magicks! I was very excited to read A Most Improper Magick back in 2010 because I literally couldn't take my eyes off the cover! The book is just as original as the cover and Kat’s story is very adventurous, funny and magical. It really ticked all my boxes so I was even more excited to read A Tangle Of Magicks and see where Kat would take us next!

Portrait of a Woman: Both books mix magical elements with a Regency setting and an incorrigible main character, but how did Kat’s story come to you in the first place?

Stephanie Burgis: I was actually in the middle of writing a different book - a dark, angst-ridden adult novel. Then one day, as I was chopping onions in my kitchen, I suddenly heard a girl’s voice in my ear (it really was as unexpected and vivid as that), saying: “I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed in boys’ clothes, and set off to save my family from ruin…”

That was it! I was hooked. I abandoned the onions, ran to grab a notebook and began to write. Kat had swaggered right into my life, and I was caught up in her story from that moment onward.

PoaW: I have to admit that that first line got me hooked to the story as well! If A Most Improper Magick looks at the widespread phenomenon of highwaymen during Regency England, A Tangle Of Magicks takes us to the streets of Bath and the myths behind its famous roman baths. Why did you choose to write about this city? Did you have to do a lot of visiting and research to be able to recreate what it was like during Kat’s time? 

SB: I fell in love with the city of Bath years and years ago, well before I ever started writing about Kat - and the Roman Baths, in particular, just overwhelmed me. They are so amazing, and they feel genuinely magical to walk around even now! So when it came time to write Kat’s second adventure, I knew immediately that I wanted to send her and her family to Bath…not least because it gave me the perfect excuse to go back myself, again and again!

Luckily, Jane Austen actually lived in Bath around the period that Kat visited, so there’s been a lot of historical work done on Bath in that time period by Austen scholars, and I found all of those books and articles really helpful. I also read several tourist guidebooks to Bath that were written right around 1800. Finding those felt like striking gold!

PoaW: After reading A Tangle Of Magicks, I have been dying to go to Bath and see those roman baths for myself! I went on your (gorgeous!) website and realized that you have a very varied background in terms of studies, countries visited and work. What does this variety bring to your writing and to the themes in your books?

SB: Well, my background in academia really helped because I spent years researching late eighteenth-century Europe in connection to my degrees, as well as also reading letters and diaries of 18^th and 19^th century British women just for fun. And if I hadn’t spent a few years living in Vienna, Austria (which I loved!), I might have felt far more nervous about moving permanently from America to the UK to be with my now-husband…which directly led to writing about Kat! My first book, A Most Improper Magick, was set in exactly the area of Yorkshire where we lived as I wrote the book, and A Tangle of Magicks was inspired by our daytrip to Bath. I couldn’t have written any of these books if I hadn’t moved to the UK!

(And thanks for the kind words about my website! I’m lucky enough to be married to a fabulous web designer - Patrick Samphire, a.k.a. www.50secondsnorth.com - so I’ll pass the compliment on to him!)

PoaW: My favourite part of the book is the importance of family and I really love Kat’s evolution and how she is growing up. A Tangle Of Magicks features a bit more Kat’s father and her brother Charles and we start to see a bit more of their personalities. Are we going to see and learn a bit more about them in the next book? (why yes, this is a shameless attempt to get more info on book 3 :) )

SB: You absolutely will - especially Charles! I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but Kat 3 is definitely where Charles comes into his own. ;)

PoaW: Amazing! Can't wait to read book 3!! Kat is one of my favourite characters! She is strong, courageous and has the best personality ever! Do you have a top 5 of your favourite heroines in literature and which qualities do they need to have to catch your interest?

SB: Thanks so much! My biggest love as a reader is reserved for smart, feisty heroines who stand up for what they believe in, even if they make mistakes along the way. My top five are:

1. Amelia Peabody, the heroine of Elizabeth Peters’s Crocodile on the Sandbank and a whole series of funny mysteries set in Victorian-era Egypt. She’s smart, determined, and is never afraid to bash an evil-doer with her parasol!
2. Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. She’s witty, intelligent, and refuses to give in to social pressure when she knows it’s wrong.
3. Ellie, the heroine of Joan Bauer’s Squashed (one of my favourite YA novels ever). She may be fighting an upward battle, but she’s passionate and loyal, two of my favourite qualities in a heroine - and the novel is hilarious!
4. Flora Segunda, of Ysabeau Wilce’s Flora Segunda. She’s theatrical, feisty and fabulous.
5. Jane Eyre, in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. She’s brave, analytical, and refuses to compromise her own integrity and sense of self-worth, even for the sake of romantic love.

PoaW: That's exactly how I love my heroines in books too! Young Adult literature is becoming increasingly important and as it grows, it gets regularly attacked for being too dark, too controversial and at times too influential. As a YA/MG writer, do you think there is too much darkness in YA literature these days and do you think teens need to be specifically shielded from some themes?

SB: I think kids deserve to have a wide variety of reading options. A book that’s too dark for one reader may well be the book that saves another. I personally tend to prefer writing and reading books that are bright and fun, high-spirited adventures - but I would be horrified if anyone took away the darker books from the shelves. Kids come from lots of different backgrounds and have a lot of different needs, and it would be terrible to take away a book that some kids really need just because some other kids aren’t ready for it yet.

PoaW: On the same topic, you recently participated in a panel about the importance of honesty and creativity in engaging young people organized by The Reading Agency, Bounce! and various publishing companies including Templar. What came out of this event?

SB: That event was so much fun! I really enjoyed being part of such a varying group of authors - Anthony McGowan and Colin Mulhern write very gritty contemporary YA fiction (Colin’s book is about 11-year-old cage fighters in a very freaky contemporary underworld)  while Isla Whitcroft writes glamorous, fun action adventures for a great teen heroine (and martial artist) who gets to travel around the world and use excellent spy gadgets. It was incredibly stimulating for me as a writer to get to discuss writing with such great writers who all write such different kinds of books.

PoaW: Goodreads links to Colin Mulhern's Clash (here) and Isla Whitcroft's The Cate Carlisle Files: Trapped (here)

PoaW: And last, there is a Kat book 3 in the works which will be published in 2012. Will there be more Kat books (pleeeaaase!) and do you have any other projects coming up?

SB: I honestly don’t know the answer to your first question, because it’s just too early to even guess. Truthfully, I would LOVE to write more Kat books - I have lots of ideas for where her further adventures will take her (whether I ever end up writing them or not). However, in terms of hard publishing reality, I can’t even try to sell any more Kat books until Kat book 2 has come out in America and had time to show sales figures, which won’t be for at least another year…so of course I’m working on other projects in the meantime, because I can’t bear to stop writing while I wait! I’m actually just about to send a couple of potential projects to my US editor, so I’m at the stage of feeling far too nervous to talk about them in public right now…

PoaW: I'll cross all my fingers and toes! Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions and writing such wonderful books!

SB: Thank you so much for having me here!

~~~

You can read a short story taking place between Kat book 1 and Kat book 2 on Stephanie's website.

Links:

Stephanie Burgis website : http://www.stephanieburgis.com/

Twitter: @stephanieburgis

Templar fiction facebook page