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Your Wednesday Author Interview: Cherie Priest
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006
1:44:00 PM EDT
Hearing Call Me -- Way Out West
For this week's Author Interview, I'm really pleased to bring you someone who I think is one of the soon-to-be-big names in contemporary gothic fantasy: Cherie Priest. Cherie made a splash last year with her debut novel Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which introduced readers to the character of Eden Moore, whose ability to see ghosts turns out to be just as much trouble as you suspect it might be. This year Cherie and Eden are back with Wings to the Kingdom, in which the ghosts of the Civil War come to speak to Eden... whether she wants to listen or not. Critics are calling the book "Darkly poetic, powerfully atmospheric and hypnotically readable" - - and this interview isn't so bad either.
1. Quick! Tell us a little bit about yourself and Wings to the Kingdom.
I'm a writer from the southeast, recently transplanted (somewhat reluctantly) to Seattle, WA, courtesy of my husband (who took a job at amazon). Wings to the Kingdom is my sophomore effort - the sequel to Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which was released last year through Tor books. Both books are broadly described as "southern gothic," on account of they're set in the south; and there's a lot of near-Faulknerian family intrigue mixed with Flannery O'Connor-esque OMGWTFweird??@!!!
Or so I am told.
Basically, they're ghost stories that feature the occasional homicidal maniac and/or battalion of Civil War dead.
2. What is it about the southern part of the United States that seems to make it so congenial to ghost stories? Is it the landscape? Is it the culture? Is it that Yankees are just no damn fun?
I think it starts with all the innate social tension. There's leftover fallout from the war, of course - and with it, the struggles of the civil rights movements and the economic disaster that was Reconstruction. But there's more to it than that. It's also got that whole rural vs. urban tug-of-war, and a lower population density than the north or west coast - and that leads to pockets of populations that are (or have been) largely isolated from metropolitan centers for generations.
And really, it's so much deeper than this, but in the interest of providing a brief overview of my personal (and informed, but by no means authoritative) opinion, those are good starting points. There's a lot going on - and all this social tension sits on top of a giant graveyard. Most of the Civil War was fought in the south, and in southern Tennessee (where I lived for many years) you can't swing a stick without hitting a historical marker telling you how many people died where you're standing.
You stir all that together, and what you get is a vibe that's rich with contradictory traditions and expectations. And ghost stories.
3. Is there a structural secret to writing a good ghost story? Which is to say, are there certain elements that always have to be present (not counting the ghost) both in the story and in the telling? Once you have those elements, how to you bring them together to make folks jump in their own skin?
I've read so many good ones that I'd be hard-pressed to say that there's one magic formula, so all I can offer is personal preference. I like a dash of injustice in my ghost stories, something violent - a murder, a tragic accident caused by malicious neglect, or the execution of an innocent person. It's important to me that the ghosts have a good reason to make an appearance, and, "I looked so good in this suit, I'm gonna show it off forever" just doesn't cut it for me.
I also think it's important that the ghosts contribute to the story's resolution; if they're just window-dressing, that's no fun. And if you want to make the tale really frightening - not just pleasantly creepy - the peril needs to be revived, or constant. It can take any number of forms, but the trick is to have the protagonists be physically threatened by either the ghosts themselves or by other related agents. I like for the stakes to be higher than just "I saw a ghost and it was scary."
4. Share a piece of writing advice you've been given.
"If you're going to be a good writer, you've got to be a stripper and a streaker." Helen Pyke, creative writing teacher at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, TN. She was (and so far as I know, still is) a very pleasant woman who bore a startling resemblence to Mrs. Santa Claus. As you might imagine, the mental image alone has kept her slogan with me all these years, and it's not the worst of all possible writing slogans, either. Let it all hang out, man.
5. You have an impressive online presence and fan base, and you're doing innovative things like serializing a novella online. As a writer working today, how important is your online presence to your career? And does it ever become more trouble than it's worth?
Why thank you. And that's a hard thing to quantify - but I'm willing to guess that my online presence has had a pretty direct impact on my career. Especially as a young upstart (relatively speaking), every fresh bit of exposure or attention is helpful, and blogging has been a marvelous networking tool. When I lived in TN I felt terribly isolated from the big writing "scenes" in larger cities, but with the help of the internets and their wondrous tubes, I've been fortunate enough to make some great friends and contacts. That part alone has been immensely valuable.
Of course, the audience-building that comes with regular blogging is a good thing too. Besides the brand recognition, it makes me more accessible to the readers - I try to answer comments and emails, questions and whatnot. This having been said, it does put tremendous pressure on me to try to stay current and stay snappy. Sometimes I log on to a hundred emails, and it's all I can do to link the latest YouTube video.
6. Seeing as we're coming up on Halloween, tell us some of the things that scare you, or a particular time in your life that you were spooked beyond all reason. Do these things find their way into your writing?
For one thing, I'm scared of sloths. They've got spooky little ghost-like faces and freaky little hook-hands; they weird me out. I used to have nightmares after seeing them in the zoo as a kid. No kidding.
They're silly things to be afraid of, but I think that seeing them as a kid affected me on some strange level that associates quiet and stillness with power. I've always been kind of frenetic in person, and I have a hard time sitting still or shutting up for very long unless I'm writing -- and when I see something that simply doesn't need to move ... I don't know. It unnerved me. But as for how this works into my fiction, I think it really does - because my Agents of Teh Scary tend to be strong, still or slow-moving, and quiet.
Also, yes - I've had an unexplainable experience or two personally. One of them worked its way into Four and Twenty Blackbirds, at least loosely. Pine Breeze (the abandoned institution) really did exist until it was torn down a few years ago, and I really did go there a few times. The last time I went, my friends and I were chased out of the building by something we couldn't see. It scared the s**t out of us, and yes, that's the short version. Also, I've been to the Chickamauga Battlefield more than a few times - at least once in the middle of the night, when the fog was so thick you couldn't see the hand you were holding. If you can go there, do that, and not feel the weight of history (and 35,000 dead people), then I don't even want to know you. Not on Halloween, anyway.
------
Thanks, Cherie!
I've provided links to Cherie's books above, but if you'd like to sample Cherie in action, she and Subterranean Press and serializing Cherie's novella "The Wreck of the Mary Byrd" online. It's got werewolves and pistol-packing nuns: What more do you need? It's part of Cherie's upcoming novella collection Dreadful Skin, which will be available in February. Enjoy!
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1:44:00 PM EDT
Hearing Call Me -- Way Out West
Your Wednesday Author Interview: Cherie Priest
For this week's Author Interview, I'm really pleased to bring you someone who I think is one of the soon-to-be-big names in contemporary gothic fantasy: Cherie Priest. Cherie made a splash last year with her debut novel Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which introduced readers to the character of Eden Moore, whose ability to see ghosts turns out to be just as much trouble as you suspect it might be. This year Cherie and Eden are back with Wings to the Kingdom, in which the ghosts of the Civil War come to speak to Eden... whether she wants to listen or not. Critics are calling the book "Darkly poetic, powerfully atmospheric and hypnotically readable" - - and this interview isn't so bad either. 1. Quick! Tell us a little bit about yourself and Wings to the Kingdom.
I'm a writer from the southeast, recently transplanted (somewhat reluctantly) to Seattle, WA, courtesy of my husband (who took a job at amazon). Wings to the Kingdom is my sophomore effort - the sequel to Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which was released last year through Tor books. Both books are broadly described as "southern gothic," on account of they're set in the south; and there's a lot of near-Faulknerian family intrigue mixed with Flannery O'Connor-esque OMGWTFweird??@!!!
Or so I am told.
Basically, they're ghost stories that feature the occasional homicidal maniac and/or battalion of Civil War dead.
2. What is it about the southern part of the United States that seems to make it so congenial to ghost stories? Is it the landscape? Is it the culture? Is it that Yankees are just no damn fun?
I think it starts with all the innate social tension. There's leftover fallout from the war, of course - and with it, the struggles of the civil rights movements and the economic disaster that was Reconstruction. But there's more to it than that. It's also got that whole rural vs. urban tug-of-war, and a lower population density than the north or west coast - and that leads to pockets of populations that are (or have been) largely isolated from metropolitan centers for generations.
And really, it's so much deeper than this, but in the interest of providing a brief overview of my personal (and informed, but by no means authoritative) opinion, those are good starting points. There's a lot going on - and all this social tension sits on top of a giant graveyard. Most of the Civil War was fought in the south, and in southern Tennessee (where I lived for many years) you can't swing a stick without hitting a historical marker telling you how many people died where you're standing.
You stir all that together, and what you get is a vibe that's rich with contradictory traditions and expectations. And ghost stories.
3. Is there a structural secret to writing a good ghost story? Which is to say, are there certain elements that always have to be present (not counting the ghost) both in the story and in the telling? Once you have those elements, how to you bring them together to make folks jump in their own skin?I've read so many good ones that I'd be hard-pressed to say that there's one magic formula, so all I can offer is personal preference. I like a dash of injustice in my ghost stories, something violent - a murder, a tragic accident caused by malicious neglect, or the execution of an innocent person. It's important to me that the ghosts have a good reason to make an appearance, and, "I looked so good in this suit, I'm gonna show it off forever" just doesn't cut it for me.
I also think it's important that the ghosts contribute to the story's resolution; if they're just window-dressing, that's no fun. And if you want to make the tale really frightening - not just pleasantly creepy - the peril needs to be revived, or constant. It can take any number of forms, but the trick is to have the protagonists be physically threatened by either the ghosts themselves or by other related agents. I like for the stakes to be higher than just "I saw a ghost and it was scary."
4. Share a piece of writing advice you've been given.
"If you're going to be a good writer, you've got to be a stripper and a streaker." Helen Pyke, creative writing teacher at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, TN. She was (and so far as I know, still is) a very pleasant woman who bore a startling resemblence to Mrs. Santa Claus. As you might imagine, the mental image alone has kept her slogan with me all these years, and it's not the worst of all possible writing slogans, either. Let it all hang out, man.
5. You have an impressive online presence and fan base, and you're doing innovative things like serializing a novella online. As a writer working today, how important is your online presence to your career? And does it ever become more trouble than it's worth?
Why thank you. And that's a hard thing to quantify - but I'm willing to guess that my online presence has had a pretty direct impact on my career. Especially as a young upstart (relatively speaking), every fresh bit of exposure or attention is helpful, and blogging has been a marvelous networking tool. When I lived in TN I felt terribly isolated from the big writing "scenes" in larger cities, but with the help of the internets and their wondrous tubes, I've been fortunate enough to make some great friends and contacts. That part alone has been immensely valuable.
Of course, the audience-building that comes with regular blogging is a good thing too. Besides the brand recognition, it makes me more accessible to the readers - I try to answer comments and emails, questions and whatnot. This having been said, it does put tremendous pressure on me to try to stay current and stay snappy. Sometimes I log on to a hundred emails, and it's all I can do to link the latest YouTube video.
6. Seeing as we're coming up on Halloween, tell us some of the things that scare you, or a particular time in your life that you were spooked beyond all reason. Do these things find their way into your writing?For one thing, I'm scared of sloths. They've got spooky little ghost-like faces and freaky little hook-hands; they weird me out. I used to have nightmares after seeing them in the zoo as a kid. No kidding.
They're silly things to be afraid of, but I think that seeing them as a kid affected me on some strange level that associates quiet and stillness with power. I've always been kind of frenetic in person, and I have a hard time sitting still or shutting up for very long unless I'm writing -- and when I see something that simply doesn't need to move ... I don't know. It unnerved me. But as for how this works into my fiction, I think it really does - because my Agents of Teh Scary tend to be strong, still or slow-moving, and quiet.
Also, yes - I've had an unexplainable experience or two personally. One of them worked its way into Four and Twenty Blackbirds, at least loosely. Pine Breeze (the abandoned institution) really did exist until it was torn down a few years ago, and I really did go there a few times. The last time I went, my friends and I were chased out of the building by something we couldn't see. It scared the s**t out of us, and yes, that's the short version. Also, I've been to the Chickamauga Battlefield more than a few times - at least once in the middle of the night, when the fog was so thick you couldn't see the hand you were holding. If you can go there, do that, and not feel the weight of history (and 35,000 dead people), then I don't even want to know you. Not on Halloween, anyway.
------
Thanks, Cherie!
I've provided links to Cherie's books above, but if you'd like to sample Cherie in action, she and Subterranean Press and serializing Cherie's novella "The Wreck of the Mary Byrd" online. It's got werewolves and pistol-packing nuns: What more do you need? It's part of Cherie's upcoming novella collection Dreadful Skin, which will be available in February. Enjoy!
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
10/18/06 9:07 PM
be well,
Dawn
http://journals.aol.com/princ