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Welcome to Up Around the Corner, Charlie. Please,
tell us a little about yourself and your writing.
Ah, the loaded question.
Hmm… I like dogs and Star Trek and, of course, writing. I’m
actually formally trained as an editor, so I freelance on the side. As for my
writing, I write almost exclusively fantasy, and I like to jump between the
subgenres. I used to write pretty heavily in epic fantasy, but lately I’ve
leaned toward YA/NA and romantic fantasy.
You enjoy Star Trek.
With that in mind, is there a reason you prefer writing fantasy over science
fiction? Also, is there a particular Star Trek series and/or movie that you enjoy
more than the others?
Honestly? Science fiction has too many rules. Too much . . .
reality, in a way. I actually started a sci-fi short story once, and just
making the rocket landing believable spun my brain in circles! I’m definitely
not a math-oriented kind of person; even doing “lighter” science fiction is
difficult for me.
Fantasy, however, is virtually rule-free. I can make my
world be whatever I want it to be, make up my own creatures and technology and
people without having to ground any of them in reality (unless I’m going urban
or the like, of course). I feel like my imagination is unhindered. And fantasy
lets me write magic systems, to boot. :)
Overall, I would say Star
Trek: Voyager is my favorite. I’m actually not a huge fan of the original
series, and I never got into Enterprise.
My favorite Star Trek movie is First
Contact. I still think it’s better than the new ones coming out!
I’m a Wrath of Kahn fan, myself. J
When you create
fantasy worlds, how do you go about it? Do you draw maps? Have files of
information on cultures and magic, etc.? What comes first?
The “What comes first?” bit is a little tricky, because
different stories start with different things. But, the majority of the time, I
start with the magic first. Usually it’s the idea of a magical ability—for
example, animating paper objects, as in The
Paper Magician—that sparks a story for me. On occasion it’s a character.
The setting/world building usually comes soon after, since the bones of a story
depend on that.
I keep tiny notebooks in my purse that I use for creating my
worlds. I like to start with the city/country/continent (depending on how large
of a geographic scope I’m planning on). From there I figure out the terrain
(mountains, rivers, etc.), and from the terrain I can distinguish things like
borders and what would be imported/exported from where. How the people would
live, dress, and so on.
Can you list for us
one or two authors whose worlds you find interesting and why?
Sure! My biggest props go to my favorite author, Brandon
Sanderson. He creates fantastic worlds (and fantastic magic systems!). To date,
his Mistborn world is still my favorite. Sanderson’s worlds just seem very
unique and well-thought out; definitely not the standard pseudo-European realms
you see so often in fantasy.
Besides reading and
writing, and watching Star Trek, what sort things do you enjoy doing, or look
forward to in life?
Well, I like to cook and bake, and I like crafting if I
stumble across something particularly neat or useful (such as
this
and
this).
As for things I’m looking forward to . . . in the near future, I’m looking
forward to the birth of my baby girl (my first!) and the publishing of
The Paper Magician (July 8, 2014) and
The Glass Magician (Fall 2014), and well
as the release of a short story anthology I was lucky enough to participate in,
My Bloody Valentine (February 10
th
2014, which is also my due date!).
I’m also looking forward to moving back to Utah, my home state, this summer! I’ve been
gone for two years while my husband worked on his master’s degree in
experimental psychology (sounds a lot creepier than it is).
Can you tell us a
little about your path to being published and about your upcoming novels and
short story in My Bloody Valentine?
Sure! Let me try to condense it.
I started writing as a teenager, but I didn’t take it
seriously as a career option until college—that’s when I started finishing
books. Books that didn’t get me anywhere, of course. I got lots and lots of
rejections. (And I never bothered revising or querying my first novel.)
I queried more with each book I completed, entered contests,
searched for open-doors at publishers. I focused namely on agents,
though—they’re the key to getting to the editors. It took me seven years of
that “serious” writing (I actively queried for about three of them) before I
finally got my agent—Marlene Stringer of the Stringer Agency. I queried her
with my ninth book, The Paper Magician,
and because she’s a boss, she sold it and its sequel to 47North within a month!
After that, Marlene brought me the offer to work on the My Bloody Valentine anthology, which I
readily accepted. It’s coming out February 10th, and therefore will
be my first professionally published work. My contribution to it is “Salt and
Water,” about an enslaved sea-woman whose tears have healing properties, and
her relationship with a sympathetic slave-trainer.
The Paper Magician
takes place in an alternate 1900s London,
where people have learned to cast spells using manmade materials (rubber,
glass, etc.). It follows a recent graduate of a rigorous magic prep school
named Ceony, who is forced to study paper because there are so few paper magicians
left in England—namely because paper is lame,
ha. However, only a month into her apprenticeship, a strange woman barges into
her tutor’s home and literally rips his heart from his chest. It’s up to Ceony
to get the heart back before her tutor dies.
The Paper Magician is
available for preorder through Amazon, and it’s set to release July 8th.
Its sequel, The Glass Magician, will
be published shortly afterward.
If you could identify
three individuals who you would be excited to know both read and enjoyed The Paper Magician, who would they be
and why?
Oh… that’s a good question.
1. Oprah Winfrey. Because
anything Oprah reads, the world reads.
2. Ellen Degeneres. In part
because of the Oprah effect. In other part, because she’s awesome.
3. Tom Doherty. So I could
get me some TOR.
If you personally lived
in the 1900s alternate world created for your fantasy novels (The Paper Magician and The Glass Magician), what kind of
magician would you likely be? Would that be the kind of magician you’d prefer
to be?
Well unless someone forced my hand, I’d hopefully be the
magician I prefer! ;) I think being a Pyre—a fire magician—would be pretty
sweet. They have a narrower range of spells, but hello, you’re controlling
FIRE.* I’d be pretty bad-A.
Otherwise, despite the stigma in the book, being a paper
magician would probably be my second choice merely because paper is so widely
available. (Then again, so are matches!)
*Note that Pyre can only control manmade fire, not natural
fires. No saving the rainforest or anything.
So at the most basic
level, a Pyre could make the flame of a cigarette lighter “dance” or take the
shape of a rabbit’s head? And a paper magician would be an awesome scrap-booker
to start? What would competent or everyday practitioners of such magical disciplines
be able to accomplish? What about masters a discipline?
Such deep questions! You sure know how to interview. ;)
Basically the material is the means through which a spell
can be cast. Yes, a Pyre could make the flame on the end of a cigarette dance
if he knew a specific spell for it. A paper magician (or a Folder) could, say,
write a message on a paper airplane and send it across town to a specific
destination (super mail!). A master of a material magic would know the whole
shebang of spells and be adept and carrying them out (for example, a Folding
apprentice could botch a paper spell by not lining up the edges of the paper a
certain way).
Charlie, you
mentioned the anthology My Bloody
Valentine. What might potential readers expect from your story in it (“Salt
and Water”) and from the anthology as a whole?
The
My
Bloody Valentine anthology is a multi-genre story collection where
every story begins with the line, “Love hurts.” Many of the stories are penned
by bestselling authors, and the anthology dives into all the complications of
love. You can see each individual story’s description on the anthology’s
Goodreads
page. We’re also throwing a Facebook release party for it (with prizes!),
which y’all can check out
here.
“Salt and Water” is a little different than the others in
the anthology just by genre alone. It follows Chellis (who is basically a
mermaid with legs) and her enslavement by a desert-dwelling nation at war. Why?
Because the healing properties of her tears keep soldiers at the front alive.
Chellis tries to mend a broken heart while learning to trust a slave handler
who might just be her ticket to freedom. :)
Speaking of tickets
to freedom, we’re just about at the end of the interview. Is there anything
you’d like to add or say to the readers here at Up Around the Corner?
Just thank you so much for having me and letting me share a
few of my accomplishments! I’m always happy to chat and share, so anyone can
contact me through Twitter (
@CNHolmberg)
or through my blog (
Myself as Written).
I’ll have a website up soon, so please stay tuned for that!
You’re welcome,
Charlie. Maybe we can do a quick update when The Paper Mage is released this
summer.
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