interview with lish mcbride and giveaway!
CONGRATS to GRAND PRIZE WINNER AKOSSKET
and second prize winner AMANDA!
I first heard about Hold Me Closer, Necromancer after the debut
was shortlisted for the Morris Award. The title intrigued me, and when
I got a look at the cover, I had to have it. It didn't hurt that all my twitter
peeps were raving about the book. And I wasn't disappointed.
Lish's debut is refreshingly original, with Sam, a college drop out working
at the local burger joint, and a posse of just as quirky friends. It's an
ensemble cast indeed--talking decapitated cute girl head included.
One of my favorite YA fantasy reads so far this year, I really recommend
it, and am thrilled to have Lish join us here at the inkpot today!
cindy: Lish, you mentioned that you wrote this novel as part of your MFA
program. How did Sam first come to you as the star of this book?
lish: Sam was always the main character. He came from a short story I wrote when I was bored in alternative school. The story was terrible, but when I needed something for an undergraduate writing class, I pulled it out and completely rewrote it-that’s where Ramon surfaced and some very flat versions of Frank and Brooke-both of whom originally died I think. My teacher told me it should be a novel, something I could use to parody society and blah, blah, blah. I laughed and told him I write for story and figure out the other stuff later, and I didn’t think there was more to it then a short.
And as it was, it couldn’t have gone much farther. But once I changed the beginning, a lot of things fell into place. In one of the first drafts, a fellow student, who was dismayed that there weren’t really any female characters (there were, they just hadn’t showed up yet) asked if I could change the lead to a girl. I couldn’t-it was always Sam and I couldn’t change that if I tried. She was pacified once I explained to her about Brid, Haley, Tia, and so forth.
cindy: I love that this novel started as a short story. HMC, N is a funny novel. Dark humor, silly humor, tongue in cheek humor and sarcasm, your book has it all. I find humor one of the most difficult elements to write. Did you start off wanting your novel to be funny? Are you funny in the same way in person?
lish: I think I can safely say I’m funny, even though it seems a bit presumptuous. I mean, maybe you find me funny, maybe you don’t. But I come from a very funny family-you put my brothers and me together and there’s a lot of laughter-and a family that really enjoyed humor. I watched a lot of Monty Python as a kid, and SCTV, Kids in the Hall, SNL, etc. I read humor, and it’s a great coping mechanism. My upbringing was…interesting. And I learned pretty early that it’s much easier and more fun to laugh at things than it is to cry all the time.
As for my writing, well, I’m not sure I can write anything that’s serious. Even when I’ve tried, someone always said, “I really like the humor in this” and I always went, “Really? What humor?” It used to get me into a lot of trouble in my academic essays. I can’t turn it off.
HMC,N was always meant to be a funny book, though. I love combining horror and comedy-again, humor is a great coping mechanism. Sure, you can scream and cry at the monster in the closet, but isn’t it much more fun to laugh at it? Besides, I think teens go through a whole lot of crap. From my hazy memories of my teen years, I remember a great deal lot of misery. I don’t think they necessarily need more books to bum them out, you know?
cindy: From your tweets, I would say yes, you are funny! =) I wanted to talk a little bit about the mythos behind this novel. I absolutely LOVE that sam is a necromancer. What kind of research and what inspired some of the things that went into this debut as far as creatures, monsters, ritual, etc?
lish: I read a lot of fantasy and a lot of mythology. For necromancers, there isn’t a whole lot out there. I read Encyclopedia of the Dead by Bob Curran-that has everything in it from myths on Werewolves, vampires, etc., but it also has a lot of voodoo in it, and Sam’s rituals are based a little on that. A lot of necromancers in books-from the Oddysey to Laurell K. Hamilton, use blood sacrifice and I used to read those and think, “Well, what if the necromancer is a bit of a hippie like myself? What if they can’t kill animals and don’t eat meat? What would they do then?” And Sam is sort of my answer to that.
Other great resource books I use: Symbolic and Mythological Animals by J.C. Cooper, Half-Human Half Animal by Jamie Hall, I have a few of Scott Cunningham’s books on magic and magical herbs, The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews, and Encyclopedia of Fairies by Briggs to name a few. And I also have books on Celtic myths, Norse, Greek, Parallel Myths by Bierlein, and the History of Hell by Turner. I add more books to my library when I find them. I also keep a few baby books on hand for naming characters. I have two specifically for celtic/Irish names because of the Blackthorn pack.
cindy: Wow! You did a lot of research, which is always so inspiring for shiny new ideas. I was so excited to hear that there will be a sequel to HMC, N. Can you tell us a little about the novel and how it differed writing the contracted sequel? Did the process change for you in any way?
lish: Oh, the process. Well, book one was my thesis to graduate, so I wrote it over a few months and it was more of a fun exercise-my first try at the whole novel thing. No one was really going to read it, so there was far less pressure. Book two…was a bit like pulling teeth. Suddenly, there are expectations and people that want it to be AMAZING and that always brings forth the new author’s number one fear, “What if I can’t do it again?” Plus, I moved sometime between book one and two. I left New Orleans and went back to Seattle. I had a great writing community in New Orleans and suddenly it was gone. Sure, there are a lot of writers in Seattle, but I didn’t know any of them. And my new house in Seattle was hard to write in-there was no place to hide from my son and concentrate. It took me awhile to really figure things out in that respect. But then I started meeting a friend at a coffee shop to work, and I really got going on book two.
So, book two was much harder than book one. And remember-book one was the first time I ever wrote a novel, so I’m still really, really new at this. I screw up a lot. Thankfully, I’ve had some fantastic (and supportive) editors at Holt, and my agent is the bees-knees, and they were all great with my constant whining and whatnot.
Book two, tentatively titled Necromancing the Stone, deals a lot with the fallout from HMC,N. Sam has gone from a life of little to no responsibilities to suddenly having all this power-both magical and political. He’s on the Council now. He has to run a household. And the household doesn’t exactly want to cooperate. Brid, too, is put in a similar position. So you get to see more of Sam, Frank, Brooke, and some Ramon. Haley, James, Mrs. W, Tia, and some lawn gnomes are also present. So a lot of returning characters and some new ones-you get to meet Sam’s uncle. Oh, and Sexy Gary makes an appearance. I think you’ll like Sexy Gary.
cindy: Ahh! I can't wait. And I love all your titles! Where would you like to see yourself in your writing career in a decade's time?
lish: Man, it’s hard to imagine next year let alone ten years from now. My ultimate goal is to be in as many sections of the bookstore as possible. Kind of a complete dominance thing-I imagine myself going from shelf to shelf, planting little flags of ownership like explorers used to do…lofty and slightly unrealistic goals, but then again, if I ignored out-of-reach-goals, I wouldn’t be published in the first place.
cindy: Shelf Domination For The Win! With a different cover at each genre area even. Finally, what is your favorite pastry?
lish: Well, I worked in bakeries for years so I’m less into pastries than I used to be. I’m still fond of danishes, though. Oh, and there’s a bakery in Poulsbo, WA called Sluy’s (It’s an old Norwegian family bakery, I think) and they make these maple bar men that are pretty amazing. Wait, do cannolis count? Because every time I’m in New Orleans I go to Angelo Brocato’s (again, old family bakery, this time Italian) for their hand made cannoli. Hm. I appear to be terrible at answering simple, direct questions. And making simple decisions…brevity and decisiveness are traits that I’m working on.
cindy: I loved our interview! Thank you so much for stopping by and doing a giveaway for our inkie readers to boot. (Also, you worked in a bakery? I die! Of course cannolis count!!)
THE GIVEAWAY:
Yes! We're giving away TWO awesome prizes:
1. An Australian edition of HMC, N and HMC, N tshirt design of your choice! You can check them out on lish's etsy site to see the great (hardcore!) designs.
2. The second prize is a American edition hardcover of HMC, N. I so love this cover!
To enter, simply read, enjoy then comment on this post. =) If you happen to tweet, blog, LJ, fb status, etc, to this post, you'll get +3 chances to win. But please be sure you comment here with that link. Also, if you are commenting anonymous, be sure to leave an email.
Open to US mailing addresses only. Contest closes on Wednesday, May 18th. I'll choose both winners by random that day and announce them in this same post. Good luck!!