Cel's Big 4 Interview: Amanda Ashby
Amanda Ashby was born in Australia and after spending the last sixteen years dividing her time between England and New Zealand, she’s finally moved back and now lives on the Sunshine Coast. When she’s not moving country, she likes to write books (okay, she also likes to eat chocolate, watch television and sit around doing not much, but let’s just keep that amongst ourselves, shall we?)
She has a degree in English and Journalism from the University of Queensland and is married with two children. Her debut book, You Had Me at Halo was nominated for a Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice award, and her first young adult book Zombie Queen of Newbury High was listed by the New York Public Library’s Stuff for the Teen Age 2010. Her latest release, Fairy Bad Day, has been selected by Voya as one of their Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers 2012.
Cels: Firstly I have to say a big congrats on having four new releases hitting shelves this year, three of which are your first offering’s to the primary school aged market. Did you find your writing style and process had to change with the “Mixed up Magic” series?
Amanda: Thank you! It’s definitely going to be an exciting year! As for whether my writing style had to change for “Sophie’s Mixed-Up Magic” series, unfortunately it did! Well, I say unfortunately because I hadn’t really expected there to be any difference. However, when I started to write the books I quickly realized that it’s a lot harder for a regular eleven year old girl to get out of the house on her own than it is for a teenager. In fact, it’s almost impossible and suddenly I understood why there are so many fantasy books out there for this age group (and why they are all orphans, because seriously, parents get in the way. A lot!!). And you would think that because I own an eleven year old daughter of my own, that it wouldn’t be so difficult, but it still was.
Thankfully, after I finished writing the three Sophie books, I went straight into my next YA book, Demonosity, which was a complete joy to write and I had my heroine sneaking out all over the place!
Cels: I adored Zombie Queen of Newbury High and Fairy Bad Day and was blown away by your unique and hilarious take on some of our favourite
imaginary beings. Can you tell us a little about the worlds and fabulously funny characters (and annoying little faeries) that inhabit them for those who haven’t yet discovered them?
Amanda: I’m so pleased that you enjoyed Zombie and Fairy. I always feel slightly embarrassed when I talk about my ridiculous books. Most of the time I write things for my own amusement and don’t really stop to consider that other people might one day read them.
With Zombie Queen of Newbury High, Mia is living in a normal world until she decides to do a love spell. Unfortunately, she actually ends up doing a very different spell and turns her entire senior year into zombies. Mia doesn’t realize what she’s done until she gets a visit from the school new-boy, Chase. Chase works for the Department of Paranormal Containment and the pair of them have to find a way to reverse the spell before the virus moves into stage four and the zombies all come looking to eat their queen, Mia!
There is something so inherently funny about the word zombie, that I had loads of fun writing this entire book. To show the students moving through the various stages of the virus, I had them eating lots of beef jerky and hamburgers. They also tried to fatten Mia up by giving her lots of snack food and every time they saw her, all they could smell was chicken! Hands down my favourite scene is when Mia’s hypochondriac best friend Candice, and Mia’s arch nemesis, Samantha are both sitting in the back of the car bickering over who will get to eat Mia when they turn into zombies.
As for Fairy Bad Day, unlike Mia, Emma isn’t a normal girl living in a normal world. She goes to a prestige slaying school and is desperate to follow in her dead mother’s footsteps by becoming a dragon slayer. Instead, she discovers that her new vocation is to be a fairy slayer. She is completely horrified and determined to make her principal change his mind.
Unfortunately, the more she tries, the angry he gets and she finds herself stuck with them. At this point—because I’m cruel—I took it upon myself to make the fairies as ridiculous and irritating as possible just to annoy her! And so, instead of using swords and weapons in her slaying kit she is forced to resort to Skittles, nail files and hairspray (and actually, I swear that Rupert, Trevor and Gilbert all receive a lot more fan mail than I do!)
However, Emma then discovers that there is another kind of fairy that no one can see–a killer fairy. Unfortunately, thanks to her over-zealous efforts to get out of being a fairy slayer, no one believes her and she becomes the girl who cried wolf (or invisible fairy) and so she has to turn to the one person she hates more than anyone. Curtis Green, the guy who took her dragon slaying spot.
Cels: Where are some of your favourite places to write? Do you have any certain “rituals” or process to put yourself in the “zone”?
Amanda: Kitchen table! For the longest time I never had my own study so I would just take my laptop to wherever it was warm and sunny. However, since we moved back to Australia I do now have my own desk, but I’m so used to being a nomad that I tend to only put books and bills on it! I don’t really have any great rituals. I will put a playlist on if I remember, but that’s not essential and I will normally have some water and Diet Coke within reaching distance.
Cels: Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?
Amanda: Malik!!!! I always tend to have a sassy side-kick in my books but Malik is the sassiest of them all! He is a two thousand year old dead djinn who looks like Zac Efron, loves American Idol and is addicted to Cheerios and it’s his job is to show Sophie the ropes. Unfortunately, all he manages to do is create chaos and Sophie is constantly getting into trouble with her teachers and with her mom because of the mess that Malik creates! But despite the fact he is a walking disaster, he always means well and when Sophie isn’t trying to kill him, she is actually grateful to have him there!
