Susannah is interviewed by Monica Hamilton

1. In your EJ12 series, did you deliberately give Emma’s friends names that happen to be Palindromes to let us know they are just a little bit special?

Yes, great spotting! I think family and friends are people who reliable, who you can count on: they stay the same, forwards and backwards – just like a palindrome! So, of course, there is MUM and DAD and her brother BOB (who also has a friend OTTO) as well as Emma’s close friends, HANNAH, ISI, ELLE AND EVE. There are lots of other little codes hidden in people’s names in the stories: SHADOW agents often have names that mean ‘black’ (for example, Alicia Noir in Fashion Fraud) and there are lots of anagrams (Nema Rigl’s name can be rearranged to spell out MEAN GIRL). I’m not going to tell them all though!

 2. Where did you come up with the idea of the special secret tunnel Emma has to go through to get to the Shine Agency? 

I think I might have been a little inspired by the Slippery Slip in the The Faraway Tree, which was one of my favourite books when I was young. It was important that Emma could get to SHINE from school and who would ever suspect a secret agent would start a mission from the girls’ toilets?!

3. Will EJ12 (Emma’s code name) have to change when she turns 13?

Yes, actually when she turns 12, she will move into the Under 14 Division and become EJ14.

 4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

It has to be Emma/EJ. After writing 17 books, she is almost real to me and I love thinking up new challenges for her to overcome! 

BIO: 

Susannah McFarlane is the creator and writer of the awarding-winning EJ12 Girl Hero series, the creator and co-author of the hugely popular series for boys, Boy vs Beast, and the author of the Little Mates series of alphabet books for under fives. She was also the original concept creator of two of Australia’s leading popular tween fiction series Go Girl! and Zac Power.

Susannah is also the founding director of Lemonfizz Media, a boutique children’s publisher that focuses on developing a small number of publishing projects across all content platforms, and a speaker on children’s publishing for the RMIT Editing and Publishing course. For more information visit www.susannahmcfarlane.com.au

Amy Tintera interviewed by Bec Stafford

1. Amy, you’re a Texan and Reboot is set in a future Texas. How much fun did you have re-imagining your state in a future/sci-fi context, and what are some of your own favourite tales and books set in Texas?

 It was lots of fun imagining a future Texas! Texans have such pride in their state, so it was fun to create world where they were the only ones left standing. It didn’t seem too far-fetched to me!

 As for my favorite tales set in Texas, I loved the TV show Friday Night Lights. And there’s this movie called Happy, Texas that is absolutely hilarious. But I can’t think of any recent books I’ve read that were set in Texas!

 2. With your background in writing (including a formal qualification in journalism) and working for the film industry, how does it feel to hand your story over to a screenwriter for the big screen? Will you have any input?

 I had no problem handing my story over to a screenwriter, because I really don’t get screenplays! For a while I thought I might want to write them, but screenplays are an entirely different type of writing and I had no talent for it. It’s an entirely visual type of storytelling, and not being able to be inside the character’s head is hard for me.

I’ve talked to the film people who optioned REBOOT a few times about the story and the characters, so I have faith that they want to make the best movie possible. Honestly, I think my input was writing the book, so I’ve already had a huge say! J

 3. How did you first come up with the storyline for Reboot? What messages do you hope fans will get from Wrens’ toughness and Callum’s humanity? Could you tell us about the way their contrasting characters developed?

 I first came up with the idea for REBOOT when I heard Wren’s voice in my head, saying she was dead for 178 minutes. I built the story around her and this idea that everyone thought Reboots were emotionless robots, and she’d bought into that idea.

 I hope the message fans take from Wren and Callum’s dynamic is that it’s important to be who you are, and to be proud of it. Wren is often misunderstood – she even misunderstands herself at the beginning of the book – and I wanted readers to see that transition from her seeing herself through the eyes of others, to her seeing herself for who she truly is. And Callum has always been my “stand up for what you believe in” character. He has a clear view of right and wrong, and he has that challenged a lot in the book.

 The character development was one of the easiest parts of writing REBOOT. I knew right away that Wren was tough and stoic and Callum was open and funny. A lot of their dialogue in the book is almost exactly as I wrote it in the first draft, because I understood them well so early on.

 4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

 Wren! She’s the first character I’ve ever written who does a lot of things I would never do. Some of her thoughts and actions are horrifying, and it was exciting to write a character like that. We don’t have a lot of female anti-heroes, and Wren was the first one I ever wrote, so I feel proud of her.

 Reboot is published by Allen & Unwin and is now available at all good bookshops and online.  

ISBN 9781743315507, June 2013, Allen & Unwin

L. J. Smith (the initials stand for Lisa Jane) is the author of a number best-selling books and series, and her writing has spawned two television series and been translated into over thirty-five languages. She lives in the Bay Area of Northern California, USA, but she gets her best ideas watching deer in the backyard of a small cabin in Inverness or walking on the rocky beaches that surround that area.  She enjoys movies and music, and often listens to her favorite songs as she writes. She loves to hear from readers at info@ljanesmith.net, and to hold book-related contests on her website, www.ljanesmith.net. She reads all her email and Guestbook entries and even answers whenever she can.

1. Your latest project, The Last Lullaby, features strong female characters & a cast of outsiders. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to develop those characters, and whether you’ve felt at all compelled to address some literary stereotypes and offer your female readers strong role models?

The strong female characters were part of the first glimpse I had of the story.  It was so blessedly easy to watch them reveal themselves that I can’t really count it as work.  My very first concept, croaked into a mini tape recorder because at dawn I had to pin everything down faster than I could write—faster, really, than I could talk—was of these two sets of diametrically opposed characters in a world where all social norms are turned upside-down.

This means that there are strong girls both in the harem and outside in Crispy’s gang.  Crispy is the kid with burn scars all over the right side of her face and body, who, like Peter Pan, has no set age beyond “child.”  Her older friend Roach is even tougher and more competent than young Crispy, and even Old Useless, the elderly woman from the crazies’ pen, has magical powers of healing and prophecy.

Then there’s Brionwy, the singer of songs, and her friends, Melisande, Lyria, and Junhee—a dancer, an artist, and a martial artist.  All of them are strong in different ways.  Seventeen-year-old Brionwy, who begins merely as a depressed virgin courtesan with no interest in Catching the Eye of the Lord Overseer, ends up leading the revolution. Melisande the gambler and shadowy, soft-spoken Lyria are never afraid to risk their lives when truth or love is at stake, while delicate Junhee, brought up as a fighter in the Way of the Phoenix, is mentally and physically in top condition.

I guess the literary tradition I trampled was the one where a female is presented as very strong—but still needs an even stronger male to rescue her.  In The Last Lullaby none of the girls are rescued by stronger guys.  They rescue themselves or each other.  All the most deadly villains are females, too.  What fun!

2   Lisa, throughout your career, you’ve managed to create some fascinating antiheroes whom we’ve nevertheless come to love, despite theirflaws. Do you enjoy playing with reader expectation and empathy and character binaries, in that regard? Who is your favourite literary antihero?

Thank you for your kind words.  I do like anti-heroes because they’re so much fun to write, especially from their POV.  And my anti-heroes are, indeed, mostly binary.  They may be simply sullen, like Nick in The Secret Circle, or they may seem to have almost infinite power, like Julian in The Forbidden Game or Kierlan in Strange Fate, but when your pierce their hard and crusty outer layer you may be surprised to find a sweet creamy inner layer underneath (which doesn’t mean there won’t be another harder layer below the cream—so be careful not to bite down!).

My first favourite literary anti-hero has got to be Shakespeare’s Richard III, as played by Sir Lawrence Olivier.  In Act 1. Scene 1, he just makes my heart melt.  And then there’s Christopher Marlowe’s Mephistopheles, who breaks my heart when Faustus asks him what he’s doing out of hell and Mephistopheles replies:

“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God, 75 And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?”

And then I can’t help but mention my favourite modern author, Terry Pratchett, and two things. First is the fact that my beloved Sam Vimes of the Disc World series is often written very much like an anti-hero, and second is that in my absolutely fave book, Night Watch, the young Havelock Veterinari, junior member of the Assassin’s Guild, is an absolute killer sweetheart?  For that matter, Pratchett has made a wonderful anti-hero out of the seemingly-impossible-to-sympathize-with character Death.  (And don’t forget the Death of Rats, either, with his tiny robe and scythe.  SQUEEK!)

3. Your website is incredible, Lisa! It must be challenging for you to keep on top of such an interactive, regularly updated space? How do you divide your time between creating and being such an active participant of the social networking explosion? Can you give us some insight into the evolution of your author/reader interaction since the beginning of your professional writing career?

Um, you’re giving me way too much credit—it really belongs to my genius Administrator.  Mr. Usok Choe, of Usok Choe Designs is a sort of mythical guy himself.  He’s a black belt (or whatever is highest above that) in Taekwondo, he takes stunning photographs, he’s a terrific website developer/maintainer, and he somehow finds time to be the father to three precocious kids, and husband to Junhee (yeah, I stole her name for the sake of the revolution in Lullaby.)  He does all the hard work. Then there are the incredible Forum moderators, who, under Christina Crowley make sure that there are no flame wars or character assassination on the Forum.  (One reader—this is the truth—read that rule and asked, “Does that mean we can’t kill any of the characters in fanfic?”)

I’m lousy at social networking.  I’m the kind of writer who dives into a book and doesn’t come up for air for months (one reason I’m hoping Strange Fate will be done very soon, now that Lullaby is out of the way).  I was asked once just to stand to acknowledge a review at a writing club meeting and I knocked my purse off the chair and onto a fellow writer’s foot.)

I suppose that shouldn’t matter now that the Internet has changed everything, but it does. I’m still super-shy.  I do the site for my readers, and that’s the truth.  I adore them, and I want to talk to each one personally. But now that Cherie Durant has showed me what I’m missing by introducing me to you and four other totally amazing and incredibly kind authors who’re in the thick of Internet networking, I want to peck my way out of my shell and join in.  It’s fun!  And I can’t drop my purse on anyone’s foot!

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

Oh, that’s hard to answer.  I mean, the first thing that springs to mind is Damon Salvatore of The Vampire Diaries—just because he is more fun than a barrel of monkeys to write.  But I have to admit that Julian of the upcoming The Forbidden Game: Rematch, burns with an even brighter blue light than in the original Game trilogy. And then there’s Ash Redfern, from multiple Night World books, who spends Strange Fate attempting to win his soulmate Mary-Lynnette’s approval by rescuing other soulmate couples from the blood and darkness covering the world.

But these are bad boyz, and although terrifically amusing there is something even closer to my heart, and that’s a sister bond.  I first did it with real sisters in my debut novel, The Night of the Solstice. Janie and Alys Hodges-Bradley, the fledgling sorceress and the burgeoning hero—complete with sword.  And, although it’s undoubtedly frustrating for readers, perhaps other writers will understand that what burns brightest is always what one has just finished writing.

So I’ll have to stake everything on one throw of the say Brionwy and Crispy of The Last Lullaby. They’re such opposites, and yet I find I can see their world in great detail when I look through their eyes.  Brionwy is looking at roses and jewels and gowns and eunuchs and tranquilizing wine.  Crispy is looking at rubbish yards and hunting beasts and pens full of unwashed humans soon to become dragon-fodder.  And yet they find a middle ground to meet upon in Brionwy’s lullabies.  So for now I’m going to have to say the unlikely sisters in Lullaby, because they make me stretch and allow me to get my (rotten) poetry in the guise of song lyrics.

Photo by Josh Wasserman

1. Before the release of Throne of Glass, you released 4 novella-length prequels. How did that idea come about and do you prefer writing novellas or novels?

We actually got the idea for doing the four novellas because we learned that THRONE OF GLASS would be a Fall 2012 book (we’d originally thought it’d be out in Winter/Spring 2012), and that meant making my long-time fans wait an extra six months or so to read it. Because my fans had been so, so patient and awesome all these years, I was super sad to make them wait even longer–so my agent and I thought a great way to tide them over (introduce new readers, too) would be to write a few novellas set before the events of the novel.

I’d never written a novella until I drafted THE ASSASSIN AND THE PIRATE LORD, but I had such a great time writing it (and the other three novellas) that I’d do it again in a heart beat. As for what medium I prefer more (novellas or novels)… I think my default setting is to always love novels, but I absolutely adore how novellas allow you to add more depth to your world/characters/plot.

2   The central character of Throne of Glass, Celaena Sardothien, is a young warrior who must face fearsome opponents in order to win her freedom. How important was it to you to present your female readership with a strong role model, and who are some of your own favourite fictional heroines?

Honestly, when I sat down to write THRONE OF GLASS, I never thought to myself “I want to make a strong role model for young women.” I just wanted to write about a heroine who was more than capable of saving herself (and who got to do the FUN stuff that boys usually get to do in books/movies), and whose moral compass was a little skewed (which makes her really fun to write).

As a reader, I was always drawn to strong female characters, so writing about them was a natural progression. I grew up reading books like THE HERO AND THE CROWN (Robin McKinley), GONE WITH THE WIND (Margaret Mitchell), SABRIEL (Garth Nix), THE GOLDEN COMPASS (Philip Pullman), and THE MISTS OF AVALON (Marion Zimmer Bradley)–and the strong heroines I found in those novels had a huge impact on me…Not just as a writer, but also as a person. To this day, the heroines of those books are still some of my favorite.

3. Sarah, you did a degree in Creative Writing. Can you tell us a bit about that and what impact it’s had on your writing career? Would you recommend formal writing training to aspiring writers?

Actually… I’m probably not the best person to ask about that. I enjoyed my Creative Writing classes, but they didn’t particularly help me in any way, either in terms of writing or getting published. For me, it was just FUN to get to write for homework/in class… But I was also writing high fantasy novels in classes where the focus was usually on contemporary short stories. So winning over my classmates/professors was always something I had to contend with, and got a little tedious after a while.

I had some very nice professors, but…my problem was that I was already a disciplined writer, KNEW what I wanted to write, and KNEW that I wanted to be published. Most of my classmates were just trying out writing for the first time, and didn’t even know what a query letter was. So, it was a mostly positive experience, but not necessarily an educational one. I’ve learned more from my critique partners about writing than I ever did in a creative writing class.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

Celaena. Always Celaena. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been working on the THRONE OF GLASS series for over ten years, but… She’s always felt the most alive to me, and is the character closest to my heart. <3

Sarah J Maas website

Lian Tanner is a children’s author and playwright. She has worked as a teacher in Australia and Papua New Guinea, a tourist bus driver, a freelance journalist, a juggler, a community arts worker, an editor and a professional actor. It took her a while to realise that all of these jobs were really just preparation for being a writer. Nowadays she lives by the beach in southern Tasmania, with a small tabby cat and lots of friendly neighbourhood dogs. She has not yet mastered the art of Concealment by the Imitation of Nothingness, but she is quite good at Camouflage.

The second book in The Keepers trilogy, City of Lies, won the Aurealis Award in 2011 for Children’s Fiction. Lian Tanner’s books are published by Allen and Unwin.

1. You do a wonderful job of portraying a world that has been protected to the point of not being able to function in a crisis. Where did you get the inspiration for that? Were you holding a mirror up to our world?

A: When I was thinking about this story, there was a lot of discussion in the Australian media about ‘bubblewrap children’, which I found interesting, because like most of my generation I had a very free-ranging childhood. I know it’s a different world now, but I think there are other ways of responding to it than over-protection, and the effect of keeping children too safe really bothers me. But it wasn’t just the media debate that brought it home to me. At the same time, there was a boy living in my street (a very safe little cul de sac where children regularly play cricket and footy in the middle of the road) whose parents worried about possible disasters so much that they hardly let him out the front gate. And on the rare occasions when he managed to escape, I noticed that he wasn’t nearly as physically competent as the other kids of his age. Nor was his judgement good. In protecting him so carefully, his parents had actually made him more vulnerable.

So those things were important as inspiration, and there was certainly a bit of mirror-holding going on – I like to have both depth and ideas in my books, so that they work on several different levels. But at the same time I thought that pushing this notion of over-protection to its natural conclusion – the guardchains – could make a really interesting and exciting story that would appeal to kids.

2 The main characters of The Keepers are thieves, and Toadspit starts off as such a hostile character. Were you worried about how they would be received by your readers?

A: Yes, I didn’t want kids to come away from the book with the idea that it was fine to go off and steal whatever they liked, just because they coveted something. In the end I used Olga Ciavolga to make it clear that there were certain rules, and that stealing was only all right if you used it for a good and selfless purpose. That seems to have struck a chord with people – those particular lines are the most frequently quoted from the book.

As for Toadspit, he has turned out to be a favourite character for many readers, so I guess his initial hostility doesn’t turn them off. I didn’t really think it would, mainly because he is also intriguing, which keeps people interested in him for long enough to start to understand why he is so hostile.

3. Lian, you studied earth sciences and have said that you draw much inspiration from the time you spend at the beach. What is it about natural environments that you find so compelling and how do they stir you, creatively?

A: I think one of the things natural environments do is provide mental and emotional space. Cities are full of things that clamour for our attention, whereas the countryside or the beach is much more restful. When I’m in the city, I find that I instinctively keep a tight hold on my physical and emotional boundaries. It’s a protective thing, even in a small city like Hobart. But on the beach, I can let go of that tight hold, I can let my thoughts swim in ever-widening circles, make odd connections, daydream. That’s a very creative state of mind!

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

A: I love them all, even the villains, but probably my favourite character is Mouse, a small mute boy who first appears in the second book, City of Lies. He tells fortunes with the help of his white mice, and has a very sweet nature, despite his hard life on the streets. I had the character of Mouse in mind for about six years before I found the right place for him, and ‘burns brightest’ really does describe him. He’s one of those people who affect the lives of those around him far more than you would expect for someone his age.