The lovely Tamora Pierce kindly agreed to let me interview her. Here are the results of that interview.
Does your computer have a name?
Oh, no. I used to name them, but then they
started to get familiar, taking breaks without asking me, not
getting permission to go on vacation, bringing their friends
into the office after work for parties. It was more than I
could stand. Now they're just nameless office devices, silent
and helpful (when they aren't being difficult. Yesterday was a
difficult day. I fear today will be as well).
What type of books do you read?
Middle grade and teen contemporary,
historical, fantasy, and science fiction; adult fantasy, science
fiction (rarely anymore, this one), and alternate history;
mystery; historical fiction; contemporary thrillers; military
history; medical history; disaster history; sociology of crime,
events, movements in human cultures; poetry
The Tortall world has been going on for a
long time, do you find it hard to keep track of everybody?
I keep a list of characters for both of my
universe, plus biography forms for all of the main and secondary
characters, and files by series of characters' faces. I started
doing this with the Daine books, when I realized I was going to
start mixing things up in a hurry if I didn't!
I have heard rumours that the Winding Circle
world and Tortall are connected somehow, is this true?
Oh, no! The magical systems are different;
the gods are different; the land masses are different. I don't
ever want to connect the two universes. When I am worn down
from time in Tortall, I go to the Circle universe for a
vacation, and vice versa. I can do things in the Circle `verse
I can't do in Tortall, and the opposite is true. I always want
it to stay that way!
Who is your favourite character in Tortall
and Winding Circle – why?
It really depends on my mood of the moment.
Obviously I love my main characters, or I wouldn't dedicate
whole books and series to them, but I also love characters who
get far less "screen time," like the darking Secret in
Trickster's Queen, or some of the creations that appear in the
forthcoming Battle Magic. I'm very fond of my big,
cheerful men--Raoul, Taybur Sibigat, Farmer--which is why I keep
writing them, but I keep wishing I could do more with Zhegorz
the over-medicated mage of Will of the Empress and Yazmín in
Street Mage. And some I'm waiting until they grow older, like
Irnai the seer, Tris's girl Glaki, and Neal's daughter.
Will there be any more books like Beka Cooper
only with the ancestors of say Alanna, Jonathon or Miles?
I have no idea.
:-[
The next Winding Circle book comes out later
this year in Australia, what do you have planned next?
Right now I'm working on EXILE, which begins
when Ozorne receives word that his older brother has died and he
is now heir to the imperial throne. Arram Draper, his best
friend, is 17, and has no idea yet just how strong his magic is,
because his teachers have been giving him private classes. And
nobody knows that things are about to blow up in their faces,
sending Arram on the run from his best friend, unable to use his
magic for fear of being tracked by Ozorne's mage-hunters.
If you could have a cuppa with anyone from
history, who would it be?
Unfortunately for my image as a citizen of
the world ;-) , it would be one of two very American figures:
General William Tecumseh Sherman from our American Civil War,
the first modern general, a very crisp and clear writer, a
thinker well ahead of his time, funny, with no patience for the
shibboleths and niceties of the Victorian era, and/or the writer
known as Mark Twain, my literary idol (together with Louisa May
Alcott--all three are redheads, by the way!). Everything I said
about Sherman I can say about Twain, except he wasn't a
general--in fact, he was a deserter from the enemy army.
Twain's writing is so crisp and clear that he is as readable now
as he was when he was alive, and unfortunately, his writing on
political and religious issues is just as much to the point.
Also, he loved cats. (So do I!)
What do you love most about writing?
Spinning stories. Seeing what my characters
do. Having it come out well. And then receiving mail and
hearing from fans how much my books mean to them. Books saved
my sanity in my younger days, so it means a lot to know I am
helping people in the same way.
How much research goes into your writing?
A great deal! Some of it I do well in the
future of a book--I developed the idea for the pigeons and the
dust spinners in the Beka Cooper books nearly fifteen years
before I found a place to use them; the source of my idea for
the Queen's Riders came from reading I had done in military
history ten years earlier, and the historical figure on whom I'd
based Blaise the Nothing Man was someone I first discovered when
I was 14. Other research I'll start a year or two before I
begin a book, as I'm finishing the previous one: I stockpiled
books on Chinese and Tibetan culture, which apply to BATTLE
MAGIC, starting four years or so before I began to write, and
began to read and leaf through them a year before I began. I
started to dissect a real-world map to turn it into the map of
the countryside covered in BATTLE MAGIC several months before I
began to write, and visited a Tibetan museum exhibit in New York
City about eight months before I began to work. And some
research I do as I write. When I was working on THE EMPEROR
MAGE, I spent two hours one morning in the rainforest habitat of
the Central Park Zoo in New York City, observing all of the
birds that flew in the open their, and choosing which ones I
would place in Ozorne's aviary. I attended Renaissance faires
and watched the jousting before I tried to write Kel and friends
as they jousted, and I made the acquaintance of jousters and
their squires. I've also watched countless movies and
tournaments of martial arts and sword fighting to be able to
write about it.
If you could choose one of your series to
give to someone, what series would it be?
Visit Tamora here on her website for more information about her books :D
Battle Magic due in Aust. in September 2013
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