Flights of Fantasy

A while back I did an interview for Deb Logan promoting Faery Unexpected. Since I posted one last week about Debbie Mumford, I thought I’d give you a glimpse of my alter-ego!

What inspired you to write Faery Unexpected?

My very first published short story, Deirdre’s Dragon, was a children’s story about a little girl who inherits a dragon from her grandmother. It’s only about 800 words, but the idea stuck with me and I knew there was a lot more story to tell. Faery Unexpected and later, Faery Collectible, grew out of Deirdre’s Dragon. I wrote them to answer the questions I had about Deirdre and her dragon: Why do the women in Deirdre’s family need a dragon guardian? and Why that dragon? Who is Roddy, really?

Why do you love writing about dragons?

I adore dragons. Not the mean, snarly, I’d-like-to-eat-you kind of dragons, but the intelligent, loyal, compassionate kind that Anne McCaffrey wrote about in her Dragonriders of Pern series.

My alter-ego, Debbie Mumford, has written a series of four novels and a prequel novella that follows the lives and loves of a family of dragon shifters, so I’ve written a lot of words about dragons… and the people who love them.

In Faery Unexpected, Roddy is a dragon who is cursed to wear the shape of a toy when there’s anyone around other than the young woman he’s assigned to protect. How mortifying for such a majestic creature! But Roddy is also a dragon with a long history of secrets, many of which his young charge discovers during the course of the novel.

What do you enjoy about weaving elements from mythology, legends, and folklore in your own writing?

I’ve been reading fairy tales and myths since I was a child. I love their sense of wonder and magic, as well as the cautionary lessons they teach. With all of those legends so deeply ingrained in my psyche, I’m never surprised when one of them surfaces in my writing.

Science does a great job of explaining the world, even the universe, but there are still niches where science doesn’t have the answers… and magic plays in those spaces! I’ve always appreciated Arthur C. Clarke’s third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Myths and fairy tales are filled with magic. Does that mean that fairies and other creatures of legend are simply more technologically advanced than we are? Are they really aliens? Have they been watching us for centuries, waiting for us to evolve sufficiently to be able to deal with them intelligently? Those thoughts certainly give me a lot of room to play!

What are you working on now, and what’s fun about what you’re writing?

Right now I’m working on White Buffalo, my third Prentiss Twins novel. Along with Thunderbird and Coyote, White Buffalo is a contemporary fantasy adventure for middle-grade readers… with a Native American theme.

Here’s the premise:

The Prentiss Twins, Justin and Janine, are powerful Native American shamans … and they’re barely even teenagers!

When their grandfather mentions that a pregnant buffalo cow has disappeared from the National Bison Range in their home state of Montana, they immediately suspect that Unktehi, the Spirit of Chaos, is up to mischief again.

But is the warrior demigod to blame for this unexpected buffalo-napping?

Janine and Justin, along with their spirit animals Thunderbird and Coyote, investigate the mysterious disappearance and discover more than they bargained for when the cow’s baby turns out to be a legendary White Buffalo.

*~*~*

White Buffalo is especially fun because it’s a special request from my grandkids. They’ve read Thunderbird and Coyote several times and have been pestering me about “what happens next?” I’m thrilled to be able to tell them a new story!

(Note: Since I did this interview, I decided to publish White Buffalo on Kindle Vella – one chapter / episode at a time! You can find it here.)