Goblin Secrets
Goblin Secrets is about a boy who joins a troupe of goblin actors. He looks for his lost brother. He learns about masks. He tries to avoid the wrath of his chicken-legged, Baba-Yaga-inspired, adoptive grandmother.
Debut novels by unknown authors are probably supposed to disappear without a trace, but instead it won the US National Book Award. That still has me flailing like an astonished, happy muppet.
Your second book, Ghoulish Song, will also be published soon by Much-In-Little. Tell us about the relationship between the two novels.
Goblin Secrets and Ghoulish Song take place at exactly the same time, in the same city. The books stand alone, and they follow the adventures of different protagonists, but if you happen to read both of them--in either order--then you'll notice each story unfolding in the background of the other one. I wanted to communicate a sense of urban life. Lots of stories happen simultaneously in any given city. And I didn't want to write a proper sequel--at least not yet--because I didn't want Kaile to become a secondary character, taking a backseat to Rownie's adventures. She needed a book of her own.
To what extent did your background in theatre and folklore at college affect your writing?
Tremendously. Most of what I know about character, the shape of a satisfying scene, and the taste of delicious language I learned from spending some time onstage. And one of my favourite projects in college was an independent study of theatrical lore, from bizarre luck charms to backstage ghost stories. That material mixed and mingled with coursework in theatre history to create the bedrock layers of my fictional world.
Your audiobook won the AudioFile Earphones award. So how did this make you feel?
Like a flailing, happy muppet! I had hoped to write something something that would be fun to read out loud, and I was thrilled that it turned out to be--for me, at least. And I loved the chance to act again.
Your writing is heavily influenced by your theatre experience. Is this why your scenes are praised for being rich and lively, do you think?
Hopefully. That was the goal, at least, and if it worked then my theatre training should get a fair bit of the credit. When I wrote Goblin Secrets I wanted to find out how much stagecraft I could even squeeze into a book, how much would survive the translation from one kind of storytelling to another. Some of it seems to have survived, which is a huge relief.
When did your vivid imagination lead to your writing your ideas down in the form of stories?
I wrote my first story in third grade. It was about a haunted spaceship. After that I always intended to write, but in a vague, I'll-get-to-it-someday sort of way. I finally got it after college, and proceeded to publish occasional short stories for the next several years. But my brain was still buzzing with theatrical things, so I started to write a theatrical novel.
Why do you enjoy writing for children?
I've never needed books more than I did then. Children respond to their favourite things with intensity unmatched at any other time of life. It's an impossible, shoot-the-moon kind of ambition to aim for that level of response, but I still have to try.
Who did you most like to read when you were young?
Ursula K. Le Guin. Susan Cooper. E. Nesbit. Jane Yolen. J.R.R. Tolkien. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
How did your collaboration come about with Much-In-Little?
I found their offices after digging a transatlantic tunnel. I'm under an oath avoid international flights on Tuesdays, and all of the cheap tickets were for Tuesdays, so I had to dig the tunnel instead. All I knew about Much-In-Little was that they had published Catherynne M. Valente's Fairyland books in the UK, and this was really all I needed to know to be impressed. Once there I handed over my mud-soaked books to the splendid and surprised Sarah Castleton, and luckily she liked them.
What is next for you?
Next I finish Ambassador, a science fiction novel about a boy named Gabe Fuentes. He becomes the ambassador of our planet just as his parents are getting deported from the United States. I'm almost done. Almost. I'll be finishing the book any day now. I should probably get back to it…