Today I am featuring a new anthology titled: Faery by Skye Hegyes, J. Scott Coatsworth, Brandon Witt, and August Li. I put them all in the hot seat with a short interview they all took the time to answer for readers.
Author Interviews
What was your first
encounter with the Fair Folk—a story, a movie, or something else? How did it
influence you?
Gus: I spent a lot of time as a kid at the local library,
and when I discovered folklore and mythology, I read everything available. I
was drawn to the contrast between them and mainstream children’s books. Instead
of having a protagonist who was rewarded for good, folklore was populated by
characters who were clever, mischievous, and even mean. I’m still very fond of
moral ambiguity. I was also fortunate to grow up in a time when movies for
young people weren’t as sanitized. The
Wizards and The Labyrinth are
only two examples.
Brandon: The Gnome
Mobile! Has anyone else ever even seen
that movie? I think it was a Disney
movie back in the 50’s or 60’s. All I
remember was a human getting shrunk and he discovered this fairyland. They were all so beautiful and I was so very,
very jealous!
Skye: Fairies were never really my thing growing up. I was a
knights and dragons kinda girl. However, I did grow up with a lot of the
Grimm’s Fairy Tales as well as Christian Hans Anderson tales, and my first
experiences with fairies comes from those collections.
Scott: This goes way back for me. Although, properly, they
were elves, not fairies. Around second grade, my mom got me started on the Lord
of the Rings. Not the Hobbit – that came later – but the full trilogy. And I
devoured it. I fell in love with Lothlorien, and thereafter with anything that
resembled this enchanted elf wood, where time flowed differently and the people
had an ethereal beauty about them that set them apart.
What appeals to you
about faeries? What are the most enjoyable aspects of writing about them?
Gus: I could go on for a while here, but I’ll pick what I
think is my favorite aspect. In a world where humans think they have control
over everything, faeries are uncontrollable. I like the reminder that we
haven’t achieved the mastery of nature that we think we have. They can be a metaphor
for that.
Brandon: It’s always
fun to write magic, always. It’s very
freeing. I’ve written demons, witches,
vampire, werewolves, mermaids, on and on and on, for my Men of Myth
series. However, the fairies were the
most magical to me and the most focused on beauty. That beauty is the gist of my story here (or
the lack thereof), which lead me to some very dark places.
Skye: Fairies are tricksters. They always tell the truth,
but they have mastered the art of doing so in a way that’s extremely literal,
and there’s room for lots of misinterpretation to what they say and do.
Scott: I love their capricious nature, and their
unapologetic un-human-ness. There are so many faery stories where men and women
ended up in faery and spend a few days there, only to return home and find that
years had passed. And there’s a seductiveness to faeries and a fluid, dark
sexuality that appeals to me.
What are the
challenges of working with these types of characters and worlds?
Gus: To pay homage to the old stories and traditions without
being derivative or using them as a crutch. It can also be a challenge to
portray characters whose thoughts and motivations are wildly different from
those of humans while still keeping them relatable.
Brandon: I think
fairies can often be seen as weak and the most flighty of mythological
creatures. I found myself going down
that path at first, then did a complete 180.
I wanted to show the strong, dark, and twisted aspects of the species.
Skye: Part of the reason I never liked fairies growing up is
because I thought them weak and flighty little creatures with no real
magic—yes, despite hearing about them in the fairy tales I mentioned above.
Turning my head away from that theology and striving for the darker aspect of
fairies and Faery while writing a light-hearted tale was the most challenging
thing of all. I didn’t want an overly dark story, but I didn’t want tiny,
winged useless creatures either. It was a difficult balance.
Scott: Finding something new to say about a myth that is
thousands of years old. Fairies are so entrenched in the culture that almost
everyone knows what they are and how they “work”. So I wanted to bring
something fresh to the table.
Tell us a little bit
about your favorite part of your story in this anthology.
Gus: I enjoyed writing about Lleu’s house. It’s almost an
extension of him as a character in that it’s full of weird hoards of seemingly
unrelated things, and it is mutable. Imagining what it would be like and
describing it was a lot of fun.
Brandon: While there
is a love interest (of sorts) in my story, the main relationship is between two
brothers. I loved exploring the conflict
and devotion that can only happen between siblings. Even the magical kind.
Skye: Oh! That’s easy. When Tyler meets Marsh. Marsh is such
a fun, spunky and hot-tempered character and Tyler is so unsure of himself and
everything about him. It was just grand to write about their first encounter
with one another.
Scott: Colton’s journey to self discovery as a trans man, and
how Tris relates to him. I loved writing these two characters together, and I
hope my readers enjoy them too.
Publisher:
Wilde City Press
Authors:
August
Li
Brandon
Witt
J.
Scott Coatsworth
Skye
Hegyes
Cover
Artist: August Li
Length: 79K
Format:
eBook, Paperback
Release
Date: 4/13/16
Pairing:
MM
Price: eBook
$5.99, paperback TBD
Blurbs
Faeries
are part of mythology the world over, past, present, and future. Called elves,
brownies, the fae, and more, they evoke a sense of wonder and a little danger.
Faery has its own rules, and humans enter at their peril.
In this
spirit, we bring you the first book in the Myths Untold anthology series—four
stories from the land of the Fae: a homeless man in Cardiff and the luck that
could destroy him; the trans man in future San Francisco who falls for an elf;
the village boy who has always been a little different; and a faery prince
whose birthright was stolen from him.
Welcome
to Faery.
The Pwcca and the Persian Boy, by
Gus Li
Despite
beauty and luck, something about Glyn makes everyone uncomfortable. Homeless on
the streets of Cardiff, he has nothing to keep him going but his friendship
with Farrokh. Through stealing and fortune’s occasional favor, Glyn keeps them
alive. But then homeless youths begin to disappear, and when Farrokh goes
missing, Glyn begins to discover the reasons behind both his luck and the way
people react to him. Determined to save his friend from a danger he never
imagined, he enlists the help of Lleu, who might be an ally, or might be
manipulating Glyn to achieve his own goals.
The Other Side of the Chrysalis, by
Brandon Witt
In a
species that values beauty above all else, Quay looses both his freedom and his
birthright as prince of the fairies.
Lower than an outcast, he watches over his younger brother, hoping
against hope that Xenith’s rebirth will provide safety and positions that has
slipped through Quay’s grasp. Though he
expected kindness from no one, Quay gradually starts to trust that there is more
to life, even for the likes of him, as sexual encounters with Flesser, a fairy
barely accepted himself, turn from lust to love. Quay knows having forbidden relationships
will be his undoing, but he is powerless
to turn away.
Changeling, by Skye Hegyes
With his
pointed ears and a tail, Tyler’s always been different than the other children,
but until Marsh, a brownie tells him he’s a changeling, he never thought he
wasn’t human. Now he will discover what faery life is like, and just how being
a changeling could change his life. On the way, his ties with his mother will
be pushed and prodded even as his friendships grow and his love life
blossoms. However, in a village of
God-fearing people, those who are different are spurned and Tyler will discover
how much trouble a fledgling changeling can get into.
Through the Veil, by J. Scott
Coatsworth
In the
not-too-distant future, San Francisco has been swamped by rising sea levels
caused by global warming, and has only survived by building a wall to keep the
water out of the heart of the City. Colton is a trans man barely getting by on
the canals outside the wall. Tris is an elf who has come to the human world on
his journey to become a man. Fate brings them together, and everything changes
for Colton when he sets out with Tris to find the elf's missing brother, taking
Colton behind the Wall for the first time.
Author Bios
Gus Li
August
(Gus) Li is a creator of fantasy worlds. When not writing, he enjoys drawing,
illustration, costuming and cosplay, and making things in general. He lives
near Philadelphia with two cats and too many ball-jointed dolls.
He loves
to travel and is trying to see as much of the world as possible. Other hobbies
include reading (of course), tattoos, and playing video games.
Brandon Witt’s
outlook on life is greatly impacted by his first eighteen years of growing up
gay in a small town in the Ozarks, as well as fifteen years as a counselor and
special education teacher for students with severe emotional disabilities.
Add to that his
obsession with corgis and mermaids, then factor in an unhealthy love affair
with cheeseburgers, and you realize that with all those issues, he’s got plenty
to write about…
Skye Hegyes
Dragons, wolves,
and sharp objects are commonplace in Skye Hegyes’s home in North Carolina. She
spends most of her time between writing and working. When not doing either of
these things, you may find her making crafts or adventuring with her family,
which consists of her husband, two daughters, two birds, and three cats… and a
partridge in a pear tree…
J. Scott Coatsworth
Scott has been
writing since elementary school, when he and won a University of Arizona writing
contest in 4th grade for his first sci fi story (with illustrations!). He
finished his first novel in his mid twenties, but after seeing it rejected by
ten publishers, he gave up on writing for a while.
Over the ensuing
years, he came back to it periodically, but it never stuck. Then one day, he
was complaining to Mark, his husband, early last year about how he had been
derailed yet again by the death of a family member, and Mark said to him “the
only one stopping you from writing is you.”
Since then, Scott
has gone back to writing in a big way, finishing more than a dozen short
stories – some new, some that he had started years before – and seeing his
first sale. He’s embarking on a new trilogy, and also runs the Queer Sci Fi
(http://www.queerscifi.com) site, a support group for writers of gay sci fi,
fantasy, and supernatural fiction.
