… a lot about fairy tales and some about writing process and I also give the (only partially facetious) executive summary for writers wanting to be published. Thanks for asking, Paul Kane 🙂 .
The author of the magnificent mosaic, Sourdough and Other Stories, talks about her book; about fairy tales, red hair and writing; and about much else.
All the stories in Sourdough are set in an imagined world that has the city of Lodellan at its centre. How much detail did you work out about this world before writing the stories? Have you (for your own use) a map of the place? Did you have a particular historical period in mind? And a related question: did you work out the genealogy of your characters?
The name of the city came from my friend Lisa Hannett – her knowledge of Old English, Old Norse and any other kind of ‘Old’ language means she’s awesome at coming up with names that sound real, but aren’t. I did scribble a nerdy little map of where I thought everything was located in my world. The historical period – because it’s a fantasy world I didn’t really have a time period in mind – it’s just a mix of different elements, some Medieval, some faux-Victorian, some kind of Renaissance. And no, I didn’t work out a genealogy – as I wrote, I just knew which characters were related to other characters… but I did write down some family trees at the end.
The rest is here.