Aurora: What was your inspiration behind your most recent novel?
Sarah Beth Durst: I started thinking about what happens after the great battle. What happens to the brave band of heroes after all the fireworks and Ewok “yub-nub” celebrations are over, after weeds have buried the ruins of the dark tower, after truth has faded into legend?
And I combined these questions with an image that had been lurking around in my brain of a silver-haired woman reaching into the pocket of her coat and pulling out a carved bone.
For me, that’s where books come from: separate ideas that collide, combine, and grow.
The woman became Kreya, the leader of a band of heroes who once defeated a corrupt magician and his inhuman army. She’s a bone maker, capable of animating objects with bone magic. And her story begins twenty-five years after it should have ended.
The Bone Maker is set twenty-five years after a band of heroes defeated a corrupt magician who led an inhuman army of animated bones. Five former heroes are called on to save their world again, but none of them are who they once were — one is broken, one has gone soft, one is pursuing a simple life, one is unable to let go of the past, and one is dead.
It’s a standalone epic fantasy about second chances. And a lot of bone magic!
What character in this novel do you most relate to and why?
Oddly, this is a hard question. You’d think it would be easy — all the characters sprang out of my brain so they are all, in a way, me. But honestly, I’m not like any of them. And that’s 100% intentional.
In order to write a character, I have to feel as though they’re distinct from me. They need to be their own person with their own history and their own worldview. And then I have to fall in love with them.
I love all my characters in The Bone Maker — Kreya, the prickly and driven leader; Zera, the overdramatic bone wizard; Jentt, the love of Kreya’s life and a former thief; Stran, the formidable warrior-turned-farmer; and Marso, the bone reader who shattered his own mind — and I can’t wait for readers to meet them!
Why do you feel novels with powerful and unique characters are so popular and have such a voice right now?
Because we need hope. Desperately. And fantasy literature, with its penchant for powerful and unique characters, has the capacity to provide that hope. The kind of stories that I love to read — and the ones I love to write — are designed to show us how to cope with the world. It doesn’t matter that the world in the book isn’t our world. As the fictional heroes battle their bone armies, bloodthirsty nature spirits, deadly monsters, or whatever they face, they are shouting to the reader, “You can survive! You are not alone!”
Please describe the content of your latest book and what can readers expect from it.
The Bone Maker is set in a world of towering mountains and sparkling cities, shaped by a macabre kind of magic. It’s full of battles and politics and friendship and bones. And it begins like this:
“Kreya always wore her coat with many pockets when she went out to steal bones.”
What’s next for you in the books world?
I write fantasy novels for adults, teens, and kids. The Bone Maker is an epic fantasy for adults. My next book, Even and Odd, is a fantasy adventure for kids ages 8-12. It’s about two sisters who share magic — and there’s also a unicorn named Jeremy. It will be out in June, and I’m really excited about it!
Who is your current favorite writer? Why?
I’ve had the same favorite writer since I was ten years old: Tamora Pierce. She writes fantasy adventure stories about strong girls who save the day.
I discovered her first book Alanna — the story of a girl who wants to become a knight in a world where only boys become knights — the same year that I decided I wanted to be a writer, and I have this crystal-clear memory of closing that book and thinking to myself, “If Alanna can become a knight, then I can become a writer.”
Her books do what I think every good fantasy novel should do: make you feel stronger.
I dedicated my book Race the Sands, an epic fantasy novel about monster racing, to her.
Any writing advice for aspiring writers?
Be kind to yourself. Trust your own sense of story.
Write what you love. Write the kind of book you want to read.
And don’t listen to writing advice! Or more accurately: don’t listen to writing advice that doesn’t work for you. Everyone’s brain is different, and so everyone’s creative process is different — you need to find what works best for you and ignore anyone telling you that you’re doing it wrong. There is no wrong. There’s only writing the story.
Up next, author Monica Gomez-Hira!