[Note from Frolic: Our resident YA expert Aurora got the opportunity to interview authors Rebecca Coffindaffer and Kiersten White and ask them five(ish) questions each. Up first Kiersten White!]
Aurora: What was your inspiration behind your most recent novel?Â
Kiersten White: Annoyance! Most of my retellings start with two factors: a story I love, but that also makes me angry. I’ve always loved traditional Arthurian stories, but they treat women so badly. I decided it was time to play in the sandbox of Camelot and reclaim Guinevere as a fully realized person with agency and power and personality. That led to the Camelot Rising trilogy. In book one, Guinevere comes to Camelot to protect King Arthur before receiving devastating news that rewrites what she knows about herself. In book two, Guinevere is trying to discover not only who she is as queen, but who she is. When a new threat intimately tied to her own past shows up in Camelot, Guinevere has to wonder: is she the protector, or the danger?
What character in this novel do you most relate to and why?Â
Right now? Brangien, Guinevere’s lady’s maid and best friend. Fiercely loyal, deeply clever, and almost always annoyed. Though she is much better at fashion than I am.
Please describe the content of your latest read and what can readers expect from it.Â
Guinevere is queen, but she’s still not settled in her own identity. Balancing pretending to be Arthur’s wife with wanting to be more than just friends and partners, performing queenly duties while on the prowl for magical threats from the newly risen Dark Queen, and trying to figure out why she can’t remember so much of her past was more than enough. Then the real Guinevere’s sister shows up in Camelot, Guinevere must rescue a damsel in distress, and threats new and old appear on the edges of Camelot, requiring everything Guinevere is and could be to fight them.
What’s next for you in the bookish world?Â
After The Camelot Betrayal release, I have a Romeo and Juliet retelling in the That Way Madness Lies anthology, coming in March. Then book three in the Camelot Rising trilogy, The Excalibur Curse, fall 2021! After that, I have a few new things going in a surprising direction…but they haven’t been announced yet. Whomp whomp.
Who is your current favorite writer? Why?Â
Tamsyn Muir, who wrote Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth. Her writing is so wildly specific, so bafflingly brilliant, so completely and totally her own.
Any writing advice for aspiring writers? Â
Read widely, and don’t create such a perfect idea of what your book should be that you never actually write it.
Up next, author Rebecca Coffindaffer!
Aurora: What was your inspiration behind Crownchasers?
Rebecca Coffindaffer: Honestly, the main character, Alyssa Farshot, really served as an inspiration and a driving point for the book. I grew up with Han Solo, I was obsessed with the gender-flipped Starbuck in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, and Alyssa is definitely in that same vein — snarky, self-deprecating, risk-taking, but with a real depth underneath all that emotional armor. I wanted to take a character like that and put her in the kind of expansive, planet-hopping adventure that I personally love to read and watch.
What character in this novel do you most relate to and why?
I’d say a whole lot of my sense of humor is mixed in with Alyssa and her narration, but she’s all about taking risks and chasing stars and being on the move, whereas I’m much more of a rule-following homebody! I relate a lot more to her engineer, Hell Monkey — he’s extremely loyal, a lot more in tune with his emotions than Alyssa is, and he’s happier being the support person versus being the person in charge.Â
Why do you feel novels with powerful and unique characters are so popular and have such a voice right now?
I think, right now more than ever, we definitely want escapism in our stories, but we’re also craving connection. For many of us, the world feels more distant, more isolated, than it has in the past, and being able to experience worlds with strong, vivid characters, to really feel them come alive off the page and be able to share them with friends and fellow readers, I think it gives us that sense of connection and community that we may be missing. Stories have always been a powerful thread bringing people together, and we really need that in this moment.
Please describe the content of Crownchasers and what can readers expect from it.
Crownchasers is a young adult space opera about a wiseass adventurer who gets reluctantly pulled into an intergalactic race to win the throne of the empire. There’s a lot of humor in it, a lot of action, and so many of my favorite elements of science fiction — new worlds and species, laser battles in space, robots and AI and spaceships that are characters in their own right, and twisty-turny politics and alliances that the characters and the reader have to navigate.Â
How was it writing a novel with such futuristic elements? What inspired the action-packed scenes, and do you have a favorite?
Honestly, coming up with the futuristic elements was pretty fun — I like worldbuilding, even though it can be incredibly frustrating. Like figuring out a 10000-piece puzzle except that sometimes you make a decision that changes half of the puzzle. And, outside of science fiction and fantasy, some of my favorite movies are action movies, so I tend to imagine scenes like that cinematically and just try to choreograph it all like I’m a film director.Â
I do have a favorite, but it’s later in the book, so I’m not sure I can say much about it without spoilers! I’ll just say that there’s a dust storm, a floating minefield, and a whole lot of teamwork.
What’s next for you in the bookish world?
Crownchasers is a duology, so the second book comes out next fall 2021. We’re working on it right now, and I’m really excited to bring all the pieces together and wrap up this part of Alyssa’s story in a way that’s hopefully satisfactory for readers!
Who is your current favorite writer? Why?
It’s been an interesting year for me for reading because I’m getting the chance to read a lot of early copies by my fellow young adult debut authors, and there’s some incredible talent breaking out right now. Some of my favorites so far have been If These Wings Could Fly by Kyrie McCauley, The Court of Miracles by Kester Grant, By the Book by Amanda Sellet, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown, You’re Next by Kylie Schatche, and Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar. And that’s not even including some of the fall releases I haven’t had a chance to read yet. So I guess you could say I’m discovering new favorites all the time!
Any writing advice for aspiring writers?
Don’t be too precious about your work. We like to have this glorified picture of artistic creation and everything coming to us in harmonious song from muses on high, but the truth is you’re going to write some really crappy drafts that you pull out of your chest with your teeth while you drink too much coffee and wear the same shirt three days in a row. It’s work and you should recognize it as work. It takes feedback and practice and growth, but none of that can happen until you finish that story and put it out there.Â
