I’m an artist, I’m not an academic folklorist.
Magic Realism is not new. The label’s new, the specific Latin American form of it is new, its modern popularity is new, but it’s been around as long as literature has been around.
Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight.
I wanted to be a scientist. But I had no math skills.
What I find interesting about folklore is the dialogue it gives us with storytellers from centuries past.
I’d had no particular interest in the Southwest at all as a young girl, and I was completely surprised that the desert stole my heart to the extent it did.
I’d like to encourage people to please keep reading-and most importantly, to please keep trying new writers. The only way we can bring fresh new material into the field is if people go out and buy it.
Our lives are our mythic journeys, and our happy endings are still to be won.
In more recent years, I’ve become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.
Filmmaking can be a fine art.
There’s that old adage about how there’s only seven plots in the world and Shakespeare’s done them all before.
But for me, really, the written word is always stronger than film.
I’m also looking for gems that the average reader might have missed.
I was a great fan of Jim Henson.
I divide my time between homes in Arizona and England, six months a year in each place.
Since fantasy isn’t about technology, the accelleration has no impact at all. But it’s changed the lives of fantasy writers and editors. I get to live in England and work for a New York publisher!
The first job I was offered was as an editorial assistant. I think it was the best thing for me, in terms of being a storyteller by nature, to have spent years being an editor because I learned so much from it.
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.
Happiness is a talent like any other. It’s another art form. Some people are good at it, some people aren’t.
I have a great respect for the academics who are working with the source material. My hat’s off to them.