Interview with Carole McDonnell, author of The Constant Tower

Today on the Speculative Fiction Showcase it gives us great pleasure to interview Carole McDonnell, author of The Constant Tower. 

You are a prolific writer in several genres - fiction, non-fiction and poetry, to name but a few. Do you have a favourite genre, and is it helpful to write about different things at different times?

My favorite genre is probably time travel. That encompasses so much, doesn’t it? Speculation, science fiction (if the time travel was done by scientific means), fantasy if the mechanics of the time travel is unexplainable or merely caused by some spiritual power or human wishing. It is often a puzzle too and I like puzzles. It is the genre of regret, a woulda-shoulda-might-ve genre. And the time disorientation, time loops, and puzzling out the exact key to a better outcome of life is fun to watch. That’s the genre I love to watch. I’ve written some time-travel stories. Those are in my anthology, Turn Back O Time. The genres I love to read are non-fiction and poetry. I avoid science fiction because I don’t know enough about any particular hard science to write convincingly or intelligently about them. I like writing fantasy, however, because of the worldbuilding, the folklore and the culture of those worlds. I can create these worlds and live in them and not have to worry about science.

Tell us about your writing process, and your writing day. Do you prefer to work on one project at a time, or to move between books?

I work on several books at the same time. Sometimes one feels like editing, sometimes one feels like writing, sometimes one is blocked on a particular book, and sometimes one wakes up with the scenes of a particular work-in-progress in one’s mind.

Does your interest in poetry infuse your writing to a certain extent?

Oh yes, definitely! I was a poetry nut as a kid and still am. Mostly English and Irish poetry from all eras, and Chinese poetry.

You have contributed to a number of anthologies. How does that experience  differ from writing a novel or series of your own?

Writing to a theme is either very easy if you know what the editor wants , but it is also very challenging because if you don’t usually write steamfunk or dieselfunk, for instance, then you have to really think about it. Also, they are short stories, at the most novellas. When I create worlds, I tend to really get into everything about that world so the readers have an idea of that world. But this can lead to stories that are really novels or to stories that are too complicated and confusing and which feel incomplete. So I have to learn how to measure the story.

Tell us about your stand-alone novels. Two of them, Wind Follower and The Constant Tower, are fantasy novels. The most recent stand-alone, My Life as an Onion, described as African-American Christian Fiction, is closer to literary fiction. Can you talk about the differences between the books, and what prompted you to write about such a different theme?

Yes, I generally write about other worlds and other cultures. Wind Follower is about imperialism and is very infused with Christianity. The Constant Tower doesn’t seem religious at all but if someone knows the Bible she will see that the book is full of Bible verses. With My Life as an Onion, I wanted to write a story about real life as I have experienced it. Real life is full of the surreal, especially for a little Christian kid raised in Jamaica. I’ve always loved magical realism and, having experienced some odd events in life, I wanted to put them in a kind of fictional memoir. I also love Korean dramas and I wanted to write a reverse harem new adult for dark-skinned women. When I say “reverse harem,” I’m talking about the Asian variety where a girl has several men around her who may like her but she has to choose one. Not the American version which is often overtly sexual. I was raised by my Methodist Minister grandfather and his sister who was a former Catholic nun. To the best of my ability, I wanted to write a story about a Pentecostal Black girl who has to discover what part of her Christian culture she will keep and what part she will toss.  Most Christian fiction often feel unreal and preachy and there is a kind of distance between it and non-Christian readers. And most Christian romance avoid interracial relationships and supernatural events.

In the Editorial Review for My Life as an Onion, you mention your interest in Korean dramas. Can you tell us about these and what is particularly good about them?

Korean dramas use a different kind of storytelling than American dramas. The muism – Korean folk religion-- of Korean culture touches the dramas. Everything is interconnected, interwoven, and aims for harmony and redemption. For westerners, the coincidences might seem like easy plotting but for Koreans, those coincidences are the universe working out some issue to produce harmony. Also, Korean TV is concerned with stories with a beginning and an end (usually a happy or redemptive ending) but American TV is primarily character-based where there are the same characters in sit-coms for years. Korean TV trusts its viewers – mostly older women-- to have the patience and intelligence to enter any world the writer might create and to wait to see how the story goes. Each channel has stories and each story is about 16 episodes. This means a lot of stories throughout the year, stories that are truer to the meaning of “story” and purer to some extent than western TV where the characters, settings, themes are already established because the western shows are so long-standing.

What do you do when you are between writing projects, and how do you like to relax?

I go to my English Country Dance, I go for walks, I design fabrics, I listen to music.

You have written about several different fantasy universes. One series concerns Malku and the Faes. What is distinctive about this world, and the characters who inhabit it?

In all my stories, I am fascinated by culture, races, and how everyone works together. In the Malku universe, there are standard humans, merfolk, fae, and the children of such unions. In some regions everyone gets along, in others not so much.

The blurb to The Charcoal Bride, the first book in the series - a collection of three short novels - describes it as chronicling “the rise to power of Hanrisor’s King Skall and the family curse –called ‘The Hanrisor Legacy’--that troubled him and his descendants”. What is the importance of the curse, without giving too much away, and how does it affect Skall and his adventures?

It’s a vengeance curse. There is the old Biblical idea of a generational curse. Deuteronomy 27 and 28, and the ten commandments for instance are about curses. For instance, Abraham lied to Pharoah about his wife, Isaac lied to another king about his wife, Jacob lied to his father, Jacob gets lied to by his wife’s father, Jacob ends up being lied to by his son Reuben.  Or King David committed adultery and killed the husband of his co-adulterer, and ends up causing bloodshed in his own family where his son rapes his daughter, and another son ends up raping David’s concubines. It also occurs in Greek literature. Everyone in Laius’ family had some sexual issue – falling in love with a bull, marrying one’s mother, etc—because an ancestor raped a young boy. In my story, Hanrisor is a kingdom where the king’s family is under a curse. Prince Arvid’s biological father was murdered by a king who loved Arvid’s mother. Arvid makes a vow to the God of wrath to kill the king. However, he doesn’t kill the king because he loves his mother and half-brother.  He has broken the vow he made to a god. This curse of wrath between the son and father goes on through the generations until it works itself out.

The Fae themselves play an important role in this and other stories. They are not exactly benign as an influence - is that a fair summation?

The faes are indifferent to everything for the most part. They are otherworldly and powerful. They tend to live and let live unless they are bothered. Malku has encountered several disasters because humans dared to war against the fae. In The Charcoal Bride, we hear about such a war and we discover why Skall becomes king.

Tell us about the second book in the series, SeaWalker...

In The Charcoal Bride, we are mostly concerned with Skall. SeaWalker is about his best friend, a child who was once disabled whom the fae raised. Skall has arrived in Hanrisor as king now and he and the SeaWalker, who is named Nohay, go on a road trip throughout Hanrisor to learn about the culture and to see what damage the war with the fae has done. Of course there are resentments and would-be murderers.

The Nephilim Dystopia Series has two books to date: The Daughters of Men and The Chimeran Queen. What aspect of the stories is dystopian?

In this world, there are different kinds of humans. There are standard humans. There are chimeric humans who look more or less human who have had their genetics manipulated by scientists. There are the prototypes who cannot die but who continually age. There are the Nephilim. The Chimeran Queen is Medusa. She is quite hideous and worms continually come from under her flesh. She has been raised and trained by the Nephilim and in book two has now been given the rule of Otaura. The Chimerans have different categories which include equine chimera, bovine chimera, avian chimera, etc.  Some are ashamed of their genetics, others proud. They are supposed to be living on a terraformed planet but some hide their genetics and continue to live on earth. Most of these groups hate, envy, or curse others in other groups.

What is the significance of the Nephilim in this world?

The Nephilim are beautiful, powerful, telepathic. Some are more human than others because of continued intermarriage. Others, like Prince Woden and Duke Siddhart, have had only one human female ancestor. Nephilim who are human-demon hybrids who rule the world because of some great disaster because their spirit fathers revolted against God.

The protagonist, Ellie, who is human, finds herself torn between two different men, and also the subject of a prophecy. How does this conflict affect her and her world?

Some humans want to be free from the power of the Nephilim, others are fine with it. The Nephilim think they are doing good in the world because they helped earth recover from the great disaster. But although the Nephilim love women, they disdain human evil and there is that nasty pesky human sacrifice every year so one could question how much they truly like humans. The Nephilim are also looking for a savior. As in the supposed Book of Enoch, they are constantly seeking God’s forgiveness. After all, they may be monsters in God’s eyes but they didn’t ask to be born.  

What are you working on at the moment? And what are your plans?

I’m writing the first draft of Chimeran Queen, editing SeaWalker, and working on a nonfiction Christian book.

The influence of the Bible is inescapable, whether one is Christian, Jewish, or simply English-speaking. It informs so much of our discourse, and writers who disagree with it, like Phillip Pullman, are nonetheless deeply influenced by its language. What are your thoughts about this?

I’m not sure if one can really say that writers disagree with the entire Bible. There are many books in it. There is Ecclesiastes, for instance. I really can’t see any atheist writer disagreeing with it. The thing is many cultures have a holy book. It is part of human folkloric culture to speak of a lost book and a need for a sacrificed savior. Job, the oldest book in the Bible, speaks of desiring a book and looking for a savior who could put one hand on God and the other hand on a human. So culturally the Bible is the western version. Ashok Banker is an Indian writer who acknowledges and honors his culture’s religious stories, and Bryan Thao Worra is a Laotian poet who honors his culture’s mythos. Whether one is religious or not, cultural landmarks should be acknowledged and honored during our time. I’ll just say that for me, the language of the Bible and all those tragic princes one finds in it has affected my writing, and its philosophy and concept of the nature of man has definitely been the lens through which I see the world. And thank you so much for interviewing me.

Amazon

About Carole McDonnell:

Carole McDonnell is a writer of Christian, supernatural, and ethnic stories. She writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry and reviews. Her writings appear in various anthologies, including Griots, edited by Milton Davis and published by MV Media, Steamfunk, edited by Milton Davis and published by MV Media,  So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonialism in Science Fiction, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and published by Arsenal Pulp Press; Jigsaw Nation, published by Spyre Books; and Life Spices from Seasoned Sistahs: Writings by Mature Women of Color among others.

Her reviews appear at various online sites.

Her story collections are Spirit Fruit: Collected Speculative Fiction by Carole McDonnell and Turn Back O Time and other stories of the fae of Malku.

There are also stand-alone novels: Wind Follower, My Life as an Onion, The Constant Tower

Her novels also include books in the following series:

The Nephilim Dystopia Series: The Daughters of Men, The Chimeran Queen

And Novels of the Malku Universe: The Charcoal Bride, SeaWalker

She lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and their pets. When not writing, she teaches English as a Second Language to refugees and migrants or can be found dancing English Country Dances.