Author Interview - Mark Piggott

Hello and welcome to our latest author interview with fantasy and steampunk author Mark Piggott!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing.

My name is Mark Piggott, I am a native of Phillipsburg, NJ. I joined the U.S. Navy in 1983 beginning a 23-year career as a Navy Journalist. During my career, I served on three aircraft carriers and various duty stations across the country. I retired as a Chief Petty Officer in 2006. Since then, I have worked as a civilian employee for the U.S. Navy and now as a writer-editor for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. I live in Alexandria, VA, with my wife Georgiene. We have three children.

I started writing my first novel, Forever Avalon, during my last deployment aboard USS Enterprise in 2001. Throughout my Navy career, I had a recurring dream about being on an island of magic and fantasy with my family. I guess this was my way of coping with the separation of deployments. Plus, the hours of playing Dungeons and Dragons in my youth probably added to that. During my last deployment, I started to develop my dream into a story and wrote my initial draft for Forever Avalon. After I finished my manuscript, the dream went away.

I published Forever Avalon in 2009 through James A. Rock Publishing, but the publisher died within a few years after that and the company went out of business. I republished under Amazon through the KDP program to keep my book alive. I followed that up with The Dark Tides in 2014 through iUniverse Publishing and The Outlander War in 2020, completing the trilogy. I then published the start of a new series, The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart, in 2021 through Lulu Press.

The Last Magus: A Clockwork Heart has been my most critically acclaimed book to date. It won three book awards, including the 2021 Firebird Book Award (1^st place for Steampunk), 2022 AMG Indie Book Award Grand Prize for Fiction, and The BookFest Indie Book Award (3^rd place for Fantasy-Magic, Myths and Legends). My cover appeared on the NASDAQ billboard in Times Square with the other 2022 winners in January 2023.

In 2021, I signed with Curious Corvid Publishing, a small publishing house in Ohio. The first published my novella The River of Souls, a fantasy story combined with poetry from poet Ashley Valitutto in August 2021. In January 2023, my steampunk historical fiction Corsair and the Sky Pirates was published. 

I am still writing, including short stories for anthologies, magazines, and future manuscripts. I am working on the sequel to The Last Magus as well as the final two chapters in the Forever Avalon series as well as new story ideas, including a YA fantasy and a religious epic fantasy.

Who would you say your biggest literary influences are?

Like any fantasy writer, I was first influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien. I saw the original The Hobbit animated movie as a teenager in the 70s. That led me to the books of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Brooks, Ray Bradbury, and Arthur C. Clarke. I would have to say that the biggest influence on me as a writer was Michael Moorcock. The Elric of Melnibone series was eye opening for me. It showed me that fantasy stories are no limited to the traditional norms. I love the traditional Tolkien. He is the reason we have so many fantasy writers today. But we are all an amalgam of influence from the writers we loved to read and still love to read. To me, true fantasy started with Le Morte d’Arthur. The Arthurian legend is, in my opinion, where the age of magic started in our literature. That is why so many of our stories use Excalibur, Merlin, Morgana le Fay, the Holy Grail, the Lady of the Lake, and other elements from the original Arthurian legends.

How has the history of the middle ages impacted/influenced your work?

I think that most fantasy books start with a middle ages concept. Again, that's where we reach back to King Arthur, Merlin, etc. Most of these stories being in that time period or something akin to it. It's the original vibe of the fantasy trope. The fun part in being a writer is taking that medieval, middle ages adventure and throw in electric lights powered by magic, or an airship or train. That's where a writer can be his or her most creative when developing a story like that.

Do you feel like your writing has been impacted/influenced by Tolkien? If so, in what way(s)?

Tolkien has impact everything you see in today's writing. Orcs were never dreamed of until Tolkien created them. How we envision elves and dwarves are from our understanding and visuals created by his words. During my Navy career, I once did a story on the military and role playing games. I interviewed someone within the D&D company and she told me how Gary Gygax (the creator of D&D) was influenced by Tolkien in turning a tabletop knights medieval warfare game into D&D as we know it today. That's the scope of his influence on my generation and the future generations. How we envision our own worlds we as writers create has all been influenced by Tolkien. We may change somethings here and there to fit our story, but the essence is Tolkien. He gave us a starting point that most fantasy writers follow.

What do you think the current innovations in your genre(s) are?

I like the use of combining steampunk technology with magic. There is a dark fantasy element to mixing magic and machines, and I enjoy bringing that to bear in my THE LAST MAGUS series. Magic was always considered a fluid element, outside the reach of technology, so bringing those elements together is exciting.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see more of?

I would love to see more bringing magic and magical elements into the modern age. We always think middle ages when we think of magical fantasy in a story, so bringing it to a more modern era is exciting and fun. I'm writing a YA fantasy story for my young nieces (big readers who inspired me to write this story) involving a mixed Fae and human community hidden away in the American midwest. It should be a lot of fun.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see less of?

I think they're romanticizing evil too much. I used to be scared of werewolves and vampires as a kid, but now their teenage heartthrobs. We need to draw those boundaries and don't blur the lines. I understand sometimes you have those anti-heroes that bring a different element into the story, but I think we've gone beyond that norm in today's stories.

Is there anything else related I didn't ask a question about that you'd like to add?

I think you covered everything.

Where online can our readers find you and your work?

Mark, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your thoughts on Post-Tolkien and Post-Middle Ages influence!

Author Interview - Gillian Polack

Hello and welcome to our second author interview with the Tales After Tolkien society's very own Gillian Polack!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing.

This ought to be an easy question. Surely I know myself? However, I find it really difficult to describe myself.

Starting with the history side, my first doctorate was in Medieval history, and I write about it and teach it and still research it, but it's a secondary element of my ethnohistorian self, these days. Over my lifetime, what has held all my research together is story. I used to research chansons de geste and romans and chronicles (the research from my 20s) and now (in my early sixties) I research modern genre. In that research I include the worlds built for those narratives, where they come from, and how those worlds are communicated. My two books from my research self are History and Fiction (how writers use history, especially the Middle Ages), and Story Matrices (how story transmits culture). Right now I'm looking at these things from a literary approach, because it's really handy to slide into different disciplines and learn. The more I understand how different scholars approach similar topics, the happier I am, just as the more I understand how different fiction writers use similar material, the happier I am. Learning is the core of my life. Writing stories is the natural balance to the learning, because I like to do things with my learning. I love teaching, but I love writing even more.

So... I am also a fiction writer. And non-fiction writer. And an essayist. And a blogger. I also talk too much.

I'll never be famous for my fiction, but my work has been short-listed for awards a number of times and has even won a couple. This is how I know I can write. My fiction is, for the most part, science fiction and fantasy, but possibly towards the literary end.

I didn't begin all this with the Middle Ages. I chose to do an undergraduate Medieval thesis because I had a burning question to answer about how culture changed in a time of significant technological change. I wanted to know, in short, how chansons de geste changed at a time when literacy was causing them to be written down. This was a burning question because the year was 1982, and computers were doing to Australia what increased literacy was doing to France and England. I probably would have moved on, if everyone hadn't been so very interested. The Middle Ages and food history are subjects I took on at a point for very particular reasons, and they've become major part s of my life because so many people love to hear about them. I swore, however, that the only time I would use the Middle Ages in fiction was in my first novel, and that was because I began it when I was doing my PhD and I had this terrible desire to gently satirise some things I knew too well. I've always wanted to apologise to Brain Merrilees for what I did to the Voyage of St Brendan in that novel. He was an outstanding teacher and I took foul advantage of this.

When I was about to start my second PhD, I was told that the ghost train novel I was yearning to write wouldn't get me the supervisor I most wanted. I drafted a half-joke time travel topic and sent it to Van Ikin with a "How about this? Can you supervise this?" And thus I wrote an actual novel set in a fictional Middle Ages that is very close to what we know. Langue[dot]doc 1305 has been approved by scientists, as well as historians, but some readers find it slow. There is a definite gap between the history we want to tell (as historians) and the history most readers expect to read.

I wrote one Medieval story quite on purpose. I was asked to write it for an anthology, and Sherwood Smith is someone I find it hard to say 'no' to. The anthology is called It Happened at the Ball. The story was set a year after the Great Plague. It came out before the pandemic, and when I re-read it recently I was surprised at what I wrote. Not unpleasantly surprised, but most definitely surprised.

Who would you say your biggest literary influences are?

When someone asks another writer this question, I listen avidly. When I am asked, I flinch. I have so many influences that it's hard to pick just a few and what influences me and why is hard to describe. Once I took a leap of faith when asked and named Tristram Shandy, but that was because I'd re-read it recently and all the reasons I love it were new in my mind again. You can tell exactly when that naming was, too, because I slipped the novel into one of my novels (Langue[dot]doc 1305, the Medieval time travel one).

In other words, any answer to my biggest literary influences depends on when I am and where I am and whether I'm thinking about that author. For example, Nevil Shute's On the Beach was very influential when I was 22. I was doing my MA in Toronto and it was midwinter and I'd just found the Australian section at Robarts Library. I worked my way through it, having already read every 18th century female novelist in their collection. When I reached On the Beach I stopped. I was born in Melbourne and would have been about the age of the baby in the book, if we had lived in that world. It was so much the Melbourne of my childhood... and it was the last big city in the world to die. I still call on it from time to time, when I need such everyday bleakness in my fiction.

More examples? I can do that. George Gissing's The Whirlpool I've only read the once, but that was enough to give me a different way of thinking about women's lives and I'm pretty sure I called on that for The Year of the Fruit Cake. Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home taught me that, just because many writers don't use their academic brains in their fiction, didn't mean I had to stop thinking in my own peculiar way when i write. Patricia Wrightson and Oodgeroo Noonuccal (who I read when everyone still called her Kath Walker) and Elyne Mitchel left a clear view of the need to write about Australia, and that it had to be my Australia and not a mass-market view. Guibert de Mez (and, in fact, the whole Mez cycle of chansons de geste) left the imprint that families who don't get on make good story.. but it's not going to be comfortable. These were books I thought of within five minutes, at a time when I don't have any single overarching influence. Give me a day and that list will be very, very long. Choose a time when I've read something disquieting or exciting and the list will reduce to that single work.

How has the history of the middle ages impacted/influenced your work?

Initially, it gave me a safe way to explore cultural difference, to understand how profound the effect of Christianity is on our culture, and to understand how societies work and what stories they tell to explain themselves to themselves. Now I use it as a longue duree... to know where we come from and how we got here, so that I can try to understand how our society works and what stories we tell to explain ourselves to ourselves.

These days it's also a wonderful tool for communication. People who don't care about ethnohistory or about understanding literature or about how they tell stories and what they take from there are always up for hearing about Medieval food, or epic battles. I use it to open doors to the things I want others to understand, I suspect. And recent media productions that use the Middle Ages area never-ending source of entertainment. I can be sarcastic without effort when I pull TV shows to pieces. How did they get on that horse with that armour when they are alone in the wilderness? And did they really gallop for hours and the horse is fresh as a daisy? Did they really cook a stew in that same wilderness with no equipment and not enough ingredients (and where did that water magically appear from)? Some of my friends admit that they do not want me to watch their favourite pseudo-history TV. Others want to share the sarcasm.

Do you feel like your writing has been impacted/influenced by Tolkien? If so, in what way(s)?

Tolkien's essays are important to me. I read his novels a s a child and still love them. Farmer Giles of Ham and his translation of Sir Gawain were my favourites when I was in my early twenties. His world building fascinated me so much that I bought the Silmarillion when it first came out. My hardback first edition was also loved by silverfish and is not really readable these days, but it helped me think about the Middle Ages and how we see them, a bout how world building was traditionally done for fantasy and, in the long term, how fiction is such an important aspect of cultural transmission. Then I read his essays. I still return to them, for the style he uses in them teaches me more about writing every time, and his arguments are a clear foundation I can question and use to see where I am and where I am going. His cauldron of story is particularly useful right now, but his work (along with the work of many others, let me admit - I am consistent in this) has helped me travel my intellectual path and my path as a writer.

What do you think the current innovations in your genre(s) are?

The most interesting one from my perspective is the celebration of #ownvoices. Most readers look mainly for writers with quite specific backgrounds, but I'd love to see a realisation that all writers are #own voices.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see more of?

We tell the same stories over and over partly because there are so many ways of telling them - I would like to see the voice of the writer acknowledged and discussed for its role in genre work. In a way, this can be seen as an extension of #ownvoices. It recognises that each tale teller is unique and emerges from a quite particular background. In novels that are firmly within genre, this is often obscured, as the genre traits are more important for sales and it's easier to amrket work from, a background readers think they are familiar with. This means that the actual voices of novelists who come from more normative backgrounds are often obscured and their work is usually looked at for plot and characterisation rather than for voice, and that voices who are less majority are often not heard at all ie are not of interest to major publishing houses.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see less of?

I would very much like to see less of the "This is the way we have always told things and so the violence and racism and misogyny stay" attitude. We can change the way we tell stories, and trails that promote hurt and hate are not those we should be arguing for, even passively.

Is there anything else related I didn't ask a question about that you'd like to add?

I don't think so. I'll think of something at an unholy hour and have to decide between going back to sleep and emailing you. I think I shall decide, right now, on going back to sleep. There will be other times I can talk about the things I forget are important right now.

Where online can our readers find you and your work?

The easiest starting place if you want basic information is my web page https://gillianpolack.com/

My favourite place to send people who want to obtain my books is a bookshop-comparison site. Adjust it for your own country and it includes shipping costs in the comparison, which makes things very easy: https://booko.com.au/search?query_type=1&q=Gillian+Polack

You can join me in my research and writing journey (and suffer bad jokes and food history along the way) through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GillianPolack

I blog most weeks on the Treehouse writers' blog https://treehousewriters.com/wp53/ and once every six months with The History Girls https://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/

Gillian, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your thoughts on Post-Tolkien and Post-Middle Ages influence!

Author Interview - Paul Jameson

Today the Tales After Tolkien Society is launching our Author Interview series of blog posts! Read on for our interview with Paul Jameson!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing.

Paul Jameson is my name and I'm an English/Australian indie author whose written three novels and numerous shorts.

I've always penned words, but only really began to focus on it seriously in about 2014 as an aid to recovery from serious mental illness. Even at the beginning my writing was influenced by a love of history (I studied medieval history at University), nature, and the liminal worlds of folklore and myth, and the inherent darkness and light therein.

The first major piece completed (I published it second) was the novel '76 and the Odd 93' and is something of an anomaly in style for me; a cathartic piece that is a very dark crime noir.

However it wasn't until I penned the short story 'Magpie' and subsequently the novel 'Nightjar', in 2018, that I really discovered my voice and genre.

Voice is a funny thing (a magic of the muses, so to speak) but once you stumble upon it you know. I found mine inspired by the landscape around where I live, Celtic hillforts, ancient seas, green fields and Roman roads, and in experimental (some call it literary/poetic) prose.

In terms of genre, I enjoy the liminal spaces of Folklore, Folk-Horror, and Fantasy or Magical Realism that provide the freedom to pull in elements of magic, fairytale, nature and history, where the cyclical aspects of history comes into play; mixing present, past and future.

In my most recent completed novel 'Life of Maggot' I took this a step further. Written during the first COVID lockdown, I used the four horsemen of the apocalypse and medieval images to directly inspire and drive a story about the end of times, set in current times, whilst weaving in a story about a small boy and the magic of nature. Thoroughly enjoyed writing it.

Currently, and with Nightjar and Maggot getting good reviews, I'm working on my first big piece of Fantasy. I'm finding it quite scary, enjoyably so, because the world building is so daunting. In my mind the story is currently centered around the sinking of a ship, the fall of kingdoms, and the return of elves, dwarfs and other Fae from the Otherworld. It's a bit messy in my head, but I'm 40,000 words and it's taking form. I'm just a lot worried about how huge it might turn out to be. Something of an Opus perhaps...

Who would you say your biggest literary influences are?

My biggest literary influences (I would say) are the likes of Poe, Daphne Du Maurier, Iain Banks for the darkness, Tolkien for the magic, Folklore and love of nature, and AA Milne for a dry, possibly childlike humour.

There are many other notable mentions too, though far too many to list. I think you learn something (good or bad - what works, what doesn't work) from everything you read.

How has the history of the middle ages impacted/influenced your work?

I take a lot of influence from history and the Middle Ages in particular.

Indeed, in Nightjar, and although set in the future, it reflects a feudal past. Religious authority is in control, and there is a deep fear of nature and unknown demons that might live therein.

In Life of Maggot, medieval images and depictions of the End of Times drive the telling of one aspect of a double headed tale told in the near future/present day.

For me, it's quite difficult not to be affected by history - and in particular medieval history, in England. We're surrounded by it. From castles and churches, lay of the land, enclosure of fields and ancient woodlands, to place names, pubs, roads and ways and so many other things. Battlefields litter the place, standing stones abound, as do Iron Age forts, ghosts, snickets and ginnels.

In my current WIP too, medieval history is having a big impact. From food to trade, ships, clothes, armour, tack and more. It's hard to know what I'll be researching from one day to the next.

Do you feel like your writing has been impacted/influenced by Tolkien? If so, in what way(s)?

Yes.

I think so. Simply because Tolkien had such an impact on my life. I come from an severely abusive childhood (mental, physical, and emotional abuse) and discovered Tolkien when I was 14, in the 1980s.

Middle Earth became a place I could escape to. No longer was I simply fleeing the house, I was going into the countryside around Newbury and looking for elves, dwarfs, orcs and goblins in the shadows; magic again existed, nature was amazing. I was able to escape the darkness at home and see wonder in the world about me. I guess he kept the child inside alive.

As a result I'm pretty sure Tolkien has impacted my writing. I love descriptive prose, a play on words, perhaps too much some might say, and I really do partake in writing as an art. Like Tolkien, nature is a mainstay to my work (even in '76 and the Odd 93'); there is a magic and power to it that even the most powerful can't harness. And then there's always a belief in magic - even if it is painted by insanity (as in the book just mentioned). And in my WIP - it being more like Fantasy proper (as I call it) there comes to play the more archetypal Fae that Tolkien popularised.

I suppose the best people to ask though, would be the readers. I always feel I have one eye closed when I'm looking at my own work.

What do you think the current innovations in your genre(s) are?

I think the current innovations in my genre are less about innovation and more about realisation. People (as a whole) are beginning to understand the fragility of the planet and nature, and the subsequent threat to their own species by the powerful magic that is nature. And so the darkness of folk-horror and dystopian fantasy/science fiction, that often dwelt on the power of nature (seen once as far-fetched), is becoming very real. This in turn is seeing the blending of many genres - horror, fantasy, folklore, historical fiction and dystopian fiction - and the lines between the different genres is becoming very blurred.

Not a bad thing when, as a writer, you enjoy experimental literature and different genres. A lot of fun to be had.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see more of?

Do you know, I don't really have an answer. I tend to focus on what I write in my own little space, in my own little voice.

For me, as long as the writing within a genre entertains an audience (this does not mean appealing to everyone - an audience can be very small and niche) and is produced with good intent, a love of the art, anything produced has its place.

What is something in your genre(s) you'd like to see less of?

I'm not a fan of oversaturation and churning out weak stories (or a series of books) on the back of a genre or trope bandwagon to make quick bucks. But I'm also pragmatic. I realize this is marketing and an industry at play in efforts to maximize returns. It's kind of inevitable.

So I'll just keep on swimming in my own weird lane, working on my own weird art...

Is there anything else related I didn't ask a question about that you'd like to add?

Nothing really. Other than I love how the wonder and inspiration that is Tolkien and history, myth and legend, medieval and beyond, is spilling so fruitfully over into the arts of film and television. I can't get enough of it. 

Where online can our readers find you and your work?

You can find out more about me at http://modquokka.com, where I write an irregular blog.

My links: http://linktr.ee/modquokka

And I'm regularly on Twitter @Modquokka if anyone ever wants to talk Tolkien, folklore, books and art. 

And thank you ever so much to Tales After Tolkien for having me. 

Thank you for joining us today and sharing your thoughts on Post-Tolkien and Post-Middle Ages influence!

Another Update for #Kzoo2023

ℌello, again, all, if after far too long! We'll try not to go so far between posts, moving forward.

There is a bit of news: the schedule for the 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies has dropped (it's here). The Society's panel, Religion along the Tolkienian Fantasy Tradition: New Medievalist Narratives, did make, and it will occur virtually on Friday, 12 May 2023, at 10am US Eastern time; Rachel Sikorski and Geoffrey B. Elliott will be presenting, with Luke Shelton presiding.

As noted previously, we will arrange a Zoom call for the AGM, date and time to be determined; be looking for the usual survey here. Elections to office and conference proposals will be on the agenda; other items will be solicited, as well.

As ever, thank you for your continued interest and support!