L.T. Suzuki, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by L.T. Suzuki
An Interview with Kim Falconer 8/11/2009 5:23:20 AM
In furthering my quest to bring attention to talented authors with a gift for weaving words into memorable stories, I’d like to introduce Kim Falconer, author of The Quantum Enchantment Series. Let’s begin with an introduction to the readers. You have extensive credentials and varied interests. What would you like to share with our readers about yourself?
KF: Hi Lorna! Thank you for this opportunity to talk about my new series. I’m an author, astrologer and eternal student, curious about everything. I was born in Santa Cruz, California, into a family steeped in the occult. My grandmother was fascinated by Madame Blavatsky and my father was an astrologer before me. I learned meditation at age 11 from a Native American elder. I’ve lived most my life in Australia now and love the Pacific Ocean—both east and west shores!
I like to get accreditation in whatever I do—resulting in a drawer full of certificates and diplomas—everything from horse shoeing, veterinary nursing, and lactation consulting to SCUBA diving. I’m currently undertaking a Master of Arts in Writing degree through OUA, and I now have the privilege of being a full time novelist, (meaning I daydream for a living!). I write and study in a little cottage near the sea, living with two cats and a family of Torresian crows. I play Spanish guitar and mandolin, have Egyptian tattoos, love to dance, and train with a Samurai sword. My perspective in life is simple: I’m a spiritual being in physical body here to enjoy life.
LS: When I first visited your website, I must say I found it to be informative and absolutely visually stunning! Did you create this beautiful website or did you have a little help?
KF: The website is a joint creative project between me and my son. He is a computer animator and did the ‘portal’ graphics. I am the web designer—I did the HTML/css coding. I wanted to get away from the traditional linear model—boy did I question that idea more than once! But I’m glad I stuck with it. The site turned out better than we envisioned!
LS: Being a practitioner/instructor of nine traditional schools of martial arts, I couldn’t help but notice you are a student of Iaido. What attracted you to this Japanese warrior art and has it influenced your writing?
KF: Nine traditional schools of martial arts? You are so my hero! The last six years I’ve been practicing one martial art, Iaido or the way of the sword. I had no idea I was going to take it up until I gave my author friend (a sensei in Iaido) some pages of my early manuscript. She came back saying, ‘Great story, Kim, but you don’t know a thing about the sword.’ And then she offered to instruct me. It’s been quite a journey—transformational. I now choreograph all my sword scenes before writing them and when my publisher first read my work, her comment was, ‘The sword scenes are very authentic!’ That felt like the highest praise possible for a student of this tradition.
LS: Your novels fall into the genre of SF/Fantasy. What drew you to this particular genre?
KF: I’ve written and read fantasy/SF and magical realism all my life. My first memories are of Dr. Seuss, those phantasmagorical tales with their amazing worlds and characters. I love the extreme landscapes and precarious situations. I also read CS Lewis as a girl, along with fairytales, myths and legends—Peter Pan, Gulliver's Travels, Snow White, and LOTR. I turned around and read all my favourites to my son when he was a boy and now he reads them to his daughter. It’s a wonderful experience.
LS: I’d like to congratulate you on the August 1, 2009 release of your latest novel: Arrows of Time Book 2 of the Quantum Enchantment Series by HarperCollins Australia. Can you share with our readers who are not yet familiar with your works a little about The Spell of Rosette Book 1 of this series?
KF: Book one, The Spell of Rosette, begins when a young girl comes home to find her family murdered. It's a fast paced fantasy thriller on one hand and a gritty speculative fiction narrative on the other. Between the lines I play with the ‘hard’ questions of science: Is quantum theory relevant in the ‘real world’ or is it, as some say, only applicable to the world of the very small, or to mathematical equations? In the Spell of Rosette we find out what happens when it does apply to our everyday lives. We discover what it would be like if we could see ‘symmetrical time’ or if quantum computers got out of their baths (their controlled environments) and had lives of their own. Through Rosette and her feline familiar Drayco, I tell a story about life and magic. Underneath it all, I wove a little spell of my own — something for each reader to interpret how they see fit.
LS: Arrows of Time is the sequel to your highly acclaimed debut novel. Without dropping any spoilers on your fans rushing out to buy this book, what is in store for your main protagonists, Rosette and Jarrod?
KF: In Arrows of Time the portals are acting up, spinning Rosette and Jarrod off in different directions. She gets caught in a loop of repeating events and Jarrod ends up worlds away. Every time Rosette gets ‘back’ to familiar ground, it’s not quite ‘right’. In this book I explore mind/body dualism as well as nano-technology, witchcraft, sentient and gender biases and parallel universes. It has fast horses, hot bards, stunning tattoos and environments on the brink of destruction. The narrative is set in three worlds experiencing multiple sequences of time, but the philosophical implications are optional— you can take ‘em or leave ‘em. Enjoying the story is what counts!
LS: Book 3, Strange Attractors is slated for release in February 2010. Can your fans anticipate more adventures featuring Rosette, or does Book 3 represent a series that will end with this trilogy?
KF: Oh the end is not yet in sight! I’ve just signed on for three more books in this series!
Book 3, Strange Attractors, picks up seconds after Arrows of time. Not only do we see plenty of Rosette and Drayco, Jarrod, Kreshkali and An’ Lawrence in the pages, we follow a new character named Teg. He first appears in book 2 and already is a favorite. What a honey!
LS: I know you’ve been writing since you were a small child, so I sense we can anticipate more novels in the future, but perhaps, can we foresee something in another genre?
KF: Other genres do interest me and other approaches as well. I’d like to experiment in the first person, and see where I go with a few ideas on the back burner—historical fiction, thriller and magical realism (though my work already boarders these categories).
LS: Many authors know from early on this is what they’d like to pursue as a career. Have you always been interested in becoming a writer and are there any authors you’d credit for having inspired you?
KF: Always I have wanted to write. And, every author I’ve ever read has inspired me to pursue that career—the brilliant ones AND the less than brilliant. I’ve never picked up a book that didn’t have a message in it for me.
There is one author that made, perhaps, all the difference. Stephen King—not because of his myriad novels and short stories but because of his non-fiction book titled On Writing. It’s a guide for emerging writers and has a lot of great tips. The message I heard the loudest was to start thinking of myself as a writer. Just reading the book changed the way I saw myself and my craft. I stopped wishing and got writing, daily, as if I really did have a publishing deadline. Magic! It so worked for me!
Join us on Thursday, August 11, 2009 when Kim talks about the joys of that first book deal, her struggles to find a literary agent as well as her writing habits and style, plus more. I promise another fascinating read!
