Lynn Slaughter

It’s such a pleasure to welcome another young adult author (and SHU Alum!) to my blog. Below are her responses to my interview questions, followed by her buy and contact links.

First off, congratulations on the release of your YA fantasy, SON OF THE SIREN. Can you share with our readers a bit about the book and what inspired it?
I have loved fairy tales ever since childhood, and I always wanted to combine several of them together into something unique. For SON OF THE SIREN, I chose the stories Allerleirauh, The Wild Swans, and The Little Mermaid to make a completely new story. It’s about half-siren prince Lirien, whose father is the King and mother is a siren. Lirien’s mother sings his father into the sea, and Lirien tries in vain to rescue him. One night, he sings the siren’s melody, thinking it will bring him back, but it bewitches his stepmother the Queen instead when she hears it. She becomes obsessed with him and uses the dark magic of a havoc stone to force his love, but it backfires, turning Lirien’s siblings into animals and whisking them away. Lirien must go on a quest to conquer multiple curses—the ones on his family, and the one on the Queen—but his own curse haunts him if he strays too long from the sea.

What drew you to writing YA fantasy?  Were there particular books or authors who especially inspired you?
It was when I was at Seton Hill University in a workshop on my writing that a few people told me my voice was great for YA, and that little nugget stayed in my head for a long time. I started reading YA fantasy because of it, and I fell in love with the genre. The YA authors that particularly inspire me are Margaret Rogerson and Holly Black.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading your debut novel?                   

SON OF THE SIREN is all about love – familial love, forbidden love, new love—and I want readers to discern healthy and unhealthy behaviors as well as understand consent when it comes to the relationships they may experience in their young lives.

Did you know from an early age that you liked to write? And were you an avid reader as a child?
I think at the age of eight I knew I wanted to be a writer. I would see things on TV or in movies and want to write a “better” version of it, so a lot of what I wrote was adaptations. To be honest, I had a fanfiction mentality about it—I wrote to prolong character relationships and stories; I wrote it how I wanted to read it; I corrected what I thought were issues; I connected to the text and wanted to continue to experience it on my own terms. While today I write original stories, sometimes the influence of other works (like fairy tales) makes its way in.

I was fascinated to learn that you previously focused on writing for plays and musical theater. What led to your decision to switch to writing fiction?
To be honest, I love writing musicals very much and if I had the time, I’d keep doing it. But it’s hard to convince theaters to take a chance on you if you’re new or unknown (although I’ve been lucky in that regard), and theater can be lovely but stressful. I think the biggest thing, though, is that my stories just kept getting too big for the stage and writing a book seemed to be the solution. Plus, it’s something I’ve wanted to do since childhood.

You have spent time living both in Wales and in Japan. Were there specific places or experiences in each locale that helped inspire your settings or characters?

In SON OF THE SIREN, the forest known as Shiratani Unsuikyo on the island of Yakushima influenced both Elythia and the forest of Yanna. The cave shrine in Takachiho, Amanoyasukawara, influenced the cave that houses the statue of Terinelle in SON OF THE SIREN. Japan influenced SON OF THE SIREN since I wrote it while I lived there. Meanwhile, my book THE NAME AND THE KEY, is inspired by Wales. Tenby served as the influence for the town of Mariner. It’s a lovely seaside town that I wish everyone could visit.

What is your writing process like? Do you tend to start with character? Plot? And are you a seat-of-the-pants writer, a planner, or somewhere in-between?

I’m a very visual person and those visuals are tied to anime and manga, so when I envision characters for the first time, they look animated or drawn. And I think of the character expression sheets that artists make, and I imagine all of the situations that could possibly make a character make certain faces. Sometimes a plot (or at least plot points) comes out of that. SON OF THE SIREN was a mix—I thought of the character Lirien first, and then thought of the fairy tales (plot) after him. I’m actually quite terrible with plotting. I can never think that far ahead, and I never stick to my own outlines. I may keep certain major events, but usually I wander around in the text until I get there. I’m very much a seat-of-the-pants writer.

You earned your MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Was this an important experience in developing your skills as a writer?

Honestly, I came to SHU having no idea what I was doing. I had no idea for a story (just that I wanted to adapt a fairy tale), and because I was a playwright, I didn’t know certain conventions or terminology when it came to writing fiction (I had to ask what dialogue tags were once. How embarrassing!). I was quite literally starting everything from scratch, so SHU was a major player in shaping me up to write fiction. I don’t think I’d have been able to get a book deal without attending the WPF program.

What’s next for you writing-wise?

I’m working on a trilogy: THE NAME AND THE KEY, THE STEP AND THE WALK, and THE FEAR AND THE FLAME. It’s all about Lily, a young girl who finds her mother’s body in the marshes. Her mother’s bloated corpse haunts her in every reflection. Lily’s childhood friend, Andresh, may be the key to breaking the curse on her, but he has dark secrets of his own that may destroy them both.

This trilogy is based on my graduate thesis, THE NAME AND THE KEY. I’m doing a complete rewrite of it because there were some major mistakes in it and I’ve grown so much as a writer; I’d like to do the book better this time.

Anything else you’d like to add, or wish I’d asked that I didn’t?

I never thought I’d reach a point where my book would be published, and I’m so grateful to my agent Rick Lewis and the team at Oliver-Heber Books for giving me a chance. It’s been a dream come true. And it’s been years…so I want to remind all of you writers out there that your time will come. Keep working; keep writing.

 

Bio: Kristina Elyse Butke writes fantasy filled with magic, dark curses, and true love. Her time living abroad in Wales and Japan inspires her writing through the fantastical settings and creatures she creates. She has an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University and when she isn’t writing, she indulges herself with reading manga and webtoons, watching anime, and cosplaying. She also enjoys spending time in forests, the more whimsical, the better. 

Buy link: (Universal Purchase Link) https://books2read.com/u/br9MMA

Social Media Link: https://linktr.ee/kristinaelysebutke