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Interview with Janet Lee Carey, Author of DRAGONSWOOD

1/1/2012

17 Comments

 
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Interview with JANET LEE CAREY
Author of DRAGONSWOOD

Photo by Heidi Pettit

Leave a comment to 
WIN a FREE Copy of Dragonswood!


Dragonswood

In a dark time when girls with powers are called witches, Tess escapes the witch hunter and hides with a mysterious huntsman until magical voices draw her deeper into Dragonswood where she learns the secret of her birth. Caught between love and loyalty, Tess chooses the hardest path of all – her own.

* “A dark fantasy illuminated by piercing flashes of hope.”

--Kirkus starred review

 “.. perfectly crafted combination of history, mythology, and fantasy. . . The political intrigue, mythology of Merlin, and romances that bloom . . . . will have readers racing toward the end and then going back to savor the events more slowly.”
--School Library Journal starred review


Thanks for joining us today Janet. I'm so excited to have you. And it's so gracious of you to offer a FREE book giveaway. All our readers have to do is leave a comment for a chance to WIN a FREE copy of Dragonswood! 

Can you tell your readers something interesting about yourself AND/OR your favorite character.

I’m terrified of spiders (Like Ron in Harry Potter) I go all squeamish around them and used to have my brothers suck them up with the vacuum cleaner. Strangely enough spider webs appeared in a few places in Dragonswood:

“I found a small alcove near the top of the waterfall where I might sit away from the swirling mist. I watched a spider spinning her web across the entryway. The mist hung in droplets from her silk, each drop seemed to catch fire as the wisps sped past.

 Onadon already had marriage plans in mind. How was that any different from the blacksmith who eyed me like his raw metal he could shape by force? Was one father’s magic much different than the other’s mallet? I am not property.”

I realized after writing the scene that the spider web represented Tess’s feeling of entrapment. She’s expected to marry a man she doesn’t love. I’ve learned the things I fear have a power that can translate into my fiction in surprising ways.  

It's fascinating to hear you find out things about yourself as you write. I'm the same way. What was your favorite book as a teen? Tell us about it and how it affected you as a person.

I loved reading Tolkien’s and Ursula Le Guin’s fantasies as a teen, but the novel that was the most life-changing for me at age 16 was Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. The book opened me up to a whole new world. I was already on a search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spirituality. I started a regular meditation practice after reading Siddhartha. The novelalso led to my first charity event, a music and dance festival with Indian music to raise money for famine relief in Bangladesh. All of that life change came out of reading that one book.

Because of my own life-changing experiences through books, my novels tend to touch on awakening spirit.   



I'm going to have to check that book out. Sounds delightful. Tell us about Dragonswood. How did it come about?

The idea for the first part of the novel came when I learned the details of the witch trials in medieval Europe. I discovered women accused of witchcraft were not only tortured and made to confess, they were often forced to give up names of other women they knew. The idea appalled me. I instantly knew there was a story in it. I imagined a tale of friendship and betrayal. The novel tests the main character’s loyalty to her friends, her family, to her first love, and ultimately to herself. 


I'm so excited about this book. Would you share your favorite excerpt/scene?

One of my favorite scenes happens midway through the novel when the fairies steal Tess:

“As I squatted, damp and shivering, holding my hands out to the fire, darkness weighed down over the world like a hushed, black wave about to fall. I was far from humankind, yet I felt I was being observed like an insect under a mage-glass. I glanced about. No eyes glared from the woods. I heard familiar scuttling noises of small forest creatures and the dry, dusty sound of flitting wings.

Still I sensed something else. Who watches? I looked left and right. 

Then in that hour light came, thrown like a ball to the base of a tree. One circling flame falling, then another, and another. I screamed as the light orbs piled up on all sides. Heat washed over me, drying my damp clothes to the stiffness of brown leaves. The rushing sound of flames hushed all else in the night wood. In brightness, I was lifted, swung, paraded through the forest on waves of living fire that did not scorch or burn, but sang beneath me:

Eshkataa breelyn kataa. Bring her in, her in, her in.

Fairy bound in human skin. Bring her in, her in, her in.”

Your book trailer is divine. Tell us about it.

This was our first time making a book trailer. We collected photos. I wrote the script/music and sang. My husband, Tom, played the Turkish saz. Our son, Aaron, recorded the music. I loved creating the trailer. Our goal was to “deliver the shiver.”   

How awesome that you wrote everything in your trailer and even sang your recorded son. Excellent job. How has writing affected your life? And what’s your favorite part of being a writer?

Writing affects every part of my life. Story is a source of inspiration for me. I don’t know what I’d do without it. I need stories like I need food and water. My favorite part of being a writer is that moment when the story sings and I’m carried away into another place and time. A story is a doorway. You only have to open it and go inside:

~Open as you have before
Let the traveler though the door
From the opening begin
The only way out is in~
--from The Beast of Noor

What advice can you give regarding the writing process?

Apprentice yourself to the work. It takes a lifetime to learn how to write a good novel, but we all start at the same place – a blank page. Begin where you are and start the climb. It’s worth it.

Regarding publication and marketing, what advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Writing is a solitary profession. That said we writers need a lot of support. It helps to find a good critique group and learn how to revise from critique. (Learning to revise in my critique group saved me years later when I received my first long editorial letter.) Read. Read. Read. Write.Write.Write. Attend writing conferences, but don’t contact an editor or agent until your novel is complete, revised, and ready to send. Finally every writer gets rejections. Believe in yourself and keep writing. 

How can your fans find, follow or friend you?

My Website http://www.janetleecarey.com

Blogs http://dreamwalks.blogspot.com  AND http://LibraryLionsRoar.blogspot.com 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/janetleecarey/ 

Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Janet-Lee-Carey-Author/113029975405630  



Thanks for being here today Janet.  I'm a big fan of your work and I hope our readers will enjoy your stories as much as I do. And remember everyone... 


Leave a comment to WIN a FREE Copy of Dragonswood! 

C.K. Volnek
17 Comments

Meet Award-Winning Author, Janet Lee Carey

10/1/2011

9 Comments

 
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I posted  my review and now I would like to introduce the author with a most delightful writing voice…Janet Lee Carey. She is an award-winning fantasy author and author of The Beast of Noor and The  Dragons of Noor. School Library Journal's starred review says of her work, “Verdict: This is quite simply fantasy at its best–original, beautiful, amazing, and deeply moving.” Janet links each new book with a charitable organization empowering readers to make a difference in the world. She tours in US and abroad presenting at schools, children’s book festivals, and conferences.

 
http://www.janetleecarey.com

Leave A Comment to WIN a FREE copy of The Beast of Noor, or The Dragons of Noor! TWO winners will be selected on 10/10. Good Luck!

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Do not wander in the deeps

Where the Shriker’s shadow creeps
 
When he rises from beneath
 
Beware the sharpness of his teeth.


 



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Teens Read Too Gold Star for
  Excellence


C.K. Thank you for visiting today, Janet. It is a  treat to have such a wonderful writer of fantasy to my blog. Today we’re celebrating the paperback release of The Beast of Noor, and the anniversary release of The Dragons of  Noor. Let’s start by looking at the The Beast of Noor paperback since it’s the first tale of the two. I truly enjoyed The Beast of Noor. Your gift of magical language and sense of the fantastical world is truly
breathtaking.

JLC Thanks, Charlie. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.

C.K. Will you tell your readers something interesting about yourself AND/OR your favorite character?

JLC  Writing The Beast of Noor, I was keenly aware of how similar I am to Hanna. Though I don’t have one blue eye and one green, I do go on Dreamwalks. My Dreamwalks take me into the story world I’m discovering. I see glimpses of where the story is going and I follow the trail.

~As I walk, As I walk. The universe is walking with me~ (from a Navajo rain dance
ceremony)

Miles’s character was more difficult. Like Hanna he’s an outcast, but he’s angry about
it. He has the intense desire to prove himself, and to get even with the villagers who shun him. I had to learn how to relate to his anger and his drive. The way I got around it was to remember how it felt before I was a published writer – to tap into the years I spent working on novels and getting only rejection. I was on fire to get my stories out there. I only had to get in touch with that feeling of intense drive to prove I was a writer to write Miles’s part of the story.

C.K. What is it that compels you to write the fantastic fantasy worlds you so vividly put your readers in?

JLC  I love writing fantasy. The genre gives me liberty to challenge my teen characters in unexpected ways. I sink in deep to make the worlds and creatures both beautiful and beastly; to make the setting very real and pithy, to let my characters (and the readers) feel the chill of every storm.

C.K.  After reading The Beast of Noor, it was interesting to compare the Bear Hound in your story, and the Old English Mastiff in Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island. I found both dogs are used as an instrument to control and contain the wickedness of revenge…the retribution within the dog itself in the Beast or Noor, and the vengeance within another legendary creature, the Witiku, in Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island. What message would you like your readers to take away from The Beast of Noor regarding the power and
sin of revenge?

JLC I think it’s interesting that we both chose hounds as messengers of a sort, Charlie. Humans and hounds have been closely knit for eons. To answer your question about revenge, I’ll start with a quote. Friedrich Nietzschesaid, “
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” This quote nails the essential battle Miles faces when he fights the Shriker in The Beast of Noor. Miles wants revenge. He is very much like the creature he’s fighting.   

Revenge is a twisted response to the need for justice. But when revenge breeds more violence; it’s a never ending cycle. Someone has to step in and break the cycle. It’s never easy but it can be done. Miles and Hanna find a way through the dark and out the other side in this tale, though I won’t give the end away.

C.K. Research plays a great part in a novel based on legend and/or history. I found researching the history of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island both interesting and mystifying as well as appalling when I discovered the cruelty committed against the Native Americans over the loss of a single silver cup. The Beast of Noor is based on a
fantastical legend, delightful in the sense of sight and perception. Please tell us how you
researched this legend and came up with such an enchanting world?

JLC I have to admit I work backward. What I mean is, I have the central story idea that hits me in the gut. For
The Beast of Noor it was the image of a boy lost in the dark. One who becomes a monster by fighting a monster. Once I had the idea I turned to old
myths and legends trying to find the right setting, and the right monster to allow the story to come out. One of my books
Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins:
An Encyclopedia
, by Carol Rose, tells of a phantom dog known by various names – Black Dog, Mauthe Doog, Padfoot, Barguest, Shriker, Gytrash, and so on. Charlotte Bronte describes the Gytrash in Jane Eyre, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle seeks to hunt him down in
The Hound of the Baskervilles. The phantom hound has existed long in legend and haunted many a tale. I knew I’d found the right creature for my story, and like all writers, I made the beast my own. So the legend of the Shriker, of Rory Sheen’s betrayal, and the Darro’s curse as told on Enness Isle is singular to the world of Noor. 

C.K. Your main characters, Miles and Hannah, must right the grievous wrong their ancestor, Rory Sheen, has done. In doing so, they also learn to accept who they are and discover the power and wisdom forgiveness can bring about. My main character, Jack, must also confront the terror cause by his ancestor’s heinous deed against the Native Americans. He too learns one must forgive, and be forgiven, to stop the persistent hatred passed from generation to generation. Do you feel this message of forgiveness pertains to our youth of today?

JLC Yes I think it’s essential. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting or that crimes should go unpunished. Forgiveness has everything to do with shaking off the chains of the past so we can live full lives. Again, it’s not easy. It’s never easy. But it’s liberating to learn how to forgive ourselves and others. Good stories that explore violence, grief, and resolution can show us the way as can true to life heroes like Nelson Mandela. 

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” ~ Nelson Mandela

C.K Tell us about
The Dragons of Noor now you’re celebrating its one year anniversary.   

JLC Book anniversaries are fun. I can’t exactly celebrate by taking my book to dinner, but I do giveaways like the one we’re doing here, and book signings at Children’s Literature Conferences and so on. I had to write 
The Dragons of Noor because I knew Miles and Hanna were ready for another challenge. I wanted to find out what Miles would do if he was called to use his dangerous shape-shifting power again. How Hanna’s prophetic dreams and her growing romance with Taunier would challenge her in a new story. Hanna comes into her power much more in this second book. 

The Dragons of Noor is about mans’ misuse of nature and nature going awry. Trees
fall, worlds split, a Wild Wind blows in and steals young children. 

After Miles’s and Hanna’s little brother is stolen by a Wild Wind, they sail east to find him. Their search brings them to the frontlines of the dragons’ battle to save the endangered Waytree forest –the ancient trees that bind the broken worlds. If they fail to save the old forest, the worlds will split in two. All magic will go out of Noor, and their little brother who was blown across the divide into the otherworld will be forever
lost.   

C.K. Nature seems to play a big role in this story.

JLC. The power and majesty of nature is key to this story. I’m concerned about the state of our planet, and that comes into play very much in this fantasy. Growing up near the Pacific Ocean in the shadows of the giant redwood trees, I felt there were older living beings around me, that I was a small person in their world. As I studied forests to write the book, I began to see how trees are rooted in humankind’s childhood. When we cut them down we sever ourselves from our wild past and chop down our most ancient
playground.

C.K. In your bio it says, “Janet links each new book with a charitable organization empowering readers to make a difference in the world.” What kind of outreach did you do with the NOOR books?

JLC Thanks for asking, Charlie. For The Beast of Noor I hooked up with Search Dog Foundation
http://www.searchdogfoundation.org/98/html/index.html  I encourage readers put up a paw and help me contribute to training search dogs who rescue people after earthquakes and hurricanes. It’s a great organization. (see more about Search  Dogs it in the “Janet’s Fantasies”section of my website http://www.janetleecarey.com )

Researching endangered forests for The Dragons of Noor, I was led to The Nature
Conservancy’s
Plant a Billion Trees   campaign which was a perfect fit for the book with its focus on endangered  ancient forests. Plant a Billion Trees goal is to restore one billion native trees to Brazil's highly endangered Atlantic Forest over the next 7 years. 
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You can see more about Plant a Billion Trees and reader outreach on the “Giving Back” button of my website.
 
C.K. What advice can you give regarding the writing process?

JLC
~Keep dreaming. You never know when an unusual thought, image, or a word from someone else will spark an amazing story idea.
~Write for yourself. Revise for your reader. 
~Keep reading other fabulous writers and absorbing stories. Keep writing. Keep sending it out and collecting rejection slips. 
~Don’t give up on your stories. They deserve to live. 

C.K. How can your fans find, follow or friend you?

JLC They can contact me through my website
http://www.janetleecarey.com
Facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Janet-Lee-Carey-Author/113029975405630
My blogs: http://Dreamwalks.blogspot.gom
http://LibraryLionsRoar.blogspot.com 
Book Party Photos:
http://litart-photography.smugmug.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/janetleecarey
On Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/165105.Janet_Lee_Carey

Thanks so much for joining me today, Janet. I  thoroughly enjoy reading
The Beast of
Noor
and am chomping at the big to read
The Dragons of Noor. Wonderful voice!
C.K. Volnek

Remember to Leave A Comment to WIN a FREE copy of The Beast of
Noor
, or The Dragons of Noor! TWO winners will be selected on
10/10. Good Luck!

9 Comments

Book Review - The Beast of Noor, by Janet Lee Carey

9/30/2011

0 Comments

 
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I’ve always loved the magical legends of norse folklore, to be pulled into the mystical realms and feel the very breath of the enchanted characters. And I was not disappointed with Ms. Janet Lee Carey’s tale The Beast of Noor.

Set in the country of Ennes Isle, just outside of Shalem Wood, young Miles and Hanna Ferrell find themselves in middle of an age-old thriller; embarking upon a quest only they can complete, to stop the supernatural rampage of the beast, The Beast of Noor.
 
The beast had once upon a time been a dog, a loyal dog to his master, Rory Sheen. But when death ensnared Rory, Rory bargained with death and gave death his dog in return for his life. Ever after, the dog was doomed to an eternity of shape-shifting. Its hatred for mankind grew because of Rory’s treacherous deed, killing to quench its vengeance upon every full moon...until now. Miles and Hannah (distant relatives of Rory on their mother’s side) are the only ones left who can stop the beast’s eternal hatred and save the villagers from sure death. 

Within the beautifully crafted and vibrant scenes, Ms. Carey’s readers will find themselves transported to another world, a charming world or folklore, with fantastical creatures and characters you can almost reach out and touch. From the eccentric fairy queens, to the wind woman and sprites, the wise and devoted healer, and the dark  creatures of trolls and the Beast of Noor, the characters come alive, sprinkling their magical dust on you, compelling you to keep reading chapter after chapter. Miles and Hannah pull you into the story as they weave their tragic tale from their modest home in the hills where they shepherd their sheep to how and why they must stop the creature that haunts their family and their country. 
 
Brother and Sister embark upon their quest, sacrificing all they would have in order to right the dreadful wrong of their long-dead relative, learning as they go that love, loyalty and forgiveness are worth more than all the riches of the troll king. 
 
The Beast of Noor is a delightful tale, one that you will not soon forget. Ms. Carey spins a  deliciously imaginative story and I highly recommend
The Beast of Noor for your next YA read.

C.K. Volnek

0 Comments
    Ghost Dog of  Roanoke Island
    - a tween ghost story with a twist of Native American Folklore and based on the real life mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island.

    Available in Print and E-book
    Picture
    View the Book Trailer for Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbJEF9TjZzo

    A Horse Called Trouble
    A troubled teen must overcome her abused past to save the defiant horse who taught her to love and trust again.
    Available in  Print and e-book
    Picture
    View the book trailer for 
    A Horse Called Trouble

    Welcome to my blog.

    Hi. I'm C.K. Volnek, Author and Story teller. I love books and photography, dogs and horses, hiking and tulips, kids, pasta, sunsets and of course…writing. Please come back often and share your passion in writing.. 

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