When people learn that I live on a sailboat with my husband, young son, and three cats, they express one of two sentiments. Either “Wow, that’s so cool!” or a variation of “You must be nuts.” Both, of course, are true. It’s way cool. But you also have to be a little, let’s be kind and say, “eccentric,” to enjoy this gig.
Their follow-up comment is usually, “Hey, you could write a book.”
Yes. But not that book. I write fantasy for teens. If I’ve learned one thing about the interplay between my life and my fiction, it’s that experiences have to marinate for a while before they show up on the page. Even then, I can’t always map characters, emotions, or images directly to memory. So my next book won’t be a memoir relating anecdotes from our three years of cruising life: the wicked storms, the colorful nautical types, the theater playing live and unscripted every day on the VHF radio, wacky encounters with the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, or the Mexican Navy.
We may not be in Kansas anymore, but still it can be challenging to add that tasty international flavor to a teen fantasy reading menu. It seems that most contemporary fantasy novels for young people are rooted securely in the Western European folklore tradition. Not surprisingly, English-language writers rely heavily on British, Celtic, Norse, and classical Greek mythology to populate their worlds. Contemporary urban fantasy authors have spread the net wider, including vampires and werewolves among their casts. Others go off the map altogether, creating brand-new creatures and mythologies (Monster Blood Tattoo-man, I’m looking at you!).
In the comments following my post on YA fairy tale fiction, contributor Patrick Garson remarked that we can’t know the “original” meanings of fairy tales that have been transmitted through the oral tradition. It’s not until a version has been recorded—or composed, in the case of literary tales like those by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy or Hans Christian Andersen—that a text exists to which subsequent storytellers can respond.
