The Changeling of Fenlen Forest Blog Tour with Giveaway :)
If Elizabeth can find her fawn and
uncover the fate of her lost double, can she stop the fear from
turning into hate? To solve the deepening mystery, Elizabeth
befriends a handsome, skeptical young shepherd whose stories hint at
a dark secret lurking at the forest’s edge, and follows a herd of
wild unicorns with the ability to unlock the past.
Link to Goodreads:
Purchase
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Link to Tour Schedule:
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Katherine
Magyarody grew up in Toronto, Ontario. During graduate school, she
researched the history of adolescence, taught children’s
literature, and wrote fiction on the sly. Her debut short story,
“Goldhawk,” is anthologized in PEN
America Best Debut Short Stories 2017.
She currently lives in Connecticut, where she blogs about interesting
and weird unicorns at
https://offbeatunicorn.com/about-offbeat-unicorn/.
Website
| Twitter
***GUEST POST***
How did you come up with the title?
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
How much of the book is realistic?
What books have most influenced your life most?
What book are you reading now?
Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
What are your current projects?
Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
Do you see writing as a career?
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?
Who designed the covers?
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
Do you have any advice for other writers?
What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?
Do you write an outline before every book you write?
Have you ever hated something you wrote?
What is your favourite theme/genre to write about?
While you were writing, did you ever feel as if you were one of the characters?
What are your expectations for the book?
***GUEST POST***
What
inspired you to write your first book?
I
wrote The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest because
I love unicorns. I wanted to write a book that respected unicorns as
powerful, independent, elusive creatures, rather than as
rainbow-maned sidekicks. (Can you tell I grew up watching The
Last Unicorn?)
In
my main character Elizabeth, I wanted to create a heroine who wasn’t
just navigating unicorns’ species-otherness, but also have her use
what she learns about unicorn-otherness to think through her
relationships with other humans. There has to be silence between a
human and a unicorn…but there are also silences between humans that
Elizabeth has to read into.
Do
you have a specific writing style?
I
like to create structure for my working day to balance out the chaos
of creativity. If I am waiting for inspiration to strike, I’ll read
up on something that will be useful for the setting or the mythology
of my story-world.
In
terms of prose-style, I think there’s always a tension between
moving the plot forward in action or dialogue and letting readers
look around at the physical world that shapes characters’ reactions
and perceptions.
How did you come up with the title?
Haha…I
didn’t! My original title was Elizabeth,
Missing.
But the editor at Great Plains wisely convinced me to go for
something more overtly fantasy-sounding.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I
want readers to be able to choose what they want from the book. Maybe
for one person, it’s about a girl and her unicorn, both growing up
and learning the boundaries of friendship. For another it’s about
sisterhood in different forms. For another, it might be about how
nature and animals exist alongside humans but are never subservient
to our plans. For another, it might be to grab a map when they go out
hiking!
How much of the book is realistic?
Although
The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest is
technically fantasy, I wanted the unicorns to resemble a biologically
possible species. As for the human world, a lot of the emotions and
situations come from things I’ve observed in real life.
For
the human part of the novel, I wanted to represent situations where
families need to stick together to survive economically, even if that
causes a huge amount of emotional stress. Elizabeth and her mother
have a business partnership: she finds unicorn horns and her mother
sells them. The family Elizabeth finds on the other side of the
forest has a much more complicated arrangement of farming sheep,
weaving and selling cloth. For some people, this arrangement is very
comfortable; for others, it’s horrible. Elizabeth and the young
people she meets all have to figure out where they stand with
relation to their families…and what that means for their well-being
individually and communally.
Are
experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Elizabeth’s
half-sister Sarai is based on a few girls who were born in the middle
of big families. Like them, she is very scrappy and determined. She
suffers no fools.
What books have most influenced your life most?
A
partial list in order of reading:
The
Adventures of Robin Hood
by Roger Lancelyn Green
The
Horrible
Histories
series by Terry Deary
Catherine,
Called Birdy
by Karen Cushman
The
Prydain Chronicles
by Lloyd Alexander
Emily
of New Moon
by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The
Guests
of War trilogy
by Kit Pearson
Howl’s
Moving Castle
by Dianna Wynne Jones
Sabriel
by Garth Nix
Pál
Utcai Fiúk/The Paul Street Boys
by Ferenc Molnár (This story of two gangs of boys at the turn of the
century deserves a new English translation. It’s brilliant and
totally right for this moment in its critical and compassionate view
of children’s cliques during times of heightened nationalism)
Jane
Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë (I read this when I was in Grade 5 and hated it
until I reread it in university)
Middlemarch
by
George Eliot
Midnight’s
Children
by Salman Rushdie
Kim
by Rudyard Kipling
Maus
by Art Spiegelman
The
Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
by M.T. Anderson
Skim
and This
One Summer
by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
The
Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Be
Prepared
by Vera Brosgol
If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Charlotte
Brontë! Though I don’t think she
feels
a spiritual kinship with me.
I love that the Brontë sisters wrote fanfiction and fantasy that was
meant just for themselves. I love that they were both fiercely
individual and emotionally interdependent. I love that Charlotte
Brontë was both fiercely romantic and brutally pragmatic.
What book are you reading now?
I
just finished rereading The
Black Cauldron by
Lloyd Alexander and I’m currently trying to find my next book. I’m
wavering between Space
Unicorn Blues by
T.J. Berry, On
Chesil Beach by
Ian McEwan and The
Marrow Thieves by
Cherie Dimaline.
Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
I
loved When
Dimple Met Rishi
by Sandhya Menon, which came out last year.
What are your current projects?
If
I tell you, it will jinx them! But broadly, a YA medieval adaption of
the Bluebeard fairy-tale and a YA murder-mystery set during the fall
of the Roman Empire.
Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members.
The
library. I love libraries.
Do you see writing as a career?
Most
people often are writing as well as doing something else. I wrote my
first two manuscripts while working on a PhD. Balancing writing and
something else makes sure the writer is in conversation with other
people or other things. For me, working on academic stuff or being an
editorial assistant helped me from burning out.
Writing
is a career because it’s something that I am constantly working on
and – let’s not forget – because writing exists within a larger
context of readers, professional organizations and economic factors.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I
am very happy with The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest.
If I were a strictly business-oriented person, I would have written
it for a younger audience to fit trends of unicorn marketing. But
then it would be a different book.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
I
was intensely unhappy at school and getting lost in a book was one of
the only ways I could escape. Also, writing is socially legitimated
day-dreaming!
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
It’s
a challenge to simmer a story down to its most concentrated form. I
know a lot more about the world of The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest than
I could include.
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
Dianna
Wynne Jones and Charlotte Brontë. They have big hearts but they can
also be super snarky. They are both in love with fantasy worlds and
incredibly practical.
Do you have to travel much concerning your book(s)?
I
didn’t travel to do research, but the travelling I did informed my
perspective and my writing.
Who designed the covers?
The
lovely graphic designers at Great Plains. I tried to draw a cover
design for fun and it was awful!
What was the hardest part of writing your book?
Cutting
out all the parts about sheep herding and weaving and wool dyeing! I
did so much research that ultimately didn’t move the plot
forward…tragedy!
Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
There
are two types of people in this world: people who love unicorns and
those weirdos who don’t.
Do you have any advice for other writers?
- Focus on finishing something. Don’t worry too much about publishers or agents or writing competitions until you have a beginning, middle, and end that you absolutely love.
- Once you’ve finished your masterpiece, feel comfortable with editing it, which could mean cutting out fifty pages, adding fifty pages, or rewriting to focus on another character.
Do
you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Hello
reader!
Do
you like wild unicorns, bittersweet romance, and creepy
superstitions? If you do, I hope you will enjoy The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest!
In
The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest,
you’ll meet Elizabeth, a girl who has grown up in the shadow of
eerie Fenlen Forest, scratching out a living by scavenging for
unicorn horns and caring for the herd of elusive magical creatures.
But when Elizabeth is seventeen, her beloved fawn, Sida, goes
missing. While searching for Sida, Elizabeth loses her way. She
stumbles upon a young man, Torun, who fears she
is a ghost…or a changeling who has stolen the form of his missing
beloved, Bettina. Elizabeth needs Torun to help her find Sida and her
path home. But when the Elizabeth and Torun find Sida, the fawn has
already taken up with a new, mysterious herd of unicorns. The longer
Elizabeth takes to coax Sida away from the herd, the more she becomes
enamored in Torun and embroiled in his family’s superstitions. Are
the disappearance of the unicorn fawn and the missing girl related?
If Elizabeth can solve the mystery, she might be able to save the
unicorns, Bettina, and herself.
Whether
you’re in the mood for suspense, romance, or the care of magical
creatures, The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest
is the book for you. This is a book to savour and reread, because the
mystery unfolds to the very last page.
Best,
Katherine
Ps.
If you like unicorns who are weird or complicated or strange, I run a
blog about interesting unicorns in art and literature at
https://offbeatunicorn.com/.
What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it to life?
Market
trends will
affect who is willing to publish your book, so you have to know when
you’re willing to bend and when you are not. People kept on telling
me that unicorns are for middle grade readers because of all these
unicorn products marketed at girls aged 0-12. But Peter S. Beagle’s
classic The
Last Unicorn
is an amazing book and it speaks to an audience that bridges older
kids, teens, and adults. So does my novel, The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest.
It’s only through making stories that are different that we can
make a difference. I went for an independent publisher because they
would let me tell my story my way.
Do
you ever experience writer's block?
I
experience times when I’m not ready to be writing fiction because
I’m intellectually or emotionally tired. So, I do other things,
like plug away at an academic article or volunteer or cook or plan a
camping trip.
Do you write an outline before every book you write?
No,
but writing without an outline is more painful. With an outline, I
can bounce around the plot and write a section I’m interested in at
that particular moment.
Have you ever hated something you wrote?
Sure!
Growing
as a person means that you don’t always agree with your past self.
Reading old high school stories and essays is very humbling. It
proves to me how much I can improve as a writer!
What is your favourite theme/genre to write about?
While you were writing, did you ever feel as if you were one of the characters?
To
write from a character’s voice, you have to be in their head. I
definitely had conversations with myself where I was both Elizabeth
and her mother, or Elizabeth and her love interest, Torun.
What are your expectations for the book?
I
hope that people find themselves surprised by how much they enjoy it.
The
Changeling of Fenlen Forest is
a book about unicorns, and I think the unicorn parts are amazing. But
there’s also a lot more going on, too!
What
is your favorite genre of book that you read?
Hmmm…that’s
a hard question. I go through different phases. I love fantasy and
folk-tale adaptations with heroines who are plucky but grounded, by
authors like Dianna Wynne Jones, Robin McKinley, and Garth Nix. I
also love stories where characters have to navigate between different
cultural identities: In
the
Key
of Nira Ghani
by Natasha Deen and Be
Prepared
by Vera Brosgol both made me laugh and wince in recognition.
When
it’s time to give YA and children’s lit a rest, I also enjoy
reading Victorian fiction, pop history like Michael Palin’s Erebus:
The Story of a Ship
and historical fiction like Esi Edugyan’s Washington
Black.
I also enjoy literary criticism like Talia Schaffer’s Romance’s
Rivals: Familiar Marriage in Victorian Fiction, which
sets up the premise for every single rom com you’ve ever read or
watched.
I
also try to read something in Hungarian every year.
Giveaway Details:
- Two (2) winners will receive a physical copy of Changeling of Fenlen Forest by Katherine Magyarody (INT)
Sounds like an interesting read.
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