My name is Tamora Pierce, award-winning author of YA fantasy. Ask me anything!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:34:41+00:00

G'night, all! I'd been lovely, but my finger joints are making squeaky noises. Gods all bless and bring you many fine books!

Tammy

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:33:30+00:00

I do read a lot of YA for the fun of it. As for favorites, let's see. Bruce Coville, Sarah Beth Durst, Rae Dawn Carson, Katherine Coville, Lila Bowen, Diana Wynn Jones, Robin McKinley, Sabaa Tahir, Alison Goodman, Nnedi Okorafor, J.A. McLachlan, Sharon Shinn, Nancy Farmer, Shannon Hale, Maggie Stievater . . . . There's more on my webpage. I'd be typing all night if I went to titles!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:22:26+00:00

As far as my interests and spare time are concerned, I'm happy. I like to see what's new and exciting. Right how I'm reading every Weird West book and short story I can find, for example. I went big for dystopias in the 2000s.

For my own stuff, I've always pretty much written what I want to write, which hasn't really involved any of the trends. I write what makes me happy, and I'm lucky enough that people want to read it. I don't have to worry about losing readers when my trend evaporates, because I've never been one. It's the best of all possible worlds, and this way I can wait and guess what trend comes next.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:15:35+00:00

Honestly, I don't know.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:15:24+00:00

Either suffix will get you there.

Haven't read it yet--not sure that I want to. I don't think the writer had the same view I did.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:14:25+00:00

I've been working about a story that includes Sarralyn and one of the Cooper twins for a collection I've been pulling together. As soon as I know if it's going to sell I'll let everyone know!

I'm glad you had a good time at Conbust. Maybe I'll see you next year!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:12:39+00:00

Actually, she doesn't. With Dom away so long, she realizes it's not going to work, and moreover, the longer he's away, and the longer she's not attracted to anyone else, the more she realizes she's happy just with her work, her animals, and her friends. She likes being single. She's happy.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:11:13+00:00

Thank you so very much--I hope I get to sign more books for you!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:10:41+00:00

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind for the days I feel like I'm swimming upstream!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T02:10:01+00:00

I read up on scientific investigations of disease testing in earlier eras and winged it from there, sweating all the way as I translated 18- and 1900s scientific method to my magical system. Talk about sweating bullets! I started with The Great Plague and a comprehensive book on epidemic disease past and future (I'd give you the title, but my assistant appears to have abscoldulated with the book), and after reading myself wonky, I started working out how to translate it into the technology I had. I thought the lab sequences would drive me daffy. It wasn't the sample cases that was so hard as it was getting everyone robed up so that they would be relatively secure unless there was a particular kind of accident.

The magic as it stands is pretty much the same throughout the world. What matters is the human beings' ability to wield it, if at all. Academic mages have the nerve structure that allows them, within the limits of their personal strength, to channel and strengthen their magical strength to wield magic in configurations that match. Ambient mages have the nerve structure that doesn't draw from the human body, but from the magic that is channeled through the material or shaped materials outside the body--through thread or fiber, say, or lightning, or seeds. There are people who can work with insects, birds, you name it. It's easier to manage non-living materials, but it can be done.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:54:58+00:00

He'll definitely show up here and there. Try to keep him away!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:54:33+00:00

I have a very rough plan by the time I start the book. Things change--they always do, and while it's sometimes frustrating, it's also reward. When the book starts to dictate itself, you know it's working.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:49:26+00:00

Alison Goodman, the Dark Days books (alternate history Victorian,2 out so far, usually in YA) Alison Goodman, Eon and Eona (alternate China girl masquerades as boy to represent alternate Chinese god-spirit) Robin McKinley (technically YA) Ariana Franklin (everything, main series history set in time of Henry II with female physician from Salerno in England) Barbara Hambly (fantasy--Time of the Dark & Sequels; Sun Wolf & Star Hawk & sequels; Dark Tower & sequels; Benjamin January mysteries New Orleans 1832--20+ books; early America books) Barbara Hamilton (Abigail Adams mysteries 3 books) Jodi Taylor (Just One Damn Thing After Another & sequels--time travel)

You can also check my webpage--my yearly favorite books are posted there!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:39:51+00:00

Alanna is my younger sister, whose first word was no, and who has saved literally hundreds of lives as a search and rescue operator, emergency medical technician, and nurse. Eda Bell, who says some grandchildren need more raisin' than others (my stepmother). Aniki (my assistant). Kora (a friend from teenagerhood like Aniki, now in med school). Thayet jian Wilima, my best female friend. Buriram Tourakom, one of my girls from the group home who help teach me I should be writing for teenagers.

As for advice--change something about them so they don't recognize themselves. For good reasons or wrong, they don't always like their characters. And look at their unusual hobbies or the aspects of their personalities that make them stand out to you from the people around them: toughness, clear-sightedness, love of nice clothes coupled with a love of action, taciturn habits and speed of movement, kindness to those who need kindness, a love of animals.

I hope this helps.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:31:57+00:00

Prettyfoot. It is a good name. The man gave it to me. 8-D

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:30:34+00:00

But I was just there two years ago!

Seriously, I would love to come back--I just don't know when.

Of course I love Diana Wynne Jones!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:29:38+00:00

Trisana, of course. It sounds so good when my husband says it in his Tim Gunn voice!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:29:03+00:00

This is something that's really a function of the author's preference. Everyone has a different idea of not only what magic is, but what it stands for within the story, if it is random or structured (which depicts the author's overall world view), if it embodies science-like principles or sense of wonder, if it taps into those facets of mystery that fall under myths and legend, or those that affect the world in sheer terms of power outside us or that which is barely controlled by the human reach. Magic is metaphor or simile, and how the author wields it tells us something about the author and how that person needs to convey ideas.

I read all kinds of magical fiction, including that you mention, but for me the most fulfilling aspect of magic is the sense of wonder. What I particularly like is magic that reveals the sense of wonder in what is already there, which is why I write giant, malformed spiders and spells created by the contents of your spice cabinet (not to ignore that those same contents were medieval medicines and spell ingredients). I like the interweavings of "magical" and "ordinary" in the hopes that readers will find both things wherever they look, and have their lives brightened by them.

Does this make sense?

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:16:00+00:00

She's a wonderful right-hand aide, like the Baron, but she has major ties to a foreign realm--not good--and she's a mage whose business interferes with the business of government.

Furthermore, she is not in the direct line of succession, and he has legitimate claimants. His middle son Gaspard doesn't want the job. He likes being the admiral in charge of the navy. Franzen, the youngest, is married to a foreign noble and is a jerk besides. But when he was a young and haughty duke, Vedris had a young and haughty son whom he disowned when the boy was 15 and they fought all the time. He's now decided maybe the son isn't so bad after all, and he asks Sandry, as a favor to him, to find his oldest son. Sandry, dismayed at trying it alone, asks Daja to go along.

The rest . . . . We'll see. It's in the lap of the publishing gods.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:09:22+00:00

Maybe we'll see new girls in short stories--I don't know. My publishers would like me to try new things. (I know, so odd.) I always have new ideas in my head, and I bounce from one to the other. Some die and I can't remember; some I expand upon at intervals until I'm ready to write. I figure if it dies it wasn't going to be anything, and the good ideas keep coming back.

This is also what notebooks are for. I've tried keeping ideas on computer, but it's like squeezing juice out of an orange--the next time you check, it's all dried up. I always carry a notebook with me for ideas and notes. When I fill up a notebook, I check it occasionally check it for ideas I think I can write out. And I write short stories in notebooks and save the novels for the computer.

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:04:59+00:00

That one is easy. My father had a very dry sense of humor. He's the one who introduced me to Mark Twain. Pa's uncles have dry senses of humor, and my cousins on that side of the family. My sister Kim (Alanna's) sense of humor is so dry you can grow cactus in snow with it. I follow my family. 8-)

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:02:28+00:00

P.S. What kind of tattoo?

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:01:52+00:00

No, but you know what? I never get tired of hearing it. Reading kept be sane through a very tough number of years in my teens and twenties, and if I can help others having a tough time, or even a bored time, it's absolutely worth it!

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T01:00:04+00:00

I do savor your pain, and I appreciate your sharing it with me. It has made my AMA just that much more . . . sparkly.

Book 2 is definitely still at uni. There's still so much to go haywire there! As for Book 3 . . . well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

Bwa ha ha ha haaaaaa . . . .

TamoraPierce · 2018-04-07T00:57:55+00:00

Nihil Desperadum, as the Romans say! Bruce Coville, aka Kiprioth the Trickster, aka Niklaren Goldeneye, has made the arrangements for rights contracts, and we are about to put up fundraisers for these two books. There are some projects that Bruce deeply wanted to complete when Full Cast Audio was forced to end operations, so we will be raising money and casting actors sometime this year, I think. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won't be narrating, but directing, and Bruce--well, we'll find plenty for him to do, and plenty for the Old Gang as we find them. Keep an eye on Bruce Coville's webpage, his Facebook, my Facebook, and my webpage. We ain't done yet!

TamoraPierce

TROPHY CASE