Interview with Carolyn Turgeon, author of Mermaid + 5 Copy Giveaway

Passages to the Past is very excited to bring you an interview with the charming Carolyn Turgeon, author of the equally charming new book, Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale!  

Carolyn has also graciously offered up 5 copies of Mermaid to PTTP's readers, so be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of the interview.

1. What inspired you to write a retelling of the little mermaid story?

Well, when I was in the final editing stages with my US publisher for my last book, Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story, an editor from the UK swooped in and bought the book, and asked what else I was working on. I sent her a list, and at the bottom was a one-line idea for a book about a mermaid. And she bought it! So I put aside what I actually was working on, and I tried a few ideas before going back to the original Hans Christian Andersen story, which is so strange and dark I wasn’t sure what I could do with it at first. Eventually, though, I decided to tell the story of the princess who barely appears in the story but winds up with the prince at the end, and to tell it alongside the story of the mermaid herself… so that the book becomes as much about the relationship between the two women as it is about their relationships with the prince. And because I was already contrasting the worlds of the human princess and the little mermaid, I decided to set the whole book in the past and not complicate it more by going between the past and present (as I did in Godmother). So now it’s this big medieval love triangle with castles and convents and kings and princesses and wars and mermaids.

2. What type of research did you conduct for the writing of Mermaid?

I did a lot of reading about medieval convents and castles and tried very hard to figure out what daily life would have been like, felt like, tasted like, smelled like, for those who lived in them. Which is hard, really, since most medieval history books don’t focus on those kinds of details at all, especially daily life as lived by women. But I did the best I could and made up the rest. I also did a little looking around at life at the bottom of the sea, and read a bit of mermaid lore, and read the Hans Christian Andersen little mermaid over and over, to pluck out as many details as possible to expand on. But for the most part when it comes to mermaids and the like, you just have to make it up and make it feel as real as possible.

3. I read on your website that your book Godmother has been optioned for a movie! Congratulations, that must be so thrilling for you! Can you tell us a bit about it and will you be playing a big role in the movie making process?

There is not a whole lot to tell! Godmother has also been optioned, twice actually, and is now with a big studio in France, and Mermaid was just optioned last month by Sony. Which apparently surprised my film agent because there are so many other mermaid projects in development right now. But with both books/movies, I am very separate from the process and don’t know a whole lot about what’s going on! Which is fine with me. I like controlling the little worlds of my books; being involved in movie-making seems much more overwhelming and frustrating.

4. Who are your writing influences?

Old Italian literature, like Dante and his circle and those wonderful Boccaccio stories full of tricksters and thieves, and also Verga and all that sensual crazy over-the-top Sicilian tragedy. (I studied Italian literature as an undergrad and medieval Italian poetry in graduate school.) I love the magic realists, too, Marquez especially, and other fanciful fiction, like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Italo Calvino’s CosmiComics. And I’ve always liked old crime fiction, especially the brutality of James M. Cain, the stylishness of Raymond Chandler, the elegant dreadfulness of Patricia Highsmith. And then a lot of music, I’d say, has probably shaped my sensibility as much as anything. Like Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave and Jonathan Richman, all singers I fell in love with as a teenager and love just as much 20 years (ok more than 20 years) later, all of whom write lyrics that are beautiful and sad and strange and sometimes very funny. I’ve been influenced by a lot of film as well. At one point I watched every film noir I could get my hands on, and lots of sad beautiful weepy foreign films, movies like The Hairdresser’s Husband, which is very romantic and devastating, or Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is creepy and sad and gorgeous, like an old fairytale come to life. My first book, Rain Village, was inspired directly by the film Wings of Desire, actually, the beautiful woman in white wings swinging back and forth on the trapeze.

5. What can your fans expect next from you?

My first children’s book—a middle-grade novel—comes out this summer, I think in August. It’s called The Next Full Moon and is about a 12-year-old girl who starts growing feathers and eventually discovers her mother was/is a swan maiden. It looks like I’ll be writing a non-fiction mermaid book as well, based in part on my blog iamamermaid.com and this article I wrote on how to become a mermaid yourself [http://thehairpin.com/2011/03/five-ways-to-become-a-mermaid/]. And I’m trying to finish this thriller I’ve had on the back burner forever, and I want to do a novel about Weeki Wachee Springs and a YA book about a drowning pool. So… lots of things!

6. How do you feel your writing has developed since your first novel, Rain Village?

I think I’ve become much more efficient and comfortable in crafting a whole novel. Writing has always been easy for me line by line, but I had a lot of learning to do about how to put a whole book together and tell stories with beginnings, middles and ends. Mermaid took me a year to write where Rain Village took ten years off and on, and Godmother took five. And that was lack of efficiency and outlining more than anything else! I figured out Mermaid before I wrote it, so that saved a ton of time. I couldn’t have done that before getting through two other novels the hard way, though! So I hope I’m getting better and better as I go!

7. If you could read a book again for the first time, which one would it be and why?

Probably One Hundred Years of Solitude, a book that burned itself into me when I was a teenager. It’s just so beautiful and vivid and wonderful and makes the whole world seem new. I would also love to be a kid again, opening one of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books for the first time, or a Little House on the Prairie novel, or a Nancy Drew or Bobbsey Twins. Those were books that completely transported me as a kid and absolutely made me want to be a writer.

8. And the last question is one I like to end an interview with...what is your advice for aspiring writers?

I just wrote this to a young writer:

Work hard and get as good as possible. Listen very carefully and thoughtfully to criticism but trust your own gut and voice as well; this is an art, I think, so learn it as well as you can. Don't get defensive and don't be shy, be merciless when it comes to your craft and get as good as you can get! Remember and believe that you can learn anything, and that you can always get better. Seek out mentors and peers to share your work with, whom you trust and who can help you, and rely on them, use them, and give them as much as you take. Reading your peers' work and critiquing it, discussing what works and what doesn't and why, is such a good way to learn, and these relationships will be crucial to you throughout your artistic life. And just: be fearless, be confident, trust your gut, be authentic, get to know people and be kind to people and don't ever step on them or use them, "network" but remember that everyone is just a person you can love and learn from and remember, too, that it always always comes down to the work. So that's the main thing: find your voice, use it, develop it, perfect it, always be open and always continue learning and always work on getting better, digging deeper, finding the most beautiful truth you can and expressing it as clearly and authentically as possible. =)

ABOUT THE BOOK

SYNOPSIS

Two sheltered princesses, one wounded warrior; who will live happily ever after?

Princess Margrethe has been hidden away while her kingdom is at war. One gloomy, windswept morning as she stands in a convent garden overlooking the icy sea, she witnesses a miracle: a glittering mermaid emerging from the waves, a nearly drowned man in her arms. By the time Margrethe reaches the shore, the mermaid has disappeared into the sea. As Margrethe nurses the handsome stranger back to health, she learns that not only is he a prince, he is also the son of her father's greatest rival. Sure that the mermaid brought this man to her for a reason, Margrethe devises a plan to bring peace to her kingdom.

Meanwhile, the mermaid princess Lenia longs to return to the human man she carried to safety. She is willing to trade her home, her voice, and even her health for legs and the chance to win his heart….  

A surprising take on the classic tale, Mermaid is the story of two women with everything to lose. Beautifully written and compulsively readable, it will make you think twice about the fairytale you heard as a child, keeping you in suspense until the very last page. 

For more information please visit Carolyn Turgeon's WEBSITE and BLOG.

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

- To enter, please leave a comment below and include your email address.

- Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY!

- For +1 additional entry each, please help spread the word by blogging, posting on sidebar, tweeting or posting on Facebook.  You can use the SHARE buttons below.

- Giveaway ends on April 6th.


GOOD LUCK TO ALL!