Five Questions for Merrie Haskell
Today I'm talking with Merrie Haskell, author of Handbook for Dragon Slayers, which comes out tomorrow from HarperCollins. Here's a little bit about Merrie:
Merrie Haskell grew up half in North Carolina, half in Michigan. She wrote her first story at age seven, and she walked dogs after school to save for her first typewriter. She attended the University of Michigan, where she graduated from the Residential College with a degree in biological anthropology. She works in a library with over 7.5 million volumes.
Her first book, the Middle Grade historical fantasy The Princess Curse, was a Junior Library Guild selection. Her second book is Handbook for Dragon Slayers. Her short fiction appears in Nature, Asimov’s, and various anthologies. Merrie lives in Saline, Michigan.
1) This is your second book. The Princess Curse came out a year ago, and your new release Handbook for Dragon Slayers is set in the same world, 400 years earlier. In what ways are the books connected?
I call these the Apprentice Books, in my head (not an official name!). The Princess Curse was called The Herbalist's Apprentice while I was writing it and trying to sell it. I always coded Handbook for Dragon Slayers as something like The Apprentice Princess in my head, since the main character (while she wants to be a writer, and her companions want to slay dragons) is actually learning how to be a ruler. Likewise, the third, which (today) is called The Castle Behind Thorns, features a boy who wants to be a blacksmith's apprentice. There are more Apprentice Books in my head; we'll see when they want to be written.
While these books aren't sequels, they are linked by more than sort of the statuses and career ambitions of their protagonists. They all share the same alternate past/"secret history" of the world. They have a common mythology; the Underworld is the same in all the books, though it is most prominent in The Princess Curse. The Underworld marches with the World Above in tandem; if the Underworld is sick one place, the lands above it are sick too. So, the Apprentice history includes an Underworld invasion parallel to the Above World Mongol invasion of Europe, in which the invaders broke up the Underworld kingdom of Hades into numerous smaller states. Hekate is a sort of unseen antagonist in The Princess Curse, having taken over one of those smaller states; she is more developed (or at least, she's on-stage!) in Handbook for Dragon Slayers--only it's 400 years earlier, and she's leading a Wild Hunt, being a servant of the Underworld at that point, not a ruler of it.
So, really? Most of it's in my head, but there are some links on the page. There is one good Easter egg in Handbook that directly references The Princess Curse. I won't spoil it.
2) I know you don't always write for kids; we even have stories together in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction. Do you have a favorite short story?
Picking a favorite is hard! I would say that my current favorite is "Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love," in Apex Magazine. So many of my short stories have felt experimental, like, "here we go on a small adventure in voice!" (or structure, or whatever), that I don't feel like I really get to live in them the way I do in my books. But I feel lived in this story a bit. I have a friend who judges my works by whether or not they have enough of what he calls my "cockeyed optimism" in them. I believe this one has enough.
3) What attracted you to write for a middle grade audience?
This makes it sound like it was my idea! If you can even believe this, I wrote The Princess Curse thinking it was going to be lucky to sneak into the YA market, what with my main character marrying a dragon-demon in his fifties. Taking it down to MG was all my agent's brilliant marketing idea. So, basically, I wrote what I wrote and let the marketing sort itself out.
4) I have to say, you have been blessed with absolutely gorgeous covers. Do you have the artwork showcased around your house in some way?
Not as such. I wanted to frame dustjackets, but never quite figured out how to do it. I do have the poster from my launch event framed, which has some of Reveka's face on it. And my own face. So that feels awkward.
5) If someone wants to write for middle grade, what one piece of advice would you give them?
You know the theory about "writing to your one, perfect reader" and not worrying about trying to please the rest of the world? My perfect reader (for pretty much everything I write) is me when I was thirteen. It's not too big of a leap to write to the me I was when I was eleven. I wonder about folks who don't have a particular love of either MG literature or MG-aged children or who don't remember being that age with the appropriate level of cynicism, who suddenly want to write for the age range. I worry that they'll stink up my genre with dumbed down or didactic or smarmy books. There are adults who ask me questions about my writing choices that I think make it clear that they neither remember being a child nor have spoken to any 10-year-old since they were one themselves, and they always want to ask what I was thinking, putting in difficult words or difficult situations or difficult choices or difficult emotions--if they've read the book--or else they make assumptions that I haven't done any of that. I never put in any hard words for the sake of having long words. I never took any hard words out for the sake of my readers' supposed lack of comprehension. Likewise, everything else--choices, situations, emotions.
In short: if you're going to write for MG, don't talk down to your readers.
Thanks so much, Merrie!
If you want to buy Handbook for Dragon Slayers (or her other book, The Princess Curse) they are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most every other bookseller.
Merrie Haskell grew up half in North Carolina, half in Michigan. She wrote her first story at age seven, and she walked dogs after school to save for her first typewriter. She attended the University of Michigan, where she graduated from the Residential College with a degree in biological anthropology. She works in a library with over 7.5 million volumes.
Her first book, the Middle Grade historical fantasy The Princess Curse, was a Junior Library Guild selection. Her second book is Handbook for Dragon Slayers. Her short fiction appears in Nature, Asimov’s, and various anthologies. Merrie lives in Saline, Michigan.
1) This is your second book. The Princess Curse came out a year ago, and your new release Handbook for Dragon Slayers is set in the same world, 400 years earlier. In what ways are the books connected?
I call these the Apprentice Books, in my head (not an official name!). The Princess Curse was called The Herbalist's Apprentice while I was writing it and trying to sell it. I always coded Handbook for Dragon Slayers as something like The Apprentice Princess in my head, since the main character (while she wants to be a writer, and her companions want to slay dragons) is actually learning how to be a ruler. Likewise, the third, which (today) is called The Castle Behind Thorns, features a boy who wants to be a blacksmith's apprentice. There are more Apprentice Books in my head; we'll see when they want to be written.
While these books aren't sequels, they are linked by more than sort of the statuses and career ambitions of their protagonists. They all share the same alternate past/"secret history" of the world. They have a common mythology; the Underworld is the same in all the books, though it is most prominent in The Princess Curse. The Underworld marches with the World Above in tandem; if the Underworld is sick one place, the lands above it are sick too. So, the Apprentice history includes an Underworld invasion parallel to the Above World Mongol invasion of Europe, in which the invaders broke up the Underworld kingdom of Hades into numerous smaller states. Hekate is a sort of unseen antagonist in The Princess Curse, having taken over one of those smaller states; she is more developed (or at least, she's on-stage!) in Handbook for Dragon Slayers--only it's 400 years earlier, and she's leading a Wild Hunt, being a servant of the Underworld at that point, not a ruler of it.
So, really? Most of it's in my head, but there are some links on the page. There is one good Easter egg in Handbook that directly references The Princess Curse. I won't spoil it.
2) I know you don't always write for kids; we even have stories together in Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction. Do you have a favorite short story?
Picking a favorite is hard! I would say that my current favorite is "Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love," in Apex Magazine. So many of my short stories have felt experimental, like, "here we go on a small adventure in voice!" (or structure, or whatever), that I don't feel like I really get to live in them the way I do in my books. But I feel lived in this story a bit. I have a friend who judges my works by whether or not they have enough of what he calls my "cockeyed optimism" in them. I believe this one has enough.
3) What attracted you to write for a middle grade audience?
This makes it sound like it was my idea! If you can even believe this, I wrote The Princess Curse thinking it was going to be lucky to sneak into the YA market, what with my main character marrying a dragon-demon in his fifties. Taking it down to MG was all my agent's brilliant marketing idea. So, basically, I wrote what I wrote and let the marketing sort itself out.
4) I have to say, you have been blessed with absolutely gorgeous covers. Do you have the artwork showcased around your house in some way?
Not as such. I wanted to frame dustjackets, but never quite figured out how to do it. I do have the poster from my launch event framed, which has some of Reveka's face on it. And my own face. So that feels awkward.
5) If someone wants to write for middle grade, what one piece of advice would you give them?
You know the theory about "writing to your one, perfect reader" and not worrying about trying to please the rest of the world? My perfect reader (for pretty much everything I write) is me when I was thirteen. It's not too big of a leap to write to the me I was when I was eleven. I wonder about folks who don't have a particular love of either MG literature or MG-aged children or who don't remember being that age with the appropriate level of cynicism, who suddenly want to write for the age range. I worry that they'll stink up my genre with dumbed down or didactic or smarmy books. There are adults who ask me questions about my writing choices that I think make it clear that they neither remember being a child nor have spoken to any 10-year-old since they were one themselves, and they always want to ask what I was thinking, putting in difficult words or difficult situations or difficult choices or difficult emotions--if they've read the book--or else they make assumptions that I haven't done any of that. I never put in any hard words for the sake of having long words. I never took any hard words out for the sake of my readers' supposed lack of comprehension. Likewise, everything else--choices, situations, emotions.
In short: if you're going to write for MG, don't talk down to your readers.
Thanks so much, Merrie!
If you want to buy Handbook for Dragon Slayers (or her other book, The Princess Curse) they are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most every other bookseller.
No comments have been added yet.
