Blood, brains and testicles: an interview with KJ Taylor

Having been to lots of writer’s festivals, I’ve befriended lots of authors. I’ve recently decided to abuse this privelige by interviewing some of them for my own (and your) amusement.

KJ Taylor is the author of four fantasy novels so far, published in several countries and languages. The Dark Griffin was described by acclaimed writer Anthony Eaton as “One to watch out for. Her writing is deft, the story engaging, and the plotting is, for the most part, tightly done… an original, well written book.”

She wears lots of black, has plenty of tattoos, and her new novel, The Griffin’s War, has just been released.

JH: Hi Katie! Thanks for joining me.

KJT: Hey, you’re my buddy. I’m always happy to talk to you!

JH: I was counting on that. Congratulations on the release of your fourth novel - give us a quick rundown on The Griffin’s War.

KJT: Well, since it’s book number three and it’s a fantasy, there are no prizes for guessing that it’s the last book in a trilogy. It ain’t fantasy if it doesn’t come in threes, you know. Scientific fact.

JH: Harry Potter?

KJT: All right, it’s not high fantasy if it’s not a trilogy.

JH: Zing!

KJT: Ahem, anyway, The Griffin’s War is the final book of the Fallen Moon trilogy, sequel to The Dark Griffin and The Griffin’s Flight. As the title implies, a war takes place in it. It’s a war in which a black-robed Dark Lord tries to take over, and only a blonde-haired orphan farmboy can stop him. But wait! There’s a twist! The protagonist… is the guy who’s trying to take over. Yes, that’s right – this may be the only serious fantasy novel ever in which you’re supposed to be rooting for the power-hungry mass murderer with the pointy beard. The guy who keeps company with a giant, man-eating black griffin. The aforementioned blonde farmboy, meanwhile, is a bit of a hapless bozo and also something of a racist jerk. I like them both, mind you.

JH: Your work is darker than that of most fantasy writers. Is the inside of your head a scary place?

KJT: Probably – it’d be full of gooey brain tissue and blood vessels and things.

JH: I meant your metaphorical head.

KJT: Oh. Actually, I’m one of the most unthreatening people I know. People generally find it either funny or irritating when I get angry – nobody has ever been scared by me, the person. Seriously. Not even little kids are scared of me.

JH: I’m a little bit scared of you.

KJT: Inside my head, though, it’s not the same. I am actually a pretty morbid person; I like the twisted and macabre, and images of death and so on don’t bother me.Just today I visited the Amazing Bodies exhibition in Melbourne. It features a whole lot of genuine corpses – some human – that have been plasticised, but still look exactly like the untreated flesh and bone. A horse sliced in half down the middle, a dog with its skin removed -

JH: Oh god, stop!

KJT: - a plexiglass case full of eyeballs, and three human bodies that had been cut into thin slices and put between layers of clear plastic -

JH: Argh!

KJT: …were just some of the things on display.By the time we got to the table with a row of, ahem, preserved reproductive organs (including, yes, human ones), my dad was looking extremely queasy and basically saying that we had to leave, now.

JH: I can relate to that. I once lost consciousness while reading a testicular mutilation scene in Paul Cleave’s The Cleaner. And then when I woke up, I vomited.

KJT: Meanwhile I was examining a display of preserved fetuses and saying the human one was actually “kind of cute”. That’s me in a nutshell. When it comes to writing, I’m one of the most unsentimental people I know. I’ve heard other authors talk of crying over their dead characters – honest-to-gods crying. My reaction to that has always been to nod politely and think: “wuss”.

JH: Yeah - it’s our job to do horrible things to our characters. We can’t afford to get squeamish about it.

KJT: I’ve never once had any hesitation over killing or maiming a character, except in situations where I think they might still have some use. Otherwise it’s time for a trip to the imaginary morgue.Hell, I had a character who died and whose body was later found by another character. This was months after the death, so there’s a pretty unpleasant description of how the character’s remains have rotted and there’s not much left of the face. The eyeballs have gone, and the internal organs have basically liquefied -

JH: Urgh - here we go again.

KJT: And this was a major character, mind you; one I actually liked.

JH: I hear you’re going to Comic-Con in San Diego next year. What made you want to participate in that?

KJT: I have quite a few fans in America, thanks to my time spent writing online before I got published again. One of them goes to Comic Con every year, and she recently told me that I just have to come to the next one. My American publisher has a booth there, and since by the time July 2011 comes all three books will be out in the US, I thought I might do some publicity. In the end I consulted the publisher, and she said publicity opportunities at the con would be minimal. But she said I should come anyway, just for the fun of it. And since everyone else I know - like you, for instance - keeps going overseas, but I haven’t left the country since I was a kid, I thought it was about time I had a turn.

JH: We’ve known each other about eight years now, and that whole time, you’ve never not been writing something. So what are you working on at the moment?

KJT: Well, trilogy number one, The Fallen Moon, was completed a couple of years ago. A few months ago I finished the sequel trilogy, The Risen Sun - we’re currently waiting on my Australian publisher to see if they’re going to buy it. Now I’m at work on trilogy number three, The Southern Star. I took such a long break before seriously knuckling down on it - shame on me! - that I’ve more or less worked out the entire plot in my head. It’s going to be great! And suitably grim, of course.

JH: Of course.

KJT: I think by now people will be expecting that. If it wasn’t grim, I suspect I’d lose readers.

JH: How far ahead do you plan this stuff? I mean, do you know what kind of thing you’ll be writing fifteen years from now?

KJT: I’m not sure about the time frame, but at the moment I have six trilogies in mind, all set in the same universe I’m writing in now. It’s a great world with lots of stories to tell, so I’m staying in it until I run out of material – which should take a while. I even have some of the titles already worked out!

JH: Prove it.

KJT: I’ll list ’em for you:

-The Northern Moon – a prequel trilogy
-The Fallen Moon – already in print
-The Risen Sun – hopefully to be in print in the next couple of years
-The Southern Star
-The Open Sky
-The Last Shadow - I just came up with that three seconds ago!

JH: Wow - I usually have no idea what my titles are going to be right up to the release date. I’m still only half certain about Hit List.

KJT: Well, all the titles except for Fallen Moon are, of course, working titles. They might change before they get published, if they ever do. We’ll see.

JH: Thanks for your time, Katie - good luck with The Griffin’s War.

KJT: Thanks! And good luck to you too.

Canberran readers can join Katie for the launch of The Griffin’s War at the University of Canberra Co-Op Bookshop at 5:15pm on Wednesday the 22nd of September. Details are here.



MITIFOTIT:
Most Interesting Thing I Found On The Internet Today

Wow, this comic describes literally half the interactions I have with other people:

Courtesy of Basic Instructions.