The Shapeshifters’ Library - Interview with Amber Polo

A sundog welcome to author Amber Polo!  

There’s no better way to escape the craziness down here in my rabbit hole (seabed?) than a good read (believe me, there’s been plenty of craziness around here since my last post and plenty of reading to offset it). 

I’m particularly partial to good fantasy novels whose peculiarities offset my grim and clammy “realities”. Amber Polo’s  The Shapeshifters' Library: Released (Blue Merle Publishing, 2012), the newly published first volume of a series, is just the ticket to chase away bossy Red Queens and your jellyfish blues.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this busy author around my former literary stomping grounds in the highlands of Yavapai County, Arizona. She’s the quintessential jack-of-all-trades, though I suspect she’s also an expert at many of the trades she’s taken up. Her multi-faceted careers as a librarian and yoga teacher, with a few stops in between, have culminated in her current life as an author and a blogger at Wordshaping and Relaxing the Writer. She lives in Camp Verde, Arizona on an airpark mesa.

Her published work includes Romancing Rebecca, the novella Christmas on Wherever Island (The Wild Rose Press, 2007 & 2008), the award-winning romance Flying Free (Treble Heart Books, 2009), as well as the guided relaxation CD, Relaxation One Breath at a Time (cdbaby, 2005), and Relaxing the Writer: Guidebook to the Writer’s High (CreateSpace 2011) and Relaxing the Writer: Relaxation, available as the entire MP3 and in single tracks. She is also proud of her short story due to be released soon in the forthcoming anthology Biblioteca Fantastica (Dagan Books, Fall 2012). “Egyptian Holiday" is a prequel to The Shapeshifters’ Library series, explaining that Cleopatra was a dog-shifter and Caesar, a werewolf.

As for the new novel:

“Liberty [Cutter] had been born in Shipsfeather [Ohio] and had lived here until her mother disappeared when she was five years old. Her four law librarian aunts had swooped into town and taken her home with them, eventually adopting her. They refused to talk to her either about her parents or Shipsfeather. She’d taken the job of Library Director because she wanted to run her own small town library and make a difference to the townspeople—and hopefully uncover the secrets of her own history. She should have been suspicious when no other librarian in the entire country had applied for the job, but she’d been too happy to question Fate.”

Liberty’s mother’s disappearance isn’t the only strange thing about Shipsfeather. When she’s on her way to work on the only Monday she hasn’t gone in early, she finds the two-story red brick library is sheathed in smoke and flames and spots a rangy critter fleeing the scene . . .

The story amps up quickly amidst a cast of quirky characters. Liberty must deal again with her nemesis Harold Dinzelbacher, Shipsfeather’s bankster and Chairman of the Library Board of Trustees. He’s blocked every innovation Liberty has ever proposed to update the library. Amid clues that the library fire was no accident and that Dinzelbacher may be more conniving than she realizes, Liberty questions his and the mayor’s plan to situate the new library in the crumbling, old Shipsfeather Athenaeum and Academy building.

But Liberty buckles down anyway to help renovate the Academy into a shipshape library with all the cyber-age bells and whistles, even as she senses someone following and observing her. Gradually she discovers more than she’d bargained for. Her new books begin to disappear, and she finds that the Shipsfeather Academy was once a training ground for an ancient race of dog-shifters whose mission is to protect the world’s knowledge. A powerful curse sealed those shapeshifter librarians in the Academy basement while a pack of book-burning werewolves took over Shipsfeather in their quest to destroy all books and their defenders forever.

Chronus, the English Sheepdog headmaster of the old Academy and leader of the dog-shifters, cautiously befriends Liberty and they join forces to keep his pack – and the world’s books – safe from the werewolves and their crafty human supporters.

I found the premise of shapeshifting dog librarians not only fun and fascinating, but also convincing and possible. I’ve often suspected librarians and dogs as having much more colorful lives than meets the eye. After all, librarians have all the knowledge of the world at their fingertips and can answer any question given enough time to research it. The domestic dog has over 400 distinctly different-looking breeds, all cultivated from the genes of the ancient grey wolf. If any critter can shapeshift or hide its talents in plain sight, it has to be the “ordinary” dog. Blend these two versatile elements – the humble dog and the humble librarian – as cleverly as Polo does in The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released, and you’ve got, voila, a well-considered, zany fantasy.

KR: Amber, your books and CDs span the gamut from quirky paranormal romance to meditation and relaxation techniques. You’ve obviously taken the adage “write what you know” seriously. Tell us a little about your decision to write and publish particular books

AP: It all makes sense to me. I started writing a paranormal romance because there was a romance writing group close to the rural Arizona town where I moved. And I was near Sedona and these famous vortices helped. I learned many new romance publishers were looking for manuscripts. A friend told me to submit. I was accepted and I began to learn at a faster rate because I was working within the publishing process. Since my first romance started out as a parody of a romance novel, moving to fantasy felt natural. I write funny and had trouble making sure the HEA was not too quirky.

My second novel Flying Free takes place in my aripark neighborhood. All I had to do was imagine some unlikely new neighbors and try not to let my real neighbors know they were going to appear in my book. Guys like this book for the airplanes. “Senior” citizens love it for the oddball neighbors (who, of course, have NO relation to my neighbors.)

During this time, I was teaching yoga and realized what my students needed most was real help in learning to relax. Even if they didn't know it, the last twenty minutes of every class when I talked them through savasana was what they needed most. I decided to record it and add a track without a wakeup, allowing anyone having trouble sleeping to use the same techniques. When I wrote Relaxing the Writer I decided to re-record that CD and call it Relaxing the Writer Relaxation.

The techniques, of course, work for non-writers and both CDs are about as non woo-woo as I could make them for anyone who is stressed.

KR: I love any sort of relaxation recording, woo-woo or not . . . I need all the help I can get to relax . . . I love your voice on both your relaxation CDs / MP3s by the way, very soothing . . . Writers are contemplative folk, but we’re also often notorious workaholics . . . how do you convince writers on fire to slow down and do your relaxation exercises?

AP: Most writers know they need balance in their lives but don't know how to create that balance. In Relaxing the Writer  I've tried to give them ideas that would work for them. In short everyone need to find a mix of three categories:

• Active - Get out of the chair and move your body.
• Meditative - Find an activity that creates so much focus you forget everything else.
• Artistic/Senusal - cultivate activities that feed your creative soul.

Don't tell anyone, but I wish I could follow my own advice all the time.

 KR: Me too . . . especially the writing advice I dispense here! 

You obviously love fantasy as evidenced by your work in paranormal romance and your interviews of fantasy writers on your Wordshaping blog. What inspired you to take a leap from the romance genre into urban fantasy in Shapeshifters?

AP: The Shapeshifters’ Library is the series of my heart - I am a recovering librarian. And for ten years of my life I was owned a flock of Old English Sheepdogs. I showed in conformation and exhibited my dogs in obedience on the West Coast and later from a base near Blacksburg, Virginia (and, yes, I met all the characters portrayed in the movie Best in Show). Combining two interesting parts of my life in a fantasy felt right, and has given me a chance to promote libraries and dogs. I'm excited about Book 2 of the series and can't wait to begin Book 3.

KR: Wow, that is a fantastic feeling when our other interests and our passion for writing merge into the creation of  short story or novel . . . I can’t think of anything more fun than that.

I’m struck by the fact that you’ve produced so many books in a short time (makes me feel lazy and guilty) plus serving other writers with interviews on your Wordshaping blog and with tips on your Relaxing the Writer blog, as well as doing other volunteer work. Tell us about the drive and the discipline that keep you going .

AP: As passionate as I was about other things in my life, writing (on the good days) feels like what I was meant to do. I don't think of stopping. Actually, the first two books of the Shapeshifters’ Library each took a year. The other two novels took a year each too. The relaxation book took less time. I could have spent years on that one, but I wanted to make it short enough for the busy writer to take away some tips without boring them with stuff they already knew. I put in a lot of alternatives and enough quotes and writerly anecdotes to make it light and fun. This book gave me an opportunity to try out the self-publishing path. Throughout the publishing process, a good portion of my writing time was spent learning about writing, editing, and things like designing websites, writing blogs, setting up Facebook pages, reviewing books on Amazon and Goodreads, and many, many more tasks. Initially I did it all myself. More recently, the talented Connie Lee Marie Fisher has helped me by creating banners and book covers. She designed the interior of Relaxing the Writer.

KR: I admire her work. If I ever self-publish anything, I just might check in with Connie. . . Do you now look at librarians and figure out what dog breed they remind you of?

AP: Sometimes, but I can always tell which ones are the werewolves.

KR: *Giggles* What dog breed were you in your librarian life? 

AP: I refuse to answer that question. I'd like to think I happily retrieved information like my heroine with Golden Retriever tendencies.

KR: *Smiles*

AP: Thanks for inviting me into your jellyfish world!

KR: Thank YOU  for braving it, Amber!  I hope you’ll return with your sequel, The Shapeshifters’ Library: Retrieved.

Wordshaping | Relaxing the Writer | Facebook | Goodreads | Twitter | Pinterest | Google+

~ * ~

Join Amber at The Well Red Coyote Bookstore in Sedona, Arizona on Saturday,
September 29 at 2:00 PM for “Anthropomorphizing Animals in Print” plus dog biscuits

for those in four-footed form.

*  Download Shapeshifters' Library free on Halloween and Day of the Dead!

True Confession - Transformation is Key

I bumped into a strange thought in the part of my mind that begins to whirl as I prepare to do a blog post. Is not writing while writing a blog about the writing life deceptive?

I have a confession. I’ve not written much of anything except blog posts for a very long time. It’s not because I don’t want to write or because I feel blocked. It’s more a matter of doing what I gotta do. What I do for a living is moderate comments on a website and proofread their articles part-time, and do freelance editing and manuscript evaluation  as well, so my spurts of creative writing blossom only around the edges of these time constraints.

This is not unusual, since most writers have day jobs because we don’t make much money writing unless we work  for media or if we're one of a small number of best-selling authors. I find my day job much more distracting than other types of day jobs, because my work involves using a computer and going online, and well, you get the picture . . . I find it easier to block time for creative writing when I work away from home and when that job doesn’t involve computers.Then I’m more eager to face a blank screen or notebook. Sitting down to write  - in my case, staying in front of a computer for eight, ten or twelve hours of work - doesn’t foster creative thoughts. Plus, ya gotta live to have something to write about, and my stationary jobs don’t require much lively engagement with the world.

Lately I’ve found another compelling distraction. I find butting heads online with people who think differently than me about the Zimmerman legal case a  great excuse to not write. Just when I thought we might be out of the rabbit hole, despite all the election year nonsense, George Zimmerman had to go and shoot Trayvon Martin. I won’t comment on all the media hoopla surrounding the case, but it certainly became a walk through the looking glass, though I might mean that differently than others do.

Gun control is an issue that touches my heart deeply, both as a mother / grandmother and as a bystander who’s witnessed numerous people suffer greatly over the “freedom” to bear and use arms. I'm a Buddhist and I  regard guns as a tool we could mostly live without. The writer in me thinks these make good props in thrillers, dramas, and mysteries.  I’m a lifelong pacifist and haven’t seen a war in my lifetime that seems worth fighting, I don’t support the death penalty, and I’m suspicious of people who execute someone after a minute or two of unarmed combat and then claim self-defense. I seem to recall all sorts of rowdy brawls in years past that people walked away from alive. I regard loose gun laws and the SYG laws that accompany these in the 21^st century as a national disgrace. Jellyfish and more jellyfish. We have about as many firearms as there are people in our country – what could possibly go wrong?

I’m okay if you disagree with my assessment. Many do, and they have compelling reasons for their stance as well. I think the  national conversation we’re having because of the Zimmerman legal case is long overdue. It’s a shame that two more families are suffering because a firearm was used to solve an issue that could have and should have been resolved in another manner.

What can we do to protect ourselves from abuse and still respect the rights of others to live? I only ask this rhetorically, because I’m really not interested in debating the question on a writing blog or in fielding a bunch of angry comments here. This topic will be discussed until kingdom come, I’m certain, and there will likely be little reconciliation between the two or more camps on the subject until people are flat out tired of easy killing and overuse of force to solve issues solvable in other ways. Many other industrialized nations tired of this issue long ago and have very different self-defense laws than ours. In the US, we embrace a Wild West, rights-driven point of view with regards to owning weapons and have extended Castle Doctrine to the great out of doors and public places. Many Americans live in a bubble and don’t even realize how different our culture is from others in this regard . . .

As you can see, my way of thinking is very different from many other people’s, and I’ve felt like a pariah or a prophet for most of my life.

*Sigh* But back to my w-r-i-t-i-n-g concerns:  I do feel like a fraud, talking about writing and yet not doing much. Aiding others to write through edits or suggested revisions of their work just doesn’t seem like the real deal. Sure, I’ve pulled out old, unpublished stories and essays a time or three over the past year, and even put together a manuscript of short fiction which includes my postgrad novella. I’ve doodled around with these pieces, even sending submissions out to publishers and writing contests, and have even had a few old unpublished pieces published. I’ve collaborated with a writing friend and hashed out some stories that we’ve also published recently – but these had a skeleton, a plan started by my collaborator, and weren’t entirely my brainchildren. As far as truly getting down to the creative nitty-gritty and starting fresh, new work – even a mere poem or a flash story . . . well, I hang my head in shame!

Or should I be ashamed? Even light revision is part of the writing process, is it not? How many times have you tweaked and tweaked and tweaked an essay, a story, a poem, or even a novel, thinking the project finished, and then finally, after you impulsively change one more sentence, or maybe the title, you send off your work – and hallelujah! – you get an acceptance letter in return!

What is more important – the first draft, the major edits, or the final tweaks?

In life, as in writing, I suspect it’s the journey, the process that matters most. Yep, transformation is still the key for our writing and our lives.

 In the end, even those little tweaks count for something!

Author David Morrell, Rambo, and Me - Prescott Book Fair:  Sixth Edition

Joe DiBuduo  © 2007

Live to Write, Write to Live

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

 ~ Francoise Sagan, playwright and novelist (1935-2004)

Judging from Francoise Sagan’s biography, this quote has more to do with her passion for writing and life, but it seemed to speak to me in these wee hours about a theme of resilience that is chiming in my life lately. I’ve been crazy busy, otherwise known as crazee bizee ( with eyes appropriately crossed).This is as good an excuse as I can muster for not posting at Jellyfish Day for six weeks. But heck, I’ve edited a children’s chapter book, nearly completed an eight-month stint of back and forth editing with a client on his memoir, reconnected with an old client in preparation to assist with her upcoming book, not to mention manning my post seven days a week at my 20-some odd hour telecommute job. I’ve also socialized my darn networks faithfully, served as a World Book Night giver, and took a day off to attend the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, not to mention fanning the hearth fires at home and assisting with same at my eldest daughter’s when she felt overwhelmed by the 24 / 7 childrearing  grind.

In other words, I’ve rolled with the punches and popped back up with a little more pluck than I had before. Not that I wanted to sign up for any life-changing experiences, but stuff has a way of happening. By now I’ve been around the block a few times, both age-wise and as a writer. Some events that used to be jarring seem like no more than a jog in the saddle. Applying butt to chair and writing no matter what happens around us or inside our heads pays off handsomely  (although I can never seem to do this for the darn blog!)

Within this frenzy of being present here, there, and everywhere at once, one of my younger offspring decided to withdraw from the secondary education that thrilled him no end during his first term, a program in a  one-of-a-kind collegiate music school he’d worked his posterior off to enter. He returned home this week, right about the time I'd suddenly and without good reason acquired a large breed dog, an adoption that manifested, I suppose, from loneliness and discontent with an empty nest . . . Now my big boy has a big dog, so this tale whistles with a good ending. The extra bonus is that we cleaned and rearranged the entire house, a process that makes everything feel new and benefits beings and creative flow.

Ultimately, life seems to be nothing more than a process of changing gears. This is sounding suspiciously like a chat we had recently about impermanence, so I wouldn’t want to bore you with another. You know all about making sundogs out of jellyfish, how to keep going, and other fine points of perseverance. We furless, bipedal monkeys with opposable thumbs pretty much discover that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger at a very young age.

Our writing lives really aren’t separate from our ordinary daily lives. The same rules apply. Sometimes putting pen to paper seems no different than digging a grave with a rusty shovel in permafrost. At other times, we slice through our prose like a hot stainless steel blade through soft butter. Sometimes we tell our characters or our paragraphs to go left and they go right, but on better days, they write their scenes for us. Or we order our words to rise and they fall, making our prose stutter when our intention is flow. Our work wanders when we give it a map and when we want to explore unknown territory, the work refuses to leave its cushy bed. Sometimes it throws off the covers and goes on a sudden flight of fancy that leaves us breathless with surprise.

By applying patience, persistence, and the skills we master through study and steady writing practice, we overcome the mental and mechanical obstacles that impede our writing, and manage the wild stampedes of imagination that that leave us with reams of interesting but unpolished work.

One way or another, we make do with what life gives us, and somehow we survive to push forward and write another day. As we allow our lives to unfold without judgement, responding to each moment or urgency in whatever way seems appropriate, so our writing falls into place if we give it the space to flourish and grow in its own time.

Hopefully there’s a story in here somewhere!

My Vacation in Hell: Interview with Gene Twaronite

You deserve a much-needed vacation from the jellyfish and sundogs of my mind, dear reader. Please welcome Gene Twaronite, author of two YA novels, The Family That Wasn’t (a fable updated in 2023)  and My Vacation in Hell.

KR: Gene, what’s your favorite writing quote, and why?

GT: My favorite quote is from Albert Camus: “The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.” A framed copy hangs over my writing desk. When I first read this quote, there was a eureka moment when all became clear to me. It defined my basic view of existence since earliest childhood when I first looked at a giraffe and wondered: How and why could just a creature exist in a sane and ordered world? And as I look back on both my writing and reading choices, woven throughout is a love of the absurd. The absurd is where I live.

KR: Ah, that one’s a gem, and perfect for a fantasy writer as well as a humorist - and you’re both . . . Your bio indicates that you’re a dedicated children’s writer. Writing YA in particular is both rewarding and challenging, as it’s a flourishing yet highly competitive genre. Did you make a conscious choice to write YA books, or did your imagination simply lead you in that direction? 

GT: I think it started with my first short story sale in 1987 to Highlights for Children, which was then and still is one of the top paying markets for short fiction. A former junior high school science teacher, I was experimenting with trying to write a funny story that would appeal to young readers but would also whet their appetites for science. The result was “The Glacier That Almost Ate Main Street,” which despite its absurd premise—a glacier that starts in a refrigerator—actually introduces a little real science about the last Ice Age.

So immediately, I started imitating this early success with other absurd stories, some of which were eventually published by Highlights, Read and other juvenile markets. So I guess you could say that the die was cast. When I first started writing a novel in 1990, I did not have to think at all about who my audience would be. Having already achieved some measure of success in this genre, I decided to write in the manner I knew. I have always loved children’s books, and still read them to this day. Many of my favorite authors of adult works, such as E.B. White and James Thurber, also wrote charming and funny children’s books—more aptly described as books for children of all ages. This brings me to my final point—that I’m just a Peter Pan kind of guy who refuses to grow up.

KR: Hear hear! My Vacation in Hell is both a unique spin-off of Dante’s Inferno and an unusual take on the theme of sexual abuse. You reveal a bit about the research for the book on your Amazon sales page. Did you plan to put John Boggle in the predicament of being sexually abused in your debut novel, or did that theme evolve naturally? Is there any reason that you don’t completely resolve the issue in the first novel?

GT: I never planned to write about sexual abuse—it just happened. Our best writing is always a process of discovering, and as the nature of my character John unfolded in my first novel The Family That Wasn’t, I began asking myself: Why does John hate his “Uncle” Vinnie so much? Sure, Vinnie was an ugly character in many ways, but there was something else. What is John’s dark secret that he tries to suppress, as so many sexual abuse victims do? So yes, the theme evolved naturally from there. But since this first novel was a middle grade reader aimed at ages 8-12, I didn’t feel it appropriate to more than hint at this theme. And I neatly got rid of Vinnie (spoiler alert!) by having John using his imagination to edit him out of his life.

But life is never that neat, of course. While many sexual abuse victims do try to “edit” their memories in a similar manner, I felt that I just couldn’t leave my character hanging there with this unresolved issue. So I began thinking about how John, two years later, is dealing with this. I also did a little research about how victims learn to deal with their sexual abuse and the different stages they go through in the healing process. Listening ad nauseam to the ever-increasing litany of media reports on sexual abuse, I also found myself thinking about how, if there really were a hell, then a special place must be reserved for these destroyers of innocence.

From there it was a short leap to Dante. And yes, I actually did read the Inferno, in fifth grade. I especially remember how as a young boy, flipping ahead to all the gory parts, I was fascinated by Dante’s vivid descriptions of souls in various states of torment. This gave me the idea for a satire: How would a 15-year-old young man, especially one who was sexually abused, create his own hierarchy of evil? Who would he put down there? And just as there may be future readers who might quibble about why this or that kind of evildoer wasn’t consigned to some deeper part of hell, I must remind them that this is all seen through the eyes of a young man who is still finding his own answers in the world. One of the hardest things I found in writing the novel was to keep my adult moral views out of it, though I must confess that at least a couple of things found their way in. I would also point out that not everyone agrees with Dante’s hierarchy. Defining levels of evil is a very personal thing, you know.

KR: Very. . . So as this surprise molestation theme in your first novel emerged, and you felt compelled to solve John Boggle's dilemma with a second novel, was it also your intended goal to assist kids who have been sexually abused, or did that goal emerge along with the story?

GT: This emerged from the story. I tried to imagine as best I could part of the horror experienced by a sexual abuse victim and how he or she might deal with it. While some consider this a vain presumption on my part, having never been sexually abused (at least as far as I know), I think the task of a fiction writer is to imagine the unimaginable.Fantasy can be a powerful tool, not only in writing but in the way it helps us shape our lives. Writing about John, I could feel his pain as he attempted to deal with his memories. At times I cringed at the awful scenes I found myself creating, but I knew he would get somehow get through it. For he had two important survival skills, a sense of humor and a robust imagination, which would help him forge a future life for himself in the dawn of a new world. Though my primary goal was to write an entertaining humorous fantasy, I hope that at least one sexually abused reader finds here a measure of hope and inspiration.

KR: Ah, I do feel that if a book transforms at least one person's life, then it’s worth the effort . . . You had at least a partial plan in mind when you wrote The Vacation in Hell. Do you sometimes write to “discover” your stories? How did your first novel, The Family That Wasn’t, evolve?

GT: I often start with What if?—two of the most magical words in the English language. And since my mind naturally gravitates toward the absurd, this usually ends up being something wacky or bizarre. What if a glacier actually started in a refrigerator? A major influence at the time were the writings of James Thurber, especially his book My Life and Hard Times, in which he uses a memoir style to describe his life growing up in Ohio and his truly weird family members. His sketches were so funny and the characters so absurd that I wondered how much of it was real and how much was made up. Since I was doing a lot of juvenile fiction at the time, I started thinking about a certain teenage boy. What if his family was so impossibly crazy that … what? From there I started sketching out characters and, when I felt that I knew them sufficiently, began letting them loose to see where they might go. The first draft took me about six months, but it took twenty years of revisions, editing and polishing before the final work was published.

KR: *Laughs* I know the struggle and the time frame! Your MVIH website mentions that you have a project in progress – tell us about that.

GT: My next book will be a collection of my juvenile short stories. The working title is The Dragon Daily News: Stories of Wonder for Children of All Ages. The title comes from a story about two cub dragon reporters for a great metropolitan dragon newspaper. An artist friend of mine designed a beautiful color drawing showing the two young dragons sitting at their desk as they attempt to come up with a story; I plan on using this for the cover. I also plan on hiring an artist to draw six or eight additional illustrations to be used throughout the text. Some of the stories, like this one, were never published; others were published by Read, Heinemann, and various online literary magazines. The stories range in age group from 6-8 up through middle grade and young adult, and will also appeal to adults who have not lost their love for fables and fairy tales. I plan to have it out by early next year.

I am also planning a collection of my essays entitled The Absurd Naturalist. This will be a collection of my humorous nature and gardening essays. My first forays into writing were essays, and I have been writing them ever since. Many have been published in weekly and monthly newspaper columns I wrote as well as in various magazines and literary journals. I am thinking of illustrating this with some humorous black and white line drawings.

KR: Wowee, these sound fascinating! Now that John Boggle has appeared in two novels, will we hear from him again?

GT: You’re not the first person to ask me this, Kate. This is what happens when an author writes more than one novel featuring the same main character. Now you have to do a series, or at the very least finish the third novel so you can have a trilogy. At this point, I haven’t decided. After taking John through the middle grades into young adulthood, however, I am tempted to follow him into his twenties to see how he turns out. I mean this guy’s got one hyper-imagination, and I wonder how he will deal with it in the future. Will he trip out on his imaginary journeys to such an extent that he can no longer separate reality from fantasy? Does the fantasy finally become so real that he can no longer find his way back? And back to what? What is real? And what becomes of him now? OK, you can see my mind is already spinning. So yes, there is the possibility of at least one more book. I think I owe it to John.

KR: I think your readers will be thrilled! One last question - two in one, really (many thanks to CAB!) . . . My Vacation in Hell handles John Boggle’s dilemma through the lens of Christian mythology – a framework for the story, yet you subvert this to make the framework palatable for modern kids. How or why did you choose this path? And is it possible to frame a plot based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which has sections on “Inferno,” “Purgatorio,” and “Paradiso” – hell, purgatory, and heaven?

GT: Interesting question. Here goes: Having grown up Catholic and having been thoroughly indoctrinated with Christian mythology, it seemed natural to use this as part of the framework for the story. I had also read Dante’s Inferno with grim fascination. Like John at fifteen, I was still questioning and probing my beliefs; unlike John, I did not have the advantage of being exposed to other religions at the time. For me this came later in college when I studied not only the Bible as literature but also comparative religion and philosophy. I came to better understand the human need to explain reality and the power of our myths. Though today I consider myself a scientific rationalist, I also consider myself a spiritual person and often explore this dimension in my writing. In my novel, I tried not to allow my adult beliefs to intrude into the narrative. Rather I tried to show a young man, armed with a strong sense of humor and imagination, searching for his own answers. And no, I do not intend to follow this up with trips to purgatory or heaven. Hell is much more fascinating.

KR: Indeed. And in case anyone’s interested in my take on reading My Vacation in Hell, here’s my review, which is also posted at Amazon:and Barnes & Noble:

Gene Twaronite’s YA fantasy novels - The Family that Wasn’t and My Vacation in Hell - follow John Bazukas-O’Reilly-Geronimo-Giovanni-Li Choy-Echeverria (aka John Boggle) through his angst-ridden but reflective teenage trials and tribulations.

Twaronite aptly describes his protagonist in his excellent MVIH book description: “A troubled nerdy misfit and a frequent flyer of his imagination, John is inspired by a book report reading of Dante Alighieri’sInferno. In the eternity of the five minutes before summer vacation, he embarks on a pilgrimage based upon his own free-wheeling interpretation of the work.”

Boggle’s narrative is an inventive, fast-paced adventure delivered in a strong, appealing voice that should captivate both adult and young adult readers:

My first vision of hell, I must confess, was better than it had to be. I wondered for a moment if there had been some mistake. Had I gone to heaven instead? There parked right in front of us was a bright red 1965 Harley-Davidson FL Electra Glide motorcycle with a sidecar.

“Just what I ordered,” said Virgil. “Hop in the sidecar. I’ll drive.”

“Hold everything!” I said. “How come you get to drive? You don’t even have a license. At least I’ve got my learner’s permit.”

At the outset of the story, I wondered why a fifteen-year-old who just had to wade through a fourteenth-century classic and who grapples with innumerable insecurities would want to take a personal journey through hell. Kids usually want to push the pleasure bar and avoid serious mental work, especially on the cusp of summer vacation. I found that understandably, John relishes a little guilty enjoyment while he witnesses some hellish retribution for bullies who have wronged him. He also happens to have a personal demon - the shame and confusion caused by his Uncle Vinnie’s abuse.

Fortunately, John, unlike many victims of sexual abuse, is not alone. His friend Virgil helps him negotiate the various levels of hell, and has a handle on the demons and obstacles they encounter in their shared imagination. It turns out that Virgil, coincidentally, has problems of his own, and John can’t leave hell until he fully confronts his deepest despair. Just in the nick of time, John’s metaphorical true love appears at the darkest hour to help recover his inner child and illuminate the healing that can manifest from a difficult journey.

As a freelance editor and proofreader, I was tempted to correct and rewrite a few minor bits of this self-published novel. John Boggle seems almost too composed and articulate for his age at times. But most readers will be far less picky than this crotchety old editor, and overall, Twaronite has produced a high-quality book. Although I haven’t yet read his debut novel (in 2012 ) perusing the sequel convinced me to place The Family That Wasn’t on my to-read list, and I also highly recommend the entertaining and education fable! 

My Vacation in Hell

 Available in paperback and e-book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Read more about Gene's prose and poetry at his website!