Sarah Rees Brennan Interview

Sarah Rees Brennan was lovely enough to stop by here on her T2T tour. Here's her bio and interview! (:

Sarah Rees Brennan was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it's not called Gaelic) but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. The books most often found under her desk were Jane Austen, Margaret Mahy, Anthony Trollope, Robin McKinley and Diana Wynne Jones, and she still loves them all today.

After college she lived briefly in New York and somehow survived in spite of her habit of hitching lifts in fire engines. She began working on The Demon’s Lexicon while doing a Creative Writing MA and library work in Surrey, England. Since then she has returned to Ireland to write and use as a home base for future adventures. Her Irish is still woeful, but she feels the books under the desk were worth it.

The Demon’s Lexicon is her first novel.

1) In case anyone does not know what The Demon's Lexicon is about, can you please describe it using rhyming couplets?

I can! I cannot, however, describe it using rhyming couplets that are actually any good, so, uh... sorry about that...

Demons, magic, knives and guns, Nick's life is pretty tough
One comfort is that fencing leaves you completely buff.

Two strangers come to their door: in trouble, so they think
Maybe they deserve it. The girl's hair is PINK.

Got to hunt a magician, kill a wolf with a bike chain
Got to dance for a demon, which is a total pain

Got to deal with killer ravens, got to deal with succubi
Got to deal with his brother, who can smile and smile and lie

Have I managed to convince you? Have I set the stage?
This is the Demon's Lexicon. Turn the page.

(Note from Khy: I FREAKING LOVE HER ANSWER TO THIS. This should be the official description.)

2) If you could live in any fantasy novel, which one would you live in and why?

I think I'd live in the world of Diana Wynne Jones's The Ogre Downstairs. Not much bad stuff happens in that book: you just get to work your magical chemistry set with a cute blond guy, and fly, and fight off bikers with tins of peaches. Whereas I mean, in Narnia the world could end at any moment! Lots of fantasy novels have dangerous carry-on that seems like it might be hazardous for my health. I'm a wuss.

3) Was it difficult creating the world in The Demon's Lexicon? How DID you create the world?

No, it was fun! It all just seemed to flow into place as I researched demons: magical beings who could be enslaved, according to Shakespeare and lots of German books about witches! So we have magicians... and then there has to be a resistance, and how cool if they were a secret marketplace where they traded information and magical objects... and then I thought of Christina Rosetti's poem The Goblin Market, and that fit in so well! The world is a melting pot of history and myth and inspiration, and a melting pot that was wonderful to create.


4) You are Irish, and you live in Ireland. Does your Irishness and the assumed loveliness of Ireland influence you and your writing in any way?

A little, I think, though The Demon's Lexicon isn't set in Ireland. (It's set in London.) The place and the culture you grow up in can't help but affect you, and there is one Irish character in The Demon's Lexicon. Gerald's one of the magicians, who are kind of the bad guys, but I hope this doesn't annoy my fellow countrymen...

Being a magician is a hereditary trait, and I imagine him as descended from the famous family the Fitzgeralds, who were the earls of Kildare. Their most famous ancestor was known as 'The Wizard Earl' and his ghost is meant to ride around his castle on his spectral stallion to this day! Uh, Gerald doesn't do a whole lot of riding around on stallions, though.

5) On your blog and website, you have essays and parodies written. Do you enjoy writing these as much as regular novels? And, if you're up for it, will you write a short parody-like description of what you think The Demon's Lexicon release date will be like?

Well, no, I like writing novels the best, but I like writing essays and parodies a lot! Hmmm, the release day of The Demon's Lexicon

PHONE: Ring, ring.
SARAH: Don't tell me. Disaster!
PHONE: Well, uh.
SARAH: It's all been a cruel joke, and they never intended to publish the book! They accidentally printed the book on soap, and then it rained!
PHONE: I don't think...
SARAH: Come on, you can tell me! The books were taken by evil kleptomaniac clowns! That's it, isn't it? Isn't it?!
PHONE: I just wanted to say, this is your next-door neighbour. We're getting a little tired of the constant screaming, it's been going on for seven hours now?
SARAH: Screaming, I don't hear-?
PHONE: You're doing it. YOU'RE STILL DOING IT.
SARAH: Oh. Oh I am so terribly sorry.

6) Saundra Mitchell told me to ask you about how you used to "recommend" books to people in your library. So that is what I am asking, as it sounds interesting.

Saundra Mitchell is a vile betrayer! Well, I heard Maureen Johnson's The Bermudez Triangle had been banned for its depiction of two friends, both girls, who start a tentative relationship. And since I loved the book, I was outraged. So I started pushing our library's copy on teenage boys, since I figured the subject matter might appeal to them.

Some days later a boy sidled up to me and said in a low voice, as if talking to his dealer 'I hear you're giving out... lesbian stuff?' 'Um, not really, I... well...' I said, and then gave up and handed him Sarah Waters's awesome Fingersmith.

7) What's it like being part of the glorious 2009 Debs group? Do you have any fun stories to share about any of the other Debs?

It is a feast of never-ending awesome. And I do. Carrie Ryan once tried to break into a tomb in a graveyard in Ireland before my very eyes. I was a shocked spectator and not helping at all, of course. And Sarah Cross and I were once assaulted by a pirate in Union Square. (These women are magnets for trouble!)

(Note from Khy: I need the stories about Carrie and Sarah C. Like, now.)

8) I, Khy, am ready to welcome the Sarah Army as my overlords. Will you be good to us?

I intend to rule benevolently, yes! And of course for all those who read my books, there will be a free attractive human of choice offered in a cage to them when I am Queen.

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I did not come up with that last question. It was Sarah!

Thank you Sarah! :D And congrats on your release!

Links: Sarah's site/blog/twitter/my review of The Demon's Lexicon

Margaret K. McElderry/Hardcover/$17.99/Amazon/Barnes and Noble/Borders/IndieBound