Today I have the pleasure of introducing a special guest for my Writers on the Rise series of interviews: Caleb Fox, a fantasy author whose debut novel Zadayi Red comes out from Tor today. As always, feel free to check out his website and his book on Amazon. The premise of Zadayi Red intrigued me with its inspirations from Cherokee legend, and Caleb entertained me with his replies to my interview questions. Curious? Read on!
Hello, Caleb! Care to introduce yourself?
News flash! Caleb Fox is actually only a front name for me, his spirit animal, Quolodi. That’s the Cherokee word for bear. I dictated the novel Zadayi Red to Caleb, and I’m tired of him swiping the credit. Putting himself ahead of an Immortal, what effrontery!
Oh, you want me to be serious. I, the planetary Caleb, come from Arkansas, where my family was redneck on one side of the mountain and redskin (Cherokee) on the other. I rushed through college, grad school, professoring, and a great job as movie and theater critic of the big Hearst newspaper in Los Angeles. Then I slowed down enough to write movies and books, and meet my great wife Sarita, who is also a novelist. We live both on the edge of the Navajo rez near Monument Valley and in the wine country north of San Francisco. I love Sarita, our children, writing, playing music, and wild country. As a pipe carrier and pourer of the sweat lodge, I walk the good red road.
Can you tell us about your debut novel, Zadayi Red?
In Zadayi Red (which is the first book of the Spirit Flight series) I set out to create a world of mysticism and magic, the world most Americans don’t believe in (but I know is real). I saw an opportunity in the prehistoric peoples of this continent. Readers realize that those cultures were steeped in mysticism, and there they will accept animal guides, shape-shifters, spirit journeys to the world above, and so on. The story turned out to be something like the myths of the Greek gods, a human matrix where the gods play, help out, and cause mischief. I chose to write about the predecessors of the Cherokee people to honor my own ancestors. (Sorry, you Welsh and Irish ancestors, you’ll have to wait.)
I think Zadayi Red might be the first fantasy novel I have seen that draws on Native American legend. What was it like writing in this genre?
Fantasy is wonderful. It kicks down the palace of realism and lets the imagination fly. I couldn’t have written this novel as historical fiction if I wanted to–not enough is known about the Native peoples of that region at that time. So I took the hints that the record gives us about these prehistoric people and blew them up into a narrative reality. Or, since I think the world of imagination is as real as the world of convenience stores and cop cars, a narrative sur-reality.
How did you research for your novel, and what have you learned about the process?
A daunting job. First I learned all I could about the Cherokee people of historic times, since contact with the Spanish in the mid 1500s. Then, with the expert help of my friend Vince Wilcox, former curator of the American Indian Museum, I imagined it backward another millennium. First, this world needed to be much more magical than the one the Spanish reported, since their Christianity blinded them to the spirituality of Native people. Then, I needed to use the Cherokee language, Cherokee customs, Cherokee myths, and so on–and at the same time picture them in what might have been an earlier form. Because culture changes, language changes, ceremonies change, and so do the great stories and the ideas about the gods, or Immortals. In short, take reality and morph it backwards.
Then, having envisioned this lovely and terrifying world, I had to induce the reader to see and experience it, and tell a story in it. Though I wanted to honor the Cherokee, I sought to reach further into the past to their predecessors and to a more mystical world view. Difficult, but a lot of fun.
What has your path to publication been like so far?
My publisher, TOR Books, was kind enough to give me a good opportunity for this different sort of book by contracting for a series, not just a single title. Luckily, my editor is the sort who helps a writer become a bigger, better version of himself, rather than change him. Launching a series in this economy, though, scares the devil out of me.
What advice do you have for authors seeking to maintain an online presence?
I’m barely learning to do this. The Authors Guild has helped me create a nice web site, and I blog. Your readers could probably teach me about social networking.
Any other advice to share? Perhaps, the most valuable thing you have learned about writing?
You need the perfect writing hat. Each project requires one with just the right attitude.
Well, really, for me writing is a joy. Along with hanging out with Sarita, it is the emotional center of my life. It transports me the way listening to great music does. My advice is, if you feel the same way, you must write. Otherwise you betray yourself. If you don’t feel like that, do something else you love.
What are your inspirations?
My love of life, my sense of fun, Sarita, our kids, playing music, and reading. I love to read–Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Harper Lee, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Dean Koontz, Robert B. Parker–the whole cosmos of fiction. Within fantasy, I seek out urban fantasy.
What has been the best part of writing?
Getting lost in the day’s pages. Letting it flow. Creating something out of nothing. Love and creativity are the mortals’ taste of the divine.
And what has been the worst part?
Worrying. Which goes away when I write.
Where do you hope do be in a year?
Finished with the third book in the Spirit Flight series, writing something I haven’t dreamed of yet, playing music twice as often as I do, and spending more time relaxing with Sarita.
And here’s a teaser from Caleb’s Zadayi Red:
Sunoya woke up lying on a bed of soft grasses. She smiled at them because they were pink. Turquoise sedges lined the creek. Rhododendrons clumped out in spurts of wild hues, scarlet, cobalt, and canary yellow. The rocks of the hills glittered like gem stones. Above them the sky glowed a gentle salmon and gold that never changed, and the soft air was warm, always warm.
She stepped over to a stream, bent down, and took a drink of cool, orange water. In the Land beyond the Sky Arch no creatures ate–Immortals could not die, and they did not eat other beings–but everyone drank.
She wondered why she had dreaded this trip. She loved this world. She wished her people had never left here. A long time ago, before they came to Earth and the big expanse of land called Turtle Island, the Galayi and all other animals and plants lived in this country beyond the Sky Arch. They were the children of the Immortals, progeny of the models all creatures sprang from, shadows of the great Bear who was primogenitor of all other bears, offspring of the Raven who was the archetype of all ravens, and so on. At that time archetypes and descendants alike were immortal.
But they were crowded, bumping elbows and knees in a country that was too small. Looking down from on high, they saw a planet that seemed to be nothing but water and wondered whether they could find a place there to make lives. Several animals tried to find land, but only little Water Beetle succeeded. He dived to the bottom of that strange world and brought up dirt, and more dirt, and finally all the dirt that made Turtle Island. So the people migrated onto that muddy ground. They didn’t know the troubles they were in for. In Sunoya’s opinion you could sum up all of Earth’s problems in a single word, mortality.
Sunoya spoke in her mind to her guide Tsola. Are you with me?
Yes, said Tsola, but she volunteered nothing more.
If I call them, they’ll come, right?
Sunoya, you know that. Be your full self.
So she walked up the creek lazily. She could simply think of any one, or say his name, and he would appear. Or wouldn’t. Immortals were whimsical and not particularly interested in the doings on Earth. Occasionally, they were gone to Turtle Island, looking after their offspring planet. Sunoya thought of those shed met before and wanted to see again, and those she hadn’t gotten to meet. Very carefully, she did not think of the very last thing that happened here beyond the Sky Arch–the way Thunderbird had said goodbye to her.
Sunoya, you have nothing to be afraid of.
[As the scene goes on, Thunderbird grills Sunoya and then makes her a great gift, a spirit animal of her own.]
