Present and Past - Guest Post from J.S. Watts

Present and Past

I am really pleased that this current stage of the blog tour celebrating the May launch of my paranormal novel, “Witchlight”, is being hosted by the Battered Suitcase Press blog of my publisher, Vagabondage Press.

Vagabondage are the people who, in the past, have had sufficient faith in me and my writing to publish two of my novels, first “A Darker Moon” and now, in the present, “Witchlight”. It gives me the opportunity, in the here and now, to thank them for their past trust and the mammoth and ongoing effort involved in designing, publishing and promoting a book and to say, “Thank you, guys. You rock!”

I love the way present and past so often come together, sometimes positively, sometimes not, but inevitably in an intriguing and fascinating way. Two sections of existence’s timeline, separated by months, decades or centuries, but influencing one another and combining to create and shape new events and occurrences.

Writing, whether a letter, a blog post or a novel, is a way of capturing the present and fixing it so that, however long ago something was written, it will always seem the present for someone reading it for the first time. My present thanks to Vagabondage for their past efforts will be available for you to read in your present for as long as this blog remains on line, even when this moment, as I am experiencing it, has long since faded into the past.

There is a coming together of past and present in “Witchlight”. The novel’s lead character, Holly, is content with her present at the start of the novel, but it turns out her past has been holding out on her. The birth mother she has never known, and was sanguine about not knowing, has gifted her magical witch powers. Moreover, these powers turn out to be stronger than anyone initially realised, so the secrets of the past suddenly become rather pressing in the present and the present is dramatically changed for Holly because of them.

Holly, supported by her fairy godfather, goes in search of her and her biological parents’ past. In the present, however, something is stirring: accidents start to happen, people die, Old Magic is on the hunt, but in the age-old game of cat and mouse, just who is the feline and who is the rodent?

After the initial fun and amusement of discovering her magical powers, Holly has to learn the hard way that, in a world fuelled by magic, appearances, and reality itself, can be magically deceptive and trust can be difficult, if not downright dangerous.

Before the novel ends Holly will discover the truth of her birth, find love (and struggle to keep it) and learn that a darkness begun centuries before has shaped her past and is now influencing her present.

“Witchlight” is a book set in contemporary Britain, but in a world grounded in the here and now, present and past come together in a conflagration of mystery, magic and (what else?) witchlight. 

About Witchlight: Holly has been mortal all her life. Now at thirty-eight, her fairy godfather arrives to tell her she’s a witch, and suddenly she's having to come to terms with the uncertainties of an alarmingly magic-fuelled world. Magic is not like it is in the books and films, and Holly starts to doubt whether her fairy godfather, Partridge Mayflower, is the fey, avuncular charmer he appears.

When appearances are magically deceptive, Holly cannot afford to trust those closest to her, including herself. Accidents start to happen, people die, Old Magic is on the hunt, but in the age-old game of cat and mouse, just who is the feline and who is the rodent?

About The Author: J.S.Watts is a British writer who lives and writes in the flatlands of East Anglia in the UK. Her poetry, short stories and reviews appear in a diversity of publications in Britain, Canada, Australia and the States. Her poetry collection, “Cats and Other Myths”, and subsequent multi-award nominated poetry pamphlet, “Songs of Steelyard Sue”, are published by Lapwing Publications. Her dark fiction novel, “A Darker Moon”, is published in the UK and the US by Vagabondage Press. Her second novel, “Witchlight”, is available at Amazon, B&N and other bookstores. You can find her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/J.S.Watts.page or on her website www.jswatts.co.uk

Interview with E.H. Lupton, author of The Joy of Fishes

Interview with E.H. Lupton, author of The Joy of Fishes

E.H. Lupton lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and various pets. In her spare time, she pursues a number of hobbies including running, baking, making things up, and taking naps.

Her novella, The Joy of Fishes, was published by Battered Suitcase Press in December of 2013.

When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

I was about twelve or thirteen and having an argument with my father about a TV show we both liked. I didn’t like the direction it was going in. My father challenged me to write my own version. I haven’t stopped since.

Why do you write?

I feel like I have stories to tell. Also, I don’t have a TV, and if I run too much my joints get angry, so I have to have a “sitting down” hobby.

Is being a writer anything like you imagined it would be?

No. When I was young I thought all writers just wrote full time. Also, I’m guessing I thought writing was easy. In fact I still want to believe that, because I am continually surprised by how difficult writing is—I keep hoping I’ll come around a bend in the road and suddenly find everything is a cinch.

What do you think makes a good story?

It has to have compelling characters and a good plot. Artistry of writing is nice, and if the story fails on plot, sometimes artistry can get you pretty far (I mean, look at Ulysses). But if it fails on characters, I don’t care about the rest.

What's your favorite genre to read?

Probably mysteries. I read a lot of genres, because I’m always reading things that people recommend or that I find somewhere, but left to my own devices I look for a mystery novel. I’m especially fond of hardboiled detective novels.

Who is your favorite author or poet?

This is a hard question. Raymond Chandler is up there. Salman Rushdie. James Joyce. Zora Neale Hurston. Thomas Pynchon, especially his more recent stuff, like Inherent Vice. I’m probably leaving out a lot of worthy names here, but I think if you’ve read any of these writers you might begin to detect a trend: I like incredibly well-written works with interesting characters and (in most cases) dense, complex plots that are funny and heart-wrenching by turns.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?

Probably the biggest influence was James Joyce’s Ulysses. I learned from it that books don’t have to stick to a single topic; you can put all of life into them. This book, more specifically, was influenced also by Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and by Wandering on the Way, a collection of Daoist stories translated by Victor Mair.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?

I started down the path to study philosophy when I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig. I think a lot of my work is deeply rooted in philosophy in general, though it’s not always as apparent as it is with The Joy of Fishes. As an undergraduate, I studied philosophy and Chinese, which led to me taking the class in Daoism that inspired TJoF.

More prosaically, my mom used to read me Kipling’s The Just-So Stories and a lot of the works of James Thurber, and I think both of those had a big influence on me.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?

When I’m lucky (that is, when I’m not recovering from an injury), I do a lot of thinking when I’m out running. When I’m not able to run, driving or biking can have a similar effect. (I live in Wisconsin, so the window for biking is pretty small.)

What does your family think of your writing?

I think they’re proud. Maybe a bit surprised that this is what I do, but proud.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

While I was finishing my thesis recently, I would get up around 5:30 and write until 7ish (sometimes pausing earlier or later depending on whether the puppy needed to go out). After I took the dogs out, I put the thesis away and went to the gym for an hour. Then I’d be ready to go to my day job. I find it easiest to get things done in the morning when there are fewer distractions. I’m sleeping in a little later now though.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?

I really like to write off the computer—I write longhand quite a bit, and when I have the opportunity, I like to write on my grandmother’s old typewriter. It is about fifty years old and probably weighs twenty or thirty pounds. I really like the feeling of connecting with the keys. Also, I like being away from the Internet.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

The Internet. Especially when things get difficult, I have a hard time focusing. Also, I know that in the course of writing a first draft, there are going to be boring bits that will have to be cut out later. But I hate writing them down. I have to force myself to press forward.

What are your current projects?

I have a short story I’m rewriting, and a novel I’m doing the first draft of. There are probably a few other things, too. I pick stories up and put them down all the time.

What are you planning for future projects?

I don’t really know. Someday I’d like to do a graphic novel, if I ever meet an artist with whom I could work. But I don’t always know what I’m going to do ahead of time. I squirrel away little bits of information for the future all the time, but I don’t usually have a plan of what I’m going to do with them.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

No. I know enough to know that I know nothing.

Where else can we find your work?

I have a blog at pretensesoup.com where you can find all of (or a lot of) my comic “Em ơi!,” which chronicles my various adventures in a somewhat piecemeal and occasionally imaginary fashion. I’ve been drawing it since 2008ish, and have amassed nearly four hundred comics at this point, making it probably my longest-running work. I have had a story published in issue 6 of Greatest Uncommon Denominator/GUD (“Salad Days,” which can be found here: http://www.gudmagazine.com/vault/6/Salad+Days). And I have had a story published in issue 5 of a magazine called Wilde Oats, but it appears to have been archived and isn’t on their website right now (looks like it will be in the future though).

E.H. Lupton's The Joy of Fishes is available for immediate download from our website or your favorite ebook retailer. 

Mara Daniels is a physicist doing cutting-edge research into the nature of reality at the University of Chicago. She’s an astronomer. She’s an amateur student of Chinese philosophy. And she’s still recovering from last summer’s car crash that killed Benjamin Zhu, her fiancé. It’s a slow process; she can walk without a cane now, but she still suffers from migraines, nightmares, and seeing Zhu’s ghost everywhere she goes. The novella The Joy of Fishes follows her through the day on which these threads begin to unravel.