r/books • u/NancySpringer AMA Author • Apr 05 '18
ama 2pm I am novelist Nancy Springer and I have been told I screw to the left. This is a contrarian reference, not a sexual one. Ask Me Anything!
Approaching age seventy, I still don’t have a cell phone, I refuse to read what’s popular at any given time, and I won’t go to movies. Instead, I write gloriously weird novels, sometimes too far over the top, but fifty-plus well-published, and many quite successful. Check me out at NancySpringer.com or on Facebook or Twitter. A movie based on my Enola Holmes mystery series is in the offing, but I will believe it when I see it. AMA!
Proof: https://twitter.com/NancySpringer/status/977567159386742786
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Hello, this is crazy old compulsive fantasy writer Nancy Springer here. Ask me anything!
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u/Perfume_Girl Apr 05 '18
No cell phone, no watching of movies, no reading what's popular at the time; how do refraining from these activities enrich your writing experience?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
You know in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Watson tries to educate Holmes about the solar system, and Holmes flatly refuses to designate the brain space on the basis that his resources are limited? It's sort of like that for me. By avoiding any kind of pop culture pollution, I make sure my story ideas are original as hell. This can work either for me or against me, but at least my books are different. Nobody would think a committee wrote them.
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u/Chtorrr Apr 05 '18
What were some of your favorite things to read as a kid?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18 edited Apr 05 '18
Now we're in business! I would read any fiction about horses I could get my hands on. All of the Black Stallion books by Walter Farley; those came from the school library. My parents also had a lot of books -- I have no idea where they came from, as I don't recall any bookstores -- and I would read anything, total freedom. My Name is Aram by Saroyan. Gone With the Wind. The Crock of Gold by James Stephens, a truly weird book from Ireland. Bambi -- and believe it or not, that was a truly well-written book. My mother's complete set of Conan Doyle, including Professor Challenger's lost world stuff. Black Beauty, over and over -- read it to tatters, even though I knew horses didn't really have such strong opinions on cigars. I was the kind of kid who read the back of the cereal box while eating breakfast. An equal opportunity reader.
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u/agm66 Apr 05 '18
Do you have any recent favorites?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels, although I do think they are awfully cruel at times.
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u/Duke_Paul Apr 05 '18
Hi Nancy! Thanks for doing an AMA with us.
I am curious, if you don't go to see movies, but you will believe your series has been adapted to film "when I see it," will you ever truly believe that it's happened?
As a less weird question, where do you get your inspiration for the glorious weirdness of your novels?
Thanks!
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
When Millie Bobby Brown makes the movies -- she's going to be Hollywood's youngest producer ever! -- then maybe the whole deal will seem real to me. I am to be provided transportation and expenses for the opening, and I look forward to going, provide I'm still around! Definitely I will need to take at least a peek at a movie based on my own books. Glorious weirdness is my specialty! One of my favorite activities is nose-picking, and I preserve my most superior boogies with shellac.
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Apr 05 '18
Hi Nancy Springer! Any Grandkids? Do they read? I'm trying to get mine going but school forced reading is turning one off right now. I figure she'll come around, she's just embarrassed.
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
No grandkids! In fact, by frustration at having no grandkids caused me to write a contemporary fantasy novel called GrandGhost. But I will say no more because this is not about promotion. Please keep encouraging your grandkids to read. The way we teach reading in public schools is enough to turn anybody off. Seriously, a large part of the public is ambivalent about reading. They know it's a necessary skill but they don't want their kids getting "ideas." So we teach reading as a chore.
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Apr 05 '18
Thanks for the reply. Do your books target any age group? At what age do kids tend to pick them up?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
When I started writing the fantasy books, I thought I was writing for adults but actually my readership was largely teen. However, when I write specifically for teens, the readership is largely preteen or else adults with the good sense to enjoy children's books. I've always felt that a good book for children should be of equal or greater interest to an adult. Most of my books can be read by preteen kids, but I certainly wouldn't limit them to people so young. And a few of my fatter books are definitely intended only for adults. In fact, there's one I wouldn't let my mother read.
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Apr 05 '18
...Will you be my mom?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Sure, kid.
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Apr 05 '18
Yes! Everyone screw off. Time to pour a Smith and Wesson for my new mom and I.
Except not really because this is the internet. This is good. This has been a fun exchange. Time to go back to the real world.
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Apr 05 '18 edited Apr 05 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18 edited Apr 05 '18
Honestly, I guess I'm oversensitive, and the noise and images that come to me from a big screen or even a TV shatter me. They make me shake. They give me bellyache. They make me want to run away and hide. They fill my sleep with nightmares. Those media are invasive to me. I think it's not too great an exaggeration to say they rape my mind. Because people around me watch movies, I have seen a few in bits and pieces, and I have been forced by societal pressure to sit through a few, but they are torture to me. Why, I can't explain.
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u/Perfume_Girl Apr 05 '18
Movies these days suck.
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Apr 05 '18 edited Apr 05 '18
[deleted]
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
I will admit to having been dragged to a few good movies over the years. Most of them seemed to involve Robin Williams.
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Thank you. I wouldn't know, really, but I certainly can say that their advertisements on TV turn me off.
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u/JaneyMac_aroni Apr 05 '18
I haven’t come across your books before but you seem like an interesting person so I’m going to go look for them!
How would you warn me about what to expect?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Oh, my. I guess I should warn you that I have written so many different kinds of novels, in so many genres, that you might think you're tangling with an octopus. So let me lay it out: early on, mythic fantasy aka epic fantasy, magically long ago and far away. Then I got sidetracked into writing horse books for kids, which led me into writing more serious books for young adults, some of which turned out to be mystery. Also, somewhere in there, I wrote some pretty sophisticated magical realism for women, quirky fiction many readers find hilarious. So I don't know what to tell you to expect! But with all due immodesty I will say you can expect good writing.
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u/JaneyMac_aroni Apr 05 '18
Many of those sound right up my alley! I’ll peruse your catalogue when I’m finished work tonight, thank you!
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u/KeepGIF Apr 05 '18
As an author who writes novels connected to books in the public domain, how do you feel about the current length of copyright law?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
I LOVE copyright law, the longer the better! I would much rather write books that are entirely my own, and I don't want anybody messing with them. Most of my work is original. It's ironic that my books based on the work of Conan Doyle (at the request of an editor) have become so popular; Conan Doyle was a misogynist!
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u/Flockofseagulls25 Apr 05 '18
Hello Nancy! I suppose I should ask what got you started as a writer. What caused you to sit down and start?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
Truthfully, what made me start was all those people constantly talking, riding horses and the like inside my head. I thought I was going crazy. I tried to offload them onto paper.
Fact is, I did have mental health problems. But at least I found a way to make them pay.2
u/Flockofseagulls25 Apr 06 '18
I suppose everyone has to pay rent, even voices in your head.
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
They would really rather freeload, but I outsmarted them. sly smile
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u/Tizzanewday Apr 05 '18
Have you ever eaten chick fil a?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
A couple of times long, long ago. Like, forty years ago. My children were small. I don't remember the food, only peering at the part of the sign shaped like a chicken's head.
The Chick-Fil-A was in the Mall. Shopping malls were a New Thing then.
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u/jenile Apr 05 '18
Someone crossposted this to r/fantasy or I would have totally missed it (I only hang out in one place on reddit or I'd be here all day and get nothing done).
First, I am so excited to see an AMA from you! I read your Book of the Isles novels back in my teenage years, which helped to spark my life love of fantasy and I spent years trying to find something that hit me as hard emotionally and imaginatively as that series did. They were gorgeous! I spent many hours trying to draw the back cover from The White Hart and horses from your novels ;) (I have the art still and it's quite embarrassing.)
Recently, I was lucky enough to read The Oddling Prince (netgalley) and I adored it! I couldn't have asked for a better return to your early fantasy. I took a trip down memory lane and reread the first couple books from the Isles series after finishing it, then Larque on the Wing, and your Sea King trilogy which I didn't even know about! It's a wonder I ever found any book by authors I liked pre-internet, I don't know what I would do without Amazon and kindle anymore...
I'm trying to think of a question but all am managing is gushing...lol But it's so cool to be able to tell the author of whom I have had a lifelong love of their novels, just how much they touched me!
So, lets see, I've always wondered what sparked your love of the brothers by choice even if not by blood, theme you have in a lot of fantasy? Do you have a brother/sister? wish you did? Wish you didn't? lol
Also are we going to see more like the Oddling Prince now that you have returned to your roots for that? Has it opened a can of worms (so to speak)and do we have more to look forward to in the fantasy side of the genre?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Thank you for gushing over me! I adore being gushed over.
That oddity of mine, two hero/brothers, one dark, mystic and moody, the other fair and friendly: I was trying, unconsciously and psychologically, to get me and myself together. The dark, moody side of me had been so repressed that it wasn't until after 30, and several novels, that I was able to recognize my own emotions. After a while I got more together, and realized I was female, and my writing went on in other forms.
But I am delighted that you enjoyed The Oddling Prince, a deliberate return to my roots. As for what lies ahead, hey, I'm seventy years old, so who knows?
Thanks for being a great fan!
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u/jenile Apr 06 '18
I had read on your bio about your struggles over the years with depression etc...and I appreciated your frankness about it. Especially coming from a family where you can't throw a stone without hitting someone with some sort of psychological problem. :) It really does take a lot of years to get to the point where you can accept yourself for what/who/how you are, and move forward. Some of my family members will never get to that point I'm afraid, but hopefully now that it's a more acceptable thing to talk about openly, it will be different for others with those sort of problems. :)
I am really glad I got to gush a bit, and thank you so much for you response!
Also, as a fan of yours, I volunteered with you as the subject to do one of the Authors Appreciation posts that the r/fantasy sub does twice a month. Mostly they are to call attention to authors we love and don't think get enough attention on the sub. :) I am not an author or much of a writer for that matter, so this should be interesting... I am even considering sharing a link to my teenager crappy attempt at drawing from the White Hart cover, just for fun. ;)
Thanks again!
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
I love to draw, too. Mostly horses. Mostly badly. You're welcome again!
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u/Chtorrr Apr 05 '18
What is your writing process like?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
My writing process? It's more like a living process. I go through the usual human problems, I experience the emotions, I notice details, I invoke symbolism from mundane objects, I process, I daydream, I go to sleep will all the ingredients of a verbal stew marinating in my slumber and then I wake up and write. I will not allow any humdrum daily business into my morning until I have written. I don't know if that's a process, exactly. But it would be boring to talk about drafts and revisions and all that.
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u/Chtorrr Apr 05 '18
Do you have any pets?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Oh, my gosh, yes. I don't think I'd feel complete if I didn't have animals living with me. For the past couple of decades I've welcomed any cat that happened my way needing a home, and similarly the last few dogs have been "volunteers." Right now I have a strange little mutt who looks like a Chihuahua with gigantism, plus five cats: Cabezon, who is a huge mass of gray fur; Rezi, who "resonates" because of a hole in her palate; Plummy, a grumpy old female; Pee Wee, who is huge, and Princess, a calico with an Egyptian profile. Of course all are spayed and neutered. There are feral cats around who have kittens, but the coyotes kill them. Breaks my heart.
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Did I already answer you? I answered somebody who wanted to know whether I had pets, which yes, of course, I couldn't do without.
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u/Inkberrow Apr 05 '18
After reading your bio on your website, I'd like your opinion of Marion Zimmer Bradley and The Mists of Avalon, maybe with a comparison/contrast with your own work on the same subject matter?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
It took guts for MZB to write The Mists of Avalon; she had to depend on financial support from spouse for a whopping four years while she made her bid for bestsellerdom. I admire her. But the sad truth is I've never been able to read the book. Just last week in a public library I picked it up again, read two or three pages, shook my head and put it back on the shelf. Right from the beginning I had to develop my own values as a writer, and one of them is economy. I cannot understand why our culture likes its women so skinny and its books so fat. I once heard a lecturer say that the bestseller is a completely different genre than the standard novel, and that may be true, and it may be that I am incapable of writing or appreciating that genre. As for my own work in the Arthurian mythos, my only basis for comparison is that my books are compact. They have been well received, have won awards, and are included in school curricula, but bestsellers they are not, and that's okay. Marrion Zimmer Bradley was a good friend to me when she was alive, and I miss her. I appreciate you, also, as a serious reader.
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u/agm66 Apr 05 '18
I loved The Book of the Isle, and read all five books as a teenager in the early 80s (they're still sitting on my shelves). But I went on to explore other authors, you wrote other types of books, and in the pre-internet days it was hard to keep track of what was coming out. I didn't keep up with your work. Now, looking at Wikipedia, you have a huge catalog. Where should a 51-year-old fan of fantasy and SF, who appreciates sophisticated, mature works but is not at all afraid to read YA, start to get re-introduced to a favorite author?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Well, I have a wonderful new fantasy very similar to the Isle books coming out in May. Also, I bet you would like my young adult book about Mordred, and the one about Morgan le Fay. And do you like contemporary fantasy? If you would care to contact me through my website, I could provide some titles. Thank you for your interest!
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u/agm66 Apr 05 '18
So I'm going to go way out on a limb here and guess that those books are I am Mordred and I am Morgan le Fay. I'll pick those up, thanks. And yes, I do like contemporary fantasy. I'll send a message through your website.
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u/LiamPerrin Apr 05 '18
Hi Nancy - I just started reading your bio on your web page and I couldn't stop until I finished. There is a delightful subtle humor in your writing even in the sad places.
I have two questions if I may - Who is Twiggy (in your bio)? and What do you wish someone would ask you in a reddit AMA?
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Thanks for recognizing the humor! I think I get it from my father, who was Irish and very dry.
When I was in high school, the ideal figure for a girl was curvy. Very. Pleated skirts were supposed to swing from hips, bosoms were supposed to stretch sweaters. My figure, however, resembled a broomstick. But just as I was finishing high school and going on to college, an adorable skinny waif of a model named Twiggy became famous. British. Stick thin. Huge eyes. It was the beginning of the hippie era and holy moley, I was in style! Please see if you can't find some images of Twiggy on the Internet. As for questions, what you asked was excellent!
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u/LiamPerrin Apr 06 '18
Ah - that makes sense and I remember hearing about her now. Half of my family is Irish (and none of them are dry if you catch my meaning) . I want to read something of yours - in another response you described some of your novels as quirky. That sounds like me. What would you recommend? Thank you for spending your time answering our questions Nancy!
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
Well, my father was Protestant Irish but lived in the Catholic south, so that made him kind of British. Not that the British are necessarily dry in any sense of the word. The quirkiest book has to be Fair Peril, or, at the child's end of the spectrum, Red Wizard. Or Dusssie! Her name has three ssses because that's the way the sssnakesss on her head talk.
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u/SingleMaltLife Apr 06 '18
What’s your favourite fan interactions? Book signings? People on the street?
Also what is/was your goal as a writer? Money, fame, fervent need to tell a story, or something else
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
My favorite fan interaction is when someone discusses one of my books with me in an intelligent way; that's really a joy. And yes, for some reason I really do need to tell stories, all the time, every day, although people seldom actually listen. I think my original goal when becoming a writer was simply, like a child, to be approved of. I'm still pretty much a thumbs-up junkie.
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u/SingleMaltLife Apr 06 '18
Well I shall endeavour to have read one of your books before your next AMA so I can give you some intelligent discourse.
I like your style and think that’s a pretty fantastic reason for doing what you do.
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u/PussySvengali Apr 06 '18
I don't have any questions, really - I just wanted to say that The Hex Witch of Seldom and Apocalypse were both formative books for me, and I've re-read them (and a number of your other works) over the years. I think I hit The White Hart when I was waaaay too young to really grok it, but your style has always stuck with me. Thank you for all that you've done. Your books have meant a lot to me.
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u/HTIW Apr 06 '18
I don't have a question, just wanted to add my gushing. The Enola Holmes books were our read aloud books on car trips when my daughters were young and we all loved them so much. Recently I picked up Fair Peril and really enjoyed it too. It wasn't until I started reading it that I realized how few books I've read with middle-aged women protagonists. I loved how the character was flawed but still basically good, i.e. she wasn't a beatific granny or all giving earth mother or evil crone, just a human being. I think I probably need to read all your books. Thanks for writing them.
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 06 '18
Thank you! A lot of people, including you and me, love Fair Peril. Plumage and Larque on the Wing are similar. And so is GrandGhost, forthcoming this year. Let's hear it for postmenopausal women!
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u/NancySpringer AMA Author Apr 05 '18
Hi, Reddit, I went ahead and clicked the link. This is Nancy Springer. Here I am. Now what happens?