Fairy Godmother Academy

I’m very proud to have gotten a five-moon review from Raspberry at Luna’s Book Club on New Moon Girls Online. New Moon is a great site where a lot of smart, cool girls share their creative spirits.

1.) Hi Jan! As I read your book 1, I was wondering, did you have to do lots of research on plants and nature to be able to make Birdie’s love for plants come to life?

Jan: I am a gardener in my area in central Texas but also asked my sister who lives in Denver and has gardened in England to help me. We researched the area where Granny Mo lives in the book, New Jersey, to make sure the plants we chose could really grow there. But I also added fantasy plants both at Mo’s and in Aventurine and some of the plants in Mo’s green house wouldn’t ordinarily grow in that area, but Mo is magic! It would be fun to see if girls who read the book can find out which plants are real and which ones are fantasy. I also love love love trees so it was easy to imagine the Glimmer Tree and make it play a major role in the story. The natural world has always been a source of inspiration for me. It is there that I feel most alive.

2.) Me: In your “About the Author” section of your book, it says you loved Ballet, and you joined a surf club at sixteen- I wonder, how did you get into writing?

Jan: I can remember writing in a little spiral notebook with a crayon as far back as age five before I could actually form sentences. But I also wrote poetry and songs as a teenager starting at age thirteen. I have kept personal and dream journals all my life. I still have my first diary from when I was twelve.

3.) Me: What does it feel like to know you have a published book?

Jan: It feels awesome because I love to write so much. Writing fantasy fiction was a surprise for me in a way. I just started doing it and it was so much fun that my imagination gave way to a whole set of stories. I have had songs published before, but getting a book(s) published was the next frontier for me.

4.) Me: How did the idea come up for you to write this? What was your inspiration?

Jan: I have always been interested in dreams and dreaming because I am a lucid dreamer. That means I have been dreaming in vivid detail since I was a child. I could make myself accomplish things in my dreams like facing my fears. I could also will myself to return to a particular dream to change an outcome. This is where I do a lot of problem solving in my real life. I also get lots of creative ideas in my dreams-like songs and pictures. Some of the details in this book series come from my actual dreams. Of course, the names have been changed.

5.) Me: Can you tell us about the sequel to “Birdie’s Book”, “Kerka’s Book”?

Jan: Kerka is a different type of girl than Birdie and a member of a different line of fairy godmothers called The Pax Lineage. She is more action oriented and less dreamy or mental. She has suffered the loss of her mother and she and her two sisters are not as close as they used to be. Before her mom died she taught the three sisters a secret dance done with a jeweled stick called The Kalis. Kerka wants to be the best Kalis Dancer ever but feels she can not without her mother’s help. Her mission in Aventurine involves learning about origin of The Kalis from The Stone Fairies and finding her spirit animal.

6.) Me: How do you come up with character traits and names?

Jan: I like to name things. I imagine different types of girls from different lands in the real world as well as making up the lands in the fantasy world of Aventurine. One of the most fun things is to think of a terrain like the mountain range in Kerka’s book called The Three Queens and then form a mental picture of that place. Some of my readers say they can see the places in their mind’s eye. This is a great compliment to me. I have had great fun creating a whole new language for the fairies called Fairen which you hear spoken by the River Maidens in Birdie’s Book and will hear more of in Book 4 called Lilu’s Book.

7.) Me: In “Birdie’s Book”, Birdie realizes that everyone has a part of them that resembles a Fairy Godmother- how are you your own Fairy Godmother?

Jan: I have learned to take care of my inner “flame”, my creativity. It requires care and feeding. I have to remind myself to build an altar to it and treat it kindly so that others will respect the things that flow from it like books and songs and stories. Although it is good to be your own fairy godmother, I also need other fairy godmothers in my life.

8.) Me: Which character in “Birdie’s Book” would you say you were most like, and why?

Jan: I am definitely like Mo as I am a cool grandmother and love to bring magic into the lives of my grandchildren and all children. But when I was a girl I was like Birdie too. I was dreamy and into plants.

9.) Me: Can you relate to any events that happen in the story?

Jan: Many of the dream sequences in the story are made up of things that I actually dreamed. I also did a real-time walk through a labyrinth in order to get the visual experience of walking through the maze.

10.) Me: Do you have any advice for young kids who have a passion to write?

Jan: Write as much as you can and do not be afraid to write badly at first. You will eventually find your own unique voice.

Thanks for your time, Jan!

(source: New Moon Interview: http://www.newmoon.com/content/?id=11850&type=1)