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I'm Kimberly Frost, and I'm the author of the Southern Witch series brought to you by the Berkley publishing group. The series features a young woman named Tammy Jo Trask who was minding her own business and working as a pastry chef in a small Texas town, when her long--dormant-and seemingly broken--magical powers emerged.
In recent interviews, I've been asked why I chose to write about witches. I usually talk about having been interested in the history of witchcraft and in its varied potential for plot twists, but my answers are actually something of a smokescreen, since I'm not sure that I chose to write about witches at all. You see, there are some writers who choose their stories and others who feel like their stories choose them. (I'm part of that latter group whose characters are so real that sometimes I know more about their backgrounds than I remember about my own.)
The follow up to the "Why witches?" question is often: "Why did you become a writer?" That one's easy. "I couldn't help myself." I'm part of a community that we'll refer to as "The Afflicted."
From the dawn of time, people have shared stories, anecdotes, legends, and myths. Human beings are compelled to do this, and these fireside stories were sometimes set to music. Eventually some inefficient storytellers began to write "epic poems." These original storytellers likely realized that if a story took twenty hours to tell, people would eventually drift off or die of old age. To prevent the loss of their audience, they began to embellish certain details, to make the events more exciting and entertaining. Predictably, one lie led to two. Two lies led to four, and so on. Eventually, this compulsion toward ambitious lie-telling afflicted quite a large group of people who are now referred to as "novelists."
Probably because our oral tradition was initially created to pass on the history of humankind, people still always seem to suspect that even the most outlandish stories have a core of truth to them.
This gives rise to one of the most frequently asked questions...
Q: Did you base your main character, Tammy Jo Trask, on yourself?
A: Probably so. She is female, and so am I.
Q: Are you from a small town?
A: No.
Q: Were you raised in Texas?
A: No.
Q: Did you marry the first boy you ever kissed?
A: OMG. No.
Q: Were you shy as a child?
A: Shy is a relative term, of course, but in so far as I regularly wandered off to strike up conversations with complete strangers any time a family member didn't have a firm hold on my hand... Not shy, no.
Q: Are you a talented cook?
A: Does microwaving count? No? I guess talented wouldn't be quite the right word.
Q: So you don't have much in common with Tammy Jo?
A: Apparently not.
Q: Then where do you get your ideas?
A: I don't actually know.
Q: No clue?
A: Agatha Christie said she got hers from Harrods, but I've never been there.
I tilt my head, perplexed, and mentally conclude that I'm not sure I understand where Tammy Jo or any of my characters came from. So I begin to broaden my thinking on the subject and here's the result of that...
Q: Why did you choose to write about witches?
A: I can find no evidence that I did. I suspect that I'm under the influence of a hex.
Q: Who cast this spell upon you?
A: I can't be sure, but I suspect C.S. Lewis.
Q: Why is your series set in a small town in Texas?
A: Because the wardrobe was full.
Q: Why do you write novels instead of short stories?
A: Because the characters refuse to leave after only twenty pages.
Q: Do you intend to continue writing indefinitely?
A: Yes, though if I die, I reserve the right to change my mind.
Q: Do you enjoy writing books?
A: Yes, it's challenging, but it's also better than most things, even pedicures.
Q: Do you have anything to say to readers?
A: Yes, read all you can. I know from experience that sleep is optional.
Breathing a sigh of relief over being able to express all this, I sink down into a comfortable chair and smile over having figured out the answer to one of the toughest questions of all.
Q: "Do you yourself believe in magic?"
A: "Yes, I do," I say with a confident nod. "It's clearly the only explanation for how the stories get written."
Kimberly Frost, Barely Bewitched, paranormal romance, Southern Witch, author, Penguin Books, Penguin Blog
