Kristin Cashore 2009 Interview
Kristin Cashore is an Andre Norton Award finalist for her novel Graceling.
Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. Let’s start with your book, Graceling. For unfamiliar readers, can you tell us more about it?
Sure! Graceling is the story of Katsa, a young woman who’s been able to kill people with her bare hands since she was eight. Katsa lives in the seven kingdoms, where very occasionally, people are born with extreme skills called Graces. A Graceling might have impossibly good hearing, run superhumanly fast, or be able to calculate huge sums mentally. Some Graces are useless, like the ability to talk backwards; some are eerie, like mindreading or seeing into the future. Katsa has a fighting and killing Grace.
Gracelings are feared and exploited in the seven kingdoms, and none moreso than Katsa, who’s expected to do the dirty work of torture and punishment for her uncle, King Randa. But then she meets a mysterious stranger named Po, who’s also a Graced fighter and the first person ever to challenge her in a fight. The two form a bond, and each discovers truths they never imagined about themselves, each other, and a terrible danger that’s spreading slowly through the seven kingdoms!
What made you decide to write a full-blown fantasy novel, complete with the cosmology of the Seven Kingdoms?
That’s an impossible question to answer, because I don’t really know! A story simply started growing in my head, and I had to write it down. The plot required there to be numerous kingdoms, so my world grew.
I can say that the whole thing started with the characters. Katsa came first, and unsurprisingly, she came to me fighting—quarreling, to be more specific, inside my head, with another character who grew into Po. Really, Graceling began as conversations in my head between two characters who were furious with each other. My job was to listen to them argue, and figure out what they were so upset about, and what was going on in their world, and what that world was like. Katsa and Po kind of formed themselves for me—at the beginning, I was more of an observer than a creator.
What was the road to publication like? Were there any difficulties?
I had an atypical experience. The first agent I ever queried about Graceling turned out to want to work with me, and I turned out to love her. A couple of months later, she sold Graceling to the editor of my dreams at Harcourt. Talk about counting my lucky stars! I still can’t believe how fast everything has happened.
How about the writing process, what were the challenges in writing Graceling?
There were lots of challenges, first because I was a pretty inexperienced writer, learning to write by doing. I mean, I was trying to learn everything at once—dialogue, pacing, characterization, setting, mood, you name it. And second because… well… it’s a plot with some complexities, and I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into! I didn’t realize how complicated it would be to tell the story I imagined—or how tricky it would be to bring some of my main characters’ Graces to life. Writing this book was a real strain on my feeble brains; I always felt as if it was just outside my control. I was not in charge of it; it was in charge of me.
Could you tell us something more about the upcoming books in the series, Fire and Bitterblue?
Fire, out in October 2009, is a prequel-ish companion book to Graceling. It takes place across the mountains east of the seven kingdoms, thirty or forty years before the story of Graceling, in a rocky, war-torn kingdom called the Dells. There are no known Gracelings in the Dells, but there are beautiful creatures called monsters. Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, fish. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored—fuchsia, turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green—and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans. Fire, seventeen years old, is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she’s hated and mistrusted by just about everyone. The book is her story, and if you’re wondering what connects it to Graceling, the answer is that (Graceling spoiler ahead!) one of the minor characters in Fire is a creepy little boy with mismatched eyes who seems to have some peculiar verbal abilities. (Fire is by no means Leck’s story, but it does reveal where he came from.)
Bitterblue, currently in progress, is a sequel-ish companion book to Graceling. It takes place six years after Graceling, and Bitterblue is the sixteen-year-old protagonist. Katsa, Po, and many other characters from Graceling will be part of the fabric of the book. Since it’s a work in progress, that’s all I’m willing to say about it at this time!
I didn’t write Graceling planning to write prequels or sequels. I thought of it as a stand-alone book. But then I simply realized at some point that there was a related book I wanted to write; and once I was writing that one, I felt the third one asking to be written. My hope is that Bitterblue will tie all three books together in some way, but again, work in progress, so no promises!
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I always wanted to be a reader and a daydreamer. Then, in college, I discovered that I also loved to write. I think it would be fair to say that I always suspected I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know it for sure until I was about 19 or 20. And then, of course, it took a few more years for me to get serious about actually doing it. (I’m 32 now.)
Did you intentionally want to become a YA writer (or wrote your novels with a YA audience in mind) or was this something that happened later on?
I don’t write my novels with any particular audience in mind—and if the mail I receive is any indication, as many adults as young adults are reading YA literature. Sometimes it feels like more of a marketing distinction to me that anything else. The U.K. edition of Graceling, published by Gollancz, is marketed to adults—so I guess that sometimes it’s a judgment call on the part of the publishers.
In your opinion, what are the qualities of a novel that make it YA? Do you think there should be a distinction?
Since I have a degree from The Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College, I should be able to answer this question; but the truth is, I’ve always hated this question and have never known how to answer! I think it often has to do with the age of the characters, and maybe with the novelty of the situations they find themselves in. YA literature contains all of the same themes and subject matter as literature for adults, but often, since the characters are young, they’re dealing with these issues for the first time ever, perhaps with less personal experience to call upon. It gives the literature a freshness, in my opinion. And no wonder lots of adults love YA lit, because dealing with brand new hard issues seems to be something we never grow out of! Adulthood often seems to me like one new kind of adolescence after another.
One distinction that’s often made between YA and adult literature, but shouldn’t be, has to do with quality, of course. A lot of people seem to think that YA literature—children’s literature in general—is not as high quality, not as much Literature with a capital L, as books written for adults. Those of us who read lots of children’s literature of all kinds, study it, and plumb its depths know that isn’t true. But there is a sad cultural tendency to condescend to young people, isn’t there? And unfortunately, it extends to their literature.
Who are some of the authors that impress you?
In no particular order: E.B. White, Margaret Mahy, Melina Marchetta, Mary Stewart, Sigrid Undset, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edward Gorey, and Edith Wharton. Just to name a few favorites!
Kristin Cashore grew up in the Pennsylvania countryside as the second of four sisters. She received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College in western Massachusetts and a master’s from the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College in Boston, and she has worked as a dog runner, a packer in a candy factory, an editorial assistant, a legal assistant, and a freelance writer. She has lived in many places (including Sydney, New York City, Boston, London, and Austin), and she currently resides in northern Florida, where her daily activities include walking along the St. Johns River and counting pelicans on the dock.
Kristin Cashore’s debut novel, Graceling, grew from her daydreams about a girl who possesses extraordinary powers—and who forms a friendship with a boy with whom she is insurmountably incompatible. Her second novel, Fire, is a companion book to Graceling and will be released in the fall of 2009.
Charles A. Tan is the co-editor of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler and his fiction has appeared in publications such as The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories and Philippine Speculative Fiction. He has conducted interviews for The Nebula Awards and The Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as for online magazines such as SF Crowsnest and SFScope. He is a regular contributor to sites like SFF Audio and Game Cryer. You can visit his blog, Bibliophile Stalker, where he posts book reviews, interviews, and essays.
4 comments so far.
Hi,
I’m from Holland (the Netherlands) and I really love your books! I read them in Dutch and English cause I want to read as most as possibly.
On school I once have to read a book or English and I knew for sure that one of your books was good. So, I read the book for the fifth time or something and on the test I got a 9,5 (highest was 10 and I’m in the second class) so that was really wonderfull!
Loves and keep on righting
Nadia
P.S. I’m reall sorry if you can’t understand everything. I am 13 years old and I’m not very good in the Grammar 
.
Hi, I loved Graceling and can’t wait for Bitterblue to come out! I also love Fire! I love reading and daydreaming too even though I get in trouble for doing those at the wrong times . I am 13 and I think I want to become an author too. I am using your book graceling for my school project and I am just looking for info to put on my Author Review. I hope you make tons of more books because they inspired me to try and write stories too.
Thanx Love your reader,
Sydney
um i don’t kknow what the url is so i’m not sure if i did that right… anyways i love Graceling!! i havn’t read Fire yet but i just learned about it so i plan on geting all 3 of your books when they all come out! i only read fantasy books so i absoletely loved this book i loved what you did with Po and Kasta in Graceling and i just absoletely loved the book!!!! great now please keep writing!
1. Elizabeth Jenson on 27th July 2009 at 9:04 am
I absolutly loved Graceling. I am also an author but not an official because none of my books have been published. I love how author(JUST LIKE YOU KRISTIN!) put everything in it. Adventure, drama, romance!! MY FAVORITE!! And with this interveiw i have recongonized the same qualities i have when writing my books. KEEP ON GOING KRISTIN I L-O-V-E YOUR BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!