Holly Black

BIO

Holly Black was born in November 1971 in a decrepit Victorian house in New Jersey. Her mother, a painter and doll-maker, fed her books on ghosts and faeries that formed much of her later views on the world. She also developed a fear of the dark. Nonetheless, Holly spent a happy childhood cooking up imaginary witches' brews with her younger sister, Heidi, and taking care of her pet rats.

Adolescence brought Dungeons & Dragons, punk rock, boys, and an unhealthy habit of reading books until 3 a.m. During this period, Holly wrote a lot of poetry, as well as a play and a novel titled KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER SUN. She also met Theo Black, a painter who was attending private school. They moved to Philadelphia together to attend college.

After graduating, Holly got a job in New York while working at night on an independent gaming magazine, d8. It was through d8 magazine that she met fellow writer Steve Berman and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi. It was also during this time that she began the suburban fantasy novel, TITHE: A Modern Faery Tale.

Today Holly lives in West Long Branch, New Jersey with Theo, who she married in 1999. She is an avid collector of rare folklore volumes, spooky dolls and outrageous hats.

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INTERVIEW

July 20, 2005

2002 marked the release of Holly Black's suburban fantasy novel, TITHE: A Modern Faerie Tale. Three years later, Black returns to the dark and dangerous world of Faerie in VALIANT: A Modern Tale of Faerie. In this interview, conducted by Teenreads.com contributing writer Carlie Webber, Black explains the universal appeal of her books and describes a typical day in her event-filled life. She also discusses MTV's plans to adapt her current novel into a film and lets readers know about her future projects, which includes a sequel to TITHE.

Teenreads.com: VALIANT takes place in the same world as TITHE, though they are not sequels. Other than a sequel to TITHE, do you plan on revisiting the urban faerie world in future books? If so, can you give us any insight into what you are planning?

Holly Black: The TITHE sequel, IRONSIDE, will probably be the last of the books set in that world. I am in the early middle of the book and so far there is hair dye, court intrigue and a character from VALIANT. There are probably also going to be a lot of things I haven't thought of yet, so I shouldn't say too much in case I change my mind.

TRC: Many non-fantasy readers like your books for the real-world settings. When writing, how do you balance your stories so that neither "the real world" nor the fantasy world takes over?

HB: I think that fantasy is going to seem more real and immediate if it is juxtaposed with familiar things. For this reason, I start my books in "the real world" and move more and more into the supernatural world as the story progresses. As the protagonist comes to believe in the faeries, hopefully the reader will be convinced along with her.

TRC: While Kaye is a faerie with a mortal shell in TITHE, Val is a mortal who takes on faerie elements through the drug Never. What was your motivation for not making Val a faerie as well?

HB: I wanted to tell the story of someone entirely without magic. I was interested in a girl who was kind of a jock and what she would do in an urban fantasy setting. Also, I wanted to write about someone who had seen herself as a secondary character and learns to be the protagonist of her own story. All of those functions are better served by a mortal character. Also, I don't think that something like Never could really have the same appeal to a faerie that it does to a human.

TRC: You dedicated VALIANT to your husband because he likes girls who kick ass. Who are some of your favorite literary "kick-ass" girls? Is Val modeled after any of them (or anyone you know)?

HB: Writing the dedication for Theo was hard because VALIANT contains so many things he likes. It might have been funnier to say, "to Theo, because he likes substance-abusing girls who learn the sword and fall in love with hideous monsters" but it would have contained a lot of spoilers. In fact, I think I actually changed for the final book --- you must have the advance reading copy --- and it now reads "for Theo, who likes angsty, angry girls."

Some of my favorite ass-kicking girls in literature aren't all that tough physically, but they are brave and, well, valiant. I'll always love Jacky and Kate from Charles de Lint's JACK OF KINROWN, Eddi from Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS, Vivian from Annette Curtis Klaus's BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE, Corinna from Franny Billingsley's FOLK KEEPER, and Sabriel from Garth Nix's SABRIEL. More recently, I've loved Cloud from Judith Berman's BEAR DAUGHTER, Aly from Tamora Pierce's TRICKSTER'S QUEEN, Egg from Cecil Castellucci's BOY PROOF and Reason from Justine Larbalestier's MAGIC OR MADNESS. I could go on and on and on, too. I have lots of favorites.

I think that Val was cobbled together from the many angsty, angry, kick-ass girls I have known and read about and dreamed of being.

TRC: Please describe "A Week in the Life of Holly Black."

HB: Let's see. A typical day goes like this:

Wake. Liberal application of coffee. Check email on unscarred computer in office while still in pajamas.

Answer email. Read LiveJournal. More coffee.

Shower and dress. Head out to Haymarket in Northampton where I sometimes meet up with Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, or, occasionally Cassandra Clare and Josh Lewis or sometimes no one at all.

Write in laptop, trying not to notice the giant black hole at the center of the screen that grows and changes on a daily basis. It is the result of dropping the laptop while on the phone with AppleCare and I have yet to have it fixed. In fact, I am typing around it to answer this interview.

Write more.

Reload LiveJournal.

Purchase a carrot smoothie.

Drink the smoothie.

Write.

Purchase coffee.

Sip at coffee.

Get phone call from editor/agent/movie person/friend in distress over a scene gone badly. Go outside where there is better reception on cell phone. Get rained on. Realize that I have begun to rave due to the effects of too much coffee.

Ask Kelly what she is doing. Interrupt her diligent work with link from boing boing featuring chicken with two-heads or flamewar about the comma. Often leads to her sharing a link of related kerfuffle.

Write.

Delete half of what I have written in despair. Pack up computer and go home.

Pull into driveway badly in need of repaving. Hear about Theo's Kung Fu class. Let out greyhound. Order Chinese food from Delivery Express.

Read.

Watch terrible television/movie.

Anguish over things left undone/word count.

Hang out with Theo.

Sleep.

Repeat for seven days to get a week's worth.

TRC: MTV Films has plans to make VALIANT into a movie. Will you be working on any aspect of the film? What else can you share with us about this project?

HB: Right now it is still in the beginning stages. They are trying to get directors and screenwriters attached so that they can start working on the script. I want to be as involved as I can be without getting in anyone's way. I haven't worked with these particular producers before so I am trying to get a feel for their style and where my thoughts can be the most useful. Right now, what I am mostly doing is keeping my fingers crossed.

TRC: What are you working on now, and when can readers expect to see it?

HB: I'm currently working on IRONSIDE, which will be out in Spring of 2007. I'm also working on various Spiderwick projects, including ARTHUR SPIDERWICK'S FIELD GUIDE TO THE FANTASTICAL WORLD AROUND YOU, which will be out this Fall (2005) and the first book in the second cycle (there will be three more Spiderwick chapter books), which will be out in Fall 2006. After that, I have a plot for another contemporary fantasy novel that doesn't, at this present time, appear to have faeries in it.

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PAST INTERVIEW

May 11, 2004

Holly Black's debut novel TITHE: A Modern Faerie Tale was originally published in 2002, and has now been re-released by Simon & Schuster in paperback. Holly talks to Teenreads.com contributing writer Carlie Webber about the book's setting, her favorite folktale, her advice to aspiring writers and what readers can expect from her in the future.

TRC: When and how did your interest in faeries begin?

HB: My mother read me Rudyard Kipling's PUCK OF POOK'S HILL when I was a kid and I later read Brian Froud and Alan Lee's FAERIES. Both books introduced me to folkloric faeries, which are a lot more dangerous than the tiny, glittery creatures they've come to be equated with.

TRC: Most faerie tales are set in the past or in faraway lands. Why did you choose Monmouth County, New Jersey as the setting for TITHE?

HB: I have been a fan of the urban fantasy genre, particularly the work of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull and Terri Windling, so I knew I wanted to write fantasy set in the contemporary world. But what drew me to using the Jersey Shore was the juxtaposition of using the industrial, ordinary trailer-park-and-shopping-mall real world as a backdrop for the opulent, organic world of Faerie. I hoped that by doing that I could make the ordinary seem strange and new and the fantastical seem more real.

TRC: Where did the faerie names come from?

HB: Some of them are from folklore and literature (Nicnevin and Skillywidden, for example) and some (like Rath Roiben Rye) I just plain made up.

TRC: What are your favorite traditional folk and faerie tales, and why? Did any of them inspire TITHE?

HB: Probably the folklore I love best, and what was most inspirational in writing TITHE, are the collections of people's accounts of faerie experiences. Evans-Wentz collected many of those in THE FAIRY FAITH IN CELTIC COUNTRIES and MacManus's THE MIDDLE KINGDOM also does a wonderful job of this.

If I had to pick a favorite folktale, I think I would choose the classic faerie changeling story: a mother comes home and finds her plump, adorable, happy baby suddenly thin and sickly. The mother deduces that the baby is not her child at all and goes about using a variety of potential remedies. The most classic one in folklore retellings is brewing eggshells in a pan of boiling water. Often, that is strange enough to make the faerie say something, revealing that the "infant" has the unnatural power of speech. Then, one threatens the changeling with burning or with shoving a hot poker down its throat and it usually flies up the chimney. The "real" baby is found immediately after, asleep, as though nothing had happened.

There are a lot of variations, including the fact that urine was thought to be purifying and might have been thrown on the child. What I love about these stories is the interesting symbolic meanings of the tale and the brutality of it --- it is clear that faeries are something to be wary of and to protect against.

TRC: There are a lot of unanswered questions at the end of TITHE regarding both Kaye's past and her future. Are you planning a sequel?

HB: There will be a sequel to TITHE called IRONSIDE, in the summer of 2006. I'm also working on a book set in the same world, but with a different protagonist, called VALIANT. That will be out in summer 2005.

TRC: In the book's acknowledgments, you thank someone for telling you that TITHE was a YA book. Who did you think was the audience for TITHE before someone told you it was YA? Do you now see yourself as a YA author?

HB: I wrote TITHE thinking of it as a fantasy book with young characters. I didn't consider it to be a YA book until it was most of the way done and a friend --- a children's librarian --- pointed out that it might be. I did a lot of reading in the YA field after that, to decide what I thought, and I finally came to the conclusion that TITHE was a YA book more than it was anything else.

I've written books for teens and I've written books for younger kids and I probably will someday write books for adults, so I don't know if I can call myself a YA author. I think that more than anything, I consider myself a fantasy author, because that is the one constant in all my work.

TRC: You're known for being a collector of rare folklore volumes. Which is your favorite among your collection?

HB: I have a copy of Robert Kirk's THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH OF ELVES, FAUNS & FAIRIES (1893) that was pretty hard to get a hold of.

TRC: What career were you pursuing, if any, before the publication of your first book?

HB: I was in library school, planning on being a Teen Librarian. I'm actually only two classes away from finishing the degree, but right now I don't know if I'll ever be able to squeeze in those classes.

TRC: Did you ever study writing formally?

HB: I did some writing classes in college and writing programs when I was a teenager, so I had some formal training. I wish I had more. I'm quite envious of people who have gone to Clarion and other intensive writing workshops.

TRC: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

HB: Read everything --- the back of shampoo bottles, nonfiction, magazines, mysteries, the newspapers your cheap friends use as wrapping paper, romances, fantasy, science fiction, mainstream literature, old stuff, new stuff, stuff you find in people's bathrooms and abandoned on the floors of trains. Read it all and write as much as you possibly can.

TRC: What are you working on now?

HB: I just finished up the last book in the Spiderwick Chronicles, the series of books for younger readers that I've been doing with my friend, Tony DiTerlizzi. I am currently working on VALIANT. Set in the same world of TITHE, it takes place in and under New York City.

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