Topic: Character Interviews
1. Can you tell us your name and the title of the book you live in?
The book I live in? That's an interesting way of putting it. I'm Sister Grace, mage of Our Lady of the Miracles of the Faerie Catholic Church, and the book I'm here to talk about is Magic, Mensa and Mayhem: From the Case Files of DragonEye, PI, written by our transcriber, Karina Fabian.
2. Describe to our readers what your role in the book is.
Vern, my partner, likes to call me the "magical tank." In most cases, that is my role. This time, however, I mainly kept an eye on the Magicals from our dimension as they attended a Mensa convention in your Mundane world. Of course, things didn't go quite as easily as we'd hoped, but magically, it wasn't overly taxing. I'm very grateful for that, incidentally, as being so far from the Gap that connects your world to Faerie meant I could not have replenished my magic.
3. How did you convince your author to put you in this book? For example, did you visit a dream or make yourself known some other way?
Karina came to us, actually. She was interested in our cases and asked if she could make them into stories and novels. It's been a fun process. She had a very vivid imagination.
4. Is your author easy to work with or controlling?
Very easy to work with--though she and Vern had to have a discussion about his narrative style. It does give me pause that she's rather open about our lives. She tells more than I'm comfortable with revealing sometimes. However, she does her best not to embellish just for drama's sake. She lets us tell the story.
5. Would you tell us about one of your favorite friends from this book?
That would be Vern, a Faerie dragon working to earn back all his dragon abilities through service to the Church. When I first met him, I thought he was insufferably smug and lazy. (Sometimes, I still do, actually.) It was a difficult time for me; I was recovering from a sickness of the soul. Your doctors called it Post traumatic Stress Disorder; they helped me to be able to function again, but Vern has helped me come back to life. He has a sarcastic sense of humor that makes me laugh more than it probably should. When I am afraid or upset, he's there. He's my protector and my Simon--but he's also the one to make me push out of my comfort zone when the need arises. And heavens! Does it arise often in this business!
6. Do you plan on appearing in another book or are you happy to be where you are?
Karina has already written a second book, Live and Let Fly, that will be coming out by Swimming Kangaroo sometime in late 2009. (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem comes out in February.) In addition, she has several stories coming out in various anthologies: Mother Goose is Dead (DragonMoon) and The Book of Tentacles, (Samsdot). I suspect she'll be writing stories and novels about our adventures for a long time.
7. What would you like our readers to know about you?
That everything I am and everything I do is by the grace of God.
8. Did you learn anything during your adventure in this book?
We learned some very interesting things about Brownies. We call them quantum creatures, but they're really more understandable with string theory--and I'm very good with strings.
9. Can you tell us what you think is the most exciting thing that happened to you in your book?
It depends on what you mean by exciting. I most enjoyed making some new friends, especially Shirley Stark, a fellow harpist and a Mensan. But if you mean action-exciting, I guess that would be the magical "tussle" I got into with Euterpe. No, I won't give you the details. Let's just say she was putting on airs--as usual--during Shirley's Magic in Music panel and I felt it was my duty to humble her a bit...and things got out of hand. No one was hurt, except her pride, which may as well be a living thing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that. As you can see, Euterpe does bring out the worst in me.
10. Is there anything in your story you wish you had not done? Why?
Well, I probably shouldn't have gotten into such a fight with Euterpe.
11. What was your main motivation?
Overall? I just wanted to relax. Attend the convention, listen to the speakers, make a few friends. Neither Vern nor I expected to have to stop an Interdimensional war. Truth to tell, though, Vern did the most of the real work this case. He's very resourceful.
12. Introduce us to your main adversary?
In Magic, Mensa and Mayhem? Personally, I guess that was Euterpe, though she was a minor distraction, really. The main "adversary" in this was an ages-old tradition of the Elvesthat caused the trouble in the first place. That and Mundane colas. You'll have to read the story to find out what I mean by that.
13. Is there anything you would like to have done but your author stopped you?
Oh, no! Karina writes what we tell her.
14. Here's your chance to speak your mind. What do you want to tell everybody?
Go to Church. Learn about our Lord, accept His love and give him the praise and devotion He deserves.
15. Please tell everyone where they can find out more about your story and where they can purchase it.
You can learn more about Vern, me and the DragonEye, PI world at our website, http://www.dragoneyepi.net/. We encourage you to sign up on the website and participate in the forums. Our books are listed on the right column. In the meantime, you can find out more about Firestorm of Dragons, which has one of Vern's earlier cases, at http://www.firestormofdragons.com/. "Magic, Mensa and Mayhem" comes out in February 2009 from Swimming Kangaroo.
