Author Interview: Laini Taylor & Giveaway!

Posted In: Author Interview, Giveaway

Laini Taylor

Books:

• Blackbringer
• Dreamdark
• Lips Touch: Three Times
• Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Website | Twitter | Book Site

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”; she speaks many languages–not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers–beautiful, haunted Akiva–fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

I would say that visual art is the extension, and writing is primary. I’ve always always always been a writer. As a little kid, I sat on the porch writing stories. I always made art too, but it wasn’t the same thing at all. Inwardly, my entire life, I have identified myself as a writer—even when I wasn’t writing. During a time in my life when I couldn’t seem to find my voice or subject matter (those infernal “who am I?” post-college years!), art kind of stepped in and took over. I went to art school and became an illustrator for a while. And though I do sometimes wonder what books I may have written by now if I had begun sooner, I am 99% grateful for those years for what they taught me about creativity in general, and how to get out of my head and make it happen. Also, bonus: I met my husband in art school!

Did you consciously make Karou an artist, or did she come to you that way?

That evolved in the early days of figuring out the story. Karou and Brimstone first appeared to me in a freewriting exercise—I gave myself a day to write anything, just for fun, and it turned out to be them. It was the best writing day of my life, the most pure and exhilarating fun: I knew I had to continue.

The building blocks I began with after that freewrite were the two characters: a human girl and her monster father-figure. Karou already had the blue hair and tattoos; Brimstone already had a wishbone around his neck and I wondered, “Huh, what’s that about?” Also, he collected teeth, and she had to help him with it. Again, I wondered why, and how this girl came to be raised by monsters in the first place.

From there, I started putting pieces in place. The artist element wasn’t immediate, but at some point fairly early on I decided that Karou would be an art student in Prague, and the atmosphere that created added so much fun for me. So much of creating Karou’s life was wish fulfillment, and that definitely was.

You’re having a dinner party for your closest friends and most admired collegues. What do you serve and what does your tablescape include?

Hmmm. Interesting question … Fun, fun. *strums lips, ponders*

How about Poison Kitchen theme? A few gas masks on the table for ambience, a coffin for a sideboard. Tea served in an antique silver tea service, the cream and sugar engraved “arsenic” and “strychnine,” and there would be a lot of tall pedestal bowls and cake stands with long delicate stems. Canapes and petite fours would wait under glass domes. A couple of human skulls (maybe monks, maybe not). Bowls of dusky plums, ripe figs, mangoes. And goulash for the main course, of course, probably not poisoned. A silver wishbone somewhere in the pot, and whoever ends up with it makes a wish! Or chokes, but hopefully the wish!

Dessert would be very rich and very chocolate. Though creme brulee with a handprint scorched on top would be ridiculously fun!

What is your favorite place in the world that you’ve visited? And where do want to visit the most but haven’t had the chance?

Prague is up there, certainly. The Amalfi Coast in Italy, maybe? It’s very difficult to say!
I would very much like to go to India, and the Andaman Islands. And to Borneo to see orangutans in the wild. Jim and I have talked about how lovely it would be to rent a little apartment in some completely awesome city for a few months and live and work there. London and Venice have come up. Paris, sure, okay ☺. Also, lately I’m thinking about Barcelona where I stopped very briefly when I was seventeen.

Travel magazines are one of my addictions. Lonely Planet is the best one by far, but you have to get it shipped from the UK. I pore over them and dream.

What do you hope readers will gain when they visit a world created by you?

I don’t know what they will gain. I am hoping they will lose something: an afternoon, or a night’s sleep, out of not begin able to stop reading. That is the most gratifying thing to hear, always, that a reader has been entirely sucked into and engrossed in my book.

• to enter, please fill out the form below
• entrants must be 13 years of age or older
• contest deadline is October 7, 2011
• contest open to US*
• ONE ENTRY PER PERSON!
• check out my Contest Policy/Privacy Policy

*Thanks Little Brown for providing the prize!

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