T. Kingfisher
Author Interview - T. Kingfisher
Author of Snake-Eater
A desperate woman fleeing a controlling relationship finds herself in a desert town haunted by strange spirits.
Author Interview - T. Kingfisher
Author I draw inspiration from:
Oh, Terry Pratchett definitely -- I remember reading SMALL GODS when I was nineteen and yelling at it, "Where were you when I needed you?" like Molly Grue shouting at a unicorn. And Robin Mckinley's works have been a constant companion since I was very young and checked out THE HERO AND THE CROWN from the school library so many times in a row that the librarian suggested gently that other children might also like to read it?
For Snake-Eater, though, my biggest influence was undoubtedly THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling. This is a truly glorious book about desert magic, set just outside of Tuscon, Arizona. I actually spent four formative years of my childhood in Arizona, and the very strange thing here was that when I read it, I realized that I had never read a fantasy novel set in the desert before--not the Sonoran Desert, anyway, which is the one that runs through Arizona. So many things in THE WOOD WIFE were incredibly familiar to me--the smells, the saguaros, the way that shrubs grow not-quite-touching each other into intricate little puzzlebox shapes--and I was suddenly deeply, desperately homesick for the desert. (I was going to college in Minnesota at the time, which is a lovely state in many regards, but not in any way desert-adjacent.)
I started Snake-Eater years ago, while living in North Carolina (also not desert-like) partly out of that sense of homesickness and partly because I still had never seen another fantasy novel set in the Sonoran Desert.
Author Interview - T. Kingfisher | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
I know that I should have an aspirational answer for this about my special reading nook overlooking the garden or something (and I do read in the garden sometimes, when it's not too hot) but honestly, I do a lot of reading in my truck. I go, I get lunch, I drive to a park, I eat and read. It sounds weird, I know, but it's one of the few places where there are absolutely no other demands on my time. I can't check my email, the dog can't demand to be let out, the cat can't start making horking noises that precede eminent barfing, I can't see something that I need to pick up or remember that the dishwasher needs to be emptied. (I am very easily distracted.) The only problem is that occasionally I will look up and realize I've been out for about an hour longer than I planned to be...
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I was...jeez, eight or nine, I think? And I discovered, to my intense horror, that I had read ALL the talking animal books in the library. Even WATERSHIP DOWN, which I loved passionately, and made my grandmother rent the movie from Blockbuster about a hundred times. (I know most people were traumatized by it, but I LOVED it.) In those long-ago days, by which I mean the early Eighties, we did not have the vast number of animal kids books that are around today, like Warriors and Animorphs and so forth. So once I'd gotten through Narnia and Watership Down and the original Bambi by Felix Salton (a deeply bizarre book that does not bear much resemblance to the movie) I was completely out.
There was no help for it, I decided. If I wanted more, I was going to have to write them.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
Hardback and paperback, what I hate is moving them. I have moved a lot in my life, frequently cross-country, and every time the books are the worst. Also, sadly, my vision is going and I swear they're making the font size smaller in print books these days. But a nice hardback is so PRETTY.
Ebooks are most of what I read, because I can make the font enormous. Sadly, I can't really support my local indie bookstore with them. (I buy field guides and art books from said bookstores to try to make up for it.) But they're also a heckuva lot easier to move around, and if I'm going on a long plane trip, I no longer have to wedge three paperbacks into my carry-on.
Audiobooks are great and I love that they're available. Unfortunately due to hearing loss and some auditory processing stuff, I can't listen to them for beans--I tune it out and get distracted and lose the thread--so when I'm driving, I usually listen to the sort of podcast where I can tune it out for ten minutes and it doesn't matter all that much. Which sucks, because I know that my narrators have done fantastic work! I get emails about it! I wish I could appreciate it!
The last book I read:
Elizabeth Bear's THE FOLDED SKY, in the White Space series. Loved it. The White Space series is really good space opera based around "Okay, what if we could change human brains but in an ethical way? Make them more thoughtful and less knee-jerk? What would that fix? What would it not fix?" This one is about an archivist trying to rescue an ancient supercomputer before the star it's orbiting goes nova.
Author Interview - T. Kingfisher | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Computer, always, since those long ago days when I was trying to write the next Watership Down. My brain always moved a lot faster than my fingers. I taught myself to type on an ancient Amiga 500, which had a broken right shift key. To this day, my brain does not acknowledge the existence of the right shift key.
My writing process is honestly very straightforward--I open a Word doc and I start typing. If I get an idea for a scene that happens later in the book (I write out of sequence a lot) I'll just page down to the end and write it. Then when another scene hits, I usually know whether it's before or after the last one, so I write it in wherever it fits. By the end of writing, I'm mostly just writing connective tissue between the scenes that I've plopped into place.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Nanny Ogg, from Terry Pratchett's Witches books. I just like Nanny. She always seems to be having a good time, she lives life to the hilt, and she doesn't care what anyone thinks. I would like to grow up to be her.
Author Interview - T. Kingfisher | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
Botanist, or maybe entomologist. I am already a very amateur naturalist, I'm constantly documenting the plants and animals in my yard using a citizen science program called iNaturalist and another called eBird. Every now and then, I'll find a bug and look it up and discover that we simply don't know anything about it. What does it eat? Dunno. Probably nectar, but we don't know for sure. What do the larvae look like? Dunno, nobody's seen one, or if they have, they didn't know that it was the young of this species. And these aren't weird obscure bugs, these are things that live in my backyard and that I see every day.
On one occasion, I wrote a blog post about a native plant in my yard, and later discovered that I was literally the only detailed reference on the internet about it. On another, I wrote an amusing anecdote about the crawfish that lived in my yard, and journalists called me for years afterwards because I was the top post on Google.
That sort of thing HORRIFIES me. They're right there! Why don't we know anything about them? I feel on some level like there ought to be a grad student assigned to each species, but there aren't enough grad students and not nearly enough money in the sciences. If I weren't an author, I'd want to go out and damn well figure out what those bugs eat and what their babies look like.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
I grew up mostly in the Pacific Northwest during the grunge era. To this day, I live in a black T-shirt, jeans, flannel, and socks with sandals. (The show WHAT NOT TO WEAR gave those of us from the PNW a pass on socks with sandals, as it is the cultural dress of our people, dammit.)
Place I’d most like to travel:
Madagascar. It has so many amazing plants and animals that live nowhere else on earth. Funny story...my (now) mother-in-law, attempting to seal the deal, once told me that it was a family tradition that they paid for the honeymoon. "You send me to Madagascar," I said, "and I'll marry him tomorrow." She went and looked up prices for tickets and came back and said, "No deal." Sigh. I married him anyway, but I still haven't gotten to the land of lemurs...
My signature drink:
Basil mojito. If you have never made a mojito with basil instead of mint, it is LIFE-CHANGING. Try it with the purple basil, too, it's epic.
Favorite artist:
I don't know if I could pick just one favorite artist--there are so many!--but I'm very fond of the work of John Jude Palencar. He did the cover for my novel Nettle & Bone, and it was honestly a life goal. I still use it as my lock screen. The textures are just...mwahh!
And the late James Christiansen did utterly delightful work, sort of whimsical Pre-Raphaelite, that was a huge influence on my artwork in the days when I was an illustrator.
Number one on my bucket list:
I've actually tried most of the things that I was dying to try--I'm not a person who wants to go skydiving or climb Everest. (I did in fact go to Rongbuk Monastery, where you can SEE Everest. I looked at it and thought, "Nope, no desire whatsoever.") But there are so many places I'd like to go...see above about Madagascar...it's hard to narrow it down. The problem is that even when I do get to travel somewhere, usually for a book thing, I come away thinking that I need at least another week or two there.
Okay, simple answer--I'd love to go birdwatching in Costa Rica and visit temples in Bali.
Anything else you'd like to add:
The world is on fire and it's easy to feel helpless and awful. When that happens, honestly, I go out with my phone and the iNaturalist app and start recording plants or bugs or birds or something. It reminds me that nature is still there and some parts of it are incredibly tough, and because that information can be used by scientists trying to work out the range of species and things like that, it makes me feel like I'm helping make the world just a tiny bit better. It's worth trying.
Find more from the author:
I'm on Bluesky at @tkingfisher.com
About T. Kingfisher:
T. Kingfisher
Ursula Vernon, aka T. Kingfisher is the author and illustrator of far more projects than is probably healthy. She has written over fifteen books for children, at least a dozen novels for adults, an epic webcomic called “Digger” and various short stories and other odds and ends.
The daughter of an artist, she spent her youth attempting to rebel, but eventually succumbed to the siren song of paint (although not before getting a degree in anthropology.) Ursula grew up in Oregon and Arizona, went to college at Macalester College in Minnesota, and stayed there for ten years, until she finally learned to drive in deep snow and was obligated to leave the state.
Having moved across the country several times, she eventually settled in Edgewood, New Mexico, where she works full-time as an artist and creator of oddities. She lives with her husband and his chickens.
