- Published on
A multi-talented artist with a growing collection of illustrated fantasy novels to her name, Galadriel Coffeen wrote and illustrated the short story The Patchwork Princess in Auteur: Volume One: The Final Word, in addition to painting its cover artwork. Riley G. Boyd has questions for her!
Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background?
I’ve been writing and creating art for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been a voracious reader, which is the most important study for any writer. I’ve taught both academic and creative writing and written a variety of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, some of which I’ve even managed to publish.
How did you first get involved with this project?
Aristide Twain reached out and invited me. I’d never even heard of Auteur at that point, but I loved the concept and was delighted to familiarise myself with the old villain and join the project.
What makes Auteur such an interesting character and playground for a creative to work in?
Two main things set this project apart. First, it’s a rare idea to build an anthology not around a common theme or a central hero, but around a shared villain. That allows an unusual variety of protagonists and story types to share space in a single book. Second, Auteur’s status as a “sub-author” of his own stories allows writers to play around with structures and tropes in unexpected ways. I’ve encountered other works where characters are aware of their status as part of a story, but Auteur’s ambiguity as both a character who breaks the fourth wall from inside and a narrator who breaks the fourth wall from outside is unique as far as I’ve seen.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology?
It’s not the way I usually work, so it’s been a new and interesting experience. I rarely write short stories, and my long fiction tends to be part of even longer ongoing plans for interconnecting plots and series. It’s very different contributing only a small piece to someone else’s long-term plan.
Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work?
Art is ultimately about hope and agency. People write and create and read stories to find a sense of control, release, or joy in even the darkest times. So I like to think a villainous artist would be defined by stealing that agency from others. He claims authorship of someone’s life and robs them of their self-determination; he turns someone into nothing more than the canvas for his art and robs them of their own creativity. I wanted to address those themes by presenting Auteur as a sort of parasite, so that as he takes more control of the story, the main character becomes less central or distinct.
I’ve been writing and creating art for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been a voracious reader, which is the most important study for any writer. I’ve taught both academic and creative writing and written a variety of sci-fi and fantasy fiction, some of which I’ve even managed to publish.
How did you first get involved with this project?
Aristide Twain reached out and invited me. I’d never even heard of Auteur at that point, but I loved the concept and was delighted to familiarise myself with the old villain and join the project.
What makes Auteur such an interesting character and playground for a creative to work in?
Two main things set this project apart. First, it’s a rare idea to build an anthology not around a common theme or a central hero, but around a shared villain. That allows an unusual variety of protagonists and story types to share space in a single book. Second, Auteur’s status as a “sub-author” of his own stories allows writers to play around with structures and tropes in unexpected ways. I’ve encountered other works where characters are aware of their status as part of a story, but Auteur’s ambiguity as both a character who breaks the fourth wall from inside and a narrator who breaks the fourth wall from outside is unique as far as I’ve seen.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology?
It’s not the way I usually work, so it’s been a new and interesting experience. I rarely write short stories, and my long fiction tends to be part of even longer ongoing plans for interconnecting plots and series. It’s very different contributing only a small piece to someone else’s long-term plan.
Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work?
Art is ultimately about hope and agency. People write and create and read stories to find a sense of control, release, or joy in even the darkest times. So I like to think a villainous artist would be defined by stealing that agency from others. He claims authorship of someone’s life and robs them of their self-determination; he turns someone into nothing more than the canvas for his art and robs them of their own creativity. I wanted to address those themes by presenting Auteur as a sort of parasite, so that as he takes more control of the story, the main character becomes less central or distinct.
What can you tell us about your experience creating the cover artwork?
The cover art was an absolute delight to create; I really love painting dark, moody scenes with splashes of bright color or light. Auteur himself was pure fun, though it took a few iterations to get the skull to show a villainous expression without significantly altering the bone structure! The background was more of a challenge, since I mainly paint portraits, and I had a few frustrating moments while working on the repetitive stone patterns for the tower. The clouds were also a bit of a challenge, but way more enjoyable than the tower, and I'm super happy with how the colors and lighting came out in that part of the image. I think the measure of a good cover is that it serves as an eye-catching illustration on its own but doesn't feel quite complete until the text is added. Personally, I think I hit that note with this piece and ended up with an image that looks best with the title incorporated, but I'll leave the final judgement to the readers!
If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it?
I hope I’ve managed to capture the malleable nature of reality in Auteur’s universe. Anything can be rewritten; someone is always watching and editing the details of life; and this leads to both farce and horror. Whimsy isn’t my strong suit, so I focused on the horror aspect, but I hope I’ve also given readers at least a few hints that Auteur is, for all his terrifying abilities, a panto villain at the same time.
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
I’d be interested in contributing more to the project, though I don’t have any specific plans for future Auteur stories. I’ve been working on a gaslamp fantasy series that consists of a trilogy of murder mysteries interspersed with shorter stories focusing on some of the side characters who mainly deal with coming-of-age and social justice issues. Life has gotten in the way of writing a lot the past few years, but I’m hoping to get the next few short stories finished and published this year. You can find information at galadrielcoffeen.com or look up my books on Amazon.
The cover art was an absolute delight to create; I really love painting dark, moody scenes with splashes of bright color or light. Auteur himself was pure fun, though it took a few iterations to get the skull to show a villainous expression without significantly altering the bone structure! The background was more of a challenge, since I mainly paint portraits, and I had a few frustrating moments while working on the repetitive stone patterns for the tower. The clouds were also a bit of a challenge, but way more enjoyable than the tower, and I'm super happy with how the colors and lighting came out in that part of the image. I think the measure of a good cover is that it serves as an eye-catching illustration on its own but doesn't feel quite complete until the text is added. Personally, I think I hit that note with this piece and ended up with an image that looks best with the title incorporated, but I'll leave the final judgement to the readers!
If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it?
I hope I’ve managed to capture the malleable nature of reality in Auteur’s universe. Anything can be rewritten; someone is always watching and editing the details of life; and this leads to both farce and horror. Whimsy isn’t my strong suit, so I focused on the horror aspect, but I hope I’ve also given readers at least a few hints that Auteur is, for all his terrifying abilities, a panto villain at the same time.
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
I’d be interested in contributing more to the project, though I don’t have any specific plans for future Auteur stories. I’ve been working on a gaslamp fantasy series that consists of a trilogy of murder mysteries interspersed with shorter stories focusing on some of the side characters who mainly deal with coming-of-age and social justice issues. Life has gotten in the way of writing a lot the past few years, but I’m hoping to get the next few short stories finished and published this year. You can find information at galadrielcoffeen.com or look up my books on Amazon.
- Published on
Erika De Atayde, creator of Cwej: The Series' very own Fantastic Realm, presided over a collision of two worlds — or perhaps more — in her medium-bending story The Face with a Thousand Heroes in Auteur: Volume 1: The Final Word. Now, the time has come for her to reveal all at Riley G. Boyd's prompting…
Tell us a bit about yourself, your creative background?
My name is Erika and I’m a Brazilian-born citizen of the world. I grew up on a lot of different stories — my first books were Arthurian legends, Les Misérables, and Norse Mythology, followed by a Finn Foster look-alike, a good mix of 80s-to-2000s anime and Western cartoons, and a non-ignorable amount of Brazilian TV shows. But it was around my teens and the 2010s that I really fell in love with stories. Through magical ponies, time-travelling aliens, radical hedgehogs and comic book super-heroes I not only learned that stories can change the world, I learned that I too could do it through them — so I started writing, and I haven’t stopped since.
How did you first get involved with this project?
If I remember correctly, I was talking with Aristide about this character I had made for a different story, and he saw potential in them for Auteur, I brought in a pitch about Auteur giving an ant a bazooka, and we were set!
What makes Auteur an interesting character to work with, in your opinion?
It is easy to believe he is just cosmic evil with a penchant for French and a flair for dramatics — and don’t get me wrong, that’s a really fun aspect of him — but once I realised you could treat them as a secondary writer, mucking up your story in his favour, everything clicked for me. He’s more than a metaphor or stand-in for the author — there is barely any philosophical reason not to see Auteur as being, in a very real sense, the writer of each story he’s in, taking metafiction as equal parts comfort blanket and weapon.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative project?
The idea of putting some new bricks on a road that has been going long before I was here and will continue long after I’m gone.
Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work?
I certainly tried — you can tell me how successful I was! I think once you mix two characters that are so intrinsically connected with stories, you’re bound to dance to a certain metafictional rhythm, aren’t you? Auteur definitely made a compelling case for it, the poor sod.
Are there any other themes you regard as important to your story or to the anthology as a whole?
I think faith is an important one. Who we believe we are, what we believe in, the stories we tell ourselves, and what these beliefs build around and inside of us.
Indeed, Auteur is a kind of theological fantasy, prominently featuring Gods and Archons, nowhere moreso than in your own tale of occultism and rituals. How did you approach these topics?
Most things we made up as a species a long time ago are still built on a foundation of faith. Money, justice, the past, the future, but most importantly stories. An author is just a narrator with more ego, and a story is just a memory half-forgotten, but if we believe, lines on paper become a land, an actor becomes a character, and a promise can be fulfilled. Faith in gods, sure, but also in customs, in culture — all those things are so strongly ours that we forget how alien they could be from the outside. When we believe, we open a door to our mind so new ideas can come in, and something of us can also come out. The important thing is to have faith that in this transaction nothing of our selves is truly lost.
If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it?
Perhaps a series of questions, moreso than answers. As Auteur demonstrates, any clever villain knows they are as strong as they are relevant. If no story is published about them, if no one is talking about them, are they even real? How does this apply to real life and the here-and-now? Are there less obvious villains in heroes’ clothes? And then again, can old-fashioned moral archetypes such as Hero and Villain even be of value in today’s world?
What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story?
Oddly enough, George du Maurier’s Trilby comes to mind — it served to put me in the headspace of the time in which my story’s set. That aside, Homer’s Odyssey, Doyle’s Scandal in Bohemia and The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham are all directly involved in the plot, and there are some less overt touchstones too, like the referential structure of Grant Morrison, the fictional biographies of May Byron and the groundwork of late 20th century American comics.
What were the biggest challenges faced during the course of writing?
As much as I’d like to say it was writer’s block, my country was struck by the worst flood in the history of South America, and I began volunteering on a human shelter between the beginning and end of this story, so most of my creativity and psychic energy were going somewhere else for a good stretch of development. Ironically enough, this probably made it easier to write, because the first couple weeks I was terrified of contributing to something that already had an established fan-base like this. The flood drowned out these worries, thank merciful Minerva.
How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process?
Oh, it was phenomenal. At the beginning I had a good intro and a decent plot, by the middle I had three different intros and a solid narrative, and in the end it was a brilliant story with a clear hook and a satisfying conclusion. I’d say the story was always the same, but the key players shifted quite a lot, until it all settled down as this late-Victorian esoteric nightmare with two sapphic heroines who go through it!
Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future?
Absolutely! I certainly have unfinished business with him, and he himself has unfinished business with a certain realm of fantastical properties…
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
If I got the timeline right there’s one story of mine to come that means quite a lot to me, rather more sci-fi than this one, but also somewhat more human. Don’t know how much I can share here, but it’s the middle chapter of a brilliant epic by the writers of Arcbeatle. I can’t wait to see it all together, and to share this tale of tragedy and redemption with you fine readers.
My name is Erika and I’m a Brazilian-born citizen of the world. I grew up on a lot of different stories — my first books were Arthurian legends, Les Misérables, and Norse Mythology, followed by a Finn Foster look-alike, a good mix of 80s-to-2000s anime and Western cartoons, and a non-ignorable amount of Brazilian TV shows. But it was around my teens and the 2010s that I really fell in love with stories. Through magical ponies, time-travelling aliens, radical hedgehogs and comic book super-heroes I not only learned that stories can change the world, I learned that I too could do it through them — so I started writing, and I haven’t stopped since.
How did you first get involved with this project?
If I remember correctly, I was talking with Aristide about this character I had made for a different story, and he saw potential in them for Auteur, I brought in a pitch about Auteur giving an ant a bazooka, and we were set!
What makes Auteur an interesting character to work with, in your opinion?
It is easy to believe he is just cosmic evil with a penchant for French and a flair for dramatics — and don’t get me wrong, that’s a really fun aspect of him — but once I realised you could treat them as a secondary writer, mucking up your story in his favour, everything clicked for me. He’s more than a metaphor or stand-in for the author — there is barely any philosophical reason not to see Auteur as being, in a very real sense, the writer of each story he’s in, taking metafiction as equal parts comfort blanket and weapon.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative project?
The idea of putting some new bricks on a road that has been going long before I was here and will continue long after I’m gone.
Auteur is a character tied to authorship, art, literacy — did you tie into those themes with your work?
I certainly tried — you can tell me how successful I was! I think once you mix two characters that are so intrinsically connected with stories, you’re bound to dance to a certain metafictional rhythm, aren’t you? Auteur definitely made a compelling case for it, the poor sod.
Are there any other themes you regard as important to your story or to the anthology as a whole?
I think faith is an important one. Who we believe we are, what we believe in, the stories we tell ourselves, and what these beliefs build around and inside of us.
Indeed, Auteur is a kind of theological fantasy, prominently featuring Gods and Archons, nowhere moreso than in your own tale of occultism and rituals. How did you approach these topics?
Most things we made up as a species a long time ago are still built on a foundation of faith. Money, justice, the past, the future, but most importantly stories. An author is just a narrator with more ego, and a story is just a memory half-forgotten, but if we believe, lines on paper become a land, an actor becomes a character, and a promise can be fulfilled. Faith in gods, sure, but also in customs, in culture — all those things are so strongly ours that we forget how alien they could be from the outside. When we believe, we open a door to our mind so new ideas can come in, and something of us can also come out. The important thing is to have faith that in this transaction nothing of our selves is truly lost.
If your story was someone’s first encounter with Auteur, what would you hope they take away from it?
Perhaps a series of questions, moreso than answers. As Auteur demonstrates, any clever villain knows they are as strong as they are relevant. If no story is published about them, if no one is talking about them, are they even real? How does this apply to real life and the here-and-now? Are there less obvious villains in heroes’ clothes? And then again, can old-fashioned moral archetypes such as Hero and Villain even be of value in today’s world?
What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story?
Oddly enough, George du Maurier’s Trilby comes to mind — it served to put me in the headspace of the time in which my story’s set. That aside, Homer’s Odyssey, Doyle’s Scandal in Bohemia and The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham are all directly involved in the plot, and there are some less overt touchstones too, like the referential structure of Grant Morrison, the fictional biographies of May Byron and the groundwork of late 20th century American comics.
What were the biggest challenges faced during the course of writing?
As much as I’d like to say it was writer’s block, my country was struck by the worst flood in the history of South America, and I began volunteering on a human shelter between the beginning and end of this story, so most of my creativity and psychic energy were going somewhere else for a good stretch of development. Ironically enough, this probably made it easier to write, because the first couple weeks I was terrified of contributing to something that already had an established fan-base like this. The flood drowned out these worries, thank merciful Minerva.
How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process?
Oh, it was phenomenal. At the beginning I had a good intro and a decent plot, by the middle I had three different intros and a solid narrative, and in the end it was a brilliant story with a clear hook and a satisfying conclusion. I’d say the story was always the same, but the key players shifted quite a lot, until it all settled down as this late-Victorian esoteric nightmare with two sapphic heroines who go through it!
Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future?
Absolutely! I certainly have unfinished business with him, and he himself has unfinished business with a certain realm of fantastical properties…
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
If I got the timeline right there’s one story of mine to come that means quite a lot to me, rather more sci-fi than this one, but also somewhat more human. Don’t know how much I can share here, but it’s the middle chapter of a brilliant epic by the writers of Arcbeatle. I can’t wait to see it all together, and to share this tale of tragedy and redemption with you fine readers.
Auteur: The Final Word is available now:
- Published on
We end this round of Cwej: Springs Eternal interviews with Sean Dillon. Check out the interview for fascinating reveals, and get to know Sean in the process!
art by Jonne Bartelds
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I've been working as an editor for Arcbeatle Press since Down the Middle. I mostly work as a high school teacher and comics critic, and I have published two books.
What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe?
The first Doctor Who story I ever watched was Daleks in Manhattan. Which should’ve been the end of it, all things considered. But I had a hankering for top 10 lists as a kid and saw one on the 9th Doctor, which made me curious. This being back when Doctor Who was on Hulu and Netflix, it was easy to watch an assortment of episodes, and I fell in love rather quickly.
What is your take on the character of Chris Cwej?
In spite of everything, he tries to do the right thing. He’s not an incompetent fool, but he’s someone who, on some level, knows he’s never seeing Heaven. He wants to live in a world where no one else would do the things he does, but he will forever be damned. There’s a kind of melancholy to him.
What makes your Cwej story unique?
I think it's the smallness of it all. While on the surface, a story about the concept of love being completely removed from the cosmos, the emphasis is on Cwej’s relationship with his past. I also think the exploration of the baddie, who I don’t think I can name, was a lot of fun. Having empathy for someone truly monstrous such that they lament killing only in the millions was fascinating and uncomfortable to enact.
Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations?
Douglas Adams, would be the obvious one. I often go for comedy when doing things like Cwej, highlighting the absurdity of the world. But there’s also a dagger of darkness within, especially the opening scene with the story’s baddie. There’s also a degree of musicality to it, such that the original ending had Cwej sing the Beatles song All You Need Is Love.
Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing?
I was actually assigned this story rather than pitching it. The original writer had to drop out due to things occuring outside of their personal life, and the editors thought I did a good job engaging with the mentality of the antagonist in my other story in the Seasons collection (coming later this year) that I was given the oppertunity to write this one. I went in a bit of a different direction than the original pitch, but that’s how writing often goes.
What’s your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you?
Currently, I’m working on two projects: one is a series of books about the complete history of Star Trek with Lena Mactíre and the other is a long gestating book on media criticism of the early 2000s and the rise of fascism. I can be followed on most social media apps @deathchrist2000.
I've been working as an editor for Arcbeatle Press since Down the Middle. I mostly work as a high school teacher and comics critic, and I have published two books.
What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe?
The first Doctor Who story I ever watched was Daleks in Manhattan. Which should’ve been the end of it, all things considered. But I had a hankering for top 10 lists as a kid and saw one on the 9th Doctor, which made me curious. This being back when Doctor Who was on Hulu and Netflix, it was easy to watch an assortment of episodes, and I fell in love rather quickly.
What is your take on the character of Chris Cwej?
In spite of everything, he tries to do the right thing. He’s not an incompetent fool, but he’s someone who, on some level, knows he’s never seeing Heaven. He wants to live in a world where no one else would do the things he does, but he will forever be damned. There’s a kind of melancholy to him.
What makes your Cwej story unique?
I think it's the smallness of it all. While on the surface, a story about the concept of love being completely removed from the cosmos, the emphasis is on Cwej’s relationship with his past. I also think the exploration of the baddie, who I don’t think I can name, was a lot of fun. Having empathy for someone truly monstrous such that they lament killing only in the millions was fascinating and uncomfortable to enact.
Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations?
Douglas Adams, would be the obvious one. I often go for comedy when doing things like Cwej, highlighting the absurdity of the world. But there’s also a dagger of darkness within, especially the opening scene with the story’s baddie. There’s also a degree of musicality to it, such that the original ending had Cwej sing the Beatles song All You Need Is Love.
Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing?
I was actually assigned this story rather than pitching it. The original writer had to drop out due to things occuring outside of their personal life, and the editors thought I did a good job engaging with the mentality of the antagonist in my other story in the Seasons collection (coming later this year) that I was given the oppertunity to write this one. I went in a bit of a different direction than the original pitch, but that’s how writing often goes.
What’s your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you?
Currently, I’m working on two projects: one is a series of books about the complete history of Star Trek with Lena Mactíre and the other is a long gestating book on media criticism of the early 2000s and the rise of fascism. I can be followed on most social media apps @deathchrist2000.
Cwej: Springs Eternal is available now:
- Published on
The whimsically-named Plum Pudding, creator of the webfiction series Disparate Minds, has lent their pudding talents to When You’re Good To Mama, a haunting entry in Auteur: Volume 1: The Final Word. Here are Plum's answers to some of Riley G. Boyd’s questions.
Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you first get involved with this project?
My creative background before this project was rather trite and uninteresting. Not for me, mind you, the creative process leads you places and you learn from early experiences — but for anyone else, there’s not much to hear about. There were a few fanfictions, a few play scripts. I drew a bunch of comics as a kid, I’ve always been writing. And I’ve done plenty of stuff since, with loads of contributions to various things on the way. But Auteur was my first project — I was saying on some Discord server that I was rather sick of ordinary stories, that if I was in charge I’d be crazy and get weird with it, and Aristide, bless his heart, jumped in my DMs and offered me either a transgender cactus or metafiction skeleton. I took the skeleton.
What makes Auteur such an interesting playground for a creative?
There are options. That sounds simple, but for many characters there aren’t many. Auteur can fit into various moulds; he can be very wacky and meta, he can be immensely tragic and gothic, he can be a devious bastard. You can take him into the area the story needs. And the bonus fun part of an arch-villain such as Auteur is the crafting of a protagonist.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology?
Variety. If my story doesn’t work for you, there will be a story in the book that does. That sounds very basic, but it’s the key to all good anthologies. Through the collaboration, you become something more. It lets you not worry as much, and plus it puts you in contact with lovely people.
If your story was someone’s first encounter with the Auteur series, what would you hope they take away from it?
I hope they have a good time, it was a good time to write. I’m not going to dictate the feelings that I want people to feel and take away from my art, that’s what the art itself is for.
What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story?
When You’re Good to Mama is a classical horror story — or at least as close as Auteur gets to it, it is rather bonkers. It came from my love of abandoned things. Which is rather an artistic love, I think it started with photography classes. I love old places and nature reclaiming them and so I naturally had to pervert that. Put it in the desert, make it rather horrible.
When You’re Good to Mama is also a horror story I wrote before I had read/watched/played many other horror stories — I think I wrote this sucker in like 2020 or 2021, during Lockdown — so before you think the mould is a lot like Resident Evil 7, look, I plead innocence.
One thing I can tell you is that working on this story actually inspired me to create an entire webfiction series, which very, very roughly spun out from this story. And, weirdly, Disparate Minds came out first, but you get it. (I would like to mention that while Disparate Minds came out of this story, and is technically speaking a spinoff of it if you squint, you don’t need either of them to enjoy the other. This piece was designed to stand alone — I don’t like drenching people in continuity.)
How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process?
Aristide is a darling. I’m not paid to say that or anything either. I’m saying that unprompted, he doesn’t have a gun to my head as I write this. He just punches things up a little. I turned in what was basically the final draft in and Aristide just went over some of the rougher bits, showed me how to do that, he’s really taught me a bunch.
Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future?
Time is a circle: I already have. (When You’re Good to Mama isn’t even the first Auteur story I wrote after Aristide invited me over — though that one’s so far down the line that I wonder if it will be released in the next ten years.)
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
My passion project continues to be the aforementioned webfiction series Disparate Minds, a story about a town of empty places and empty people — very liminal and Internet-age, but also it’s about the people as much as the location. You should read it. I’m sorry if I’m annoyingly trying to sell it to you and you don’t care that much, but you really should read it.
That aside, I’ve got a novel going for Auteur — the current draft is called Smaller Gods — that will be out eventually. I have some other things too, but I don’t believe any of them are announced. Well, Smaller Gods hasn’t been announced either, but this is an Auteur press release, may as well drum up interest!
My creative background before this project was rather trite and uninteresting. Not for me, mind you, the creative process leads you places and you learn from early experiences — but for anyone else, there’s not much to hear about. There were a few fanfictions, a few play scripts. I drew a bunch of comics as a kid, I’ve always been writing. And I’ve done plenty of stuff since, with loads of contributions to various things on the way. But Auteur was my first project — I was saying on some Discord server that I was rather sick of ordinary stories, that if I was in charge I’d be crazy and get weird with it, and Aristide, bless his heart, jumped in my DMs and offered me either a transgender cactus or metafiction skeleton. I took the skeleton.
What makes Auteur such an interesting playground for a creative?
There are options. That sounds simple, but for many characters there aren’t many. Auteur can fit into various moulds; he can be very wacky and meta, he can be immensely tragic and gothic, he can be a devious bastard. You can take him into the area the story needs. And the bonus fun part of an arch-villain such as Auteur is the crafting of a protagonist.
What excites you most about being part of such a collaborative anthology?
Variety. If my story doesn’t work for you, there will be a story in the book that does. That sounds very basic, but it’s the key to all good anthologies. Through the collaboration, you become something more. It lets you not worry as much, and plus it puts you in contact with lovely people.
If your story was someone’s first encounter with the Auteur series, what would you hope they take away from it?
I hope they have a good time, it was a good time to write. I’m not going to dictate the feelings that I want people to feel and take away from my art, that’s what the art itself is for.
What were your biggest inspirations in the making of your story?
When You’re Good to Mama is a classical horror story — or at least as close as Auteur gets to it, it is rather bonkers. It came from my love of abandoned things. Which is rather an artistic love, I think it started with photography classes. I love old places and nature reclaiming them and so I naturally had to pervert that. Put it in the desert, make it rather horrible.
When You’re Good to Mama is also a horror story I wrote before I had read/watched/played many other horror stories — I think I wrote this sucker in like 2020 or 2021, during Lockdown — so before you think the mould is a lot like Resident Evil 7, look, I plead innocence.
One thing I can tell you is that working on this story actually inspired me to create an entire webfiction series, which very, very roughly spun out from this story. And, weirdly, Disparate Minds came out first, but you get it. (I would like to mention that while Disparate Minds came out of this story, and is technically speaking a spinoff of it if you squint, you don’t need either of them to enjoy the other. This piece was designed to stand alone — I don’t like drenching people in continuity.)
How would you describe the editing experience; how did your story change and evolve during the process?
Aristide is a darling. I’m not paid to say that or anything either. I’m saying that unprompted, he doesn’t have a gun to my head as I write this. He just punches things up a little. I turned in what was basically the final draft in and Aristide just went over some of the rougher bits, showed me how to do that, he’s really taught me a bunch.
Do you intend to return to Auteur again in the future?
Time is a circle: I already have. (When You’re Good to Mama isn’t even the first Auteur story I wrote after Aristide invited me over — though that one’s so far down the line that I wonder if it will be released in the next ten years.)
What’s your next creative project and where can our readers find you next?
My passion project continues to be the aforementioned webfiction series Disparate Minds, a story about a town of empty places and empty people — very liminal and Internet-age, but also it’s about the people as much as the location. You should read it. I’m sorry if I’m annoyingly trying to sell it to you and you don’t care that much, but you really should read it.
That aside, I’ve got a novel going for Auteur — the current draft is called Smaller Gods — that will be out eventually. I have some other things too, but I don’t believe any of them are announced. Well, Smaller Gods hasn’t been announced either, but this is an Auteur press release, may as well drum up interest!
Auteur: The Final Word is available now:
- Published on
Another interview with Tomoko M. Banks? Yes please! Today, we ask her questions about The First Spring, exclusively in Cwej: Springs Eternal.
art by Jonne Bartelds
Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m a freelance writer based in the south-west of England. I’m particularly interested in the intersection between sci-fi and fantasy, the pulpy and the mythic.
What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe?
In 2003, around Doctor Who’s 40th Anniversary, I watched Genesis of the Daleks, and became instantly fascinated by the worlds and characters of Doctor Who.
What's your take on the character of Chris Cwej?
Chris has really been on quite a journey recently. In Lungbarrow by Loomlight, he regains all his old memories and experiences: this seems to have turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword for him. Yes, he was able to use his memories as the impetus that drove him to save Totality from the Deathless and Lungbarrow, kick-starting reality from the moment of his mentor’s birth. However, through this act, he now seems to have deluded himself into viewing his old friend as a God, and himself as their acolyte. After the hurt and comfort in his rather traumatic reunion with Roz, this new-found frame of reference is almost like a crutch for him, as everything he held true about life is thrown into chaos once more. His more dogmatic tendencies are further reinforced when he encounters his long-lost granddaughter, the goddess of Time, and he isn’t quite able to save her, nor is he able to face up to the terrible hurt his old Superiors have put her through. It seems that, much like the Deathless, poor Chris is on a dark path.
What makes your Cwej story unique?
It was great fun having a chance to explore the cosmic status-quo implied by Cwej: The Series, and how the various core characters react to, and deal with, this wild Totality. I was interested to see a glimpse of the relationship between Chris and his mystical granddaughter. There’s a sense of overlapping dualities—told through a series of inter-cutting conversations, between various pairs/groups of characters. Each character has their own mirror or contrast, Larles and Kwol, the Constable and the Deathless, Chris and Time, the two [redacted]. Equally, the invocation of Anaxia as the Constable’s/Deathless’ daughter creates a slight parallel to Chris and Time, to Vicky and her foremothers, to the [redacted] and her unknown makers. I was also glad to conclude an aspect of the Deathless’ story briefly set up in Loomlight — that being the character of the Constable. Here, his journey acts as an externalisation of the constant tug-of-war between the Deathless’ ego, his yearning for a sense of order / control, and his manic self-sabotaging nature.
Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations?
I think there’s some Paul Cornell, Marc Platt, and David Lynch influences in this story. A little bit of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series too.
Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing?
I had a few health-scares while writing The First Spring (and its sequel that never came to fruition) so the process was a little feverish and dreamlike at times.
What's your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you?
Currently, I’m in the process of writing two pieces, one for Cwej: Seasons Unseen, one for Cwej: Splintered Truths. After that, I have ideas for quite a few different projects across various genres. As of yet, I’m not sure where or when any of these would materialise. But my mind is constantly buzzing with ideas and characters, and so no doubt my further stories will find their home somewhere and some time.
I’m a freelance writer based in the south-west of England. I’m particularly interested in the intersection between sci-fi and fantasy, the pulpy and the mythic.
What was your introduction to the Doctor Who universe?
In 2003, around Doctor Who’s 40th Anniversary, I watched Genesis of the Daleks, and became instantly fascinated by the worlds and characters of Doctor Who.
What's your take on the character of Chris Cwej?
Chris has really been on quite a journey recently. In Lungbarrow by Loomlight, he regains all his old memories and experiences: this seems to have turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword for him. Yes, he was able to use his memories as the impetus that drove him to save Totality from the Deathless and Lungbarrow, kick-starting reality from the moment of his mentor’s birth. However, through this act, he now seems to have deluded himself into viewing his old friend as a God, and himself as their acolyte. After the hurt and comfort in his rather traumatic reunion with Roz, this new-found frame of reference is almost like a crutch for him, as everything he held true about life is thrown into chaos once more. His more dogmatic tendencies are further reinforced when he encounters his long-lost granddaughter, the goddess of Time, and he isn’t quite able to save her, nor is he able to face up to the terrible hurt his old Superiors have put her through. It seems that, much like the Deathless, poor Chris is on a dark path.
What makes your Cwej story unique?
It was great fun having a chance to explore the cosmic status-quo implied by Cwej: The Series, and how the various core characters react to, and deal with, this wild Totality. I was interested to see a glimpse of the relationship between Chris and his mystical granddaughter. There’s a sense of overlapping dualities—told through a series of inter-cutting conversations, between various pairs/groups of characters. Each character has their own mirror or contrast, Larles and Kwol, the Constable and the Deathless, Chris and Time, the two [redacted]. Equally, the invocation of Anaxia as the Constable’s/Deathless’ daughter creates a slight parallel to Chris and Time, to Vicky and her foremothers, to the [redacted] and her unknown makers. I was also glad to conclude an aspect of the Deathless’ story briefly set up in Loomlight — that being the character of the Constable. Here, his journey acts as an externalisation of the constant tug-of-war between the Deathless’ ego, his yearning for a sense of order / control, and his manic self-sabotaging nature.
Would you like to mention any influences or inspirations?
I think there’s some Paul Cornell, Marc Platt, and David Lynch influences in this story. A little bit of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series too.
Did you face any interesting challenges in the course of writing?
I had a few health-scares while writing The First Spring (and its sequel that never came to fruition) so the process was a little feverish and dreamlike at times.
What's your next creative project, and is there anywhere readers can follow you?
Currently, I’m in the process of writing two pieces, one for Cwej: Seasons Unseen, one for Cwej: Splintered Truths. After that, I have ideas for quite a few different projects across various genres. As of yet, I’m not sure where or when any of these would materialise. But my mind is constantly buzzing with ideas and characters, and so no doubt my further stories will find their home somewhere and some time.
Cwej: Springs Eternal is available now: