Today I am hosting an interview with E.C. Hibbs about her latest book, The Winter Spirits.
Read on for information about the book and author, the interview, and an excerpt.
Title: The Winter Spirits (The Foxfires Trilogy, #1)
Author: E.C. Hibbs
Pages: 256 (ebook), 337 (paperback)
Blurb:
If you sing to the Spirits, be prepared for their answer...
The
Long Dark has come and the Northlands will not see daylight for two
months. Silence falls with the snow, and Spirits roam the three Worlds.
It is a time of beauty, magic, and danger.
When
the Spirit of the Northern Lights steals his best friend’s soul,
apprentice mage Tuomas is determined to find help. However, his own
fledgling power gets the better of him, and he accidentally rips the
Spirit out of the sky, trapping her in human form. Alongside his feared
icy companion and the mysterious wandering mage Lilja, Tuomas begins a
quest across frozen tundra and into ethereal Spirit realms.
Book Links:
How did you come up with the idea for The Winter Spirits?
I
wanted to create a love letter to winter, to the Arctic, to shamanism;
to everything about the frozen north which has ever fascinated me. I've
always adored the cold and dark. My favourite fairy tale has always been
The Snow Queen, and after I crossed the Arctic Circle for the first
time I knew I had to write my own kind of icy fairy tale. While I was in
Finland, I learned about the legend of a fox which creates the Northern
Lights by sweeping up the snow with its tail. That image stuck with me
and I was determined to do something with it. It left such an impact on
me, The Winter Spirits (and its upcoming sequels) isn't even the first time I adapted it. This time last year, I wrote a short story dealing with the same legend, and it won the Fairytalez.com Award for Best New Winter Fairy Tale.
Did you do any research for
The Winter Spirits?
I
always do a lot of research, not just so I can get my facts straight,
but so I can become comfortable with the subject and have that
confidence trickle into my writing. In the case of The Winter Spirits,
I read a lot about Arctic indigenous groups and shamanism, but a large
portion of my research came from real-life experiences. I'm very lucky
to have spent several winters living in Finland, so I used that time to
really take note of the environment; how it looks and feels and sounds. I
tasted reindeer meat, had my eyelashes freeze in -30C, and watched the
Northern Lights time after time. And I also have several Sami friends
from both Finland and Norway, who kindly shared information with me
about reindeer, mythology and the herding way of life.
Do you have a favourite character in The Winter Spirits?
All
the characters are very layered, but whenever I had to deal with Lilja
or Lumi, my heart always sped up a little. They're strong and weak in
different ways. Lilja is very wise and powerful, but also misunderstood.
Her past is been fraught with darkness and she lives a
solitary existence. Despite that, she's very protective of the few
people she allows to get close. Lumi, on the other hand, is the Spirit
of the Northern Lights. She's usually without a body: formless energy
that exists only in the sky. She's one of the most feared and revered
Spirits of all; her pride gets the better of her if she is disrespected.
When she's trapped in human form, she has to deal not just with being
forced into a physical body, but suddenly being weaker than ever;
dealing with other emotions such as care and love; and, like Lilja,
keeping secrets which she feels are better contained than shared.
What are you most proud of in The Winter Spirits?
It's
actually something which isn't story-related. The main character,
Tuomas is named after my late little brother who was never born. I wrote
The Winter Spirits to coincide with the year he should have
turned 18. And now, in 2020, it's being released into the world the same
year he should have been 21. So
even though it's a story which has been coming for a while, on a
personal level it means a lot to me, because it's a birthday present to a
brother from his sister, twice over.
Do you have any advice for new writers?
Keep
going. Everything about writing has peaks and valleys: motivation, the
writing process itself, finding your readership... But it's important to
dig your heels in and let nothing stop you. Finish whatever you start.
Even if you don't feel it's good enough to be published, the worst thing
you create is better than the best thing you didn't create. Learn from
your mistakes. Listen to your gut and let it shape your voice. Be open
to constructive criticism and allow it to help you improve. There is
never a day when someone wakes up and is magically a master author who
can do no wrong. Like all art, like life itself, nothing is perfect and
we are constantly learning. Be open to that, and you'll find you're
progressing even when it feels like you aren't.
Do you have any works in progress?
I'm
currently in the planning and research stages of a new dark fairy tale,
loosely inspired by The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. It's
early days, so I don't want to give away anything yet. So much can
change at this point!
What's your favourite book?
Excerpt:
Tuomas sat up, and fright froze him to the spot.
The sky
was as clear and dark as it had been before. All traces of green were
gone. But lying by the entrance of his tent was a figure: slender as a
sapling, completely white, clad in fabric which seemed to be made from
starlight itself.
It rolled over and revealed a thin
feminine face. Two large pointed ears, like a fox’s, protruded from long
hair as colourless as the snow.
She looked straight at him. Her irises were the raging hues of the aurora.
Tuomas’s heart thundered. He couldn’t move. He glanced between the drum and the girl, unable to believe his eyes.
She leapt to her feet and flew at him. He recoiled in panic, throwing up his arms to protect himself.
She paused inches from his face, blocked by the circle he had cast. But that invisible barrier, thinner than birch bark, didn’t fill him with any confidence and he trembled like a terrified child.
She paused inches from his face, blocked by the circle he had cast. But that invisible barrier, thinner than birch bark, didn’t fill him with any confidence and he trembled like a terrified child.
What had he done?
“How dare you!” the girl shouted. “Put me back!”
Tuomas
stared at her, too scared to move. She bared her teeth and her eyes
shone red: the same colour as when the Lights had struck Mihka.
“Return me to the sky!” she demanded. “Now!”
Her
ferocity shocked him into action. He hit the drum desperately, striking
out a tuneless beat. But his hands trembled so much, he dropped the
hammer.
The girl snarled. “A fine mage you are trying to be! Put me back!”
“I… I can’t!” Tuomas stammered. “I’m not a mage yet…”
“You brought me down here! You put me back!”
“Please, I can’t!”
She
locked eyes with him. The redness blazed across her face, throwing
strange shadows onto cheekbones which might have been chiselled from
ice. Everything about her spoke of coldness, control, authority. The
longer she glared, the more Tuomas’s fear grew.
“You summon a
Spirit – confine a Spirit – and do not even know what you did?” she
said incredulously. “You should have the power!”
Tuomas frowned. “What? But I told you… I’m still training!”
“But you should know!”
There
was a swooping motion behind her, and Tuomas noticed for the first time
that a bushy white tail had appeared from beneath her skirt. He
regarded her ears again, and realisation gripped him.
Fox fires.
Somehow, he had trapped that very Spirit in human form.
About the Author
E. C. Hibbs is an award-winning author and artist, often found lost in the woods or in her own imagination. She adores nature, fantasy, and anything to do with winter. She also hosts a YouTube channel, discussing writing tips and the real-world origins of fairy tales. She lives with her family in Cheshire, England.
Author Links:
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