Meet Seven Jane.
Hi Seven! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us a little about yourself.
Seven Jane is an author of dark fantasy and speculative fiction. Her debut novel, The Isle of Gold, will be published by Black Spot Books in October 2018. She is largely nocturnal, has an affinity for black and white photography, and exists almost exclusively on chai tea and avocados. She lives in New England.
Seven is a member of The Author’s Guild and Women’s Fiction Writing Association.
Social Media Links:
http://www.sevenjane.com
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @sevenjanewrites
The Interview.
If you could pick one scene to change in The Isle of Gold, what would it be?
That is an interesting question! After giving it some thought, I don’t think I could go back and change a scene. They all came out the way they needed to. Now, the one scene in the book that always hurt me was (spoiler alert) when Merrin met her mother. I wanted her mother to be gracious and receive her daughter warmly, but unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards for Merrin or me. There are several characters from IOG that I would have liked to write more about, too, (especially Claudette and Winters) but there’s still plenty of time for that. Maybe in those stories we’ll see a different side of Melusine, too.
If one of your favorite dark fantasy worlds could gift you with something, be it a character or artifact, in real life, what would you want?
It would be the Dark Gift, of course, gifted by Lestat himself! I am a diehard Anne Rice fan, no pun intended. Interview with the Vampire was one of the first books I ever really sunk my teeth into, and Lestat holds a very dear place in my heart. I could very well see maintaining that position forever, which would very possibly be the case were I to be given the Dark Gift. (Apologies for the plethora of puns.)
You are thrown into your world in The Isle of Gold! What do you do first?
The Goodnight Mermaid, of course! There’s rum and ruckus, and it sounds like a lovely place to people watch from some dark corner. I happen to personally love dive bars, and so an 18th century quayside tavern sounds like a wonderful, lively place. (By the way, I don’t think we spent enough time at the tavern in The Isle of Gold. I plan to go back!)
Just reading The Isle of Gold summary drove me off the deep end into a world of fantastic pirates. What inspired you to write a sea-faring adventure?
I have always loved seafaring adventures and pirate folklore, from Treasure Island to Black Sails and everything in-between. While the story itself was quite literally based on a dream, the plot really came into place while I was sailing out in the Caribbean and traipsing around Nassau. It is impossible not to be inspired when you’re in such a wonderful place as that.
Share a pirate-y fact that both intrigued and maybe disgusted you.
One interesting fact of pirate life is that “walking the plank” was not as routine a punishment as we have been led to believe! In fact, there is only one recorded incident of this ever happening. In reality, if your crew (or the crew you sailed with) had a problem with you, disputes were generally settled on land—either by leaving you somewhere you didn’t want to be, or by leaving you there six feet under the sand, if you know what I mean. There were too many other things to contend with on board the ship while at sea, and superstition was rampant—death at sea was bad no matter how it came to be.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers today?
Only that I hope everyone enjoys following allowing with Merrin’s adventure as much as I did writing it!
Raven C. Eckman 