Nyxen Interviews Sophie Jordan

Hello everyone! Before we begin let just give a quick shout-out to my brother today, even though we are both in Colorado, because it is his tenth birthday! Five years younger than me. Sort of scary. So, Happy Birthday, Bee. You are never going to read this but I think it should be said. I love you!

Now let's begin.
Sadly, this is our last author interview for the week. We have Sophie Jordan, author of Firelight, on the blog today! Let's get ready for an interview.

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1) Hey Sophie! Thanks for doing this today. In honor of Fairy Tale Week here on Nyxen's Adventure what are your top five favorite fairytales?

SJ: In no particular order:
Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rose Red, Puss n’ Boots, Hansel and Gretel
And there is this really random Chinese fairytale called The Beggar Princess. It just cracks me up. For the wrong reasons. The “beggar princess” ends up happily married to a guy who tried to drown her. Romantic, huh? It just makes me laugh that that is a happily ever after! But parts of the story are really great and I have ideas for reworking it into something more um, upbeat.

2) Which fairytales gave you the most fright when you were younger?

SJ: You know, the beast kind of scared me at the beginning of Beauty and the Beast. He had so much “bark”, if you know what I mean. And he was sooooooo mean to Beauty’s dad. Not to mention Beauty. He didn’t care at all about tearing the father and daughter apart from each other. But then, I guess that’s what made it so powerful when he let her go home.

3) If you could be apart of any fairytale, which would it be and why?

SJ: Well, I did visualize myself as the little mermaid. I loved the idea of being a mermaid and then changing into human. Maybe it’s the whole shape shifting aspect. Clearly that intrigues me.

4) "Firelight," you new YA novel involves dragons, a creature that was a monster in fairytales. Are your dragons different than those and are there similarties between them?

SJ: I guess I never really thought of dragons as monsters. Although I know they’ve been portrayed that way, especially in Sleeping Beauty, one of my favorites. But then that was really the evil witch disguised as a dragon.

In Firelight my “dragons” are called draki. And they’re really what dragons have evolved into. I’ve essentially taken bits and pieces of the dragon mythos that I like and then invented the rest and came up with the draki. Firelight’s protagonist, Jacinda, is one such draki and she’s very unique because she’s the last draki among her kind that can still breathe fire. Makes for some exciting stuff in the book! And the hero is none other than a draki hunter. Yep, got that star-crossed lover thing going on.


5) As a kid, did your parents read you fairytales often?

SJ: I pretty much demanded to be read to every night until I could read on my own. And yes, they were usually fairy tales. Since the fairy tales my dad read to me usually ended happily ever after, it really paved the way for me to become a lifelong dreamer … and that in turn led me to writing.

6) And one last question before you go. Could you tell us about a memory you had when you younger that involved fairytales?

SJ: Hmm, I was the youngest of three children and my older siblings were boys. I just remember acting out a lot of the fairytales that I was read at bedtime with my Barbie dolls. While my brothers were doing boy things, I would spend hours in my room acting out Cinderella with Barbie and Ken.

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And that's a wrap-up! For authors that is. I just want to thank Sophie for stopping by! Don't you love hearing about your favorite authors and their childhood memories? I know I do.

You can catch Sophie Jordan on her website at SophieJordan.net and be sure to go out and buy Firelight in stores September 7th, 2010 or pre-order it here.

Happy Reading!