INTERVIEW WITH CANDACE J. THOMAS
The one where I interview author and poet Candace J. Thomas.
I’m back here for the new year. Not only am I back but I am back with an author interview right out of the gate. Like I said in my year update, lots of authors will be joining this space in just the first half of the year.
Joining me for this time is unique author Candace J. Thomas, poet, author of many kinds of books.
Candace J. Thomas is an award-winning author of multiple genres, including Young Adult Fantasy and Contemporary Fantasy Romantic Comedy. Her debut novel Vivatera won the LUW Diamond Award for Novel of the Year, as well as its capstone, Everstar, won the Silver Quill. She strives to live in poetry and publishes her Sunday poems on Medium. She blogs both on writing and book reviews.
Here it is! Enjoy!
Let me just start with my first question. This comes from my son. Do you know about Candace Against the Universe?
No. I didn’t know about it. Is that Phineas and Ferb?
Yeah it is.
I was unaware of it but I am aware of Phineas and Ferb for sure. I’m going to have write that one down. Because I do love that show.
It’s great. I attended a panel at FANX a few years ago about the genius writing of Phineas and Ferb and it was great.
I believe it absolutely. It’s fun.
Ok. My first actual question is did you always want to be a writer? Was it a lifelong dream of yours or is it something you just stumbled into?
Well, I’ve always been creative. So I did want to be a writer when I was younger. But I didn’t think it was an achievable possibility. So I didn’t know I was dyslexic until I was seventeen. When you have that kind of disability, you really don't think very much of of making words your life. I wanted to write stories. I was always really creative, but the mechanism of actually coming out with with writing was not easy for me.
It's funny that I've written books because I had to find a way in order for my brain rearrange my brain and be able to do that kind of stuff. When you are dyslexic, you often think that you're not very smart and so it took - - I won't say a team of people - - but some really loving encouragement in order for me to to keep going. That’s the best way I can say it.
Now I’ve always been writing but how I became published was kind of an accident. I had a story that I thought was good. But I didn't know exactly if it was good. I did submit it to a bunch of different agents who weren't really interested. But when I realized I was approaching the wrong audience with that. I went straight to a fantasy publisher who was looking at unsolicited stuff and they loved it. They saw the potential. They snatched it up. That changed my life and that came out in 2013.
It really gave me a lot of confidence that I could do this for a career. I’m so glad I took that chance.
Vivatera was a great book. It was really fast paced, awesome world building and great characters.
Thank you.
Before we get into that book, who would you say your primary writing inspirations are?
I have to give a nod to J.K. Rowling for Harry Potter. I think that just changed the writing industry altogether. It gave us an audience. I don’t think there was really a young adult genre before Harry Potter. I think that it just broke something within the book world and it gave a voice for these people who didn’t have a voice.
You also can see a big author boom right after that, because of all the inspiration that came from that writing in that world. [It also opened up the] possibility of not only engaging with young readers, but also adult readers. And that’s really what I wanted to do. I think it just spurred a lot of imagination.
I grew up loving A.A. Milne, who wrote all of the Winnie the Pooh stuff. But it was really his poetry more than anything else. He has a couple of books of poetry that are really gentle and fun. I really I fell in love with those really quickly when I was younger, because they're very easy. It’s the simplicity of the of the poetry that is so engaging.
Now you've written some very diverse works. You’ve written this YA fantasy series and you’ve written a romcom book. But you also wrote a vampire satire novel which I found delightful. So how would you define yourself as an author?
I like to write whatever inspires me. I never imagined myself being out into a box and saying “I’m a romance author” or “I’m a fantasy author” because I don’t fit that. And you can tell from my different writing styles.
I love doing fantasy and the world building. But when I do something like comedy, it’s completely different. Or when I engage with poetry, that’s a completely different writing style.
Maybe it’s me testing me but I write what I call fate-driven. It’s something that had the possibility of whatever it is. That’s something that I seek in my writing or even when I’m reading books. I want something that’s going to make me feel good and make me feel that I can do things and dream bigger. I always do write something with a fantastical element. And I know I’m still getting the same kind of readership. Which is to say “If you like this, you’ll probably like this because it has the same kind of spirit to it.”
So if you feel like the story needs to be told, you tell it. You don’t want to be pigeonholed into any one genre or anything,
Right. The inspiration that I got from my vampire book is a completely different inspiration that I got from my other book.
So when I wrote Everstar, which is the third book in my series, it was really difficult. I was under pressure from my publisher, and the creativity wasn't coming. Because with the third book I was trying to tie together all of these things. I also had to think of my audience because I now had a fan base that wanted certain things. I didn't want to disappoint them. And third books can be disappointing. So it was really hard for me to write.
So Vampire-ish was my escape novel that I wrote pretty much at the same time, because I needed some kind of joy. I needed something funny to keep my brain active. So that my brain was actively creating. So I could get through one project to get through another project.
Writing is series is hard. So I'm really grateful that I had that expression to make me a little bit more joyful.
So you're an author who delves into some poetry and some prose writing. Is there a form that you find yourself gravitating towards? Or do you just like to mix and match?
That is a good question. When poetry comes to me, it’s a very free form. Those are the ideas or the seeds that I want to structure in. But then I love form. I love testing myself in different ways in trying to create a specific kind of sonnet or following a specific measure.
I just recently wrote a villanelle and I think those are the hardest poems ever to write. Because I have to order and have it displayed where there is an idea with every single stanza. So then the poem is fluid and liquid like that. That’s how I go with form but then see if this idea gravitates into something else that has a different kind of form.
It’s good to test yourself. See where you are. I think it’s good to work within form with a specific structure because it changes the creativity and the way you look at it. It also makes you an editor with what is good and what is not.
I don’t really rhyme either but I love it when I can do and can rhyme.
You mentioned in your chap-book, Wandering Beautiful, that you don’t really like to and when you found out you didn’t have to, that was very freeing. I totally agree because rhyming was something I struggled with in poetry initially. Then when I realized, not all poetry had to, I realized I could be a poet.
Right?! Well, I had a journal when I was in ninth grade. Because you have all of these emotions that you go through at that time. I was writing out my feelings and I didn’t realize that was poetry that was writing. It wasn’t until I took a poetry class and saw all the different kinds of poems and how you can structure. I was like “Oh my goodness! I never knew that I was poet!”
I do want to talk about your Vivatera series. So how did the idea for this series come about?
Strange. It was one of those four o’clock in the morning ideas. My brain worked out something and woke me up and I got really excited with the idea. I wrote out everything by six o’clock. I had a map too.
It’s funny when you get these ideas and all it has to do with a question. My brain - - my sleeping brain, that is - - likes to fix problems. The seed of it came from a question that my mother asked. We were talking about tattoos and what would you have for a tattoo. It was just a funny conversation I had with my mother.
But then I thought of the question “What if you had a mark?” It was a tattoo but you didn’t like it or you didn’t know what it was. It was like a brand that you hid. And why would you hide it. And so those are the questions that were kind of going through my head when I fell asleep. And that’s when my brain got really excited and had to wake me up and say “Hey! I’ve got a great idea!”
I really thought that it was going to be a standalone. I didn't think that I would write so much in this world, but I fell in love with the characters. I really wanted them to succeed, so I felt it was unfair for me to not finish their story. I’m glad I wrote the whole thing.
Vivatera and the other books in this series has a very hard magic system, which is kind of atypical for YA Fantasy. Usually, the YA Fantasy genre has a very light magic system because of the audience. So what made you decide to go with a harder magic system as opposed to what's typical for the genre?
I have a scientific background, and part of that has to do with radiation. So a lot of my magic system comes from organic material in relation to radiation. That's really where my magic system comes from. There's a lot of organic nature to it, and the more the stronger you're exposed to the magic, the stronger your magic is. I also liked the idea of having to befriend the magic in order for it to work for you, as if it had its own spirit and soul.
I just thought that was a really a great touch to be able to communicate to it. So that's the seeds of my magic system. I didn't really think that it was unusual until people started talking about it and mentioned it to me, because I've read other magic systems in other fantasy. Their magic systems are very specific and has a beautiful diagram and mine doesn’t. Mine is very subtle and very peaceful but yet very can be very destructive depending on the strength that you've gotten. I just liked the idea of that.
You recently re-released all of the Vivatera books and one big omnibus called the Stones of Everstar. I really liked the layout of this omnibus.
Because I did start just reading the first book initially. But then, when I found out all three were in the same set and I just got that instead.
I also loved how you inserted poetry into it and how it just stood out from the rest of the story.
What made you decide to want to release all these books together and to basically re-layout the whole the whole series again?
I just felt that it was time. Maybe that was it. My series is complete. It is in preparation for another book that's coming out in the series. So I wanted to give the opportunity to for readers to have a completed series.
It was also really exciting that I could incorporate some other things that from the series that never got a chance to be in the books.
So that was fun to just reevaluate the story itself, and see where I could add some of those original ideas back in to the series. It was a fun project. So I'm writing a companion novel. It was a fun project. And yeah, I have a. So I'm writing a companion novel.
It's called Brown Eyes, and it's after one of the characters, and it's everyone's favorite villain in the series, I think. She has a story to tell as well. And so that should be coming out later on this year. So it was kind of a pre-preparation of that.
I really liked how much poetry was in this book. That’s another thing that you don’t see in modern fantasy nowadays. It’s all over Tolkien’s stuff but today not so much. What made you decide to insert poetry into a fantasy story?
Firs, poetry is a lot of my writing exercises. That’s how I engage my brain into getting creative. But when I’m worldbuilding, I think about the mythology very first. And when I think of mythology, I think of poetry honestly.
A lot of the mythology was written in poem, and prose form. There are a couple in Everstar that is a nursery rhyme or an engaging song that is written out to kind of tell a story about the different sisters in the world.
I wanted to make sure that that element of my creativity in creating the world was present in the stories because I felt that it was so important when I was building the world. It needed a voice as well. These engaging stories or the mythology that I had written,
I love lyrics. I love song. That's another life that I wish I had. That of a songwriter. But I enjoy creating a story within lyrics and within poetry.
I think you can create a different kind of emotion in poetry. It's a different feel to the fantasy when you get to lyrical prose and it engages those emotions within you. You can see and visualize a different side of that story.
I love doing that in any of the work that I do. I try to bring in a lot of the poetry that I write. You can also find that lyrical engagement that I do with my writing because I write, well I used to say it was flowery, but I write poetically in nature. It gives that emotional bond with readers. If you write a really good sentence that evokes emotion, you’ve got the reader forever.
I definitely felt that in certain aspects of not just the poetry itself but the prose as well. There was a lot of alliteration in the prose. Because I’m a sucker for alliteration and I use it in all of my poetry. And finding out there are haikus in the book was lovely.
I also loved every time Naomi would have a dream of something, it would be in poetic form. I loved how that was done. Because a lot of times as a writer I feel torn in two because I like fantasy AND Poetry. To see a book that actually had both made me realize I didn’t have to be any one thing. It was really inspiring to me.
Oh, good. I’m so glad. Writing dreams it tricky because it just is. I like to write dreams. I like thinking that dreams connect to something else. I always have. It’s giving you instructions or whatever so I liked connecting Naomi to dreams as part of her magic.
And I’ve noticed dreams are kind of a theme in your writing. The book To Dream in Daylight, which is about people who get together in a dream but they’re not together in real life. I haven’t read the book but it sounds like an interesting concept.
Yeah. And it’s another fate driven story. If you’ve seen the movie Serendipity or Sleepless in Seattle, there are these cosmic forces that bring people together. That is how that book kind of evolved. These two people that dream together but don’t know each other exist until something happens. A viral video basically exposes a very sensitive issue with the girl character. But the guy character finds like that his dream girl is real., The adventure starts because how do you find somebody who you only ever thought was just in your imagination? It’s really fun. I do like playing along with the dream concept.
Obviously, dreams are a personal stamp that you've put in your books. What other kind of personal stamps have you put in your books?
The other thing is I don't want people to waste their time. I want them to feel good after reading my books. I don't like literary fiction because it often makes me feel awful inside. I understand that it seems important and that I should feel a certain way. But I don’t like how it makes me feel.
I want something that’s uplifting and that’s what I write all the time. You will also probably always find elements of romance in my books. I don’t call myself a romance author but it is one of driving forces within my stories.
I like to engage with that because I find that love itself is very complicated. But it is something that most people endeavor to find. If you add some kind of relationship, people are going to engage with that, and if it makes me feel good, that I like. I like doing those hopeful kind of endings.
That's what made doing the ending of Everstar so tricky because I had created a problem that I had to solve, and but I didn't want to let down my audience. I didn't want to destroy their hopes and dreams, so I had to really recreate what I wanted to do for that book in order to incorporate my audience as well.
Hope is kind of the whole point. Given your scientific background and work at the blood bank, what kind of research do you do for your books?
It takes me in different ways, in different directions. I feel you always need to do research but I don't think that should hold you back on your writing, as well. So if something inspires me, I just start to write but when I have to, I do do a lot of research.
For example, for Vampire-ish, I ad to know about cryptid zoology, which is vampiric plants and animals. It was really weird to have to Google that.
But with fantasy, I had to figure out a lot of the little things like how a government worked or geology of the landscape. Cultures, in general. How one culture will evolve with this technology and the other will evolve with this.
So that tick it just it takes a lot of it takes you down a lot of different paths of what to get for a complete story.
A map is really good too. I had to figure out the New York Metro-Train Subway system in order to get my characters from here to there.
So you currently host a podcast called Squirrel! Podcast for the Distracted Writer. How did that podcast come about?
Honestly, it was my friend who had a studio in his basement and needed to test it out. That’s where that came from. But it wasn’t an overnight decision to come up with a podcast. I always wanted to do something like this.
When you become an author, and especially with me, I’m trying to inspire people. I’m trying to find different ways to do it. How can I reach people? I’ve taught around [Utah] and I have a really great founding in this great community. But I want to go further. I want to branch out further. And so when I talked to [podcast co-host Jodi Milner, we wanted to approach the podcast by specifically talking about what you as a neurodivergent person have to deal with in being creative.
Also, with that, finding how you can be creative and knowing that you’re not alone in the struggles of creating. I realized that through teaching a lot, that I’m not alone when it comes to being dyslexic and being creative. Because there are a lot of creative people who are dyslexic need to express it in a different way. You'll find a lot of artists or a lot of writers. There are a lot of people who have that kind of brain who want to be creative but need to express it in a different way.
Jodi herself has ADHD but also might be on the [autism] spectrum. She has a very interesting way of communicating and telling her story, and it's completely opposite from me. So I think that it gets a really good flavor of both of our personality.
When you have ADHD, your brain can only take so much. A lot of the podcasts that are out there, or that I listen to are like over an hour and I don't have the time to do that. So we wanted to make just little chunks of what we're gonna focus on so that you can feel productive. And then you can move on because we know that your attention span is not going to last.
It has just become so much fun, and it's a great way to expand our audience getting that inspiration out to other people, making sure that they understand that they can do this as well.
It’s definitely inspiring to me because I am a neurodivergent writer. I have ADHD and a lot of the writing podcasts I listen to and YouTube videos I watch just tell me to “write write write write” every day. So, I appreciate the work you guys do.
I’m so glad.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers who are looking to do what you do and get into writing?
I think there are a couple things that I just want people to know. From where I came from to where I am now, people would never believe that I was like this shy awkward kid who had only a seed of creativity. I think that if you want to do it there's nothing stopping you. You can absolutely do it.
But the other thing I want to say in terms of advice is one of the mistakes that we make as young writers is week keep going over the same stuff. We like what we write, and it's cool to reread what you've written. But people get stuck in this loop of recreating the same 5 chapters, and don't move on.
And one of the things that I've learned from writing books is that you will always need to rewrite everything. But it's not until you understand the ending of the book will you actually know where to go and fix it.
I often will come up with things while I'm writing thinking, “Oh, that needs to happen back there.” So I’ll go and make a mental note. So when I'm going back through the manuscript, I can then realize this is exactly what I wanted to do.
But it took me so long to write that first book because I just kept on writing and rewriting those first sections over and over again. I didn’t even realize that I'd have to go back and rewrite it a few times.
That's the best advice I can give. Just keep going. I know it's hard to to not go back but you keep moving forward until you know the ending of your story.
My last question for you is . . . What are you working on now?
Brown Eyes is the companion story of the titular character, Brown Eyes, in the Vivatera series. It happens the same time as the Vivatera series. It's been quite a project in incorporating everything that happens within that timeframe, with also the history that her and Reynolds - - Naomi’s mentor - - have.
So that has been a lot of fun, and I've working on another fate driven romance because I love writing them. It’s been so much fun, and that one doesn't really have the title yet. It’s just called The New York Project. My romantic comedy readers want something else like that so I need to make them happy, as well.
Is there anything else you’d like to say before we close out today?
I just wanna say, Thank you, Tim, for being so encouraging to authors. I know that you've reached out to a lot of different authors, and you follow them and their work and how they’re inspiring to you.
So I'm really grateful that you reached out to me. Thank you for following me, and reading my stuff and getting the word out there.