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March 2009
Irene Radford: 25 Books and Counting
Ann Wilkes' first book, Awesome Lavratt (2009, Unlimited Publishing) is a tongue-in-cheek space opera with mind control, passion and adventure. Her stories have appeared in online 'zines and print anthologies. She lives in California's wine country with her husband Patrick and their youngest son. She's working on two novels while still cranking out the short funny stories that characterize her writing style. Visit her website for a full bio, her blog and links to online stories.
Author of twenty books and counting, Irene Radford makes her home in Northern Oregon. It was my tremendous pleasure to interview her at a science fiction convention in Portland (OryCon, on November 21, 2008). Irene's love of history and the paranormal pervade her work to the delight of her many readers, including her meticulously researched Merlin's Descendants series, and Guardian series. Her latest books are under pen names, C.F. Bentley and P.R. Frost.
Ann Wilkes: When did you first start writing? Irene Radford: I think I was about five. My brothers said that as soon as I figured out which end of a pencil makes marks was when I started writing my stories. AW: Did you start with fantasy? IR: What we call fantasy today. I was in my mid 30s when I started taking my writing seriously and started adding fantastical elements. I started in the romance community. I thought I was writing romance, but my romances had ghosts in them. AW: What did you do before the writing? IR: I raised children, worked in the insurance industry and taught ballet. Now I teach ballet for exercise one day a week, participate in worship dance and take tap dance. (She said tap is quite an adjustment from ballet because you carry your weight so differently. She's also a certified member of an international lace-making guild.) AW: Do you have any other passions besides writing and fantasy? IR: Dance is really it. I started researching fencing and did it long after the book was written. I wrote a short story that was part of my grief process of giving up dance because of a broken ankle. AW: What writers/books most influenced you? IR: Hemingway, Michner, Ann Stewart, Laura Kinsale (romance), Mary Stuart — especially the Merlin series, T.H. White — Sword in the Stone, Camelot, Marion Zimmer Bradley. AW: Which of your novels is your favorite? IR: They all are for different reasons. AW: Which was the easiest or the most fun to write? IR: Fairy Moon, out next June. I got to see Cirque du Soleil when I was in Vegas and I fell in love with the Valley of Fire outside of Vegas. I knew I wanted to set the book in Vegas. We had private tour guides. It was a blast. I got to actually deal with the natives of the area as opposed to those who deal solely with the tourists. AW: Which character is most like you? IR: There are pieces of me in a great many of my characters but there's no one character that is me. There are characters that I would like to be. In my latest book, Harmony by C.F. Bentley, a lot of it is a coming of age story and when I look at my process of just making the decision to take my writing seriously to the point where I have 20 books in print now...when I look at that journey it's a tremendous growth process. AW: What do you do when you're stuck? IR: I go for a walk. I play free cell. I go to the dance studio. When I'm really bad, my husband surgically removes me from the computer and kidnaps me. We go for day trips around Oregon. We go to the Gorge, Hood River, The Dalles, etc. One time it took 310 miles and $385 in collectible beer steins before I realized that on page 85 my heroine is already manipulating the villain, therefore he could not be the villain. And once I knew that, I fixed it. AW: Do you outline and know the story from beginning to end before you write it? Or do your characters take you on a journey? IR: Both. I do a skeleton of an outline. I usually know the beginning and the end, and sometimes I get there. I've had a couple times when the character made other choices. Guardian of the Vision, Merlin's Descendants #3, was supposed to start on the day Queen Elizabeth I took the throne and end with the Spanish Armada 30 years later. I'd done a similar time span with Guardian of the Balance, Merlin #1. No problem. 906 MS pages later I'd covered 6 of those 30 years and was about to kill off a super major narrator character. The aftermath of that was a quick phone call to Mme Editrix. I ended up writing a new synopsis for Vision so she could write cover copy. Then I wrote another whole new synopsis for a sequel involving the children from Vision. They finally met the Spanish Armada 907 pages later and I got to play with werewolves. AW: What are you working on now? IR: The final revisions for Enigma, which is the sequel to Harmony. AW: What would you tell a fantasy reader who wants to know why he or she should go to a sf convention? IR: Because it's all here. There are books and authors. They can find new books and authors as well as their favorites. There are movie fan clubs, there's costuming, there's gaming and there's music. All in one weekend. AW: What are you going to do next? IR: I'm doing Forest Moon, which is the fourth book by P.R. Frost and it takes place in Portland.
To find out more about Irene Radford, visit her website. To find a sci-fi convention near you, visit Convention Finder. |
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