The urge to sing is the very core of a banshee, and in Nashville, Keela does the one thing even more forbidden than dalliances with a mortal: she performs. In the spotlight, she discovers a new power to her voice. A power to entrance an audience. A power that others want. The strange Irish girl with the otherworldly voice is the talk of Nashville, but she's not there to be a star, no matter how much a record producer wants to make her one. She wants to find the banshee song buried in a city without banshees.
She's not the only one.
About the Author
Sara M. Harvey is an American costume designer, and an author of fiction and nonfiction, most notably having written multiple articles for the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing Through World History. She is a regular speaker on the subjects of costume design at science-fiction conventions, and has won awards for her plus-sized creations.
Buy The Book
Check out the authors Interview Here
I had lived in Nashville for eight years when I decided I needed to write about it. I had thought about writing about it before, then wanted to write about it, and finally needed to write about it.
In the most unlikely of scenarios, I- a coastal California girl- had fallen hard for this landlocked little big town with its country music honky-tonks and churches on every corner.
So, I already knew there was magic here, because after years and years of being footloose and fancy free, I was overcome by the desire to put down roots here. Well, more like I kept thinking about leaving, but there were these roots keeping me from wandering too far for too long. The next thing I knew I had a house, a husband, and a daughter and I still hadn't written about Nashville.
I had tried, but it just wasn't quite right. I realized I was trying to force magic into this place, instead of listening to the magic that was already here.
The music.
I am not all that musically inclined. I did my fair share of theatre and even opera in my college days, but I never considered music to be my great love. But when I moved here, I saw how it could be more than just a love, it could be an actual and tangible part of the city, of the people in it. And that, indeed, was magic.
My husband and I went back and forth informally workshopping Music City for a couple of years. He was the one who gave me the angle I needed.
I'm a fantasy writer, and I love urban fantasy in specific. So, we needed to populate this place with some kind of supernatural critters. And this ain't no vampire town, the sidewalks all but roll up at 9pm (although that's starting to change!) and I am just not crazy about werewolf lore. My husband turned to me one night and exclaimed, “Banshees!” Because if there is something I'm crazy about, it's fairy lore.
Banshees are Irish fairies who sing when people die. Their voices are usually described as howling and terrible, but there are some accounts that describe them as hauntingly beautiful, if otherworldly. I chose the latter for my heroine, Keela O'Reardon, and set her on an impossible, musical task in a strange (to her) place.
Melding mythology and music and plot wasn't as hard as I was making it out to be, once I just let reality guide me.
Without giving y'all too many spoilers for the book, Nashville didn't need to be made magical after all, the magic was here all along. We have a replica Parthenon with a gilded statue of Athena inside (at 54' 10” tall, she's the largest indoor statue in the western hemisphere). We have a long and sordid occult history with some of the city's most notable luminaries holding seances in their parlors and enough ghost stories to keep several tours in booming business all year long. The history of the birth of country music is stranger than fiction, the account of the four brothers and their amazing, inspirational song is all true, at least according to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and they ought to know, right?
I had to let go and write the book the city wanted me to write.
When I write an urban fantasy, the setting is a major character. My first book, A Year and a Day, is considered my “love letter to New York City.” But when I tried to write a love letter to Nashville, it came out flat. Then I realized, that I was going about it all wrong, I had to wrote a love song.
Nashville's magic is in its music. Not just country music, but ALL music. Because it is all here.
As soon as I let that guide me, there was no stopping me.
Synchronicity has abounded every step of the way, with the Universe always saying YES! KEEP GOING!
The writing was only the first step.
We held a Kickstarter to fund this little project, because I was getting nowhere with large publishers. Another magical and synchronistic thing about Nashville is the non-musical talent collected here. I had a graphic designer/artist, I had an editor, I had a typesetter, I had a printer who made it look like a million bucks. And it turned out I had a street team of supporters and cheerleaders devoted to making this happen. And happen it did.
It has been a work of love from the start, and love sustains this book.
Nashville may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “magical.” But it's a place that thrives on dreams and ambition. It's a place that quietly honors Greek gods while being in the Bible belt. It's a place with music everywhere, and not just the speakers peppered throughout downtown (which are so awesome, btw!), but it's my neighbors having concerts on their front porch on summer nights, it's the guitar strummers in every bar, it's discussing the pros and cons of steel cut oatmeal in the grocery store with someone who just won a Grammy the week previous (and not realizing it until you've gotten home and watched the recaps online), it's hearing your other neighbor's band in a commercial, it's getting to cameo in your other neighbor's band's music video, it's saying “my neighbor’s band” and having to specify which one because there are like five. And all that, it's kinda magical. At least I think so.
At the beginning, I went searching how to make Nashville magical. And in the end, I realized I just had to show what magic it already possessed.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Hateful and Unrelated Comments Will Be Deleted. Anonymous comments are invalid to enter into giveaways.