Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
Today, I have a special guest on Jorie Loves A Story – an author who was inspired by Welsh Fairy Tales & Legends has created a truly original story-line where part of the plot is cross-relating to the Welsh tales themselves where readers can find further information regarding the key characters within this debut Young Adult Historical novel which blessedly is a genre-bender – meaning, it’s part Historical Romance, equally fantastical with the Welsh legends and due to how this involves quite a bit of adventure it’s also securely hugged inside traditional Historical Fiction overtures of exploration because this story originates out of a young girl who emigrated to a new country far, far away from her birth country.
The girl in question is the author herself, who re-created a story worthy of her own memories but in a fictional era & century with a character who could tell more about her experience than if she were to write an autobiography. Some of this she reveals in our conversation below – as you will get to follow her inspiration for creating the basis of the series itself whilst seeing how this series will shift forward after she pens the second & third installment.
What is interesting is how she layered it dimensionally – of how the book moves in and out of the real world and into a ‘elsewhere’ place which has a strong connection & realism of it’s own. I love seeking out new authors who are choosing to write wholly original story-lines where genre is blurred & where they bend the will of their pens to the strength of their imaginative eyes! You’ve seen me highlight previous stories which fit within this sphere of thought previously – from ‘Kinship of Clover‘ to ‘To Live Forever‘ and even, the novel by Ms Bastian fits within this realm of focus, too. Of course, so does ‘The Golem & the Jinni‘ of which I am happily awaiting the sequel to publish within the year.
Therefore, if you love reading these kinds of stories yourself, I implore you to grab your favourite cuppa and settle into this riveting conversation!
The Tides Between
She fancied herself part of a timeless chain without beginning or end, linked only by the silver strong words of its tellers.
In the year 1841, on the eve of her departure from London, Bridie’s mother demands she forget her dead father and prepare for a sensible, adult life in Port Phillip. Desperate to save her childhood, fifteen-year-old Bridie is determined to smuggle a notebook filled with her father’s fairytales to the far side of the world.
When Rhys Bevan, a soft-voiced young storyteller and fellow traveller realises Bridie is hiding something, a magical friendship is born. But Rhys has his own secrets and the words written in Bridie’s notebook carry a dark double meaning.
As they inch towards their destination, Rhys’s past returns to haunt him. Bridie grapples with the implications of her dad’s final message. The pair take refuge in fairytales, little expecting the trouble it will cause.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9781925652222
on 20th October, 2017
As you are an immigrant yourself, what made your move to Australia as memorable as it was for your five-year-old self to understand how this would change your life?
Corbett responds: I left the UK at the age of five. I only recall snippets of the departure – my aunt crying, mum being violently air-sick, dad eating all her airline meals rather than let them ‘go to waste,’ the migrant friends my parents naturally gravitated towards in Australia.
Over the years, it came to be represented by breathless three-minute phone calls, birthdays and Christmases without family, an awareness that I had no personal recollection of the people I was supposed to call my own, reading British books – about badgers, and squirrels, and Robins, about rock buns and treacle tarts, and lemonade, and camping on lonely moors and tiptoeing through whispering woods and exploring castles, and Cornish coastlines, and visiting Sadler’s Wells, and watching pantomimes at Christmas. I returned to the UK only once during my childhood.
It was like stepping into the ‘real world’ that I had read about in all those books. I didn’t return again until I was in my forties. As the plane began its descent into Heathrow, I pressed my face to the glass and watched rows and rows of little brown houses with card table lawns come into view. When the airplane wheels hit the runway, I began to cry. Not silently, in loud, painful chest-wrenching sobs. I thought: If I die now it doesn’t matter, I’m home.
I love how you decided to keep your debut novel ‘close to the heart’ of what you knew and of not writing an interpersonal biographical fiction novel but rather, to use your own experience as a gateway into the life of another. What resources did you appreciate the most which helped you research this novel close to home? Did anything surprise you therein?
Corbett responds: I wanted to write an immigration novel due to my own experience. But I didn’t want to write my story. I have a history degree and love reading historical fiction. So, why not an historical novel? However, I had four children living at home when I started writing and no research budget so I figured I’d have to be able to access information through the local library service.
I am a librarian, so I knew where to look. I read books on immigration in general, immigrant biographies, diaries, and letters and then used their used bibliographies to access more resources. The digitization of nineteenth century manuals like, Instructions for surgeon’s superintendent on emigrant vessels, made the task more tactile.
I love using library resources as both a book blogger/reader and as a writer! I am often sharing my library adventures – either through my posts here on my blog and/or in my feeds on Twitter as I hope to inspire others to seek out their libraries more often as it’s quite incredible what you can source through your local library as well as their intranetwork of libraries where ILL’ing takes you to new resources both in consortiums, in-state and out-of-state locations. (ILL’ing is inter-library loan)
As you were new to Welsh heritage and traditions, how did you stumble across the Fairy Tales which not only inspired you as you wrote “The Tides Between” but became a part of the undertone of the plot?
Corbett responds: I knew nothing about Wales, starting out. However, the BBC has a great history site. I read about the evolution of the various forms of literature there. I accessed the folklore of Maire Trevelyan digitally through the National Library of Wales. I ordered a copy of the Mabinogion and a copy of The Welsh Fairy Book online. I also used Welsh fairy tale books in local public libraries.
However, the Welsh stories were not connected to the plot in my early drafts of the novel. I simply used them as a means of forging a connection between Rhys and Bridie. It was only in later drafts, that I realized they had to work harder to earn their place in the story. I therefore endeavoured to make them work on three levels.
1) They had to be a gripping story in their own right
2) They had to reveal something of the characters’ inner journeys
3) They had to act as a metaphor for what was happening on the ship.
Which Welsh fairy tales stood out to you as running parallel to your own story? Which one felt akin to your lead characters and the life they were attempting to live and how did you select to re-highlight this through the juxtaposition of the fairy tales into the background of the plot itself?
Corbett responds: Initially, I used Nennuis’s tenth century story of the red and white prophetic dragons for Rhys’s first story. It was the first story I ever wrote in his voice and it represented the thrill I’d experienced on discovering the ancient tales. Wales has such a wealth of prophetic literature.
As I redrafted, I began to re-work the stories according to the criteria mentioned above. But I kept that first story, even when a manuscript assessment flagged it as not working as hard as the others. I tried so hard to make it work better but finally my writing group had to give me the hard word, Elizabeth, we don’t think this story has a place in your novel.
I was living in Wales at the time (the above was delivered over Skype) and driving past the village of Tre-Taliesin regularly. I’d read the story of Taliesin a number of times. But on driving past the village yet another time, I thought what if I tell it from the point-of-view of Elphin? If you take the time to Google the Taliesin legend, you will notice Rhys’s version is the same but slightly different. I have re-written it to emphasize parts of the story that resonated with Rhys and Bridie’s journeys.
As the fairy tales were innocently viewed by Bridie as a balm in the storm of her life but truly had a second meaning within them – how did you want this to serve as a lesson of how sometimes in life which seem benign could be forewarnings or harbingers of ills not yet met?
Corbett responds: It is no accident that most of the worlds belief systems are based on narrative. Whether we are religious or not, stories lie at the heart of our human experience. Whether novels, films, oral folk tales, news stories, or specifically religious writings, stories that help us make sense of our lives. I didn’t set out to develop that theme. It grew organically out of Rhys and Bridie’s friendship.
However, in it, I can see something of my own journey. For example, when one of my characters says, ‘Painful, it is, when the words that once brought comfort lose their voice. It’s not the stories that are at fault. Or that we were foolish to believe. Only that we must learn to see with different eyes’, I am expressing something of my own, evolving relationship with a group of ancient writings commonly known as the Bible.
Similarly, when another character reflects: ‘There were no easy answers only love and people who were complex.’ I am speaking out of my own growth in understanding – an understanding that life is not black and white, that some of the easy answers I accepted in my youth are no longer satisfying – and that is okay because love and life and even faith are beyond simple understanding.
What do you love about the high seas and the sailing histories of the 19th Century? In regards to the main transportation was by ship and how most of the trade and commerce relied on the tides?
Corbett responds: Ships were an essential part of Australia’s early history, from the indigenous people who first saw the white sails on the horizon, to the convicts who were transported in the first fleet, the wave upon wave of immigrants that followed, the sleek clipper ships racing the wool clip back to London, to the smaller coastal ships that connected outposts of various colonies, and the many ship wrecks that still pepper our coast line. We are an island nation. Even now, you cannot travel to Australia without boarding some kind of ship – albeit most often an air ship. We are a nation of migrants. Our nation owes its life to the high seas!
I admit, I always thought it would be quite extraordinary to sail to Australia! I’ve been intrigued by your country for most of my life – it all started when I was a young girl watching your beloved classic films: “The Man from Snowy River” & “Return to Snowy River”. There was something about those two films which anchoured me to Australia. Moving forward, the Miss Fisher mysteries (tv series) helped me fall in love with Australian film again – but it was also, the Australia Zoo and the conservation efforts therein which kept Australia on my radar. It wasn’t until I started reading the novels of Zana Bell where I start to love Australian fiction set on the high seas.
Yes, I agree – Australia does rely heavily on ships and the trade which comes from it. A lot of areas are as co-dependent on the sea as Australia – from the Northern New England states to the Canadian Maritimes to name a few but also, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
As book titles tend to hold hidden meanings within themselves for readers and writers; as sometimes one interprets the meaning differently than the other – what insight can you give by choosing the words “The Tides Between”?
Corbett responds: Like the stories, the title is meant to work on a number of levels. The characters are between lives, between shores and they are living between decks. Bridie is caught between girlhood and womanhood. The word tides, refers to the sea and, therefore, the lunar calendar which also represents the female menstrual cycle. The phrase Tides Between represents the ebb and flow of human relationships which lie at the heart of the novel.
I like how you wanted to highlight a period of personal growth & how relationships move like the tides throughout our lives; some stay, some linger and others drift away.
How did you find your publisher and what inspired you to go with an Indie Publisher vs a traditional big house?
Corbett responds: As I worked through the re-drafting process, it began to dawn on me that I’d written and unusual novel – an historical coming-of-age novel adult about fairy tales and facing the truth set entirely on a nineteenth century emigrant vessel, which had adult and young adult viewpoint characters yet also included embedded Welsh folk tales and fantasy elements. I can tell you, there aren’t many books like that in the teenage section of the library. In today’s cautious publishing market, I knew it was going to be a difficult manuscript to place.
I did pitch to a few of the larger publishers with no success. However, a friend and writing mentor suggested I visit the Small Press Network (SPN). I worked my way through the SPN member webpages and picked out the suitable presses and began to apply. I got a number of requests for the full manuscript but in the end, I signed with Odyssey Books.
This is partially why I loved the premise of your novel – because it didn’t ‘fit’ in a traditional shelf as I never pay too much attention to the shelves — it’s the stories themselves which interest me and I would think most readers. It doesn’t matter where a library or book shoppe classify a story to be housed as long as the readers who are seeking it out can find out about it and find the heart of what you’ve written. Stories have readers but sometimes readers might overlook or be blind to the stories where are being released. In some ways, this is why I appreciate the journey I took as a book blogger – it opened a lot more doors within literature to explore & feel the joy of what was written.
As you found your wings as a writer within this novel, where do you see yourself moving next? Will you carry forward this time-line in a sequel or duology (where there are two connected novels) or move onto new territory? Either by century or location? What intrigues you right now to write about in other words?
Corbett responds: The Tides Between is meant to be the first book in a trilogy. But it took an age to write and I wasn’t sure anyone would want the manuscript. I reasoned it would not be good for my mental health to be writing a second book while receiving rejection letters for the first (and I had quite a few). While living in Wales, I did some research on Owain Glyn Dŵr, who was the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales. His wife, Marred, ended up in the Tower of London as a consequence of his rebellion against the English crown.
I thought: what would it have been like for that woman? The idea for a novel was born. I’ve only written the first ten thousand words but the premise is already getting media attention in Wales. Meanwhile, I am reading through the mountain of documents I scanned on my last visit to the National Library of Wales. I hope to have a full first draft by the end of 2018, then it will be back to Bridie. Her story is real. I can’t leave her in limbo. But I must warn you, it will not be smooth sailing.
All the best Historical narratives I’ve read are full of drama, heartache & circumstances which either bode well or turn a bit against the will of the character – adversity is everywhere, it touches everyone – whether alive or fictional. It’s part of what makes #HistFic happily full of realism to have a dimensional story rooted around the lead character(s).
What uplifts your spirit the most when you’re not researching or writing?
Corbett responds: To be in Wales speaking Welsh with my Welsh speaking friends. It doesn’t get any better than that.
I hope you get to spend a lot of happy hours surrounded by your Welsh friends who seem to be more like family. Many happy blessings for the Christmastide & New Year!
Published by: Odyssey Books (@OdysseyBooks)
Formats Available: Ebook and Paperback
Converse via: #HistFic + #HistRom & #YALit
I am thankful to Ms Corbett for her expansive behind-the-book disclosures for all of us to better understand how she came to curate the Welsh Fairy Tales into the lifeblood of the novel. Also, it was lovely to get the chance to peer ahead a bit and see how this series will continue to develop & take us forward where her heart & imagination guides it to go next!
This blog tour is courtesy of: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
Similar to blog tours where I feature book reviews, as I choose to highlight an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog. I provide the questions for interviews and topics for the guest posts; wherein I receive the responses back from publicists and authors directly. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them; I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers.
{SOURCES: Cover art of “The Tides Between”, book synopsis, author biography, author photograph of Elizabeth Jane Corbett and the tour badge were all provided by HFVBTs (Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours) and used with permission. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter. Blog graphics created by Jorie via Canva: Conversations with the Bookish and the Comment Box Banner.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2017.
Comments via Twitter:
.@OdysseyBooks | #Interview
feat. @lizziejane #HistFic debut novelistWhat is interesting is how she layered it dimensionally – the book moves in/out of the real world & into a 'elsewhere' place which has a strong connection & realism of it's own. https://t.co/FyKKctGhLE @HFVBT pic.twitter.com/a9Mb7etRDV
— Jorie, the Joyful Tweeter ??♀️ (@joriestory) December 13, 2017
RT @joriestory: .@OdysseyBooks | #Interview
feat. @lizziejane #HistFic debut novelistWhat is interesting is how she layered it dimensionally – the book moves in/out of the real world & into a 'elsewhere' place which has a strong connection & realism of… pic.twitter.com/cUs1IMGWhl
— Mari Christie (@mchristieauthor) December 13, 2017
Author Interview | Ever wonder how to insert Welsh #FairyTales into the back-story arc of your #His… https://t.co/V04aufMEje via @joriestory
— karen mace (@bookkaz) December 13, 2017
What a fantastic interview, thank you Jorie & Elizabeth! https://t.co/tOmdKyOAXt
— Holly Jolly HFVBT (Amy) (@HFVBT) December 13, 2017
Thanks so much for being part of my blog tour and for your amazing interview questions, not to mention the kind things you said about my book. ❤️ Your blog is amazing!
Hallo Ms Corbett!
:) I am so thankful you dropped by today – I loved being a part of your blog tour, especially as it was such a keen topic to discuss – of how to pair fairy tales & folk legends into the backbone of a Historical novel! :) Putting together this interview was a joy of mine and I am thankful you’ve enjoyed seeing how I rounded out our conversation, today! I love getting a bit of insight into the stories I want to be reading; thus, I try to engage with the heart of their messages prior to reading and then share those insights with my readers. Very kind of you to send me feedback on behalf of my blog; I truly love being a book blogger. May you have a blessed holiday season, Ms Corbett!
Mwyneuwch y Wyliau i chi hefyd. (Welsh)
Enjoy the holidays to you too. (English)
*Amended this comment for my readers to know, the author kindly wished me Happy Holidays in Welsh! Isn’t that lovely!? I feel so blessed! I thought this might be the case but I quickly found a Welsh translator online and confirmed! (big grins)
What a fabulous interview, thank you so much Jorie & Elizabeth! And thank you for hosting The Tides Between Blog Tour!
Amy
HF Virtual Book Tours
Thanks for your lovely compliment, Ms Bruno!
I enjoyed putting this post together for Ms Corbett. The layers she stitched inside this Historical YA were quite impressive to explore and I am thankful for her kindness to reveal her process in writing it. I know my readers and those following the tour will be as delighted as I was by seeing the back-story of how she laid down the foundation to merge Welsh Fairy Tales into a convicting Historical narrative.