{"id":41311,"date":"2014-02-20T09:24:52","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T22:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.booktopia.com.au\/?p=41311"},"modified":"2016-03-01T09:30:52","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T23:30:52","slug":"karen-foxlee-author-of-ophelia-and-the-marvellous-boy-answers-ten-terrifying-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2014\/02\/20\/karen-foxlee-author-of-ophelia-and-the-marvellous-boy-answers-ten-terrifying-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Foxlee, author of Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy, answers Ten Terrifying Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ophelia-and-the-marvellous-boy\"<\/a>The Booktopia Book Guru asks<\/strong><\/p>\n

Karen Foxlee<\/h1>\n

author of Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ten Terrifying Questions<\/h2>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in Mount Isa in far North West Queensland.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mining town a long way from anywhere but an amazing place to grow up. Our playground was the dry Leichhardt River, a few streets away from house, and we spent hours exploring there.\u00a0 Mum would send us off in the morning with a 2 litre bottle of water and tell us not to annoy any snakes. I went to Barkly Highway State School and later Mount Isa State High.<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong>\u00a0What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At twelve I wanted to be a writer, at eighteen a nurse (but secretly still wanted to be a writer) and at thirty, surprise, I wanted to be\u2026 a writer.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That I had to wear black stockings and boots with everything.<\/p>\n

4. What were three works of art \u2013 book or painting or piece of music, etc \u2013 you can now say, had a great effect on you and influenced your own development as a writer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam Ant \u2013 Ant music<\/i>!<\/a> I can remember hearing this as a ten year old girl in our small town in the middle of nowhere, and realising how huge and exciting and unknown the world was to me! It made me feel creative, this song, and it was\u2026. thrilling. Still get goose-bumps when I hear this song. I am transported.<\/p>\n

The Reader\u2019s Digest book Strange Stories, Amazing Facts<\/i>. I know! Not high literature but it had such a huge impact on me as a child.\u00a0 My siblings and I LOVED it.\u00a0 It was so terrifying and interesting and horrifying.\u00a0 Fingernails that grow after death, ghosts, doppelgangers, auras, spirit writing, and my favourite (which scared me senseless) \u2013 spontaneous human combustion!!!! It fuelled much of my early fantasy writing.<\/p>\n

And then, of course, Andersen\u2019s The Snow Queen<\/i><\/a>, read to me by my mum. This fairy-tale planted the seed of a love for quest stories and terrible villains. The Snow Queen<\/em> has been lurking around in my head ever since.<\/p>\n

5. Considering the innumerable artistic avenues open to you, why did you choose to write a novel?
\n\"Karen<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It think because all my life I\u2019ve had stories inside me wanting to be told.\u00a0 I had to teach myself how to write and I still am learning every time I put pen to paper.\u00a0 I can remember as a teenager always feeling like the words \u201ccontrolled\u201d me, not the other way around.\u00a0 I had to learn how to control my prose.\u00a0 I had to learn how to get those stories out of me. Every novel I\u2019ve written I\u2019ve learnt more about writing, about being creative and, most importantly, about myself.<\/p>\n

6. Please tell us about your novel, Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy<\/i><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy is about a little girl who peeks through a keyhole in a vast, crumbling museum and finds a boy being kept prisoner there.\u00a0 Together, the pair of them, have to save the world from the wicked Snow Queen. There are frightening challenges and fearsome creatures and a giant clock ticking down to the end of time. Kids and adults who love quirky, fast-paced, exciting adventure fantasy, will love this story.<\/p>\n

Publishers Blurb:<\/p>\n

Eleven-year-old Ophelia might not be brave, but she certainly is curious. Her family is still reeling from her mother\u2019s death, and in a bid to cheer everyone up, her father has taken a job at an enormous gothic museum in a city where it never stops snowing. Ophelia can\u2019t wait to explore and quickly discovers an impossibility. In a forgotten room, down a dark corridor, she finds a boy, who says he\u2019s been imprisoned for 303 years by an evil Snow Queen who has a clock that is ticking down towards the end of the world. A sensible girl like Ophelia doesn\u2019t quite believe him, but there\u2019s no denying he needs her help. Ghosts, wolves, misery birds, magical swords \u2013 and even fabled Snow Queens \u2013 do their very best to stop Ophelia. She will have to garner all her courage, strength and cleverness if she is to rescue this most Marvellous Boy.<\/em><\/p>\n

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy<\/em><\/a> is about the power of friendship and never, ever giving up.\u00a0 I hope that\u2019s what kids and adults alike take away from it.<\/p>\n

8. Whom do you most admire in the realm of writing and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ophelia<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0I admire too many people to mention. There are so many wonderful Queensland writers right now! Kris Olsson, Melissa Lucashenko, Belinda Jeffrey, Christopher Currie, Chris Somerville, Annah Faulkner, Patrick Holland, Chris Bongers, Krissy Kneen.<\/p>\n

\u00a09.\u00a0Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To not be scared of the creative process and to be brave enough to write what moves me.\u00a0 To keep learning and improving.<\/p>\n

10. What advice do you give aspiring writers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just write.\u00a0 Write and write and write.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry about blogging platforms and marketing and networking and websites.\u00a0 Just write.\u00a0 Love your stories.\u00a0 It\u2019s old-fashioned, I know, but that\u2019s how you become a writer.<\/p>\n

Karen, thank you for playing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ophelia<\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Booktopia Book Guru asks Karen Foxlee author of Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy Ten Terrifying Questions \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013 1.\u00a0To begin with why don\u2019t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled? I was born in Mount Isa in far North West Queensland.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mining town a long way from anywhere but an amazing place to grow up. Our playground was the dry Leichhardt River, a few streets away from house, and we spent hours exploring there.\u00a0 Mum would send us off in the morning with a 2 litre bottle of water and tell us not to annoy any snakes. I went to Barkly Highway State School and later Mount Isa State High. 2.\u00a0What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why? At twelve I wanted to be a writer, at eighteen a nurse (but secretly still wanted to be a writer) and at thirty, surprise, I wanted to be\u2026 a writer. 3.\u00a0What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you do not have now? That I had to wear black stockings and boots with everything. 4. What were three works of art \u2013 book…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2957,4085,5184],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56472,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41311\/revisions\/56472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}