C. S. Pacat is the USA-Today best-selling author of Dark Rise, the Captive Prince trilogy, and the GLAAD-nominated graphic novels Fence. Born in Australia and educated at the University of Melbourne, C. S. Pacat has since lived in a number of cities, including Tokyo and Perugia, and currently resides and writes in Melbourne.
Today, to celebrate the release of Dark Rise, C. S. Pacat is on the blog to take on our Ten Terrifying Questions! Read on …
C. S. Pacat
1. To begin with, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?
I was born, raised and schooled in Melbourne. My family background is working class Italian but when I was eleven I won a scholarship to one of those leafy suburb private schools where you wear blazers and hats and are surrounded by mansions. It was a period of cultural reprogramming, which left me oddly displaced: I would never truly fit into that world, but I could never really go home again either.
2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?
At twelve and eighteen I wanted to be a writer. But I never allowed this dream to surface, so I told myself that I wanted to do various things like be a scientist or an academic. This was simply a fear to fail. At thirty I was a writer, and wanted to be a better writer.
3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don’t have now?
I thought eighteen was over the hill, too old to succeed in the arts, or to seriously begin to walk any new path. I thought it was all too late. Looking back, I can’t believe how young I was.
4. What are three works of art – this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc – that influenced your development as a writer?
I’ll just choose one: the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett. She is by far my favourite writer. She was writing at a time when historical fiction was not considered literary, and so is quite underrated—she hasn’t been included in the canon, for example. But Lymond was seminal for many of the great writers that followed, and Dunnett’s influence is all over the historical fiction, fantasy, romance and YA genres. I think of her as the Velvet Underground of writers. Not everyone who listened to her, but everyone who did cut their own album.
5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing a young adult novel?
Childhood and young adulthood were the times when books were most alive to me, when I could truly lose myself in reading. I wanted to write a book for my younger self, that invoked the same feelings of being swept away I had when I first read the fantasy classics like Lord of the Rings.
‘Consider ignoring the book you think you should be writing, and instead write the book that you would want to read.’
6. Please tell us about your new novel!
The ancient world of magic is no more. Its heroes are dead, its halls are ruins, and its great battles between Light and Dark are forgotten. Only the Stewards remember. For centuries they have kept vigil, sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns.
Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run in London, pursued by the men who killed his mother. When an old servant urges him to seek out the Stewards, Will is ushered into a secret world, where he must train to fight.
7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?
I want them to never look at villains the same way again.
8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?
Right now its Lil Nas X, though he writes songs not novels. As a young, Black gay artist, I think he’s redefining the boundaries of the possible both for queer expression in art and in the wider community. He’s opening up space for others and he’s doing with irrepressible exuberance.
9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?
First, its to write the kind of queer books that I yearned for as a child, to make high octane escapist fantasy with intense and queer characters.
As for the second … I’m influenced by Alan Moore’s concept of the ideaspace, particularly the notion that certain ideas — in this case fantasy worldbuilding — can come alive somewhat in the way that a virus is alive, moving from host to host, becoming self propagating. For example the Tolkien elf, a sort of Ur elf that moved from Tolkien out to the fantasy of the 1980s and 90s to Dungeons and Dragons to video games like World of Warcraft … Tolkien has died, but we all host this idea of an elf in our minds. My most ambitious goal is to create something iconic and long lasting like that.
10. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers.
Consider ignoring the book you think you should be writing, and instead write the book that you would want to read. The book that you are looking for whenever you walk into a bookshop, the one you never exactly find. You will have some sense of it. That book is your book, the one no one else will write.
Thank you for playing!
—Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat (Allen & Unwin) is out now.
Dark Rise
Dark Rise: Book 1
The ancient world of magic is no more. Its heroes are dead, its halls are ruins, and its great battles between Light and Dark are forgotten. Only the Stewards remember. For centuries they have kept vigil, sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns.
Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run in London, pursued by the men who killed his mother. When an old servant urges him to seek out the Stewards, Will is ushered into a secret world, where he must train to fight...
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