Interview: Alysa Wishingrad, author of BETWEEN MONSTERS & MARVELS and the VERDIGRIS PAWN

I’m thrilled to share an interview with Alysa Wishingrad, author of the recently-released middle grade fantasy novel Between Monsters and Marvels. Both Monsters and Wishingrad’s previous middle grade novel, The Verdigris Pawn, are wonderfully written, gripping, and smart fantasy novels for kids (and grown-ups of all ages).

Kaela Noel: Between Monsters and Marvels is an epic, fantastical page-turner. It reminds me of a combination of various Charles Dickens novels and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, yet it is also completely its own book. It feels both classic and original. What were your main influences as you wrote, and your intentions?

Alysa Wishingrad: Hi Kaela, I am so excited to chat with you! And thank you for putting me in the same sentence with Pullman and Dickens, that’s a big wow! (Though I revile Dickens's point of view on many matters, I do still appreciate the craft in his writing.) And it’s also unthinkable goals, as both authors are major influences on me. I am so drawn the scope and depth of the worlds they weave (wove), and the complexity of their stories. Yet, the heart is always so universal.

As for my intentions, they were two-fold. First, I set out to tell a good story about a girl who refuses to try to fit in, and to explore how the judgement of others can break us inside.

Secondly, I got very curious about monsters, why they loom so large in our imaginations, what they symbolize, and how they can be used to both distract and manipulate us. Monsters come in all different forms, but whether they’re terrible beasts or people who threaten our way of life, the idea remains the same: something that is not like you is coming for you!

KN: What were your favorite books growing up? What kind of reader were you as a kid? What stuck with you or still seems influential from that time?

AW: I was a big reader as kid, always getting lost in stories. To be honest though, I would have also been happy to watch TV, lots and lots of it, but my parents didn’t like having a TV in the house. So, by default I became a big reader. I loved E.B. White, and still do, and Anne of Green Gables and every other story that transported me to the past. The Borrowers were a huge favorite. I just started re-reading the first book recently. I wanted to see how it compared to my memory, and so far, it absolutely does (not all older books do, as you know).

But then as I got a bit older there weren’t really many books for me out there, so I’d turn to my parent’s bookshelves. I’m not entirely sure what this says about me, but some of my favorite books when I was twelve and thirteen were the Rabbit books by John Updike. Although, if you think about it, a middle-aged man having a mid-life crisis and a thirteen-year-old girl do share an awful lot in terms of questioning life, reality, and the effect of their choices.

If there are any themes that have stuck from those years it’s my love of the possibility of the fantastical, and also these big existential questions about what it means to be a good person, our responsibility to each other, and how (and if) society can ever be equitable.

KN: What was your childhood like? Where did you grow up? How did it influence you as a writer? 

I grew up in NYC, and then we moved to a suburb north of the city. As soon as we moved, I was determined to move back as soon as I could. And I did. I lived there for many years, but now I’m up in the country about 90 minutes north.

I’m the youngest of three girls, and by the time I was ten my sisters were away at school and out of the house, so in many ways I grew up an only child. I was very independent, both my parents worked—latchkey all the way. I spent a lot of time alone—I didn’t live near my friends really, and there weren’t many neighborhood kids. So, my imagination was my best friend. It could also be my worst enemy, especially when it would take off if my parents were late coming home from work. But mostly it was my companion. I lived in my head a lot—not at school but at home, while I did my chores or made myself a snack—I was always pretending to be someone—a grand dame as she sipped her apple juice from a champagne glass. HA!

But I was also raised with a lot of Eastern philosophy influences, so there again is that constant questioning I have about what is real, what is true, and what does it take and mean to reach the fullness of our humanity.

KN: You have an extensive background in film and theater. What influence did that have on your craft as a writer?

AW: I came out of college a playwright and was very fortunate to fall right in with a young theater company that was just starting up then, The Atlantic Theater Company. Fast forward to today, and ATC is one of NY’s preeminent off-Broadway theaters. Anyway, Atlantic has a very specific way of approaching script analysis called Practical Aesthetics. In a very small nutshell, it’s about working from understanding what your character wants in each beat or scene, and what they’re willing to do to get it. Of course, the technique is about so much more, but it’s that central kernel that I work from.

But what’s interesting, is back then I wasn’t ready to do the hard work of writing. I think I was too results oriented. Too invested in: “look what I wrote,” “what do you think?” That’s not a good place to work from—at least not for me. So, I allowed myself to follow a different path for many years. But ... writing was always there on my shoulder, waiting for me to, well, grow-up, and get to work.

That vocabulary of theater and film still informs my work. I always look for the theatrical, those moments when you hold your breath unsure of what’s coming next. And also, I really have to see moments play out in my mind’s eye, to feel the impact in my bones. Only then can I figure out where the lens needs to be focused and why. 

KN: With Between Monsters and Marvels, where did you begin? With a character, setting, a flicker of a plot, or something else?

AW: Gosh, I wish I could remember.

That’s not a great answer, I know, but it’s hard to remember where a story starts because I tend to let them bake for a long time in the back of my head before I even begin to jot down notes.

In the interest of a useful answer, I will tell you how it began with Dare. I knew this girl of mine would be emotionally shut down, defensive, someone who’d go out of her way to push people away before they had the chance to push her. Yet I knew too that she is so full of love, and compassion, and honesty (maybe too much honesty at times). It’s not easy to get along in a world where you do not fit in, nor do you want to.

But how do you write someone like that and still make sure that the reader loves and understands them as well as you do? That was the trick with Dare. And that’s where the idea of writing monsters came from—they are the manifestation of what it feels like when we’re battling with the world.

KN: Dare is a bold, memorable, endearing character. Flawed, yet lovable, and so complex. Did she arrive fully formed as you began to write, or did the process of discovering her take longer?

AW: The core of Dare’s character arrived fairly intact, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have to keep writing to learn more about her, to flesh out the subtleties of her character and her heart. It’s one thing to write someone who is closed off and defensive, to give them snappy insults and witty insights. But that’s never the full flower of one’s character, it’s mining what lies beneath where they truly come to life.

KN: Dare’s care for her pet Beastie is such a sweet and compelling part of the novel. Do you have animals? What are they like?

AW: Dare and Beastie’s bond is so pure and complete, and I have been so lucky to share my life, love, and home with several animals. In fact, it is to all of them that I dedicated this book.

We live with two dogs and a cat-shaped dog now.

Lucy

Lucy (a shepard mix) and Cleo (a basenji, pharaoh hound mix) were rescued from the streets of Alexandria, Egypt when they were very young, and were brought to the states by a flight attendant. And yes, they have Egyptian passports.

Lucy is a cuddle bug, but also afraid of many things. We say of her that she doesn’t like when things happen. Things like rain, or foxes barking outside, or people coming up the driveway.

Cleo with some reading material.

Cleo is very funny, and also very loud! When she gets on a barking jag it can be a bit hard to get her to stop.

And then there’s Mae the cat (don’t tell her I called her that, please). She was found on the side of the road as a tiny baby, and so while she is very happy to curl up in a snuggly corner with you, she also likes to remind you that she decides when to be nice or not.

Mae the cat

It’s possible that one or two of the monsters were named after my friends here.

KN: I loved the setting. Was it based on any particular (real world) places?

AW: I very intentionally set Dare’s story at the turn of the 20th century, a time of tremendous change and innovation. Horse drawn carriages were suddenly sharing the road with those new- fangled automobiles. Gas lighting was slowly being replaced by electrical lights, photography was no longer in its infancy, and entertainment (where and what) was changing too. Information began traveling at much higher speeds, and innovation was everywhere.

But it was also a time of increasing inequity. There were some who were getting incredibly rich, but their wealth was being amassed on the backs of laborers. Unions began to rise in this time too, but this time period really set the blueprint for all too many of the issues we are facing today.

But to answer more specifically, City-on-the-Pike is an amalgamation of several cities from the turn of the 20th century that became hubs of industry like New York and London. But they weren’t the only places that were changed forever by the factories that popped up and began polluting their air, water, and way of life.

Barrow’s Bay was inspired by several islands in the states, although none are protected by trade winds, or have a history of monstrous inhabitants. There’s an island in Ohio called Put-in-Bay that was my starting point but Cumberland and Jekyll islands, both off the coast of Georgia, provided me with the real blueprint both in terms of the inhabitants and the topography. The inhabitants were driven off to make room for massive mansions built by the wealthiest industrialists of the time.

 KN: Thank you so much, Alysa!