Issue 3: Interview with Sarina Dorie
“Have you ever read the Sith Code? It’s so romantic. That first line, ‘Peace is a lie, there is only passion,’ fits exactly how I feel when I’m consumed by desire.”
~ Confessions of Darth Vader’s Wannabe Girlfriend by Sarina Dorie
Your short story "Confessions of Darth Vader's Wannabe Girlfriend" explores our fascination with villains, and particularly fanfaction as a site of sexual fantasy. Can you tell us what sparked the inspiration for this piece?
I have always loved Star Wars and Star Trek. But I also love fantasy. I fall in love with characters that are complex and might be “bad” but have a redeeming feature like Severus Snape in Harry Potter—though some people I have spoken with have not felt this character has redeeming characteristics. One of my sisters growing up loved James Earl Jones’ voice. I suppose I love his voice.
In the recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, I was fascinated by the potential romance. I was disappointed with the movies, but not for the same reasons other people were with characters acting out of their nature and the canon of Star Wars being ruined. I’m a romance writer and reader as well as a nerd. If I couldn’t have my happily-ever-dark-side after, I was going to write my own. I think many people out there have found reading and writing fanfiction to be cathartic in the same way romance writing is.
Your piece has some truly laugh out loud moments! Is humour an important part of your writing practice?
I think humour is important in life. I like laughing. Humour helps us get through the pain of difficult times and helps us think about dark or controversial topics in a different way. Whether humour is used to lighten a mood after a tense passage in a book—or life—or it is a funny topic, this genre and technique can be used as a powerful tool. I love to read authors who write comedy, whether funny mystery or funny fantasy. I have always loved parody and satire. I like to watch comedy, read comics, see stand-up, and have a journal of funny moments in life that I write down to save for the perfect writing opportunities.
You are a prolific writer of "hexy witch mysteries, hilarious fractured fairytales and steamy steampunk." What first drew you to these genres?
I have always loved fantastical genres, whether fairy tales, fantasy, or science fiction. I am often inspired by real life, but I reimagine situations with aliens, fairies, or zombies. I ask a lot of “what if” questions like “What if this situation happened to me but it happened on another planet.” Each series I have written has been inspired by different experiences in my life.
After I lived in South Korea and had the opportunity to learn about a different culture, I was writing a lot of fairy tale fantasy and secondary world fantasy. There was something about the archetype of beauty and the beast that made it into many of my stories because of the experiences and relationships I had at the time.
After living in Japan, I wrote a lot about being an outsider and learning about another culture. My steampunk series takes place on a world colonised millennia ago by people from earth with access to advanced technologies. I specifically chose the colonists for this planet as an obscure subculture in Japan based on the Ainu, who are an indigenous people of Japan. Most Americans aren’t aware there were native Japanese or how they were put on reservations like Native Americans, and I wanted to explore that culture in this book—but I also wanted to write science fiction and alternate history.
After becoming a school teacher, I became inspired to write many science fiction short stories and fantasy novels based on what it would be like to be a teacher at a magical boarding school. I started with the Womby’s School for Wayward Witches series, about an untrained witch who is hired to teach the only nonmagical subject at a high school for witches. As someone who has been a Harry Potter fan for years, I have always wondered what the non-so-posh magical boarding schools would be like for the students. I’ve also wondered what it would be like to be a teacher at a magical school—but one more like the schools where I have taught with budget cuts, overcrowded classes, and administrators with unrealistic expectations. The Womby’s books are sexy paranormal mysteries and because I like puns and malapropisms, they often have titles like Hex-Ed and Of Curse You Will.
After finishing the Womby’s School for Wayward Witches, I continued writing in that urban fantasy/portal fantasy world but through other characters’ perspectives. Some of the books have the magical boarding schools and are humourous mysteries, while others are stories with more of a fantasy romance plot.
My favourite books that I have written so far are The Vega Bloodmire Wicked Witch Mysteries. These books also take place at a magical boarding school, but the main character is a brilliant witch who is skilled and powerful—but she has secrets she risks exposing as she uses forbidden magic to solve cozy mysteries. I have a lot of fun with the titles like Too Ghoul for School, Gone Ghoul and Ghoulfriend.
What are you currently reading and what writers do you love?
I am always in the middle of multiple books. Right now I am halfway through a Patricia Briggs book in the Mercy Thompson series on one ipod and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon on my MP3 player. I have How to Write a Damned Good Mystery by James N. Frey on my nightstand, half read. I am partway into The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin and have two different partly read fantasy books and a craft book in different pockets of my car to read depending on my mood.
I just glanced at my list of favourite books, and it is now three pages long. Since it would be unfair to subject you to that, I am forcing myself to just say a few that influenced my writing early on:
The Ship Who Sang (and all the Brain and Brawn Ship Series) by Anne McCaffery
Pride and Prejudice (and anything by Jane Austen)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
I will voraciously read anything by Laini Taylor whose writing I love. Strange, the Dreamer is one of my favourite books she wrote.
Sarina Dorie was the first place winner of the Golden Rose RWA Award, Golden Claddagh RWA Award, Allasso Humor Award, and Penn Cove Literary Award. She is the author of over 170 short stories published in markets like Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, Abyss and Apex, and Cosmos. Sarina’s steampunk series, THE MEMORY THIEF and her cozy mystery series WOMBY'S SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD WITCHES, along with other novels, can be purchased on Amazon.