Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat

(a guest blog post by Kelly McCullough)

Magic, Madness, and Mischief is an attempt to mince my childhood fine, add in some magic and an actual plot, and serve the result up for your entertainment. This book isn't autobiographical, but it draws on my experiences in ways that none of my previous books ever have. I'm not sure what made me decide it would be a good idea to try to write a fast, funny, fantasy novel about growing up in a house with a parent with serious mental health issues and going to an Open School, but I'm glad that I did.

I think it started with the first line of one of my bios: Kelly McCullough was raised and educated by free range hippies. Over the years a lot of people have asked me about how that worked, and to some extent this book is my answer. It was weird. Really, really weird, and occasionally magical. I wanted to try to capture some of that with this story about the oh-so-subtly named, Kalvan Munroe. I gave Kalvan some things that I had; a mentally ill parent, a hippie school, a gift for getting into trouble, and a sharp tongue. I also gave him some things I didn't; a snarky magical hare for a sidekick, elemental powers, and very real enemies who would quite happily murder him.

The book kicks off with the start of a new school year and the first stirrings of Kalvan's fire magic. Not long after that he accidentally summons the world's most sarcastic fire hare and they head off for wild adventures like skipping class, hanging around with selkies, and nearly being devoured by giant anthropomorphic badgers. Figuring out which of those things I have the most experience with will be an exercise left to the reader. Hint, it's the badgers. Those things were the bane of my existence as a kid. But, you probably know how it is.

Okay, so maybe not, but, hopefully that gives you a bit of the flavor of the thing. It's a book about being an outsider and how to have a happy childhood in the face of challenges both mundane and esoteric. It's about learning how to be kind and strong even when you're angry and confused and loving your family even on the days you don't particularly like them.

All of which might come off as kind of heavy for a middle grade adventure novel, if my family motto weren't: that which doesn't kill us makes for the best jokes. Since family rule one is: don't die, that makes for lots of material. Rule two is: don't walk in front of the cannon. You probably won't need to worry about it for purposes of reading this book, but, if the opportunity comes up, it's still a good thing to remember.

To bring this essay to its somewhat surreal, but still terribly on-point ending, if you like Magic, find Madness interesting, and enjoy Mischief, this might just be the book you've been looking for. If none of that is true, you should still probably buy a copy and read it simply because it's a fast fun romp through a world a few degrees off from our own.

More information on Kelly and his work can be found at kellymccullough.com. His books can be found at many bookstores and ordered pretty much anywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Uncle Hugo's (can usually get signed books), Indiebound.

Bio: Kelly McCullough was raised and educated by free-range hippies. Later he received a degree in theater and worked in improv. That combination was the perfect preparation for his current career as author and cat herder. He is the author of more than a dozen novels including School for Sidekicks and the adult fantasy series Webmage and Fallen Blade. His short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. His microfiction series DragonDiaries and Badnoir can be found on his webpage or by following him on Twitter or Facebook. He also does a fair bit of silly performance art which can be found at: https://kellymccullough.com/shenanigans/

Adult/Kid Dichotomy in YA and Middle Grade

The separation between adult and kid's worlds in YA and Middle Grade books can be confusing at times. I mean, they do both live in the same world, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it. The extreme example are the so-called sitcoms on the Disney Channel where adults are so clueless you wonder how they manage to hold a job while the kids are clever but mean and sarcastic to everyone, including their parents.

Part of the dichotomy is due to the way the stories have to be set up. Mysteries that have the kids running around finding clues and solving problems would end rather swiftly if adults listened to what the kids said they saw and acted to shut down the problem right away. Instead, the "meddling kids" have to work under adult radar and solve the mystery themselves, sometimes against well-meaning adult interference. Would Harry Potter have been a shorter series if Harry had been able to get Dumbledore to listen to him right away?

Sometimes the separation is due to the kids feeling that they have to hide things from their parents, whether it's bullying, grades, or a strange alien creature that just landed in their back yard. Sometimes the adults are the ones so caught up in their own lives that they don't notice that their kids are behaving strangely.

This is a standard trope in YA and Middle Grade books. Most times it works (which is why it's a standard trope), and other times you just want to yell at the characters to listen to each other.

In my own Talking to Trees Peter has to hide the fact that the person his mother is driving home with them from the mall is a tree being from another world.

Peter frowned at his sister. "We need to go to the woods later today, Mom. Got a project...for Science. I'll be meeting my study partner there. This is Twyl, Jody's study partner."

Jody stared at Peter in shock. Peter never lied--yet here he was telling their mother these big fibs without a qualm! And he was scowling at her as if ordering her not to say anything about what was really happening! As if she knew.

[snip]

When they got home, she followed her brother into his room and, despite her worries about smells, shut the door. "Peter Robert Burns! You lied to her!"

"Well, what am I supposed to say? 'Hey, Mom, we're off to defeat an evil creature in another world and if we're successful we should be back by dinner?' You think Mom would say, 'yes, dear, go ahead,' to that?"

Mark Reads has started on Diane Duane's Young Wizard series and within the first few pages he was remarking on how great the interaction was between the adults and the kids. The fact that Nita has been bullied is evident right away to a librarian and then later her parents and each tried in their own way to help.

What books have you enjoyed that handled the trope well? Is having the kids hide things from the adults something that bothers you or is it something you accept?

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A final reminder for anyone interested: my stories The Crystal Throne, Agents and Adepts, Talking to Trees, "Oracle of Cilens", and "Search and Rescue" will only be available through March 30, 2016 at Amber Quill Press (e and paper), Amazon (paper) and B&N. The free short story, "Hiding in Plain Sight", is only available at Amber Quill Press until then, when Amber Quill Press closes. The quick link to these (or a link to keep track of where these might end up), is through my book and short story page.

Writing Against Borders

A guest post by my friend Trisha J. Wooldridge on the release of her new middle grade fantasy The Earl's Childe.

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My books in The MacArthur Family Chronicles, the second, The Earl's Childe, having just came out this Tuesday, takes place in the Borders region of Scotland — right where England and Scotland meet. It's a location of cultural difference and blending, and the two countries have had a bloody and rough history. Beneath the ground, there is geological evidence of Scotland slamming into the UK; the land area of Scotland isn't naturally part of what we know of the British Isles.

Borders are an important theme of this series, too.

The main character, Heather MacArthur, is eleven years old. Right on the border of being a child and being a teen. When she wants to have some alone-time with her mother to discuss a terrible, fairly grown-up situation with her best friend and his family, it ends up being a trip to buy new clothes and — of all horrors — bras because Heather hasn't any clothes that properly fit anymore thanks to a recent growth spurt. In one of her less-than-mature moments, Heather pitches a fit. The moment between her mother and her, however, addresses both the child-self Heather still wants to cling to and the adult-becoming Heather who has to think about real world consequences that decisions that have no clear right answer: If you have only one magickal creature at your disposal, do you send him away to rescue a friend or keep him around to protect the people near you? And what if his safety and will in regard to the situation?

While Heather declares she is too young to even want to like-like someone (upon finding out an older boy might kind of like her), she finds herself stuck worried about her parents' marriage and the stress she's brought to it in her position as faery liaison. And watching your older sister get the boys who like her to do things is both awe-inspiring and freaking annoying.

Being liaison between Faerie and her family's land in the human realm also puts her on a physical border — a hotly disputed one as yet another daoine síth lord tries to wrest the land from both Heather’s family and the existing fey. It's been a battle for a few hundred years, in fact!

One of the best things about writing for young audiences is working in that mysterious grey space of transition. It's never a clean thing to change from one thing to another, to find the lines between two sides or two realms of existence. It's not for adults; but if you're in the middle of a change yourself, you have an even deeper perspective of how many shades of grey there are.

As a writer, also, I'm writing in the borders. The MacArthur series falls right on the border of middle grade and YA with Heather's age and the complexity of issues in her family alone — not even including dealing with the supernatural! Her father, Michael, has bipolar disorder, and with that comes some problematic decisions from him when his medicine fails, which affects Heather and her relationship with him. What do you do when you still need your parents, but you know you can't entirely trust the judgment of at least one of them? As an adult, Michael can make some pretty serious mistakes that Heather sees. And while I, the author, think it's important for readers to share some of these experiences with Heather — children do go through these things, and seeing heroes like themselves in books help — not all the teachers, parents, and librarians who might read this book agree.

Also, I don't write only for children. I write horror for adults under my full name. And while both my husband and I were watching horror at an early age, it's easy to forget that we were not necessarily the norm. Fortunately, I have wonderful editors that kept me within the safer borders of description when some of Heather's adventures get quite dark.

I'm also glad they understand that I also think kids can take some levels of darkness better than adults.

After all, the kids I'm writing this for live on the edge of a lot of borders.

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Like with my first book, The Kelpie, I want to continue supporting the Bay State Equine Rescue through my writing, so a percentage of every sale of The Earl's Childe will be donated to the BSER, a 501(c)3 organization in Massachusetts.

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The Earl's Childe is available through all online and brick & mortar bookstores, big box or your favorite independent store.

About the Book:

Available on Amazon
Available at Barnes & Noble
ISBN: 9781939392435
Price: $9.95
Appropriate for ages 11 and up

Meet the Author:

T.J. Wooldridge is the child-friendly persona of Trisha J. Wooldridge, who reviews dining establishments in Faerie for her local Worcester-area paper (much to all the natives' confusion) and writes grown-up horror short stories that occasionally win awards (EPIC 2008, 2009 for anthologies Bad-A$$ Faeries 2 and Bad-A$$ Faeries 3). Her novels include The Kelpie (December 2013) and The Earl's Childe (2015) in the MacArthur Family Chronicles series, and Silent Starsong (July 2014) in the Adventures of Kyra Starbard series. Find out more at www.anovelfriend.com.