Tempted

My Interview with P.C. Cast By Christine Zika

I have known P.C. Cast for almost ten years. I was her editor for her romance novels and have been her friend ever since. She is a delightful, hard-working and generous woman and one of my favorite storytellers. Here are some little known facts about this very talented author: She was once in the Air Force and lived overseas in Japan, where her daughter Kristin was born. She worked as a high school English teacher for fifteen years. She is from Oklahoma. Besides the House of Night series, she has written romance and fantasy novels that involve the retelling of classic myths. She has won numerous writing awards and has become a permanent fixture on the New York Times list with her House of Night series that she writes with her lovely daughter, Kristin, currently a full-time college student.

PC, before you were a published author, you were a teacher and prior to that you were in the Air Force. Tell us how your various career paths influenced your storytelling.
That’s a great question because, as you know from being my longtime editor, I weave a lot of my life into my books. What my unusual and varied past has done is provide lots of fodder for fiction. You mentioned that I was stationed in Japan. The three years I spent there afforded me the opportunity to understand what if feels like to be an outlander, an image I’ve used freely in my writing. The Air Force also instilled in me a love of travel, and the different countries to which I’ve traveled have definitely influenced my writing. At first teaching influenced my writing mostly through the richness of the myths and legends I taught to my students. Then I got the idea for the young adult House of Night series and suddenly the school, teachers, students, issues, even the class scheduling all influenced my writing. The truth is my experience as a high school teacher makes House of Night real, and that is one of the key reasons this series stands out in a genre flooded by vampire books.

How did you manage to write and stay so focused and so on-deadline when you were juggling a full-time teaching job and raising your daughter as a single mom?
I had to pay my bills and my public school teacher’s salary definitely didn’t do that! Okay, seriously: early on I had to find a way to multi-task. When I started writing I used to have to sequester myself in a quiet room – door closed – no interruptions. It took me a good half an hour or so to fall back into the world I was creating and to begin being productive for that day’s writing. Well, after I signed my first contract with you for the original three Goddess Summoning Books, and I had real deadlines, I realized that I didn’t have the luxury of easing into my writing. So I taught myself to concentrate. It really was just a matter of training myself to focus quickly and clearly, and to fall easily into the manuscript world. Eventually I could do it in the ten minutes per class I had after I’d lectured and given my sophomores their assignment for the day. Once an author has the ability to focus and write in a classroom of thirty teenagers, what can’t she do?

Most mothers and daughters fight over the most trivial things, like what to have for dinner, how do you and Kristin manage your writing process and still stay on such good terms with each other?
She’s scared I’ll beat her if she’s not good, although now that she’s twenty-two she’s faster than I am and really hard to catch. Okay, seriously (again), Kristin and I have always been close, and it’s not a surface closeness. I’ve been a single parent for a long time. Kristin watched me struggle through college while I worked full-time and raised her alone. We’ve had some really hard times and that helped forge a bond between us that is unique. We communicate well and often. We have the ability to be honest with each other, and if one of us gets a little too honest and hurts the other’s feelings, we just say so – then we say we’re sorry – and we go on. We don’t hold grudges and get silly and petty. Kristin is the single thing I’m most proud of in my life and I value her as the remarkable young woman she’s becoming, not just as my daughter. And I know she has a deep respect for me. All that mixed together just works!

I was lucky enough to have been there when the idea of House of Night was born, but how have you taken the basic premise and created it into such a powerful and popular world. Also, what do you think it is about the series that attracts readers.
Well, from the beginning I wanted the House of Night world to reflect my personal beliefs, as do the Goddess Summoning Books you edited so brilliantly. So for a start that means my books were going to empower women. To do that I decided that my vampire mythos was going to be matriarchal, which is a major departure from traditional vampire lore. Then I wanted to create a unique type of vampire, so I turned to my biologist father and we brainstormed a biological basis for my vamps. When I mixed in the magical aspect of my world I stayed true to the biology aspect, and made all of the magic earth based, founding their religion and society on the Wiccan tradition. Then I simply made the books real. By that I mean that even though the world is fiction, I people it with teenagers who act like real teens and who deal with problems today’s teens grapple with daily. I think the reality of the book, coupled with the girl empowering element, has created a unique, compelling world that resonates with many people.

You told me the other day that recently, at a bookstore signing, a young girl was getting a book autographed but that it was for her mother and that that happens quite regularly. So it’s not only young girls reading your series, but their moms as well. What do you think the appeal is her for readers beyond their 20s.
I think the books are fun! Yes, they deal with serious and sometimes difficult issues, but they do so with a sense of humor and a realism that clicks with all different age groups. My characters are likeable – readers pull for them and want them to save the world, or at the very least learn how to parallel park and figure out boyfriend issues. I’ve always believed a good story is simply a good story. To me, genre and target audience don’t mean much.

How many more books can we expect from the House of Night series?
We’ve sold twelve books to St. Martin’s Press, but those can be a mixture of House of Night novels – some from Zoey’s point-of-view, and some following other main characters. So I guess what you can expect from us is lots more great books!

Besides a trip to Cayman Islands and maybe Tuscany, what else is on the agenda for you and Kristin?
We’re going to the UK in August (we heart our UK fans!) for a tour that will probably take us from London, up through York, and wind up in lovely Edinburgh. Work…work…work…

Thank you, PC. As always, it was fun to talk with you and to get a glimpse of your world and your work.
Thank you, Goddess Editor! As always it was wonderful to “work” with you again.