Garth Nix

Garth Nix

About Author

Garth Nix is an Australian writer who specialises in children's and young adult fantasy novels, notably the Old Kingdom series, The Seventh Tower series, and The Keys to the Kingdom series.

Born in Melbourne, Nix was raised in Canberra. After a period working for the Australian Government, Nix traveled in Europe before returning to Australia in 1983 and beginning his writing career with a BA in professional writing at the University of Canberra (1984-86).

He worked in a Canberra bookshop after graduation, before moving to Sydney in 1987, where he worked his way up in the publishing field, first as a sales rep and then publicist. In 1991 he became a senior editor at HarperCollins. After further travels in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in 1993, he set up his own PR company Gotley Nix Evans Pty, before joining Curtis Brown, an Australian literary agency, in 1999 as a part-time agent.

He has been a full-time writer since 2002. Today, his books are published around the world and have been translated into 36 languages.

Garth Nix currently lives in Sydney with his family (and lots of books).

Interview

CLARIEL

PUBLISHED BY HOT KEY BOOKS

OCTOBER 2014

Garth Nix returns to his bestselling Old Kingdom series with a prequel, CLARIEL, which introduces the character Chlorr of the Mask who we meet in a later book, Lirael.

The Old Kingdom series has garnered a huge global following and for fans and newcomers alike, Clariel provides a welcome glimpse of the world of the Old Kingdom.

We were fortunate to be able to put the following questions to Garth Nix:


Q: What made you decide to return to the Old Kingdom books, and with a prequel, rather than a sequel? Did you need to re-read your earlier trilogy before you started to write the latest book and were there any surprises in doing so?

A: I had always intended to return to the Old Kingdom, in fact I made a note that was the basis of the story of Clariel way back in 1998 when I was writing Lirael. That basic idea slowly evolved in my mind and grew, and slowly moved up the queue of "books to be written" until it become the most pressing story I wanted to write next.

I did need to re-read the earlier books and, because I wrote them quite a long time ago (more than 20 years in the case of SABRIEL), there were quite a few small details that I had forgotten, and was pleasantly surprised to see when I need them for the new story.


Q: Clariel, as you mention in your Author's Note, is Chlorr of the Mask who appears in Lirael. What was it about that character that first made you want to explore her history?

A: I'm not sure what originally prompted me to wonder about Chlorr of the Mask. I made a note "Who is this and where did she come from?" in my manuscript book when I first wrote about her on the shores of the Red Lake in Lirael. I guess I was basically interested in how anyone becomes an ancient, masked necromancer.


Q: Often in literature we meet not entirely nice characters who are redeemed and become likeable. What was it like working with Clariel, a character who could be neither very likeable, nor, ultimately, redeemable? How do you keep your readers engaged with Clariel?

A: Well, we don't fully know the end of Chlorr's story. Or at least only up to her being dead, which in the Old Kingdom doesn't necessarily mean the end of the story! But in Clariel, I was writing about a young woman, who while seeking to fulfill her own desired and probably harmless future, ends up in a bad place through a combination of outside forces and some bad decisions of her own.

I think this is something everyone can either identify with, or at least I hope can understand. As with all my characters, I wanted her to feel like a real person.


Q: What is it like working through a story when you know what the ending will be? Were there still surprises in writing it, such as Clariel's choices?

A: There are always surprises. I tend to know the end of my novels in a broad-brush kind of way, I don't know all the details of the ending, or exactly how the story will get there. This makes writing much more interesting to me.


Q: There is a strong sense in the book of the old giving way to the new... Were you also setting up themes for Sabriel, which many readers may move on to? (if they've not already read it like many of your fans...)

A: I think it is not so much the old giving way to the new as the cyclical nature of history. I wanted to show the Old Kingdom in a different time, with different kinds of problems. But the perennial issues with Free Magic and the Dead are also lurking there, under the surface.

There are essentially a number of different power struggles going on in Clariel, at different levels: family, politics and ancient magic. Later, in Sabriel, the ancient magic power struggle continues, and will continue, it is a constant when other things have changed dramatically.


Q: How did Mogget get to be such an important character?

A: Persistence.


Q: If you could bring one of the magical creations from the pages of the book and into your world, which would it be?

A: I'd love to have a Paperwing to fly. Provided none of the terrifying things from the book came with it.


Q: What do you enjoy reading?

A: I read all kinds of books, all types of fiction and non-fiction. I read a lot of history and biography, and find many ideas and inspirations for my own stories in the past. But I also love fantasy and science fiction, thrillers, murder mysteries, historical fiction, many classics (particularly Dickens, Dumas and Austen) and contemporary literature.


Q: Do you have a favourite book from your writing career so far?

A: No. I'm proud of all my books, but I always think the next one will be better than anything I've written before, that it will get closer to how it is in my mind. But they never quite do that . . .


Q: Where do you do your writing and how does your writing day go?

A: I have an office (one room in a creative hub where we share a meeting room etc) about 10 minutes walk from home, and I work there most days. But I also work at home in the corner of our spare room. And right now, because I am on tour I am doing a bit of writing on planes and in hotel rooms, but I don't do a lot of this because I am generally too tired from the travel and events.


Q: What are you writing now?

A: I am currently working on the next Old Kingdom novel, which takes places after Abhorsen and 'The Creature in the Case', and on some short fiction for various anthologies.


Q: What or where is your favourite escape?

A: I don't do it as often as I would like, but rock fishing on the south coast of New South Wales, back home in Australia (I'm in Boston right now). I don't even need to catch anything, I just love being out on the rocks with the wind and the waves. Provided both of the latter aren't too big and dangerous!

Author's Titles