By Christina Radish                                  

With Kushiel’s Mercy, national best-selling author Jacqueline Carey (www.JacquelineCarey.com)  has delivered the third and final installment of Imriel’s story, (which also includes Kushiel’s Scion and Kushiel’s Justice) in her stunning heroic fantasy series set in the exotic Renaissance world that she has created. A lover of fantasy books, a trip to the south of France inspired the original nuclear setting for Carey’s 2001 debut novel, Kushiel’s Dart, which introduced the highly erotic society that people Terre d’Ange. Where the original trilogy detailed the story of Phedre, a woman who finds great pleasure from pain, the later trilogy follows Imriel on his journey to manhood, while still including the same intrigue, adventure, war and complex characters that Carey’s fans have become accustomed to.

Originally from the northern suburbs of Chicago, the Michigan resident writes with a unique blend of epic fantasy, historical flavor and erotica. Receiving acclaim from both fans and critics, Carey tells MediaBlvd Magazine that the world she has created with her Kushiel’s Legacy series will continue, several generations after the end of Kushiel’s Mercy and featuring a whole new cast of characters.

MediaBlvd Magazine> Have you had any formal training, as a writers?

Jacqueline Carey> I’m fairly largely self-taught. I majored in English literature and psychology in school, but it was the analysis thereof, not the writing. I only actually had one writing class.

MediaBlvd> When did you decide to make a career out of writing? Was that a scary decision for you, or did you have confidence in your own abilities?

Jacqueline> It took me a long time to realize that this is what I wanted to do. I started writing when I was still in high school, and I kept a novel the way some teenagers keep a diary. But, it was just this hobby. It looked like I was taking notes in class, so I could get away with not paying attention. And, I kept it up, all the way through college, never realizing this was a vocation. It wasn’t until after college, when I had that typical moment of, “Oh, my God, I don’t know what I want to do with my life!” I did a work exchange program and had a six-month work Visa for the U.K. I was there with a friend, working in a bookstore in London, and it was during that time that I realized, “You know, the only thing I really love, that vaguely resembles work, is writing.” It was then that I made the decision that I wanted to pursue it as a career, and it was a good 10 + years, struggling for a breakthrough. It wasn’t scary to make that initial decision because I knew I’d have to support myself with a day job. It’s an industry where very few people are able to support themselves entirely by their writing. I reached that point some years ago. I took that step, and I feel extremely fortunate that I’m able to do that.                                                                                               

MediaBlvd> Was it always fantasy that you wanted to write, or did you experiment with writing any other genres as well?

Jacqueline> Yeah, I’ve experimented in other genres. I wrote something that was a near-futuristic, and one totally mainstream, coming-of-age piece. They say that many people have a novel they’ve got to get out of their system. I had several. But, fantasy is a first love of mine, so it’s something I’ll always go back to.

MediaBlvd> Had you been a big reader of fantasy prior to writing it yourself?

Jacqueline> Yeah. I’m an eclectic reader, so I don’t read only in the genre, but I do love finding good work in it.

MediaBlvd> What do you think your background in visual arts gives you, in your writing?

Jacqueline> I came to that accidentally. My day job, for all those years, was working in an art center. I think it’s really complimentary because it feeds me creatively, in a way that’s completely different. It’s helped me see more intently, and that helps to visualize more effectively.

MediaBlvd> For those who may not be familiar with the world you’ve created, what is the Kushiel’s Legacy series?

Jacqueline> The books are so hard to describe. The original trilogy are alternate historical fantasies set in a variant of a medieval world with adventure, intrigue, sex and romance, originally with a protagonist who is a masochistic courtesan.

MediaBlvd> Was there a specific inspiration for the world that you’ve created? Did one thing come to you first, and then inspire the rest of it?

Jacqueline> Not really. My process is sort of organic. The mythology part of that came out of mis-remembering an entry in a book called The Dictionary of Angels. It can be odd things like that. The character of Phedre, I have absolutely no idea. That was just one of those pure gifts of the muse, and I had to think long and hard about whether or not this was something I could pull off, in a manner that was not sensationalized or exploitative. There’s this conjunction of eroticism and violence that’s prevalent in so much of our culture, as entertainment, and I thought it would be really interesting to take that out of the subtext and put it in the foreground, in a really frank way, and trans-subvert all of these girl-as-victim cliches. It’s a process of random sparks of inspiration, and serious thought and consideration. There’s never any one thing I can point to.

MediaBlvd> What was your initial experience with getting this series sold? Was it easier or harder to sell than you expected it to be?

Jacqueline> That was my first sale. I went the agent route, which I had attempted before, unsuccessfully. With every rejection, prior to writing these books, I just pushed myself to become a better writer. In the very beginning, when I started Kushiel’s Dart, I knew this was, far and away, the best thing I had done since make-it-or-break-it time. So, I put together a target list of agents, as I was closing in on the finish of the book, and got an offer of representation from one of my top 10. I was really fortunate that it made a love connection because having a real advocate can make a huge difference, especially if you’ve got work that’s somewhat provocative. But, he loved it and absolutely believed in it. It went out on submission to maybe a dozen publishers, both mainstream and genre, because we thought it had a lot of crossover potential, and Tor made a pre-emptive offer.

MediaBlvd> Did you have to do any convincing at all to get them to allow you to write such long books? Did they want you to cut them down at all?

Jacqueline> Yeah. In fact, the book sold in December of 1998, and it wasn’t published until May 2001, in part because they wanted to cut it down. My editor said, “There’s no one chunk we can excise. There’s no one string we can pull out without unraveling the rest.” So, she ended up doing a line edit on the entire manuscript, cutting out words and sentences, here and there, and that delayed the publishing process a lot. But, the good thing was that she didn’t cut that much and, at the end, she said, “Now, I can go back to them and say, ‘It is what it is. That’s what we’re going with.’” It was a frustrating delay, but a good thing, ultimately. And, now that length is what’s called for in my contract. I’m really thankful that I’ve had big, complicated story ideas so far.

MediaBlvd> Were you ever worried that the length of these books would make it difficult to get readers to pick them up? And, has the huge popularity of them surprised you because of that?

Jacqueline> I wasn’t worried too much, especially because we went with Tor, who’s known for, what they call in the trades, Big Fat Fantasies. So, I knew that the core fantasy readers would not be put off at all by the length. I was concerned that it wouldn’t find as much crossover as we’d hoped, so I am really glad that romance readers and mainstream, “I never read fantasy,” readers are picking these up. I was on a tour for the release of the book, and had people say, “God, it was great! I got it yesterday and I stayed up until four in the morning and finished it!” I was like, “Man, do you know how long it took me to write that? Just slow down and savor it a little.”

MediaBlvd> When you received such glowing reviews for the first book, did that make writing the next book daunting, or are you able to put that sort of thing out of your mind and just focus on the work?

Jacqueline> I was already well underway because of that long delay between the sale and the publication. It made me apprehensive about how the next one would be received, but there wasn’t much I could do about it because I think I might have already finished writing it by 2000. It’s hard because critics aren’t going to be struck by the freshness of the second one. You only get to be new and fresh once, with one concept.

MediaBlvd> In reading your books, readers get sucked into a whole different world, making it hard to tear yourself away from it, once you finish. Do you feel the same way, when you’re writing them?

Jacqueline> Oh, yeah, very much so. I go through a period of post-partum blues upon finishing something because I don’t want to leave, any more than you do when you’re reading it. And, it can be hard to let go of the characters, too, in part because first person is so intimate.

MediaBlvd> In taking on works of this size, do you do anything to make sure you keep track of where you’re going with the story?

Jacqueline> I do constantly have to refer back to earlier works, just for continuity. I don’t have any kind of note system or flash cards. I know a lot of people do. So far, I’ve been able to keep it in my head with a periodic peek back into the world. My first professional outing was the Women in Fantasy tour with Sara Douglass and Juliet Marillier. Sara, who had a six-book series that was all out in Australia already, but not in the U.S., said she had a terrible continuity error once, when book #5 came out. The initial readers were like, “Wow, I loved it, but how did so-and-so get his arm back? I must have missed something.” She realized she’d dismembered a character in a previous book and then completely forgotten about it, and he had spontaneously regenerated an arm. They had to actually call back the first printings, so she could fix it. I do live in fear that I might do something like that, but knock on wood, not so far.

MediaBlvd> For those who haven’t read it yet, what can readers expect from the final book in Imriel’s trilogy, Kushiel’s Mercy, and the characters that they have been following?

Jacqueline> Kushiel’s Mercy is another walloping dose of adventure, sex, romance and intrigue.  It begins with my star-crossed lovers Imriel and Sidonie united, the realm of Terre d’Ange divided, and the Queen opposed to their union. She’ll only give them her blessing on one condition: Imriel must find his treasonous mother and bring her home to be executed for her crimes. Before he can begin, dire events separate the lovers and plunge the entire realm into grave danger, giving his quest a whole new level of urgency. It’s a very twisty, turny plot, one that hopefully holds a few major surprises along the way.

MediaBlvd> Did you intentionally decide to make this trilogy more personal than the previous one, or was that something that developed out of the character?

Jacqueline> A little of both. Because he is somebody who begins with so much damage and so much baggage, it was natural, in dramatic terms, that the first book of the trilogy (Kushiel’s Scion) would focus on that more inward journey. But also, it feels very artificial, if you raise the stakes just for the sake of making it a big dramatic thing. You can only have the same characters save the world so many times, unless you live in Sunnydale (like on Buffy the Vampire Slayer). So, this trilogy begins smaller and builds more gradually. It turns out the world did need a little bit of saving, by the third book, after all.

MediaBlvd> When you develop main characters, do you draw at all from any aspects of yourself, or do they come entirely from imagination?

Jacqueline> Pretty entirely imagination, on a conscious level. Unconsciously, who knows?

MediaBlvd> How important to you are the names of characters? Do they hold special meaning, or are they more random than that?

Jacqueline> Naming is really important to me. It just has to be right. It has to fit. Sometimes that’s instinctive, and sometimes that’s more deliberate. But, it is important to me that the character has the right name.

MediaBlvd> You’re both a character-driven and story-driven writer, with a definite balance between the two. How do you find that balance between telling the story and developing the characters, along with the eroticism that’s also in your work?

Jacqueline> For me, that’s reflective of what I love best in books. Like a lot of writers, I write what I want to read, and there’s not enough of it out there. There’s a lot about writing, to me, that’s a mystery with a capital M. I don’t know how plots and characters are created, exactly. I just know how to do it.

MediaBlvd> When you start a trilogy like these, because they’re so big in scope, do you know where you’ll be taking the story and where you’ll be ending up, or do you work that out as you write each book?

Jacqueline> I can’t say that with the first one because I wasn’t entirely sure, when I wrote Dart, that I would continue it. But, once I did get the concept, it was the overall arc for the trilogy and the idea of continuing with Imriel. I have a good idea of the structure. I know what some of the major plot points and character development arcs are going to be. I don’t have every last detail mapped out, but I have a pretty good sense of the underlying structure of it.

MediaBlvd> How long does it usually take you to write one of these books, from the time you get the idea until it’s ready to turn in?

Jacqueline> It’s hard to say when I get the idea because there’s kind of a long gestation process. I can be thinking about things for years. Once I actually begin writing, it’s about a year.            

MediaBlvd> Do any of your characters come easy for you, when you’re writing, and are any of them particularly difficult to write for?

Jacqueline> Some of them are easier than others. Some are just a lot of fun to write. Melisande was always fun to write. Joscelin was always fun. In Imriel’s trilogy, I enjoyed Eamonn and Sidonie.

MediaBlvd> Have you had any interest in the film rights for your work? Is that something you’d like to see happen, at some point, or do you think it’s too difficult a task for someone to take on?

Jacqueline> I think it’s something that could be done badly, about 1,000 different ways. Every other year or so, I hear from some young filmmaker with a vision and no connections, who has these grand ideas. I’m like, “Great! Here’s my agent’s contact info.” But, there’s never been anybody with the clout to actually option the books, let alone get a film made. If it was someone who really could walk that fine line, I think it could be wonderful. But, the odds of it being a disaster are significantly higher. You’ve got the issue of it being fantasy, but R-rated. You’d want to keep that sensibility, even if you did not necessarily the graphicness. And, there’s no way it could be done well on a small budget, so that limits the possibilities, all the more. I’m guessing I’m not going to see that happen, in my lifetime.

MediaBlvd> When fans started getting tattoos, in honor of your books, was that surprising for you? And, are they shocked at all that you don’t have any tattoos of your own?

Jacqueline> Yeah, the scale and scope of it has been surprising to me. After the book sold, I thought, “Somebody’s going to do it. I just know somebody’s going to do it.” I just didn’t expect quite so many somebodies, and that they’d begin sending me photos of their tattoos, wanting to be added to the gallery on my website. When I was writing the book, I did say, “I want to do it. I’m getting one.” And then, it did sell and I thought, “I’m already going to be facing that, ‘How much of you is in your protagonist?,’ and that is just drawing too close an association.” So, I got my bellybutton pierced instead. It is very humbling, at times, but I also feel it has absolutely nothing to do with me. They’ve made a personal connection with the book and it’s resonated for some reason. In a way, it’s something that’s theirs and theirs alone, and I think that’s really wonderful. And, to keep me from getting too egotistical about it, every now and then, I’ll hear from someone who’s like, “Yeah, I haven’t read the book, but I really like the design. Here’s a picture of my tattoo.” That’s a big step to take, just because you like the cover of the book.            

MediaBlvd> How are your books in The Sundering series different from the Kushiel’s Legacy series, and is that was the reason why you wanted to write them?

Jacqueline> Yeah. After something like 2,100 pages in Terre d’Ange, I really needed to step away. I can’t go directly into something else. It was the idea of doing a Paradise Lost version of Lord of the Rings, and taking this very standard, epic, good versus evil, fantasy narrative and rewriting it as epic tragedy from the perspective that is sympathetic to the losing side. And, it also gave me a much needed break from Terre d’Ange, so I was able to go back refreshed. They’re also really different because they’re third person, multiple points of view, as opposed to the first person, and they’re much cooler and more intellectual with none of the close-up, emotional intimacy of the Kushiel’s series, and that was deliberate too because Tolkien, who’s the granddaddy of the whole genre, does not have emotional intimacy in his work.         

MediaBlvd> Since you have done both, do you prefer writing in first person or with multiple points of view?

Jacqueline> I have a slight preference for the first person point of view. There’s an appealing intimacy to it. Some writers find it restrictive, but I find it liberating, in that I never have to worry about what my next viewpoint is going to be, or how to pace my writing, so that multiple storylines converge or intersect at critical junctures.

MediaBlvd> Is writing such long books something that you really enjoy, or is it just that there’s that much story to tell? Do you ever wish you could write a short story?

Jacqueline> I write short stories every now and then, but mostly I do think in really big ideas.

MediaBlvd> Do you have any specific writing habits, like a particular location or time of day that you prefer to write in? Do you write every day, for a specified amount of time?

Jacqueline> Yeah, I guess I’m pretty much a creature of habit, come to think of it. I can only write in my office. Since I’ve been writing full-time, I do write pretty much every day, if I’m not traveling or on vacation. It’s about three hours a day. I can’t write in the morning. It has to be afternoon or early evening.

MediaBlvd> Do you like to plot things out, or do you prefer to see where the characters and the story takes you?

Jacqueline> I like to plot. I keep my characters on a pretty short leash. But, I also like plots that are character-driven, so character development is part of the plot for me. There are some writers who are like, “Oh, this secondary character just took on a new life and hijacked the story. Do you know how that is?” And, I’m like, “No. No, I don’t.”

MediaBlvd> What is the most difficult aspect of writing for you?

Jacqueline> For me, it’s actually being in between projects because I can’t work on more than one thing, at one time. I’m not one of those writers that says, “I hate writing, but I love having written.” I love the process. I love being immersed in it. But, I can’t go directly from one thing to another either. There has to be some kind of decompression time. I hate that.

MediaBlvd> Do you ever have times when you sit down to write and you just aren’t inspired to write anything? If so, how do you work past that sort of thing?

Jacqueline> Once I’ve begun a project, it pretty much takes on its own momentum and that doesn’t happen. I can get really impatient waiting for the next idea to really blossom fully. But, so far, just waiting it out and trusting that eventually it will come has worked for me.

MediaBlvd> Do you stay in regular communication with your readers? Do you enjoy getting feedback from your fans, and what are some of the most common things you hear from them?

Jacqueline> I do answer all my own email. I enjoy feedback, yes. Other than the generic, “I love your work!,” nothing comes to mind, immediately. I appreciate most the times when readers will share something about what the book meant to them. That’s just really moving. A woman, who was pregnant, told me that her husband gave her Kushiel’s Dart to read and she loved it. She was confined to bed rest for the last month of her pregnancy and driven crazy, and that book just became her talisman, so much so that when she actually was in labor, she was like, “Bring me the book! Read to me from Chapter 30!” Another woman, who was in the hospital watching over a terminally ill kid for months, said that it was just her one escape. Stuff like that, that really makes you realize how much it’s meant to somebody, is wonderful to hear.

MediaBlvd> Is there someone whose advice you rely on, if you get stuck on plot or character development, or do you just rely on yourself to work that out?

Jacqueline> I’m a fortress-of-solitude writer. I work well in isolation.

MediaBlvd> Do you feel more confident as a writer now, then when you started doing all of this, or are you still worried about the possibility of failure?

Jacqueline> I don’t think the worry ever goes away, altogether, but I do feel more confident. I’m confident in my grasp of plot. That whole keeping a novel like a diary thing was not so good for the plotting skills. And, I also just have an ever-increasing comfort with my ability with language and being able to get it to do what I want and paint the pictures I want with it.

MediaBlvd> After writing the first Kushiel’s trilogy in first person from a woman’s point of view, was there any hesitation in writing the second trilogy from a man’s point of view? And, now that you’ve completed Imriel’s trilogy, in what ways did you find writing from a man’s point of view different from what you expected?

Jacqueline> To be honest, I didn’t go in with any particular expectations about the process.  Phedre and Imriel are such very dissimilar characters, gender was only one difference among many. Looking at such very, very familiar characters through a new set of eyes was the biggest challenge. However, it was important to me that Imriel’s voice felt as authentically male as possible, so I immersed myself in reading a lot of male writers before beginning to write.  There’s also a non-fiction book called You Just Don’t Understand by Deborah Tannen that’s a good primer on the different ways in which men and women communicate. 

MediaBlvd> Having finished two trilogies in this world, how do you feel about the way they concluded? Did you include everything within these characters’ journeys that you wanted to cover?

Jacqueline> I’m very pleased with the conclusion. In some ways, the final volume of Imriel’s trilogy is an inverse mirror of Phedre’s. Avid readers may disagree, but I feel it brought the entire series around full circle, and covered everything I wanted!           

MediaBlvd> Looking back on both of the trilogies that you’ve done in this world, how do you feel they compare? How different was it following Imriel’s journey from that of Phedre, and which did you enjoy writing most?

Jacqueline> I enjoyed them both. Each individual book has its own unique set of creative challenges. In terms of the trilogies, Imriel’s overall story arc is a more personal journey of healing and redemption, while Phedre’s has a more epic and metaphysical cast. They’re equally satisfying to write, in different ways.

MediaBlvd> How has reader response been, in regard to the way Imriel’s trilogy concluded?

Jacqueline> It’s been excellent, I’m happy to say!

MediaBlvd> What made you decide to revisit this world again for a new trilogy? And, can you talk a little bit about the new trilogy that you are working on?

Jacqueline> The milieu is such a rich one, and there’s so much of the world’s history, culture and geography I’ve yet to explore, I wanted to keep going in this setting. Naamah’s Gift is the title of the first book of the new trilogy. I don’t have a release date yet, but it should be out around Summer 2009. I’m back to writing from a female point of view. The protagonist, Moirin, is half-D’Angeline, but she’s actually born to the folk of the Maghuin Dhonn, the bear-witches featured in Kushiel’s Justice. 

MediaBlvd> Did you decide to set this new trilogy so far ahead in time, in order to keep things fresh for you, as a writer?

Jacqueline> Yes, and to give familiar and beloved characters a chance to fade gracefully into legend. They’ve saved the world several times over; it’s time to let a whole new cast of characters take the stage.  

MediaBlvd> Now that you’ve made the best-seller lists and you’ve broken boundaries with your writing, what has been your proudest professional accomplishment, thus far?

Jacqueline> Just because it meant a lot to me, winning the Locus Award for Best First Novel. I had a great aunt who was a big supporter of mine. She was a really wonderful woman, who was a matriarchal battleax type, and an avid reader. She lived in Hawaii and we didn’t see each other often, but she was the one person who never doubted me, ever. Then, I wrote this book and I was scared to let her read it because of the content. And, finally, I did, and she called and left a message on my voicemail saying, “I just want you to know, I think it’s absolutely marvelous and I hope people realize it’s not just a sex book!” So, the validation of that award was great. She had passed away, very shortly before that, so it meant a lot to me.

MediaBlvd> What do you hope people will take away from reading your work?

Jacqueline> I always hope that they’ll take away some appreciation of the deeper themes that run through it. In the Kushiel’s series, there are different explorations of the idea of love as a divine force, capable of affecting change in the world. In The Sundering, there is the idea of good versus evil being largely a matter of who has the best PR. So, I’m always glad when people say it does resonate on the different levels, rather than just saying, “It was a really good ride.” But, I don’t mind that either.

MediaBlvd> Do you know what’s next for you? Is there something you’d like to write that you haven’t gotten the chance to do yet?

Jacqueline> I’m working on a project that is so different that it will have a pseudonym. The title is Santa Olivia, and it’s scheduled for publication in May 2009. I’m calling it a post-punk desert bordertown fable, with boxing and cute girls in love. It’s a lot of fun. It’s very pared-down writing, and it is short, like regular book length. When I submitted this proposal, my editor came up with the idea of using a pseudonym. She said, “It’s so different, I think it’s going to break your momentum if we bring it out under your name. So, what would you think of doing a pseudonym that would be an open secret, and you can promote it?,” like Nora Roberts with her J.D. Robb books. It will be that sort of thing. Booksellers will be told. It will be Jacqueline Carey writing as Madalon Easton. My pseudonym is a combination of my paternal and maternal grandmothers’ first and last names.      

MediaBlvd> Will Santa Olivia just be a one-off book, or do you have plans for a sequel or series?

Jacqueline> Oh, I have plans! Whether or not they come to fruition, and in what manner, will depend on how the book does. I hope readers will be willing to take a chance on it.

MediaBlvd> What advice can you offer to aspiring writers who are not just looking to get published, but who would also like to have a writing career?

Jacqueline> Persistence is so much of it. Talent is part of it. Luck is a part of it, too. And, write, write, write. Persistence is the one thing that you can control. If you really want it, keep at it. And, if you really want a career, you have to approach it as professionally as you would anything else. The writing is sacred and creative, but every other aspect of it -- query letters, professional dealings, etc. -- you have to realize that it’s a business and treat it as such.