Q&A with Karen Foxlee

  

Photo by Esther Visser

 

Karen Foxlee is the author of the new middle grade novel The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe. Her other books include Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy. She lives in Queensland, Australia. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe, and how did you create your character Lavender?

 

A: It was really the inspiration for the character Lavender that started this story. It began with a few lines repeating in my head – I had three names, the first was Lavender, a pretty name but with too many letters if you’re no good at spelling. I’m not a plotter, but I immediately knew I had to find out who she was.

 

Lavender was a tiny scrap of an idea to begin with but as I wrote she became a pickpocket in an alternate 18th century England. She’s stolen aboard a cursed and magical pirate ship by the ship cook, Big Agatha. She’s a small, fair headed twig of a child, but filled with courage and resilience (and some magic too).

 

I wanted to create a character like the ones that I loved as a child. Think Gerda from The Snow Queen meets Bastian from The Neverending Story. Inspiration grew as I wrote. The more I knew about Lavender the more I wanted to write about belonging, and about the strange places where we might find our families and ourselves.

 

Q: The novel is set in the year 1719--why did you choose that time period?

A: When I discovered that Lavender was on a cursed ship called The Good Marchioness, I knew the story l had to be set in the Great Age of Sail. I was both excited and terrified to write about this time period, but like all my stories, I decided if I stuck with my main character Lavender everything would work out fine.

 

I think when writing about another time period it’s good to start small and think about what’s at arm’s distance from your characters. The 18th century world I discovered was different in so many ways, yet all those big universal emotions were still there. Lavender misses her mother and she wants to get home. She true finds friends on her journey. She learns about herself along the way. 

 

Q: Did you need to do much research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

A: I loved the research I had to do for this story! For starters, I had to learn so much about sailing ships, from the names of the sails to how time was measured. I also became fascinated by 18th century food. 

 

But in the end The Good Marchioness is a magical sailing ship, and this is a children’s fantasy, so I also took some artistic liberties and had a crazy amount of fun making it exactly the type of pirate ship I wanted.

 

The research I loved the most was discovering Regency slang and the old-fashioned words associated with sailing, which never ceased to amaze me.

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?

A: Foremost, I hope young readers (and young at heart readers) go on an amazing adventure with Lavender in this story. I hope they think about magic again and feel that thrill and excitement that magic can cause.

 

On a deeper level, I hope they take away some of the messages about resilience and perseverance, how hope can be found on even the darkest days, and that sometimes home ends up being with people rather than a place.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: At present I’m writing a story about a 12-year-old, a mysterious dress pattern, and her grandmother’s very old sewing machine. It’s set in the tropical north of Australia in 1982. I’m wholeheartedly channeling my childhood; big hair, synth music, and simpler times.

 

It combines so many things that I love – history, nature and stories about sisters. It is most definitely a passion project, and I’m really enjoying every minute with it. It’s making me cry and laugh on a daily basis. 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I love writing about complex and flawed mothers. Lavender’s mother is a renowned thief on the Whitby wharves who seemingly abandons her daughter.

 

When Lavender is stolen onto The Good Marchioness, Big Agatha (the ship cook) becomes her mother figure. She’s the most complex and flawed mother I’ve ever written. I adored creating her. She’s loud, prone to the doldrums and often mean but also filled with ferocious love.

 

She’s a story within a story because she has an entire other person trapped inside her. She was an incredible presence to create, and I loved how she filled these pages and how readers have reacted to her. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb