Author Interview with Maria Kuzniar
Today I have an extra special post! As part of Middle
Grade Marvels, I had the opportunity to put forward a few questions for Maria
Kuzniar, author of the wonderful book The Ship of Shadows, which was released
last week. I've heard that Maria is
partial to a bit of prosecco so that's what I'm drinking today!
Here are some of the
questions we came up with:
I loved Aleja right
from the start, is there a little bit of you in her character?
Thank you, that’s
lovely to hear! Yes, there definitely is. Aleja was based off my own wanderlust
and longing for adventure. I would have loved to have read about her when I was
younger and that was my starting point. Since then I have been lucky enough to
have plenty of adventures of my own but I still feel that tickly urge to go out
and explore, the less travelled, the better! Just the word ‘expedition’ gives
me a shiver of excitement.
Where did you get
the idea of linking legends to the changing ship?
This one’s quite a
hard question to answer as it was during the editing process that my brilliant
editor began to make me think even deeper about the Ship of Shadows, its
mythology and backstory and magic system of the shadows. The legends effecting
physical changes on the ship came out of that process so it was more of an
evolution of ideas than having a direct inspiration from the start.
Why owls? Are they
an animal you’ve always been interested in?
I’ve always loved
owls! I think they’re mystical, beautiful creatures. And they can be quite
fearsome too. The main reason I went for an owl though was to avoid the parrot
on the shoulder trope! It also fitted in very nicely with one of Athena’s
symbols being an owl—if you’ve read the book, you’ll know what I’m talking
about here!—but funnily enough, Penumbra, Captain Quint’s owl, was a later
addition. I’d actually already signed with my agent with The Ship of Shadows
before both Penumbra and Geoffrey made their appearance!
Is there a specific way you selected the names of your characters?
I love naming characters! I know some authors hate it but it’s actually one of my favourite parts of the early writing process. Aleja’s name popped into my head almost straight away but for the other characters, I looked at older names from the countries they’re originally from. Ermtgen’s name came from a Dutch ship’s passenger list in the early 18th century! Penumbra is the only character with a name that has a special meaning. . .
For more insights into The Ship of Shadows and Maria's writing, check out these other great blogs for the rest of our questions and answers:
In case you haven't
heard the news, Middle Grade Marvels is a super fun book club where we read one
or two Middle Grade books a month and get together in a Twitter group each week to
discuss. There's no obligation to get involved every single month and we all get input
into the book choice.
Join us at @GradeMarvels for our August book - Small Spaces by Katherine Arden.