Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
All right, this is going to be good, isn't it? I absolutely loved it.
You know, the Iliad and the Odyssey would, if published today, be classified as fantasy.
I'm reading it and reading it and I'm going, oh no.
So I thought I really have to hook the reader.
The book actually put a hex on me. Hi, it's Kate Evans here from ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf. Delighted to be here with another podcast extra interview for you, this time with the dynamic Maria Lewis. She's a screenwriter, novelist, pop culture commentator and podcaster herself.
She writes urban fantasy, where you might just find yourself at a nightclub run by werewolves, but there's more to it than that. She's also a generous reader of other writers' work. So Maria, how would you define fantasy as a genre, or I guess particularly the type of fantasy that you write?
Fantasy as a genre is basically anything that is hyper real. I mean, it's a very broad term. If you just Google fantasy, the genre, you'll be inundated with many, many, many Pinterest collages of, you know, Venn diagrams with circles overlapping. And what is speculative fiction, which is often a, it's like a fancy term for what fantasy is. It's, you know, fiction that like has
fantastical elements to it, I guess, which seems pretty self-explanatory. But the genre that I write in or sub-genre, if you will, is called urban fantasy. And again, that's a term that's very industry-based. It's not something that necessarily readers would identify with as they do with something like young adult or science fiction, but urban fantasy, paranormal fantasy is
that basically means anything that has a fantastical element that is set within a world that we recognize today.
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Chapter 2: What unique elements define urban fantasy according to Maria Lewis?
I can find some angle or some way that hooks me in. And I love being in a physical place and being inspired by that place. That's oftentimes why my books are set in locations like Dundee in Scotland or, you know, Berlin in Germany, Newtown in Sydney, the books hop to all different locations, Boss Castle in Cornwall, like very specific places, but places that people feel like they know, but
I feel personally like I can show them something they haven't seen before, show them an element that they haven't seen before. I mean, anyone who's walked the streets of Berlin and how cool that city is and how multicultural and how modern and how historical, like although those things seem contradictory, but they're all sort of meshed into one in a city like that.
And the same way in Sydney and the Wailing Woman, that becomes a whole different type of city. for a lot of people, like taking things that exist, that exist like St. James Station in Sydney and subverting it and twisting it and taking people a little bit deeper. So it's using real life historical elements and taking it in a different direction.
That's one of my favorite things to do as somebody who writes within the genre of urban fantasy, but it's also something that I love to read as somebody who really enjoys consuming urban fantasy from different authors.
So tell us about some of those different authors. If people like the sound of this and they want to go to a nightclub with werewolves or know that they're going to encounter diverse characters, sexuality, what else might they read?
Well, I guess one of the most mainstream examples of what I feel is really excellent urban fantasy is anything by Charlene Harris. So of course her series, the Sookie Stackhouse series, which got adapted into television, the HBO series True Blood, which was really seminal in terms of
gore and sexuality and adult themes being developed and queer themes being developed and played from mainstream audience. Her books are really, really incredible and really interesting. And many of them are sort of set in America's deep South and use supernatural creatures as a way to talk about racism and systematic prejudice, which is really interesting.
And also one of the things I love so much about urban fantasy is that they have serious themes and there's serious things that they're looking at, but it's,
done so in a really entertaining way you know the themes are never at the expense of the story and the story is never at the expense of the theme and i think that's why i love authors like charlene harris rochelle mead is really great she has a young adult series called vampire academy which is very popular but um i think many of her adult books are the succubus blue series and there's more of like a sword and sorcery series that's really great carrie arthur
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Chapter 3: How does Maria Lewis describe her gritty urban fantasy settings?
They really want to be taken to new places. They really want to consume content that they feel is fresh. And I'm not saying that means it doesn't have to have tropes or stereotypes of the genre. Of course it does. I think cliches can be really powerful and useful for a reason. But at the same time, it's what you do with those recognizable elements. And there's so many authors at the moment
doing really exciting things with those maria a lot of people resist fantasy or rather people who've never read it have all sorts of presumptions about it so if you meet somebody who says look i never read this do you have a conversion text what do you suggest to them
You know what, converting people to fantasy is like doing a really intricate psychic reading. Like I would find out, okay, what kind of books do you read?
And if they say they're more of a true crime person or they love crime fiction or they love romance or they love historical fiction, that's the beauty of fantasy is that you can, depending on what their preference is, depending on the thing that they love, you can find something for them. You can point them in the direction of something that is going to cater to their crime interests.
So for instance, like Charlene Harris, for instance, most of her books have crime elements to them. There's a central mystery that's being unraveled or like it's a bit of a detective story. And yes, okay, there might be
shifters or vampires or angels or whatever you choose your poison involved in there but that's part of it as well um somebody like Tamora Pierce you know that's a more traditional idea of like knights but it's a female knight it's
story that has been flipped the gender has been subverted and it challenges a lot of those themes about what it means to be quote-unquote a woman a girl uh in a world that's largely dominated by men you know if somebody is is big into police procedurals i'd probably flick them black magic if somebody's looking for something that's a little bit has more of a sci-fi bent i'd probably you know steer them towards terra nullius by um claire j coleman like there's so many different
elements that no matter what somebody is interested in, you can pretty much find something for them. Fantasy as a genre is a little bit, and this is going to sound very Forrest Gump-y, but it's a little bit like a box of chocolates. And that depending on what somebody's flavor is, depending on what they're after, you can find something for them. I mean,
There's a book called, and you might need to bleep this out, The Girl Who Could Move Shit With Her Mind by Jackson Ford that is like X-Men meets Alias. You know, it's fantasy, but it's very grounded within the real world setting of Los Angeles. So you can find something for everyone. And I think that is a big part of what I love about fantasy so much.
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Chapter 4: What themes are explored in urban fantasy literature?
If someone's like, I really enjoy politics or I really enjoy something like the thick of it, but with monsters, you can be like, brilliant. I know the book for you. Here's 10.
Yeah.
And for me, this is a genre where I want recommendations. That's how I've found the best new stuff is somebody saying, oh, you really must read Naomi Novik or I'm halfway through Tamsin Muir's Gideon the Ninth because somebody told me about it just last week.
Yeah. And the thing about fantasy as a genre is it's one that just quietly chugs along. You know, there are perceptions, I guess, that different genres have different trends, different upticks. We're sort of on the tail end, I guess, of the young adult boom. Like people consider that to be something that was at its apex around like the mid noughts and sort of towards getting towards 2010. Right.
That's when young adult people perceive that to be at its peak. And It's kind of tailed off a little bit, but different genres have moments of popularity or resurgence.
True crime is probably maybe the dominant genre right now, although I'd argue true crime has always been something that people have been obsessed with, whether that's through Penny Dreadfuls or like tabloid Jack the Ripper stories. But fantasy has just quietly chugged along forever.
It might necessarily be the genre that is always at the forefront of people's minds, but every publisher has something not just like one fantasy wing, but usually a few. They have a few different fantasy imprints, places like Orbed or Goliath or, you know, whatever, places that skewer towards one type of fantasy over another. And it just kind of keeps the publishing industry chugging along.
I think fantasy and romance are probably... two of the most consistently successful genres, but oftentimes don't necessarily get a lot of heat directed on them. And I've often thought, oh, maybe is that because fantasy has a lot of female readers and so does romance, but also a lot of female authors.
But a lot of female authors within the fantasy genre will write under an acronym or like a gender neutral acronym. So it's not easily identifiable on the cover that they're a woman because there are all these stats about women men being 62% less likely to pick up a fantasy novel if it's clearly stated on the cover that the author is a woman.
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