12/12/2023 0 Comments Freedom planet 2 cory![]() Those are all great reasons to love Merlin, but the truth as to why he’s the fan favorite has other less playful factors. Legends are weird good thing Merlin is weirder. The moment he popped into Coachella we rolled on the floor laughing. His playfulness and cross-the-centuries references were way too much fun to craft. It turned out to be a whole new way to talk about the coming-of-age experience that we all love in YA. Cory had this idea to take his backward-aging nature, which is canon in many tales, and adapt it to a future-set YA where he’s finally a teenager. Merlin is such a delight-beloved across many retellings over many epochs. Why do you think that is? Who would you pick as YOUR favorite character? MERLIN! I love Merlin and I am not the only one! He’s emerged as a fan favorite from the series. (It’s on page 101 of Once & Future!) People often ask if we set out to end the story where we did, and the truth is…we didn’t! We felt our way through the narrative-and also A. There’s even a very important line in the first book that calls out to the ending of the series. It’s a real favorite.Īs the sequel completes a closed temporal loop (real physics!), it wasn’t as hard as we thought it’d be. In book two, Sword in the Stars, we deal with time travel! Real talk: time travel narratives are some of my faves because they are so mind boggling! Did you two struggle at all with the timeline or the brain-bending nature of writing a time-travel story? Gwen has been too maligned by the various tellings and retellings-it was time to give her a real crown. had a gleeful time with Gwen, namely making our Gweneviere queen of her own Renaissance Faire planet, reclaiming her as a powerhouse in her own right and reimagining her romantic role in the Arthurian love triangle. Our publisher made a hilarious book trailer that speaks to this female sword-empowered joy.Ī. Cory loved the feel of narratively pulling Excalibur, falling for a magical sword that comes with all the herodom-and all the problems. The setting gave us a new take on the story that was important to the retelling. What was it like reimagining the King Arthur story for space and for a female lead? Were there any parts of the Arthurian legend you had a particularly fun time remixing? If that sounds like a mythical origin story-it feels like that to us, too. R., kept saying, “I want this book, you really need to write it.” Eventually, Cory raised the stakes by saying, “I think we need to write it.” I disappeared for an hour, wrote a chapter, Cory wrote the next, and the rest of the book flew out from there. I spent years talking about this, but whenever it came down to writing it, I’d say something like, “Nah, I’m sure Neil Gaiman will do it soon.” Even stories about Joan of Arc take away her sword. I started looking for those stories in my youth, but they were missing. I, Cory, have always wanted a girl King Arthur. Where did you get the initial idea for the Once & Future duology? One of the queer teens swooned to the floor. Before we stopped acting, Cory broke character and proposed to A. played Gwen, and we acted out their reunion at the tournament where Ari wins a kiss from the queen. There was music, dancing, and reader’s theater…in which Cory played Ari and A. They threw us a Space Prom, inviting the local All Out group. We were lucky to have a publisher who pushed hard for these books to be marketed for everyone, not just queer teens.Īs far as getting engaged(!), here’s the story: The final stop on our launch tour for Once & Future was at our indie, Bear Pond Books. We wanted to write inclusive-queer positive!-genre where everyone could experience queer community joy and identity freedom…with space and swords. We both grew up on campy space shows like Firefly and Farscape. We have a lot of the same story loves, too. ![]() Writing together felt like the natural next step, since we’d been writing side-by-side for years. ![]() ![]() Okay, just for some context for people who might not know, you two met while getting your MFAs and you got engaged at the launch party for Once & Future! Ahem – ADORABLE! What was it like co-authoring these books? Capetta and Cory McCarthy to talk legends, time travel, and their amazing love story! Capetta and Cory McCarthy! They reimagine the King Arthur legend, but this time with way more girl power and a much more diverse cast! Also, did we mention it’s the future? We virtually sat down with A. Do you like Arthurian legend but wish it was just a bit more… female? Well, girls make better kings in the Once & Future duology by A. ![]()
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