Willow Metz
Mrs. Wescott
English 8 – 4B
4 December 2018
Interviewer: Welcome, Mr. Stephen Lawhead! I hope you are having a wonderful day so far! Thank you for taking time to help answer some questions about your book. I greatly enjoyed reading your book that filled my mind with endless ideas of what beautiful, fallen Atlantis would be like. While the ideas were interesting, there were a few details that made me wonder if they were really necessary to the story at all. For example, in the beginning of your novel, Taliesin, you wrote about a bull dance. During the bull dance, Charis, the protagonist, watched the tragic scene in which a dancer got impaled by the bull’s horn, which led the dancer into the infirmary. Charis, who was a princess, was considerably worried about the performer and even took time to visit the her. The princess tried her best by sending high doctors, but by the time they arrived, the girl was dead. The problem with this situation is how the queen never told Charis about the death of the bull dancer, so I failed to see the significance of the short story since it seemed to lead to a dead end.
Author: I am very glad you enjoyed reading my book! Although I agree how I left a hanging ending to that story, the purpose of that scene was to show the readers the compassion that Charis had. Another reason I glossed over this scene was because it showed how busy being a princess was. Not only did she worry about the bull dancer, but she also worried about her family business and life threatening situations. The story of the bull dancer was included to give you an idea of what Atlantis was like: bull fights, large crowds, and music. Additionally, the bull dance showed the inspiration that Charis had that led her to become a dancer, which was important in the development of her character.
Interviewer: The bull dance was definitely a good addition to your book since I could not stop reading it! I have to say, while I read the book, the setting was a little hazy to understand. I guess you were writing about about Atlantis and Britain, but it confused me the way you connected the two worlds because it seemed that you made some historical inaccuracies. During the plot, you had Atlantis sink in the 400s AD, around the time when the Romans were withdrawing from what I guessed to be Britain. Considering Atlantis actually sunk closer to the time of 9600 BC, your timeline bothered me.
Author: Although I did make some historical inaccuracies, I felt free to change the timeline because this was fiction book. I knew the history, but I also knew if I wrote Atlantis to sink in the 400s AD, it would help connect the stories a lot better. When I started writing the story, I wanted to make sure the reader would have an easy understanding of the two worlds and how they related to each other. For example, though Taliesin and Charis were from two different worlds they connected because they both had discord in their royal families and tried to resolve it.
Interviewer: Thank you, now I understand the reason for the historical inaccuracies. In the story, Taliesin, taking Christianity as his religion, swore to never convert. If he was a Christian, why did he always refer to pagans around him as heretics, blasphemers, and unlearned people as if he was not a pagan a few moments ago?
Author: This chapter, describing Taliesin’s conversion, showed his character. Not only could he not keep his promise that long, but also he seemed to forget the promise. Even though Taliesin was a man who would grow to become a king, his religion was not a big part of his life and he did not take it as seriously as the actions he planned to take as king. Being a Christian myself, I know the hardships of being a believer. Sometimes we need to remember God and how He can contribute in our lives. I decided to commit my life in God while I was in college. Unfortunately, many people in college can forget about God and leave Him out of their lives since they are distracted and believe they do not have enough time for Him. I hope that this chapter would be eye-opening to many people who may have witnessed or been through this problem.
Interviewer: I do agree with your statement about how hard it is to keep a belief when you feel stressed and do not have time for God, since I have gone through that myself. Speaking about God, He is a wonderful fatherly figure and someone we should look up towards, but a character in your book showed the opposite. In the first few chapters of your book, Taliesin, you portrayed King Avallach to be a wonderful ruler of his nation and a loving father to his children, including Charis. But, when towards the middle of the book, a group of assassins killed the queen, King Avallach blamed Charis for all the trouble. Could you explain how a loving father would blame everything on his daughter?
Author: The king’s response to the queen’s death must have hurt Charis, who seemed to go through so much pain in life. King Avallach was a wonderful father until his wife was killed. Without his wife, he did not know how to be a good father. This showed his love for his wife and how much he depended on her. Not only was his daughter scared and confused, the king himself was in the same situation. Without the queen, the family was broken into pieces. Charis left home, while her brothers stayed and fought in wars to earn the throne after the king died. Without his queen, the king did not know how to love his family as he used to.
Interviewer: During Charis’s dance solo in the bullring, warnings of Atlantis’ end started to appear as earthquakes. After being injured by the murderous bull, Charis tried to avoid getting jerked off it’s back, but hurt herself even more when she got thrown off during the horrifying earthquake. It seemed like you left out the conclusion of that story, where Charis should have been healed, and skipped to the next day when she traveled travel back home by horseback to persuade her family that Atlantis’s end was coming. The painful back injury did not seem to bother her journey, as if it had never happened.
Author: Charis’s bravery and endurance was shown through this chapter. Showing her willingness to keep going with a painful injury showed her desperation to save her nation. She knew she would not have enough time if she kept on waiting for her injury to heal, so she immediately left to the palace where her message would be shared. Her love for others blinded the pain she had and so she kept her eyes on what was more important, her people. In 1986, I decided to move to Britain where I could do research for my series, The Pendragon Cycle. Not only did I leave my home in Chicago, I also left some family members, but I knew in order to my achieve my dream as a successful author, I had to take every opportunity. Although my love for writing did not make me forget about my family, it helped me realize what was important for me to accomplish my goal.
Interviewer: I am very inspired by your story of being the great author you are today! Like achieving your dream, Taliesin also had a dream to become the next most powerful king that would be understanding and careful. The problem was, he was not related to the current family blood line of the king. Baby Taliesin was mysteriously found sewn inside a sealskin sack in a weir. You never revealed Taliesin’s origin. I found that a very necessary part of the book that was missing.
Author: I left the story behind Taliesin’s origin a mystery, because it could give the reader the idea that not everything can be found in life. Later on in the book, I did hint that his childhood was part of Wales’ greatest bard. His past would be more necessary if he was later found, not as a baby, since he might have grown traits from his original family. Because Taliesin was found as a infant, he grew traits and learned from his adoptive father, Elphin. Although an addition of his backstory would have been be interesting, knowing that he already had someone that loved him was enough. I believe God loves us the way Elphin loved Taliesin, and that is what is most important.
Interviewer: That was very heart touching Mr. Lawhead! Another thing that moved me was that whenever hope was lost, Charis, the willful and gorgeous princess of Atlantis, found hope. I found the theme of keeping hope very uplifting until Charis and Taliesin lost their inspiration toward the end of the book. In the last few chapters, she questioned the hope of a dying boy and whether he would survive or not. What happened to her sense hope in the end?
Author: I am very happy you found the hope in my book inspiring, but, unfortunately, not everyone can keep their hope forever. In my own life, I thought writing would not make enough money to support my young family, so I studied music and moved to Memphis where I formed my own record label. When my record company failed, I lost all hope in my own abilities. The pressure of supporting my family forced me to sit down and try to see if I would be able to write a publishable book. My book success was when I found the confidence inside of me for my writing career.
Interviewer: I am very impressed and motivated by your story of finding hope! Now for the last question, in the beginning of your book, you lacked some detail that would come really useful for the readers to know. You never clarified the age of Charis from the start, but you did tell us that Taliesin was an infant. Later on in the book, Charis and Taliesin became lovers, but the readers still never got a clue of Charis’s age.
Author: Even though I never specified the age of Charis, I gave clues though her daily activities. In the first few chapters, I explained how she played with her brothers and the excitement she had watching the enchanting bull fights. Her interactions with family members changed throughout the book since she grew older and more mature. For example, the older Charis knew how to find her brothers through asking different people, but when she was younger only knew how to ask her parents.
Interviewer: I am very grateful for your generosity to spend time with me speaking about your book, Taliesin! Your answers helped give me a better understanding and a better view of your novel.