All About Cynthia
My guest today is the awesome Cynthia Leitich Smith! Not only is she a fantabulous author (for kids and teens), she also runs an incredible website with all kinds of information about children’s and YA literature. As the founder of YA & Kid’s Books Central, I don’t say that lightly. If you’ve never checked out her site(s), you definitely should! And if that wasn’t enough, her husband Greg is also an author (love his books too – great fun…I wish I could have gone to the Peshtigo School!). AND – Cynthia has also written an awesome vampire book called Tantalize (which I loved).

You can learn more about Cynthia at her official website and her blog: Cynsations.

About Tantalize…
Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her hybrid-werewolf first love threatens to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. And just as she and her uncle are about to debut Austin’s red hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef.

Can Quincie transform the new hire into a culinary dark lord before opening night? Will Henry Johnson be able to wow the crowd in fake fangs, a cheap cape, and red contact lenses? Or is there more to this earnest fresh face than meets the eye?

As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything?

The Q&A
Here’s my question for Cynthia…

Tantalize is primarily a vampire book, but I love how you envisioned the were-people. Can you tell me a bit about how you came up with that?

And her answer…

As I was researching folk-tale and literary vampires, I kept an ongoing list of powers typically associated with them.

The ability to turn into a wolf was one of those powers, and from there, I thought it might be interesting to write a murder mystery in which the central question was whether a vampire in wolf form or a werewolf was the killer.

The glitch was that I’m a huge fan of real-life wolves. Really, I have both a photo of a wolf and a painting of a wolf (by Cherokee artist Donald Vaughn) hanging in my office. And I felt that, as a competing predator to humans, the wolf had already received enough bad PR without my piling more on.

But then I realized that my werewolves could be natural beings rather than demonic ones. I decided that they would be part of a competing line of humanity, one that could both trace its heritage to the Ice Age and interbreed with us. As natural beings, each would have the free will to choose the kind of “person” he or she wanted to be.

As long as there were Wolves, it only made sense that there would be other types of shapeshifters, especially because there are different shifter myths from all over the world (the werecat in Japan, for example).

So there’s some diversity—not only werwolves and Cats but also werearmadillos, wereoppossums, and were-turkey vultures, a selection largely inspired by the Central Texas setting and my affection for comedic relief. My next novel, Eternal (Candlewick, March 2009) also will feature two new kinds of shifters.

It’s been great fun researching the various animal forms—in books, videos, even visiting the Austin Nature Center—to craft the various types as resonant characters, grounded in both sides of their nature.

And Cynthia’s question for me…

In modern literary and film interpretations, the vampire arguably reigns as the sexiest of Gothic creatures. But if you had to pick a first runner-up between the other popular monsters—werewolves, ghosts, zombies, ghouls, faeries, etc.—which would you choose and why?

Oh geez, I think I’d have to say faeries. I’m a huge fan of faerie tales and myths and even studied it some in college. I’ve got a huge collection of books about them (including some really old and obscure ones) and can tell you all kinds of random things about the origins of the Cinderella myth (did you know there were Cinder-Lads?) and other stories. Besides, there are so many different kinds of faeries – there’s truly something for everyone whether you like the puckish little imps or the impossibly beautiful Faerie Queen (and talk about deadly – what’s scarier than the UnSeelie Court?).

I actually have a middle grade book that’s half finished that features faeries, but I stopped work on it when it seemed like a ton of new faery-related books were out (I was already discouraged from agents telling me that vampires were so over…of course, they turned out wrong, but hey). It’s kind of a Mistress Masham’s Repose & Coraline kind of thing (not that I dare compare myself to either T.H. White or Neil Gaiman!). I hope to get back to it someday since you could say those kinds of stories are some of my favorite.

Honestly…if someone had told me that my first book would be about vampires, I’d have probably laughed at them! Goes to show you never can tell.

And here’s an extra little tidbit that’s kind of related…in the first draft of Sucks to Be Me, the author lady that Uncle Mortie takes Mina to visit was originally a werewolf. But I ultimately decided that I didn’t want to get into a whole other set of myths for such a bit part so she just became a regular, non-furry weirdo instead.

The Giveaway
Not only can you win a copy of Tantalize, but you can also win an official Sanguini’s t-shirt! Woot! All you have to do is visit Cynthia’s website (which is awesome) and then email me at kim @ kimberlypauley.com with the subject line “Cyn is a Sensation!” and tell me…which of the Tantalize discussion questions in the Reader’s Guide do you find more discussion provoking? Please respond by September 3rd, 2008.

(If you just popped in here, don’t forget to check out all the book launch party details, including what’s up with the monster prize pack at the end!)