Interviewing Anna Stephens

Helloooo!

I recently reviewed the great epic fantasy The Stone Knife by Anna Stephens and The Jaguar Path by Anna Stephens that make up two of the The Songs of the Drowned trilogy. This vast and fascinating tale of two civilisations clashing is pretty remarkable and I was very lucky to have a chance to ask Anna about the books and what may be coming next! Well worth your time!

How do you like to Booktempt The Songs of the Drowned?

Hi Womble, thanks for having me on to wander along your shelves with you!

I tend to refer to Songs of the Drowned as epic fantasy examining the evils of colonialism and religious fundamentalism, but with epic fights, scary monsters and cool magic thrown in.

After the Godblind trilogy was the direction that this series took a conscious steer? Was there any challenge you set yourself with it?

Yes, I very much wanted to challenge myself as a writer, both in terms of style and the breadth and scale of the themes. The Godblind trilogy was written with a very lean, stripped-back style and, due to the landscape of Ixachipan in Songs, I wanted my prose to match it, in a way. So the writing is lusher and more vivid to mirror the lush and vibrant, brightly-coloured landscape and jungles.

I also wanted to write something bigger and slower-paced, giving me and the reader time to really dig into the characters and their motivations. Obviously, a slower pace doesn’t suit all readers, but I have really enjoyed the space and time it’s given me to really delve into these messy, complicated and conflicted characters.

Which came first - storyline or particular characters? Did any characters surprise you in how they developed?

Xessa was the first character who came to me – I woke up from a dream but all I could remember was an image of bare feet standing in rich black soil at the edge of water. It told me the environment was hot and fertile and lush and that water was important. Obviously, water is always important, but that it was going to play a significant role for the owner of the bare feet.

From there I started researching environments that matched what I’d dreamt, and settled on Central America. The whole genesis of this trilogy is based on one mostly-forgotten dream…

As for characters doing things I didn’t expect, three of them have so far! I have little control over them sometimes and I think that’s why sometimes my plot twists take readers by surprise – they always take me by surprise!

The Empire of Song has a fascinating look at the power of colonisation - was this a theme you wished to explore?

Yes, I touched on it a little in the Godblind trilogy but it was something I wanted specifically to explore. I did a lot of research around it and was repeatedly horrified by everything I learned. I wanted to make the Empire of Songs’ colonisation practices and excuses and justifications as authentic as possible, as well as the attitudes expressed not just by Pechaqueh but all people under the song who’ve bought into the Empire’s lies.

At the same time, it would have been easy to make them all straight up villains, but they’re not. They’re just people. Some are evil and many are ignorant. All truly believe in the lie of ‘civilisation’ peddled by the Empire, but it was a real balancing act to make them, in many cases, extremely likeable despite their beliefs and prejudices. Hopefully, that makes them seem all the more human, but doesn’t dilute the message that colonialism is bad.

And on the other hand, I didn’t want the Tokob and Yaloh – the ‘goodies’ – to be pure and noble and honourable and engaged in patriotic warfare. They’re just as prejudiced and ignorant, because they’re just as human as their enemies. I purposely made them fractious and argumentative in the Sky City in The Stone Knife, because people under stress usually are.

These are probably the most emotionally-complex, and messiest, characters I’ve written to date.

You’ve created a non-european setting and there are elements of other cultures (although very much your own invention) how did you work to avoid moving into potential cultural appropriation?

Yes, definitely. As mentioned, I settled on a Central American-inspired landscape and Mesoamerican level of technology. I read a lot of archaeological books covering various aspects of Mesoamerican life and society to give me a thorough understanding of how civilisations thrived and survived in the landscape – how and where and why they built their cities; how they farmed amid jungle and when and how to plant and harvest; currency and fashion and trade and travel; and of course societal structures and religion.

The religious aspects were very important for me to learn, but not so that I could use them in this trilogy. I needed to know what Mesoamericans believed – that’s lumping together several different peoples, as of course there were multiple variations on similar faiths spanning Central America, with similar or the same gods given different names and different aspects of their beings venerated by one people over another – so that I could create my own religion(s) that fitted into the setting but didn’t appropriate from a still-living culture and religion.

So, for example, I have eagle warriors instead of Mayan jaguar warriors, but I paid homage to them via the ‘jaguar path’. And my homage to Xochipilli and Xochiquetzal, the Aztec god and goddess of pleasure, homosexuality, summer, beauty, and sacred prostitution (among other things) was to create a queernorm society with non-traditional i.e. non-Western attitudes towards marriage, love, and family units.

It was really important that I didn’t take a living religion and/or culture and twist it to fit my own story’s needs, jamming worship of the holy Setatmeh (Drowned) into it and using its rituals as my form of magic. There’s no telling how much harm I might have done and it wasn’t something I was prepared to risk, so for me, learning the religions in order to remove them from my society and replace them with my own created religions was the safest and most respectful thing I could do.

Finally, I owe a huge debt to David Bowles. Not only did he provide cultural expertise and a sensitivity read, his book Feathered Serpent/Dark Heart of Sky, was transformative in deepening my understanding of culture, faith and daily life among Mesoamerican peoples.

In three words can you describe the final book?

Heartbreaking, twisty, epic.

What else can we look forward to from you in the future and where can we find out more?

I’m currently in the early research stages for a new book. I’m not quite sure yet whether this will be a series or perhaps some linked stand alones, which in itself it exciting. It’s definitely still epic fantasy, but in a different vein. Less blood, more banter. I’m really excited about it and hope to begin drafting in early summer, once I’ve completed the pesky structural edit for Songs 3.

I can be found on all the usual socials, though how long until Twitter implodes is anyone’s guess. My website, where you can also learn more about my worldbuilding course, is Anna Stephens, word seeker (anna-stephens.com).

My handle is @annasmithwrites on twitter, Instagram, tiktok, and mastodon (though I don’t use that much yet) or Anna Stephens on FB.

If there was one book, not your own, that you wish you could get everyone else to read what would it be and why?

The most recent book that completely blew my away was an arc of The Surviving Sky by Kritika Rao. It’s science-fantasy, maybe, with the most complex and intricate worldbuilding I’ve come across in a long time, and a bickering, almost-broken married couple as protagonists in a society on the absolute brink of disaster. It really blurs the lines between is it magic, science or religion – or perhaps just all three? I adored it. It’s out in June, I believe, through Titan Books, and you’re going to want it.