Today, under the Ancient Wonders
spotlight is ANNE NICHOLLS.
Tell us a little about yourself,
and what you like to write?
I love a good story: thrills, adventures, heroism, the writing of
wrongs.
What inspired you to write “Dragonsbridge”?
I wrote “Dragonsbridge” after I got back from a great little fantasy
convention called Les Féeries du Bocage, held in a friendly village in rolling
French countryside an hour south of Paris. We were sat next to Pierre Dubois, a
famous TV presenter of all things to do with Arthurian romance, which was what
I did my thesis on. And of course we were quite close to the forest of
Brocéliande, which I looked up on Google Earth. Hmm, hidden valley, Celtic
deities, portals to Otherworlds, and just desserts (and I don't just mean those
fantastic lemon tarts you get in France!).
If the TARDIS could drop you off
to any one site in its heyday, where would you go?
If I could TARDIS into any specific place and time in history it would
have to be the Library at Alexandria in time to get the scrolls out before the
ravening religious nutters set fire to it. I so want to see the maps of
Atlantis, talk to the scholars and curators (after all, the TARDIS has a
translation and interpreting program) – and enjoy the weather after all this late,
blasted snow! I could free a couple of slaves who'd be grateful as well as good
cooks and go off and have wonderful lives of their own. And I'd just generally
enjoy ancient academia – before coming back to now with a small but tasteful
treasure trove.
What appeals to you most about
ancient sites/landscapes?
Hmm, ancient landscapes and sites. Well, all landscapes (except urban
ones) are ancient. It's the colour, the exoticism, the thought that so many
different peoples have lived their individual lives shaped by the great
cultural sweeps of history, climate and location, that's what appeals to me.
What about Florence in the time of Lorenzo? Wouldn't you just love to see the
procession he organised for his betrothal, him in his gold-bedecked armour, the
courtiers in their jewelled robes, the musicians and the artists before
Savanarola burned their pictures? The valleys of the Pueblo Indians when they
were still alive? Tahiti before cargo cults? The great greenwood that carpeted
the length and breadth of England as the last ice-age retreated? Charnwood
Forest when it fringed a tropic sea?
What do you have coming out
next?
I'm in the throes of finishing three short stories for Alchemy Press,
and a couple of novels – one historical and one a fantasy, so I'm keeping busy.
In fact, at times my life feels like a Heath Robinson contraption edited by
Escher. Luckily I'm enjoying the ride.
[Anne Nicholls, has had ten books published in SF
and the self-help fields. Her highly acclaimed novels Mindsail and The
Brooch of Azure Midnight appeared under the name of Anne Gay. For four
years she was the editor of LineOne's Science Fiction Zone, which had around
140,000 readers every month. She is currently working on a YA fantasy trilogy.
Anne also features in The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes.]
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