I’ve begun a series of posts I’m calling Fae-tastic Fridays where I’m sharing interviews I conducted with the contributors to Fae. This will be the second such post and for it I’m going to interview Alexis A. Hunter.
~*~
Alexis A. Hunter’s Interview
What was the inspiration for your Fae story?
“A Fairfolk Promise” was inspired by a photo I had pinned to my Writing Prompt board on Pinterest. I can’t seem to find the artist or original link—but it’s an image of a man strung up like a scarecrow. The colors are all faded and dark and creepy and it’s a very arresting image that really captured my imagination and inspired the ‘scarecrows’ in my story.
Was this your first foray into writing fairy stories?
This is the first ‘fairy’ story that I remember writing. There may have been others, but they don’t spring to mind. I may play with faries again in the future—like any other fantasy creature, there’s so much you can do with them, even throwing them in unique settings like a spaceship or a desert, and so on.
Can you tell us a bit about the specific type of fairy creature in your story?
I did some research about fairies, but it seems there are vast amounts of information out there and I didn’t sift through it all. The fairies of “A Fairfolk Promise” are, thanks to my research, harmed by iron. I think that’s a particularly symbolic weakness, as many fairies are extremely nature-oriented (as mine are) and what symbolizes man and the industrialization of our kind more than iron? I also allowed my fairies to shapeshift—I’m not sure if that’s part of fairy folklore or not, but it became necessary for the story to work correctly.
Do you believe in fairies?
I would certainly love to believe in fairies!
Do you want an excerpt? You know you do… 😉
From A Fairfolk Promise by Alexis A. Hunter:
A guttural cry tore itself from Cedric’s bleeding, cracked lips as he twisted down and back. Tearing loose, he darted toward the forest. A surge in his chest—half a heartbeat of freedom, but their hands were as brambles, snagging him. They dragged him to the earth, shouting curses and pummeling his bony sides with boots .
The wind knocked out of him, he lay immobilized. His lips parted and he sucked in mouthfuls of air as they dragged him forward. The cornstalks whispered around him, their blades slicing little red trails on his exposed arms and chest—nothing compared to the purple-blue bruising marbling his body.
“You hit me again, and I’ll strike you dead, kushna,” growled the Rolfman.
An iron cross stood in the midst of the corn, its vertical pole driven deep into the earth. Cedric forced his weary muscles to move again, to fight. To resist. But he had little hope of victory. They were too many, and they ate hearty meals each night. Slept in beds fluffed by goose-feathers. Cedric hadn’t eaten a scrap of food in the past three days.
They pressed him against the iron cross. The blazing twin-suns above had heated the surface, and it singed his skin. Gritting his teeth, he refused to cry out. Three held him while the fourth and fifth stretched his arms across the horizontal pole. They secured him with thin, sharp wire, laced with barbs. It cut into his skin, drawing blood.
And still he fought.
For Lina and the baby, he fought to be free.
~*~
Available direct from the publisher:
Or find it online:
Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble (Paperback)
Barnes & Noble (Nook)
Kobo
Books-a-Million
