LA Public Library: Interview With An Author: Roshani Chokshi

Los Angeles CA

18 November, 2021

10:26 AM

Description

Press release from the Los Angeles Public Library: Daryl M. November 18, 2021 Roshani Chokshi is the author of commercial and critically acclaimed books for middle grade and young adult readers that draw on world mythology and folklore. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards and has frequently appeared on Best of The Year lists from Barnes and Noble, Forbes, Buzzfeed, and more. Her New York Times bestselling series includes The Star-Touched Queen duology (The Star-Touched Queen & A Crown of Wishes), The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which was recently optioned for film by Paramount Pictures. Her latest book is Once More Upon a Time and she recently talked about it with Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog. I was inspired by a rather sad ending to an Irish fairytale, the tale of Diarmuid and Grainne, which ends with the lovers having to give up their love for each other to restore one of them to health. I thought it would be an interesting beginning rather than an ending. They are the individualized versions of stock characters in fairytales…the siblings forgotten about in the particular birth order which determines protagonists. Middle children, essentially. Interestingly, Once More Upon a Time came out very cleanly. More so than any of my other projects. My favorite is Bluebeard by Charles Perrault. It is bloody and tragic, and yet leaves so many questions unanswered that it becomes an endless feast for the imagination. I have many favorites for different reasons. Here are a few: Penelope with James McAvoy and Christina Ricci ; Jean Cocteau's Le Belle Et La Bete, the 2015 absurdly strange and decadent film Tale of Tales with Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel and the 2006 film The Fall with Lee Pace. Fairytales are a set of immortal, enchanted bones, and through each successive generation, we are able to hang upon them the skins of inherited dreams, the flesh of nightmares wrought by the past, and the fragile silks of all our hopes. That is why fairytales never cease to feed us. They can be anything to us at any time, and yet one only has to peel back to the bones of a story to see how familiar and ancient it really is. The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges and an army of supplements. The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander. Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison. The Silmarillion. Essex Serpent. Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb. All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry. Wildwood Dancing by Juliette Marillier. Hadestown by Anais Mitchell, although I've grown to love the Broadway version too. Acquiring fresh flowers with my husband, bookstore visit, lunch outside with prosecco, grocery store for dinner supplies, sunshine silvering into rain, a table laid for friends, an hour to read on the couch with teddy the cat before I put it away because now our front door is opening and the sounds of pleasant evening company are spilling into the hallway. What is your favorite word? Ophidian. Boundaries. Once More Upon a Time Chokshi, Roshani View on OverDrive View in Catalog This press release was produced by the Los Angeles Public Library. The views expressed here are the author's own.