Author Q&A with Elisa A. Bonnin
Author Q&A with Elisa A. Bonnin
1. Tell us about your writing/ published book(s)
I have two YA fantasy novels being published by Swoon Reads/Macmillan Books. The first, BRAVE, is going to be my debut novel in 2022. BRAVE is a story set in a Filipino-inspired fantasy world, about two girls from different cultural groups who meet each other and fall in love, but in order to be together, they have to keep their peoples’ from going to war. It’s a very important book to me, because even though I am bisexual, and even though I grew up in the Philippines, BRAVE was the first book I wrote where I challenged myself to think of fantasy as something other than straight, white medieval European stories. In BRAVE, Seri (the protagonist) faces insurmountable odds and comes out stronger than she ever thought she could be, and I can’t wait to share it with all of you.
My second book is called KINGFISHER AND CROW. It’s a heist novel, with twin thieves Liam (Kingfisher) and Arian (Crow) Athensor at the front and center. I had a lot of fun writing this, not just because I love heists, but because all four POV characters in this novel are directly based off characters my best friend and I imagined in high school, when we were coming up with our own fantasy worlds. And like BRAVE, KINGFISHER AND CROW has a protagonist learning to be herself, but also finding her place in the world she lives in.
2. Where’s your favourite place to write?
I’m very much a creature of habit, which is a nice way of saying that I’m the boring person that writes best at my desk. Right now, I have my laptop set up in a quiet part of the apartment, just underneath a sloped roof. I have my own skylight, my own chair, a blank wall in front of me that I’ve decorated with posters and Christmas cards from family, and a heater next to me. The dog is asleep at my feet.
Because of Covid, I’ve been working from home much more than usual, but even in the before times, I worked from home about half the day (the advantage of being an academic with no teaching obligations and a flexible schedule). I work at the same desk that I write in. This is because I discovered that I was more productive if I treated my writing as a job, rather than as a hobby or something I do for fun. I still enjoy writing, and I’m happy to do it, but when I set my own deadlines and incorporate it into my workday, I’m much more likely to get it done.
3. What’s your favourite genre to read?
I’ve loved fantasy ever since I was little. I like reading just about anything interesting, and will read from other genres, but fantasy is my first love and still makes up most of my reads. I love imagining what it would be like to live in a world where things are just a little more magical.
My day job is in science and I do a lot of scientific research. While I’m working, I think very rigidly about the world we live in. It’s nice to unwind by relaxing those constraints, by just letting myself think creatively about worlds where literally everything is possible.
I think escapism often gets a bad rap because people think that it’s not as ‘serious’ as literary fiction or that people who read things to escape the real world are somehow misguided, childish or delusional. But I think that it’s good to let your mind breathe every now and then and stretch your imagination. And of course, fantasy can teach you things, if only by making you consider everyday situations in a completely different light.
4. Have you always wanted to write?
Yes. I’ve loved books since before elementary school. I was a really early reader, and I have memories of trying to write stories at age six or seven. I was eight years old when I wrote my first completed story, and from then on, I wanted to write books. I spent the remainder of my school years scribbling down stories in my notebooks instead of notes. When I was 12, I wrote a (very bad) novel, when I was 13, I won NaNoWriMo for the first time. I started sending books out to agents at 18, and it took me 10 years to get a book deal.
If this sounds like you, don’t give up, and if this doesn’t sound like you, if you started writing later in life or if you’ve just started or if you’ve been afraid to start, don’t give up. There is no guaranteed path to being a published author. The only thing you can do is keep trying, and you’ll get there in the end.
5. How do you handle criticism?
To tell the truth, I’m still scared of criticism. I used to handle criticism very badly, because I was so emotionally attached to my work. I think it’s normal to be a little afraid of criticism. After all, you worked so hard on your book and you don’t like hearing people say that they didn’t like it. But learning how to take criticism is a necessary skill for writers. Being open to constructive criticism is how we improve.
I really started learning how to take constructive criticism when I started making an effort to edit my books for the first time. I realized that after some time, I would hit a wall where the book wasn’t getting any better no matter how many times I reread it. As the person who wrote the book, I knew every word and sentence, and I was too close to the text to look at the big picture and see where it might be improved. I realized that until I let other people read my writing and really listened to what they had to say, my writing was never going to get better.
Nowadays, when I get my edit letter from my editor, or criticism from critique partners, I’m still scared. I read the letter with my hands over my eyes, still afraid to take it in. But I do. I give myself one day just to read the letter or the criticism and process how I feel. The next day, I get to work, writing down the big points from the edit letter or critique and starting with those.
6. Tell me about your current work
While I am editing BRAVE and KINGFISHER AND CROW, I’m also working on a few WIPs. One of them, which I’m hoping to finish drafting by April of this year, is a YA fantasy set in the Philippines in the 2000s. I wanted to write this book because I grew up in the Philippines and attended high school there. When I was growing up, I was fascinated by the American high schools I saw in the books and media available to me, but I couldn’t really relate to them. They were, in a way, as foreign and fantastical as any fictional magic school. For a long time, I couldn’t write YA set in the real world, because I felt like I didn’t understand American high school or the American teenage experience enough to write something believable.
This year, though, I started thinking that maybe I don’t have to understand America to write YA. Maybe I can write a YA book about the things that i actually experienced as a teenager, in the place that I experienced them. My goal with this book was to write about the experience of being a teenager in the Philippines, to explore Filipino mythology, and to give a character in a high school like mine the kind of fantastical adventure I dreamed about when I was in her place.
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