Interview with Nicole Perdue

Khayrun Gure: What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?

Nicole Perdue: George R. R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones. It’s not that he’s a bad writer, but when I was reading through the first book, some of the writing and the direction in which it was going I wasn’t sure about. But I kind of grew into the whole series, A Song of Ice and Fire. I don’t think he’s bad, but I needed to grow into him a little bit.

KG: Where did your idea come from? What was your inspiration when writing your novel?

NP: My idea came from a prompt that I found on the internet about a spooky chessboard. It was just a random prompt that I was able to find, and I thought it sounded really interesting, but I added my own flare to it in terms of themes and genre.

KG: Why do you think it is important to write in this genre?

NP: My genre kind of goes into something supernatural-ish, but I don’t think it’s exactly that important that I wrote in that genre. I think it can be important in terms of the freedom that it provides, where you can think of the way that you deal with the supernatural and have your own creative idea of where some of the supernatural beings come from. I think it could be really important for people that want that freedom to write more of the LGBTQ+ side of things that is more of a theme and less of a genre, and it’s something that I definitely find really important to write about. I think it's really important for representation to just feel natural in writing.

KG: What’s your favourite underappreciated novel?

NP: I don’t know if this is underappreciated, but at least in the circles around me, people don’t talk about it much. I just recently read it; it’s called Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk. It's quite popular in a general sense, but I feel like more people should read it and talk about it. It’s LGBTQ+, which I think is important, and it’s a mystery, detective-type story, that's it’s quite interesting. It’s a fantastical setting too, and if people are into that, I think they should read it.