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Author, Editor, Media Tie-In Writer

Tell Me - Ari Marmell

Ari is a friend of mine and someone who has written for me. He’s a great guy and an even better writer. I’m happy to have inspired him in some small way. I really like the Mick Oberon books.


It’s both funny and highly appropriate that I’m writing this “Tell Me” post about HALLOW POINT for Jennifer’s web site. See, she doesn’t know this—or I guess she does by the time you’re reading this, but she didn’t before I sent this to her—but in a small way, she’s part of the reason that my character of Mick Oberon exists at all.

Real quick, first, for those of you who don’t know. Mick Oberon is a PI in Chicago in the 1930s, very much in the model of a Chandler of Mammett protagonist. He’s also, however, one of the aes sidhe, and a noble-in-exile from the Seelie Court. The books about him—both the new one, HALLOW POINT, and the first one, called HOT LEAD, COLD IRON—are a mixture of gangland/noir mystery and urban fantasy.

Now, I’ve been asked before how I came up with Mick, and what I tell people is that he’s basically an “Athena character,” by which I mean he sprang full-grown from my head one day. And that’s true, so far as it goes; he really did just pop to mind. I didn’t set out tp envision any such character, nor was I planning to write a noir/fantasy mix. It all just came to me.

But part of the reason it came to me is that I was already thinking about fairy tales. And the reason I was thinking about fairy tales is that I’d just been invited to contribute to an anthology of short stories called HUMAN TALES, a book of “reverse” fairy tales. (That is, where the faeries or other supernatural creatures with the protagonists, and it was the humans who were the monsters or the mysteries.) The story I wound up writing for that book, called “Tithe,” had nothing whatsoever to do with Mick Oberon; he wasn’t really an appropriate character for what I wanted to do with that project.

He stuck with me, though, and wound up developing into a character and an idea for which I’ve already written two novels, and hope to write a great many more. It’s not quite like anything else I’ve written, and it’s not quite like most of the other urban fantasy out there. These books are their own thing, Mick’s his own character, and maybe I’d have come up with him even if I hadn’t been contemplating fairy tales that evening. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t.

So thanks, Jennifer, for this opportunity to talk to him—and just possibly for spurring me to come up with him in the first place.


Read more Ari at his website: Mouseferatu: Rodents of the Dark.

 

What is the “Tell Me” guest blog? It is a 400-600 word (more if you need it) blog post where you tell me something about your project. Tell me why you did it. Or what inspired you. Or something that you’ve always wanted to tell the world about the project. Tell me why you love it. Or hate it. Or what you learned. Tell me anything you want. I’m listening….

Meet Jennifer Brozek

Jennifer Brozek is a multi-talented, award-winning author, editor, and media tie-in writer. She is the author of Never Let Me Sleep and The Last Days of Salton Academy, both of which were nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. Her YA tie-in novels, BattleTech: The Nellus Academy Incident and Shadowrun: Auditions, have both won Scribe Awards. Her editing work has earned her nominations for the British Fantasy Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and multiple Hugo Awards. She won the Australian Shadows Award for the Grants Pass anthology, co-edited with Amanda Pillar. Jennifer’s short form work has appeared in Apex Publications, Uncanny Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and in anthologies set in the worlds of Valdemar, Shadowrun, V-Wars, Masters of Orion, Well World, and Predator.

Jennifer has been a full-time freelance author and editor for over seventeen years, and she has never been happier. She keeps a tight schedule on her writing and editing projects and somehow manages to find time to teach writing classes and volunteer for several professional writing organizations such as SFWA, HWA, and IAMTW. She shares her husband, Jeff, with several cats and often uses him as a sounding board for her story ideas. Visit Jennifer’s worlds at jenniferbrozek.com or her social media accounts on LinkTree.

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