Featured Interview With Bryant Reil
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
My name is Bryant Reil. I grew up the middle child in a family of seven children. I was one of two boys, and have five sisters. We lived in the village of Rosemary in Alberta, Canada until I was 12, and I finished my schooling in Strathmore, Alberta, at the time a whopping size of 4500 or so people.
I currently live in Kelowna, BC, Canada, in the Okanagan valley. I live near the lake, and like to go to the beach to read and relax. I currently have no pets, though I have been pushing for my workplace to get an office cat.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I don’t actually remember learning to read – I could read by the time I went to school, but I don’t know that anyone really taught me. I just seem to have picked it up. My interest in fantasy came before I turned into a heavy reader – I saw a play when I was about four. It had something to do with a dragon’s tear, but the memory that stands out most was a talking wall. It blew my little mind. Walls can’t talk! It bothered me at first, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that whoever thought of that idea was a genius.
I became an avid reader fairly early. I enjoyed the mysteries of The Three Investigators, and loved both Chronicles of Prydain and Narnia. I got into heavier reading as well – I remember reading Roots in sixth grade, and I read all my parents’ medical and psychology books, which really saved me from getting the birds and the bees talk as I already knew what they were trying to teach me.
I always loved storytelling and creative writing in school, but my first real effort was a novel I wrote in my mid-twenties that sits in a binder in storage. I have written many scripts and such since that have never left the house. Elf Mastery was my first writing project that got pushed into the light.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I grew up reading a lot of Piers Anthony books because I found him very creative. He also reviewed my books! which was lovely. I enjoyed some of the Dungeons and Dragons books. My sister had one, which I found loved, though I didn’t know anything about the game on which it was based. Later I loved the Krynn series. I loved Wheel of Time, at first, though it got a bit long for me. I also love factual books. I am interested in learning, though my topic of choice changes, but I do read a lot of informative books and articles. But for fiction, I tend to love fantasy, sci-fi, or the classics and mythology. Modern contemporary fiction interests me less because it feels too much like ordinary life, which I already inhabit.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book was a compilation of the Elf Mastery series, in which I added several short stories in a collection I call Elf Reflections. You see, each title, is a play on words with ‘self’: Elf Mastery, Elf Doubt, Elf Righteous, Elf Reflections. And each matches the theme of the corresponding book.
I thought it was clever.
It follows the story of Kyla Nim, a young elf woman trying to find her place in the World of Order, which is the world of mystical creatures that operate the Earth. Humans are ignorant of such goings-on and explain things like the movement of the earth and development of new species in nonsensical scientific terms, when in fact it is all the hard work of magical beings in the background.
Kyla, in her pursuit of purpose, runs afoul of Erebus, god of darkness. This sends her on a series of adventures that I don’t want to describe here for fear of spoilers. However, I will say she has many interesting friends, such as Eunoe, the DNA-knitting alseid, Aspen, the plant-singing dryad, and Aura, the regal Daughter of the Air. There is Denzig, the dragon, a caretaker-in-disguise of a human town oblivious to his true nature, and Lug, a gentle stone elemental with a love of all things delicate and beautiful. There is Saul, the brainy but mildly annoying satyr, and Lili, the fiery demoness who is quite prickly on the outside but softer than she seems. With their aid, Kyla presses forward to save the world from deadly threats as she tries to mature without losing her humanity (or rather her elfwomanity.)
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