Featured Interview With JC Compton
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and grew up in a small town in the North of France, with an American father and a French mother. Because it was such an isolated place (the sort where nothing ever happens), I always dreamed of seeing the world and living great adventures – and I did! I traveled to Japan, India, lived in Canada for a few years, and I currently live in the USA with my husband. I love traveling around the world and meeting people from many different cultures, and my love of diversity is reflected in my writing. When I’m not writing, I am typically watching Japanese TV or a Bollywood movie, singing, and cooking (sometimes all at the same time). I have identified as nonbinary since the age of 16 but the word did not exist at the time, so I used the Japanese word “chuusei” (gender neutral) to refer to myself. I use the pronouns they/them in English, watashi in Japanese. I don’t know what pronouns I would use in French, but I rather like “iel”. Some people have asked me what language I think in since I speak many, and it’s really all of them. My brain is just a big multilingual dictionary!
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I taught myself to read at age 4 in French and later in English, so I was an early reader! Some of my fondest childhood memories were going to the warm and cozy public library on rainy Saturday afternoons and picking out the new books I was going to read that week. I think I probably read every children’s book at the public library and my school library. The book that really left its imprint on me as a child was The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. I borrowed it so many times from the school library my teacher told me I needed to read something else!
I started writing my own stories around the age of eight, with a story about a naughty little girl who got grounded but was visited in the middle of the night by a magical horse who took her to an enchanted realm. I completed my first novel at age 25 – a yet unpublished high fantasy/sci-fi saga – and published my first novel, Undertakers Inc., in 2021. I have always escaped to fantastic worlds through books, worlds where magic is possible and one can live great adventures, and I hope to open the same gateways for my readers. Whoever you are, wherever you are, I want to transport you to magical or futuristic worlds with me!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I read many different genres, from fantasy (C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Anne Rice, Anne Bishop) to sci-fi (George Orwell, Isaac Asimov), English and French literature classic authors (Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Brontë, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Zola), poetry (Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, Charles Baudelaire), and philosophy (Kant, Plato). I have a few physics books too by Albert Einstein, and biographies. All of the authors I like inspire my writing, but particularly those of the Victorian era. I tend to like books that are unique, surprising, and the opposite of trends. I think Wuthering Heights is one of the best books ever written, because the main characters are so passionate at a time when it was so frowned upon. I also enjoy graphic novels, bande dessinée, and manga.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is a dark LGBT thriller and supernatural suspense story set in London in 1886. It is the story of a young transgender paranormal investigator, Stanley. Born with the ability to see and interact with ghosts, he now struggles to keep a roof over the head of the three annoying ghosts who live with him. But exorcising people’s homes and having tea with their deceased relatives is boring. He is hoping for something spectacular to happen in his life to bring him fortune and distract him from the terrifying things he remembers of the haunted home he grew up in. When a beautiful clockmaker succubus knocks on his door one night to hire his services, little does he know what an adventure he is about to embark on! Among other fantastic abilities he develops, he can make himself invisible and flip his enemies’ reality upside down (literally!) This superhero (or supervillain) of the underworld adopts the codename “bogeyman” and it’s no surprise that he encounters the deadly “candyman”, a hitman without a face of his own or an identity, but also necromancers and archangels. But as he goes deeper and deeper into the underworld, so does he discover the terrible truth about himself and his inescapable destiny…
I really enjoyed writing this book because the main character is so disagreeable at first (children call him Scrooge!) but also a genuinely kind young man, who believes in magical creatures and helps ghosts move on to the other side. Stanley is full of surprises and unpredictable, and has a tendency to make poor decisions, and occasionally good ones (when he listens to the cat-sith). His ability to see the world through a child’s eyes, even as an adult, proves especially helpful when one is lost in magical and confusing worlds. And we all need a best friend like the child ghost Cornelius, ready to save you from those creepy dolls on the dresser, but also sometimes a prankster when he tries to set you up on a date with a witch. Bring out your Ouija boards and dust off your demonology books; you might need them to follow Stanley in his strange adventures!
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