about her novel Wolfproof

by Michele Kophs, Provato Marketing

Michele: How did you come up with the idea for Wolfproof?

Maureen: Writers find ideas in all kinds of strange places. When my husband and I were visiting our daughter, who was studying at Oxford, I was intrigued, like most Americans, by the variety of gargoyles and carving found in the many of the colleges and churches. One of the faces that peered back at me from the rafters was the face of a Greenman. Leaves sprouted from his head, vines pushed out from his mouth and nose. I’d seen contemporary garden art like that in the states, but seeing an ancient Greenman peering down from the ceiling really arrested my attention. I did what writers often do; I asked, “what if.” What would it feel like to have your hair turn to leaves, your skin to bark?

Because I am also a poet, I began with a poem entitled Greenman. That simple poem caught the attention of a number of journals and anthologies and ended up as honorable mention for The Best Fantasy and Horror 2006. Even after writing the poem, the Greenman character wouldn’t leave me alone. I began developing him into a character and he became the first character in Wolfproof, followed quickly by Timothy James Maxwell.

Michele: Why did you choose the genre of fantasy?

Maureen: One of my favorite quotes come from the writer G.K. Chesterton.“Fairy stories are more than true, not because they tell us there are dragons, but because they tell us they can be defeated.” All children know that the world is full of dragons. They all want to know that sometimes they can be the hero, no matter how unlikely, that defeats the dragon. They also want to know that the dragon isn’t all there is, that even though the path through the woods is dark, the story doesn’t end in despair.

I’ve always been a fan of fantasy especially the kind that comes knocking on your door and doesn’t go away until you answer. Think of Gandalf scratching a mark on Bilbo’s door, or the hundreds of letters that fly through the mail slot of the Dursley’s front door. Think of the wardrobe Lucy Pevensie stumbles into or of Richard Mayhew climbing through the manhole into another world below the streets of London All seemingly ordinary characters who have an encounter with the extraordinary that leaves them changed. And that’s at the very heart of fantasy’s appeal: the everyday person becomes more than they appear.

And of course that’s a message that we as educators try to get across to students all the time: everyone has value; we are all more than we seem. Sometimes, we need to step back and let fantasy tell the story. As the amazing writer Neil Gaiman said in his speech to the Mythopoeic Society, “Sometimes the best way to show people true things is from a direction they had not imagined truth coming.”

Michele: The title, Wolfproof, is very unusual. How did it come about?

Maureen: Once again, blame it on poetry. I had written a poem, Wolfproof, based on the story of the Three Little Pigs. The pigs needed to be wolfproof to survive. The idea of being wolfproof really can be generalized to the idea of having a shield that protects from all of the things that lurk in the dark or even scare us in the light of day. We all want to know, like Timothy James in my novel, that when the wolf is at the door, all hot breath and bloody-clawed, we are wolfproof.

Michele: There are allusions to British and Celtic mythology throughout the book. Did some of the characters come about through research?

Maureen: Yes, I actually began with researching the history of the Greenman and that led to other interesting rabbit trails. It was interesting to find that many of the traditions and symbols, like Morris Dancing and the Greenman, have a very uncertain history. We know when they first appeared in the written record. We also know that they have existed for a very long time before that. What researchers don’t know is exactly how they came to be. Did the name "Morris Dancer" come from Mary’s Men or Moorish dance? Why was the Greenman, a pagan symbol, allowed to remain in so many churches? Was it used as a symbol of resurrection? There are lots of theories, but they are theories.

Characters like Cerridwyn, Balor and Gwydon do come from British mythology. Some of their characteristics in Wolfproof are based on the ancient stories about them, some I changed based on the needs of my story. The sequel, The Traveler’s Market, relies even more heavily on specific myths such as the Battle of the Trees and some of the shape-changing stories told about Gwydon. At the back of the novel, I’ve included a glossary of mythic source material that explains some of the references in the novel.

Michele: You’ve taught gifted students for many years in WA State. In fact, in 2000 you were the McAuliffe Teaching Fellow for the State. How does your experience as an educator influence you as a writer?

Maureen: I know my audience well. Many of the gifted students I’ve worked with over the years will find something of themselves in Timothy James Maxwell, and in Sarah and Jessica. Gifted students often love ideas, words, mystery; they tend to have quirky interests that may not fit in with the normal school culture. Fantasy and Sci Fi are the genre of choice for many gifted students because it lets them grapple with ideas. When I write, I always have these students in mind as well as adding bits and pieces from my own children into the mix.