Mythical Monday (24)

It seems there are many books based on or influenced by Myths and Mythological Beings.

There are so many different Mythology and Mythological Beings recorded. Some are very popular and well known, others not so much. There are many similar beings, yet different depending on the culture it’s based in.  The definition of Myth covers about anything in the Urban Fantasy/Fantasy realm to me.

I’ve invited authors to share briefly the Mythological being or Myth that influenced their character(s) or story, or what their character(s) are based on influencing their books.  Hosting here, one author and being or myth per week.

This week we have:

Fantasy author Celine Kiernan

Talking of Ghosts.

So many thanks to Melissa for inviting me to participate in Mythic Mondays. I am so so very sorry for being late with the post though! I swear I meet myself coming in these days - I've become the ghost haunting my own life!

I chose to write about ghosts today as they feature in many of my books and short stories. I used to believe in them, very much so, and come from a family where ghosts and ghostly appearances were recounted with absolute sincerity (I still believe in the sincerity of those accounts today ) Since my father's death I've become more ambivalent about my belief in an afterlife and so my actual believe in ghosts has declined. This doesn't mean I'm not open to any and all possibilities though, and certainly as a literary device they still fascinate me. (and probably never will considering my plans to write a children's novel in which a ghost plays a major role)

So...

Ghosts: sentient echoes of the hidden past.

I have always been fascinated by the stories people keep from each other: the things we won’t tell and the histories we don’t discuss. I'm most especially fascinated by silences that are maintained (or enforced) out of the belief that forgetting is the best for everyone - as if ignorance of the past can ever help ensure a better future. These self -imposed silences exist everywhere. Mankind is always suppressing its own history-- or reshaping it in the telling. On a domestic level, many people go about happy lives blissfully unaware of the family dramas that have preceded them, the memories of which have been purposefully and tacitly consigned to silent cupboards and 'forgotten' by those involved.

Photo By: Adventures in Photography by Grace Kiernan,

But silencing the past doesn't always kill it. Sometimes the past seeps up through the cracks, like pollution in the ground water, often to the discomfort and despair of later generations. Emotional residue, social tension, instability: regardless of whether their origins are understood or not, these things can remain.

Ghosts are like walking scraps of such unwanted history. Pressing themselves into the world of the living, they intrude into the silence of the older generations. Unignorable and unavoidable, they force us, for better or for worse, to face our past. They demand that things long broken be fixed, or maybe just that they seen, recognized, and accepted as true.

In my books, this forced unearthing of buried conflict or pain can often come at a price for the innocent members of the present generation. It can be uncomfortable, even damaging, to be made fully aware of the truth. The age-mellowed grandfather or kindly mother may have - in other, younger, circumstances - been less than gentle, and worse than ruthless. The deeds performed, in war, in poverty, the sadnesses lived through, may indeed have been be better left alone. But - in my books - ghosts have no choice about telling the truth; they are nothing but the truth. They are the past crystallized, the very essence of never having moved on. Regardless of the consequences they cannot help but drag everything out into the light. Sentient echoes of the hidden past they will continue to sidle and creep and badger and wail, until the living are forced to turn and look and - for better or for worse - recognize them for what they are.



Author Bio:
Celine Kiernan is the author of the award winning and critically acclaimed The Moorehawke Trilogy, a dark, complex trilogy of fantasy YA books set in an alternative renaissance Europe. The three books of The Moorehawke Trilogy are The Poison Throne, The Crowded Shadows and The Rebel Prince. First published in Celine’s native Ireland in 2008, the trilogy has since been published in 15 different territories, and as of this typing has been translated to 10 different languages. In 2009 the first book of the Moorehawke Trilogy, The Poison Throne, won The Readers’ Association of Ireland Award for best book, it was included in the White Raven Collection and short listed for the 2009 Irish Book Awards in two categories (best newcomer and best children’s book snr catagory). In 2010 it was long-listed for an Australian Silver Inky Award.

Celine’s forth book, Taken Away (aka Into The Grey) – a YA ghost story set in 1970′s Ireland – is the winner of the 2012 CBI Book of the Year (formerly The Bisto award) and the CBI Children’s Choice Award. It is the first book to have won both categories.

Celine lives in rural Ireland with her husband and two teenage children. Her next novel Resonance - A supernatural/sc-fi which her publishers are calling ‘metaphysical gothic’ – is set in 1890′s Ireland and is due for publication in 2013.


Find Celine Kiernan:
Site:  The Writing of Celine Kiernan
Blog:  All Things Moorehawke and Otherwise
Twitter:  @Celine_Kiernan