Fantasy author P. Grace Lawson is in the hotseat today. We’re chatting about her new speculative fiction novel, Rise of the Ravenisha.
Bio:
A Talladega, Alabama native, Pamela G. Lawson has a BA in Anthropology from UC Berkeley. Rise of the Ravenisha is her debut novel. The second book, Rogue Ravenisha is complete, and Revenge of the Ravenisha has been started. Pamela lives in Northern California with her two felines, Ferg and Nikos.
Welcome, P. Grace. Please tell us about your current release.
Rise of the Ravenisha is an #Ownvoices fantasy/speculative fiction novel created with vibrant female characters on the brink of individual and collective power. Teddy, an ex-cop with the Atlanta PD has seen a thing or two. She always knew she was different. She wasn’t like her sisters of the Old-Generation Ravenisha–an ancient tribe of African warrior women who long ago struck a bargain with the dark spirit La Panthère Noire. Their supernatural strength made them the perfect bargaining chips for their queen, Idia, to betray and sell them into American slavery to bolster her own rise to power. Now living with her sister Fredi in modern-day Ravenswood, Alabama, Teddy is still grappling with that haunted legacy, and the lingering feeling that she and Fredi do not belong with the rest of their kin.
She soon learns that her natural instincts ring true: Teddy and Fredi were not born into the Ravenisha naturally, but rather were created by a wicked experimenter named Rufus, attempting to birth a new generation of Ravenisha women into the world who are born into obedience. What Rufus does not know is that the sisters were prophesied, the dawn of a new order that bears with it the power to overthrow Idia and claim freedom for the Ravenisha for the first time in centuries.
Learning of their betrayal by their trusted friend, the Old-Generation Ravenisha are determined to seize their only chance to finally taste life beyond the collars around their necks. But Idia, well aware of the prophecy herself, has been growing her own werepanther army, clinging to power with everything she has. Torn between the two, twenty-eight-year-old Teddy and almost thirteen year old Fredi find themselves with the chance to free their lineage… or sentence them to eternal slavery.
What inspired you to write this book?
I have always been an avid reader, and a good writer. Growing up in Talladega, Alabama, it never dawned on me to pursue a career as an author. During the era in which I grew up, children were expected to be doctors, teachers, lawyers, or dentists. After decades of working jobs that bored me to death, and didn’t feed my soul, an accident at a family reunion in the Poconos finally made me listen to the Universe. I fell, and to distract myself from the pain, I asked myself two questions. What if there were these women warriors and what if they shapeshifted into werepanthers. The answers to those questions became Rise of the Ravenisha. I was 55 years old.
Excerpt from Rise of the Ravenisha:
Chapter 1
Present-day Southern United States, Ravenswood, Alabama Honeycutt Highway (formerly Eutaw Crossroads)
To outsiders, the three women picking poke salat, a southern delicacy that can be fatal if not prepared correctly, and wild onions along the side of the country road looked like relics from bygone days. The women, who were now always cold due to their loss of body fat, wore long cotton dresses. Large straw hats protected their heads from the unrelenting Alabama sun that was just rising on the horizon, painting the sky a beautiful smorgasbord of mauves, oranges, corals, and yellows. Dew sprinkled the grass and foliage and the air smelled of the unlikely mixture of pine cones and honeysuckles. Now and then, a woodpecker tapping on bark or the call of a wren or sparrow broke the peaceful silence. A motor growled in the distance, polluting the air with its sound. The women looked up, did a collective eye roll and resumed the task at hand.
“What does he want now?” one woman mumbled under her breath, stabbing her hoe into the ground with extra vigor.
They had to pay attention to what they were doing, for poke salat looked like any other weed. Mature poke salat weeds were distinctive.
The stalks were tall and purple with likewise violet berries. This was when the plant was at its most toxic. Therefore, the women focused on harvesting the immature tender shoots, whose stalks were green and berries white. They used their hoes to avoid the root, which was poisonous.
All three Black women were striking. Their skin tones ranged from honey to chocolate to ebony. Their features were as diverse as their skin color—a sharp blend of Caucasian, African and Asian elements. All had beautiful high cheekbones, though some appeared razor-sharp because of the drastic weight loss. Their movements were sinewy, cat-like, and at odds with the clunky, baggy clothes they were wearing. While they looked like old women, there was something about them that belied their age.
Ceola Lulabelle Eudora Furie wasn’t the tallest of the group. In fact, she was rather petite, but still, she clearly was the group’s leader. While she wasn’t as fierce-looking as the one called Matilda, a quiet menace radiated off of her, and humans instinctively avoided her before they even got the full blast of her stormy green eyes.
Matilda “Tildy” Arvelle Arceneaux, was an intimidating presence. Even though she had a buzz cut, there was no mistaking her gender. Her high cheekbones and full, sensual lips were all female, while her alert green eyes constantly surveilled her surroundings.
The third woman, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Sarah Gadsden, was distinguishable from the others by her mane of long, dreadlocked hair. Her kind, and clear green eyes often lulled people into trusting her with their deepest secrets and her Ph.D. in psychology had come in handy on many occasions over the years.
A black SUV pulled to a halt on the road’s shoulder, kicking up gusts of red dust that blew everywhere. The back door opened, and a tall, late-middle-aged, cadaverously thin man stepped out. The women’s captor, torturer, rapist, and arch nemesis had arrived.
What exciting story are you working on next?
Rogue Ravenisha, the sequel picks up where Rise of the Ravenisha ended. The Ravenisha have no sooner caught their breath after defeating Queen Idia before their lives are thrown into chaos. A winged being arrives from another dominion and kidnaps the Asoro, the warrior men who have been tasked with protecting the Ravenisha for centuries, right from under the Ravenisha’s noses. To exacerbate matters, Teddy and Fredi continue to be plagued by La Panthère Noire. When an unspeakable tragedy occurs in their small town of Ravenswood, Alabama, the women are forced to put aside personal animosities and work together to bring family members home. The Ravenisha discover that all roads lead to one place, a fortress high in the Himalayan mountains. Paths converge here, and as they battle for their lives, a demon is unleashed during the battle and the world’s safety hangs in balance. Rogue Ravenisha follows New-Generation Teddy and Fredi on a life-changing journey as they battle demons, internal as well as external, and fulfill their destiny. Will the Ravenisha and Asoro survive the battle? Will Rufus take his evil planning to new heights? Will Teddy and Fredi drive La Panthère Noire from them? Will evil be unleashed into the world? Read this epic adventure and find out.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When I surpassed 90,000 words while writing Rise of the Ravenisha. I also knew I was truly a writer when I started querying agents. Even though they declined to represent me, many took the time to personalize their rejections. I was told I had a nice writing style, my story had great potential, but it needed to be polished, query them again if I wrote something else, etc.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I am a full-time writer whose schedule has been interrupted by the realities of being a self-published writer. My ideal writing schedule is to write from 8 am to 2 pm. I find that trying to write longer than six hours is counterproductive for me. My brain is frazzled and creativity is stymied. Now that Rise of the Ravenisha is out in the world, the majority of my time is spent on marketing (looking for events where I can promote my book, booking and prepping for podcasts, etc.) I was worried that my creative juices were gone after a period of intense marketing and no writing, but when I sat at my laptop to write, I discovered the spark was still there. That was a huge relief!
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I don’t put a lot of structure into my writing. I have a general outline (beginning, middle, and end) and I write freestyle. I never know what sentence is going to pore from me. I know my writing style irks some people because I don’t follow all of the writing rules, but as a quirky, somewhat eccentric person, surely you didn’t expect me to follow writing rules, did you? (Ex. I do too much head hopping – allowing readers see into the heads of too many characters.)
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A forensic pathologist. I was that weird child who would stop beside a dead animal as I walked to and from school to see what had happened to it since the previous day. I even asked the funeral director about the embalming process at my father’s funeral when I was eleven.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
My stories aren’t literary stories. I didn’t set out to write the stories I currently write. My life was not experienced by many of my peers. My father was 20 years older than my mother. He and my mother’s father were born in 1913. As a result, my grandparents and other relatives were OLD and raised during a different era. My mother and her sister really picked poke salat from the side of the road, cooked it, and ate it. I spent a lot of time with someone dear who washed her clothes in a boiling black pot, then got a washing machine with a wringer and taught me how to sew on a peddle sewing machine. I ate muscadines, red and yellow meat watermelons from the field, and was privileged to listen to incredible stories. I will never forget how my mother was a warrior woman, or how my paternal grandfather and other men in the community ran the Klan out when the Klan didn’t want them to bring a black doctor into the community, or how my maternal grandfather spit in a white man’s face in a courtroom and didn’t get lynched. The stories I write are an ode to my people – all of them warriors in their own way. The goal is to educate, entertain, and allow marginalized people to envision a magical world where people who look like them kick ass and yes, even ride horses.
Links:
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Thanks for being here today!