Masques of Darkover will be released May 2, 2017 and is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. The print edition will be on sale on the release date.
While this is her first sale to a Darkover anthology, Evey
Brett is no stranger to magic, especially when it comes to horses--just ask her
Lipizzan mare, Carrma, who has a habit of arranging the universe to her liking.
Carrma not only insisted that Evey move to southern Arizona to coddle her
during her retirement, but she was also the inspiration for her books Capriole,
Levade, and Passage as well as an anthology featuring
supernatural horses. “None of those are based on real life,” she says. “Nope,
not one.”
Deborah J. Ross: Tell
us about your introduction to Darkover.
Evey Brett: Back
in 2002 when I was just out of college, I got a job working retail at a
now-extinct Foley's department store in a mall. There was a
Waldenbooks right across from the store, so I'd often go get a book and settle
down in a comfy chair somewhere in the mall to eat my lunch and read. One day I
was looking for a new book and picked up The Fall of Neskaya, and I
was hooked. Fortunately for me (and the bookstore) they had several of other
Darkover novels as well.
DJR: What about
the world drew you in?
EB: I'm a sucker
for stories with telepaths and damaged characters. I'd gone through a number of
Mercedes Lackey's books, so finding Darkover gave me a whole new world with a
sizeable canon to explore. Having just read the back of The Fall
of Neskaya, I'd still pick it up to read because it's got everything I
want--telepaths, power, gifts, a tormented character with a secret he
can't reveal.
DJR: What
inspired your story in Masques of Darkover?
EB: I'd tried for
several months to come up with an idea and had nothing. Then, cliché as it
sounds, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning after dreaming about one
of my older stories and somehow transferred the idea to Darkover. I did get up
and write down the bones of a couple scenes so I didn't forget. Then I asked
Deborah what she thought of the basic idea, she gave me a few suggestions to
replace the bits that wouldn't work so well, and off I went.
My other major muse is a Lipizzan mare named Carrma who
is living out her golden years with me, so it wasn't had to get inspiration for
a certain elderly, opinionated mare who has no intention of slowing down. Her
sire, a famous Lipizzan stallion named Maestoso Africa, survived a devastating
flood, so that element came into play, too. Plus, the idea of knowing what my
horse is thinking and feeling is more of a daily occurrence than an element of
fantasy, so that was natural for me to include.
DJR: Was writing
this story different from a typical writing project? How did you balance
writing in someone else’s world and being true to your own creative
imagination?
EB: I've been
doing far better at selling stories for anthologies than I have at selling
stand-alones, so it's actually easier for me to write stories within the limits
of a particular world or theme. Limits, like historical or world-building
details, actually seem to force a better story because I have to figure out how
to make my own ideas work within those boundaries. So in that sense, it's no
different from a usual writing project because I've been writing mostly for
anthologies lately.
DJR: Is there
another Darkover story you would particularly like to write?
EB: Something
with chieri. A lot of characters in my stories are trans, so
I'm always interested in writing stories with gender-bending characters.
DJR: What have
you written recently? What is your favorite of your published works and why?
EB: I've had a
number of stories come out from Lethe Press, an LGBT small
press. One of my favorite stories is in an anthology of queer carnival stories
called Myriad Carnival. My story is called "El Amor Brujo
(Love, the Magician) and is a favorite because it also features a supernatural
Lipizzan stallion and is based on a musical piece of the same name by Manuel de
Falla. I was a music major and enjoy classical music, so it's always a bonus
when I can include a piece in my writing, and even better when the story the
music is based on provides a template for my own.
DJR: What lies
ahead for you?
EB: I've got a
couple more stories forthcoming from Lethe, one in a gay Greek anthology and
one in a man/plant erotica anthology. I'm also working on putting my books
featuring magic Lipizzans, Capriole and Levade, back
into print.
DJR: Anything
else you’d like our readers to know about you, Darkover, or life in general?
EB: I owe a great
deal to Darkover; because of this world, I talked to Deborah during
one WesterCon and we became friends. She published my first story in an
anthology called Lace and Blade 2; I published one of her stories
in a supernatural horse anthology of mine. So it means a lot to me to be
able to add my little bit to a world that changed my life for the better.
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