Literature

Lisa Goldstein is the master of fantasy and horror. She combines history and myth together with angels, demons, magicians, masquers, escape artists, miracle workers, and even “Golems” in a very believable way.

Her first novel The Red Magician received The American Book Award, and her last one “The Alchemist's Door” which was published this year in August has already received the appraisal of the media. “Dark Cities Underground” was nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

She has been compared by the critics to T.H. White and even to the South American writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. She has also been praised by Orson Scott Card, considered one of the patriarchs of the science-fiction field.

Lisa lives in Oakland with her husband Doug and her beloved dog Spark.

Interview by Marisa Darnel

Artist Interviews: Your last novel deals with medieval horror, magic, astrology, demons, evil, and a golem. Can you tell us about the inspiration for "The Alchemist's Door"

Lisa Goldstein: Well, I'd already written about golems and Jewish myths in "The Red Magician," and I'd written about Elizabethans in "Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon." Then one day I learned that Rabbi Judah Loew, the man who was supposed to have created the golem, lived in Prague in the late 1500s, and that John Dee, a man who studied the occult and was, among other things, Queen Elizabeth's astrologer, visited Prague at the same time. It just seemed obvious (to me, anyway) that the two of them met and had some
fantastic adventures together. The more I researched this time the more interesting it got -- there was Mad King Rudolf, who had his castle in Prague and studied the mystical arts, for example, and Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian noblewoman who bathed in the blood of virgins because she thought it kept her young.

A.I.: How do you think that myth has influenced the Hebrew Culture?

L.G.: I don't think it influenced Hebrew culture specifically -- it seems that a
good many people have a Frankenstein myth, a story about a man created by
another man who got out of control. The story is even more widespread
today, of course, when it looks as though we might actually create some
sort of intelligent being, or an artificial intelligence.

A.I.: Speaking about spiritual beliefs, how do you feel about kabbalah?

L.G.: I don't know that I know all that much about it, though I did do some research for the book. It's a pretty complicated subject. And I don't really believe in any mystical system. But like any mystical system it has interesting metaphors and ways of looking at the mysteries of the world.

A.I.: You have written so many notable books. Can you tell us about your beginnings as a writer, Lisa?

L.G.: I started writing short stories in my twenties, sent a whole bunch of them off, and never got any of them published. I read a lot of fantasy then, and it occurred to me that people wrote a lot of books based on Celtic fantasy but almost nothing about Jewish myths and legends (except for the fabulous Avram Davidson). So I wrote a short story, sent it off, didn't get it published. A friend of mine read it and told me he thought it should be a novel. I had no idea how to write a novel but I'd heard that you could sell a novel based on three chapters and an outline, and writing three chapters didn't seem so hard. By the time I'd written the chapters, though, I was too far into the plot to stop and send them off, and I went on to finish the book, which became "The Red Magician." It sold to Ellen Kushner at Pocket Books in the very brief time she worked there.

A.I.: You have formed a group to promote books through a web site, along with Pat Murphy, Michaela Roessner. How did the three of you meet and why did you decide to collaborate together?

L.G.: We've known each other for over twenty years, so at this point it's hard to remember exactly how we met. I'm sure it had something to do with science fiction conventions and Locus Magazine, where Michaela worked for a time. At one point we were all living in Oakland, though Michaela's since moved to central California. Fairly recently we were talking about how publishers no longer do any promotion for books unless the books are
bestsellers, and we decided to join together to promote our own books. This turned out to work really well. For one thing, we can pool our resources, so that if one of us is invited to sign somewhere she can try to get the other two invited as well. For another, it's fun -- Pat got a model blimp for promotion purposes, and we have a good time writing and sending out flyers. I resisted doing promotion for a long time because I
thought that writers should write and not spend valuable time doing something a publisher is supposed to do (I still think this, actually) but in the current climate it seems that writers really have to get out there and promote their books. So I figured if I'm going to do it I might as well have fun with it. Also, we all seem to write books that are hard to classify, so it just made sense to promote ourselves together.

A.I.: Being a horror and fantasy writer. How do you see both genres today?

L.G.: I never really thought of myself as a horror writer, though there is some horror in my books, so I can't really talk about that field. Lately I've been reading a lot of fantasy -- after I saw "The Lord of the Rings" movie I got very nostalgic about the time I first read Tolkien, and I started looking for the kind of thrill I got then (though I think finding it might be impossible, since I was around thirteen at the time and pretty easy to thrill). Anyway, I went on a kind of fantasy binge. Unfortunately I didn't find many books that I enjoyed. I got pretty testy about the subject, actually, and I had to stop and read some trashy mysteries instead. The authors I read misused words, especially archaic words -- people should really look up archaic words before they use them -- their grammar was awful, they used contemporary slang that just jolted me out of the story completely. It seems to me that in addition to telling a story fantasy should be well written, or at least not terribly written. Fantasies are a kind of epic or poetic story, and they should have an epic or poetic feel to them. It's worth remembering that Tolkien was a linguist. Most readers of fantasy don't agree with me, though.

Authors I like -- authors who write beautifully, and pull me directly into their worlds -- are Patricia McKillip and Ursula Le Guin. I'm also waiting impatiently for George R.R. Martin to finish his series. (If anyone has a suggestion on what I should read next based on what I've said here -- epic fantasy, well-realized world, good magic, well written -- they can write me at my web site, www.brazenhussies.com/goldstein. I may have already read it, though -- I've read a lot in the past year. And as I said, I'm testy, so there's a good chance I won't like it.)

A.I.: Which fantasy films have impressed you?

L.G.: "The Lord of the Rings," obviously. Like a lot of people I worried about what the film would do to one of my all-time favorite books, and I was very pleasantly surprised. It's clear that the director loves the books at least as much as I do. "Dark Crystal." "The Company of Wolves," which is a very strange but unforgettable movie about wolf myths. "The Princess Bride." "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

A.I.: Lisa, do you listen to any music when you writing?

L.G.: No. I want to hear the rhythms of what I'm writing, and music pulls me out of that. My husband, who loves music and listens to genres from all over the world, thinks I'm crazy.

A.I.: What's a day in the life of Lisa Goldstein?

L.G.: Very boring, actually. Get up, walk the dog, read email and then write. (I've found that if I don't want to write that day reading e-mail helps -- since the computer is already on I might as well go ahead and read what I've written the day before.) I also do proofreading for companies in the Bay Area, since writing -- as other people must have told you -- does not pay nearly well enough.

A.I.: Thank you very much, Lisa!

You Can Visit Lisa Goldstein's Official Site at: www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein