Interview: Kendare Blake, author of Antigoddess

Today Kendare Blake visits The Hiding Spot to chat about her newest novel, Antigoddess! I'm a huge supporter of this book (check out my review!) and urge you all to go out and pick up your own copy because this great book releases TODAY! Read on to learn more about Kendare, including her favorite word (hey, we support all types of words here), the gorgeous, but ill-fated original title of Antigoddess, and the hiding spots that threaten to distract Kendare from writing us more fantastic books.

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Did you have trouble writing any of your characters or specific scenes within the novel? Or, were any characters or scenes particularly easy to write? 

Athena and Hermes came pretty easy. Athena’s brand of curmudgeon felt like something I was very familiar with, though I don’t think of myself as particularly curmudgeonly. She was also the character with the softest underbelly…she has the most defense mechanisms, she basically is one big defense mechanism…so in that way she sort of reminded me of Cas. Who I miss intensely.

Somebody who gave me a little bit of trouble though, was Cassandra. That damn girl. I thought she’d be this really put upon creature, always trying to find her way out of a bad situation, trying to take care of people and do the right thing. I thought she’d be extremely tragic. And then…well, she started to surprise me.

Has the title changed or stayed relatively the same as your novel journeyed towards publication? 

The title totally changed. When I wrote it initially, I thought it would be a standalone, or maybe a duology like the Anna series. The title was supposed to be Sing, Goddess. The sequel would have been Speak, Muse. You might recognize those as the opening words of the Iliad and the Odyssey, respectively. But then my agent read it and said it didn’t fit the violent action of the book. So I came up with Antigoddess instead. It was inspired by Antigone…that poor girl, born against everything.

What book or author has most influenced you as a writer or in general? 

That would be a two way tie between Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and Caitlin R. Kiernan (The Drowning Girl), two writers I have no business mentioning because they’re supreme writerly beings. But there it is. In the tie for third place would be almost every other writer I’ve ever read. You can learn something from everybody.

What jobs did you have on your way to becoming a writer/published author? Is there a certain work experience that has shaped your writing? 

I think I try to omit all day job influence. Which is not to say I haven’t enjoyed many of them. I’ve worked as a project manager for a quality control firm, I was a server in college, first job was selling jeans at the mall, and oh yes, not to be forgotten was the summer I sold garbage door to door.

When I was in grad school, I did a short stint of work experience for a literary agency in London, and that was cool.

If you had to pick a favorite word, what would it be and why? 

Hm. Hm. That’s a tough one. But I’d have to go with…deflated swear words. You know, the swear word you say when things have not gone your way and you are left bereft and sort of exhausted. Often they are preceded by the word, “Well.” As in, “well…fuck.” Whoops! You probably need to asterisk one of those letters!

My blog is dedicated to my personal hiding spot, books. Who, what, or where can be credited as your personal escape from reality? 

Books make a great hiding spot. Very clever blog name, by the way. I suppose my personal escape from reality…let’s go with escapes. RPG video games can suck several hundred hours off my life if I find a good one. I love indie films and philosophical books, the kind that stretch your brain out and make it make weird animal noises.

And oh yes, old cartoons. Like Sailor Moon or Batman Beyond. Or Gargoyles.

Now I want to go do all of that stuff. But I should probably be writing!

Find out more about Kendare and her books here!

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