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SCMP Reporter

Mercedes Lackey was born in Chicago in 1950. Apart from her fantasy writing, she has penned lyrics and recorded songs for a small outfit specialising in science fiction folk music. The Black Swan (Daw Books $60) is due out in paperback in May.

Describe The Black Swan.

This is a retelling of the ballet Swan Lake, from the point of view of the villain's daughter Odile.

What are you reading now?

Ladies Of The Manor by Pamela Horn; a study of the general, day-to-day life of a titled and aristocratic woman of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.

Name three buzz words you hate.

Infomercial. Televangelist. Spin doctor.

Which living author do you most admire?

Joanna Rowling (author of the Harry Potter series). She's brilliant; she's writing books like Roald Dahl's that can be read by children and adults with immense satisfaction to both. She's creating a world that people of all ages would love to live in, but a world in which personal responsibility and a high moral standard are rewarded. Neither she nor her characters ever take the easy way out. And she gets better with each book. She deserves every bit of success she's gotten.

If you could chat with any writer in history, who would it be?

Dorothy L Sayers; the more I read about her life, the more I realise we have in common - except for the level of her scholasticism. She was a brilliant scholar and there are thousands of things I'd love to have been able to talk with her about.

Which character in a book would you most like to be?

Harriet Vane (author of more than 50 books including Death In The Pot, 1930); she is not only the scholar I'd like to be, and the writer I hope I could be, but she gets Lord Peter Wimsey!

Which character in a book would you most like to sleep with?

Lord Peter Wimsey, of course! How could anyone resist that combination of romance and brains? (Not to mention nerve and the cultured accent, and that wonderful Oxford manner.)

Which book do you wish you'd written?

Too many to choose from, really, but two on the top of the list would be Sayers' Gaudy Night and Rowling's Goblet Of Fire. The former because it is a book that I read at least once a year because it is so beautifully crafted with such a satisfying ending and with a great many interesting things to say about men, women, and responsibility.

What was the last book you couldn't finish?

Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. I just wasn't in the mood for Victoriana.

What do you do when you have writer's block?

I work on a different project than the one I'm stuck on; I usually have three or four books in different stages going at the same time. I find in general that when I get writer's block it's usually because the direction I planned for the book was all wrong anyway.



Mercedes Lackey