An
Interview With Alexis Masters
Q.
If you could use only one word to describe your first
novel, THE GIULIANA LEGACY, what word would you choose?
A.
Readers consistently call The Giuliana Legacy"magical,"
but I would choose "unique." The novel's protagonist
is unique in today's literature, so much so, it took
years to push through my inhibitions and write her
character as she is--as she had to be for this novel
to work. Julia Giardani is an avatar. I wish there
were a less misunderstood word I could use to describe
her, but there isn't. She is wholesome and openhearted--refreshingly
so, I've been told, and she persists undaunted in
the face of huge challenges. She unerringly takes
the proverbial road-less-traveled, offering a truly
inspirational role model for today's sadly jaded society.
It thrills me that Julia's
quest
reimages "the heroic" and maps a fresh mythic journey--one
of purposeful receptivity, of opening to and aligning
with a higher power. For Julia, this power is Love.
Q.
In THE GIULIANA LEGACY, Love (with a capital L) refers
to the Goddess Aphrodite, but here, She's very different
from the one portrayed in popular mythology or in
archetypal psychology. Can you share how you developed
the Giardani Goddess and the spiritual traditions
that make up their legacy?
A.
Before discovering fiction, I spent ten years researching
the history and archaeology of the Goddess. I traveled
to the sites of fifty Aphrodite sanctuaries all over
the Mediterranean Basin, dug through scholarly tomes
for clues to Her origins and worship, devoured hundreds
of archaeology reports, even honed my high school
Greek and Latin to brave the texts of ancient historians
and poets. I now know I was hungering for something
beyond academic fact or archetypal interpretation,
something my intuition recognized but my intellect
couldn't quite name at the time. Call it the mystical
kernel of Aphrodite's worship, the devotional essence
of Her traditions as they were practiced in earliest
times. This is what fascinated me and eventually came
together in the novel as the spiritual system of the
Giardani. And I believe this is what resonates most
fully with many of the novel's readers--what makes
Julia's quest seem vital and important and, ultimately,
so satisfying.
Q.
The way Julia synthesizes and interprets her discoveries
in Tuscany makes the Goddess material very accessible
to readers, whether they are familiar with the subject
or not. Did you intentionally strive for this result?
A. Absolutely
not. I actually started the novel on a lark, as they
say. I had no intent but to tell an exciting story
that was fun to read and impossible to put down, and
this never changed. I've since learned that my passions
and worldview flow into my work and shape my material
in countless ways, regardless of my intention. And,
the work becomes more meaningful in the process--for
me as well as for readers. I was surprised and delighted
when Giuliana started to draw on my research
and illuminate long-lost facets of Goddess traditions
that I'd once struggled to articulate in nonfiction
prose. It seems I couldn't write what I needed to
write until I found my medium and developed my novelist's
voice.
Q.
Bella Tuscany is very popular these days. How did
you choose this setting for THE
GIULIANA LEGACY?
A.
I
have to smile because when I started Giuliana
ten years ago, Tuscany wasn't very popular here at
all! And I have to admit, I didn't choose Tuscany,
per se. Ancient Etruria was the setting of a compelling
vision I had one evening in meditation, which inspired
me to write the story and which I later dramatized
as the novel's Prologue. The novel had to be set there,
not just in Tuscany but in that very specific region
I call Giuliana Country. Over the years, I've fallen
more deeply under Tuscany's spell. It's a beautiful
place full of intriguing history and wonderful people.
I'm very glad I'll be continuing to write about it
in the remaining two novels of the Giuliana trilogy.
Q.
You speak of having visions and you write about paranormal
experiences as if they were a regular part of your
life. Are you psychically gifted, like the characters
in your novel?
A.
Most
people possess far more psychic aptitude than they
think they possess, but no, I am not particularly
gifted compared to some people I know. However, I
meditate on a daily basis, and regular meditation
increases our awareness of subtler aspects of human
consciousness. Everything I write has some basis in
my personal experience, but every scene and passage
in The Giuliana Legacy has been completely
blown out and dramatized in the creative process.
That is the beauty of fiction. A novelist has the
freedom to show not merely how reality is but how
it could be. Without pounding the reader with
fact or authoritative argument, a novel can open inner
perceptions to great, eternal truths and to treasure
troves of latent human potentialities.
Q.
Your portrayals of mystical states of consciousness
pull readers straight into the characters' intimate
contact with the Divine. Why did you choose to make
mysticism so central to THE GIULIANA LEGACY?
A.
Mysticism
has always been the very heart and soul of The
Giuliana Legacy. I didn't realize that fully until
my sixth complete rewrite, when someone I'd trusted
suddenly and viciously turned against the spiritual
premise of the novel and decreed that I needed the
perennial prescription so often dispensed to first-time
novelists. You know the one--"add sex and violence
to increase tension if you want this manuscript to
sell." Shocked and confused, I questioned whether
I could go on, actually considered filing the book
away, essentially abandoning it for good.
Instead,
I took a week off and went alone on a silent retreat.
For days, I meditated in a quiet Vedanta chapel set
deep in the rolling hills of Marin. I walked golden
fields, communed with small families of deer napping
under massive oaks, let the sea-scented air wash away
my confusion. But mostly I prayed. I asked for guidance
as I'd never asked before, demanded it, really. I
would not keep working to bring something into
being that the world (or at least the New York publishing
world) didn't seem to want. If Divine Mother wanted
Giuliana to see the light of day, She'd have
to show me, finally and precisely, what I needed to
do. With every particle of my will, I put the entire
project in Her lap, washed my hands of it, so to speak,
and then I went home.
Back
in my office, my desktop was still covered with the
latest query letters I'd drafted to agents and publishers
who had not seen Giuliana before. Staring at
a favorite image of Divine Mother that hangs opposite
my desk, I let my hand fall to the desktop. When I
glanced down, the hand rested on the letter to HCI
Books, the publisher which, earlier that month, I'd
moved to the very top of my list. I mailed that letter
and filed the others away. Then I sat down and pondered
one question: If The Giuliana Legacy was
never published, what might the world miss?
Now,
Giuliana conveys lots of visionary themes--the
triumph of love in the ageless struggle between good
and evil, the healing of the land for future generations,
reverence for the diversity of life, the importance
of community for global renewal, the value of Goddess
spirituality to contemporary society. But others had
already written of these with tremendous power and
insight. What Giuliana contained that I'd never
seen written anywhere else with the same intensity
was its characters' unrelenting, inexorable journey
into the deepest core of the Mysteries, to the Ultimate
Mystery, union with the Divine.
With this realization for fuel, I plunged into the
manuscript yet again. I purged every hint of gratuitous
sex and violence that had crept into the work through
the advice of industry professionals, well intentioned
or otherwise. I took Julia to the true mystic's extremes
of optimism and love, pushed Andrei to the depths
of his monastic longings, forced Danilenko into the
excruciating morass of his fall from grace. Reversing
the prevailing wisdom of the trade, I kept the focus
tightest not on the plot, which by this time drove
the story on its own power, but on the inner, meditational
experiences of my characters. We all emerged from
that revision transformed as never before. And this
was the manuscript that HCI received and decided soon
after to publish.
Q.
One cardinal rule of fiction THE GIULIANA LEGACY defies
pertains to the necessity of conflict in creating
dramatic tension, yet the reader's felt experience
is one of constant and mounting suspense throughout
your novel. How do you explain this phenomenon?
A.
I always chuckle when someone remarks on the seeming
absence of conflict in Giuliana. For me, and
for the vast majority of readers, there is conflict
in abundance, just not always violent conflict. The
powers that oppose Julia are perhaps less tangible
than those facing most fictional protagonists, but
they are threats to Julia's success and well being
that keep readers glued to the page, regardless. With
all due respect to the late Joe Campbell, maybe his
oft touted Hero's Quest has been overplayed in the
last dozen or so years. Or maybe it's just a matter
of the protagonist's gender.
Unlike the mythic hero, who wins the day through feats
of strength and power, or in some cases cleverness,
Julia's tests and eventual triumph have much more
to do with her capacity for faith and openness. The
novel has an innate rising tension created as Julia
simply "gets" what she has to do and and
accepts her responsibilities without question, and
this happens at every significant stage of her quest
and keeps the reader wondering what she'll take on
next and how much more she can take on. As
one very astute reader recently put it, Giuliana's
premise poses a question that in itself generates
enormous narrative tension. It is a question those
of us who strive to live by faith really feel the
need to answer--"can someone be this receptive
and survive?"
Q.
Do you consider yourself part of the New Age? Is THE
GIULIANA LEGACY a New Age novel?
A.
I've traveled the fringes of the New Age since 1975,
most of my adult life. In the early 1980's, I was
close enough to the cutting edge while working at
the John F. Kennedy University Graduate School of
Consciousness Studies to meet most of the leaders
of the New Age movement but, due to economic necessity
and family obligations, seldom had occasion to become
very deeply involved. The same could be said of my
role in early Goddess Spirituality circles--I was
there, but not directly engaged in the action. Today
I consider myself a mystic, but not necessarily part
of the New Age as most people define it now.
The
Giuliana Legacy includes content often associated
with the New Age, meditation, reincarnation, magical
happenings, parapsychology, and so on, but Mysticism,
Raja Yoga, and ancient Goddess religion, the spiritual
content that form the crux of Giuliana, are
many, many centuries old, with roots anchored firmly
in humanity's Golden Ages. For this reason, I always
think of The Giuliana Legacy as a Golden Ages
story.
Q.
Can you tell us about your personal writing process?
A.
Like many other novelists, I suppose, I am writing
all the time, whether I'm seated in front of my computer,
strolling the Via Tornabuoni in Florence, or changing
my kitty's litter box. I'm constantly playing with
words in my head, listening for rhythms, viewing the
world through my inner lens and scoping out material
for my work. But I write most happily and most prolifically
when my life is quiet and my weeks are measured by
my daily spiritual practice. This routine is even
more essential when I'm in the throes of rewriting,
when I need every ounce of concentration to maintain
and refine the fictive dream upon which my conscious
and subconscious minds constantly are honed.
Such
times become a perpetual round of recharging my energy
with pranayama exercises, with solitary meditation
and prayer, then long hours of writing followed by
the gentle companionship of my husband, Chris, group
meditations and visits with my friends, and occasional
dinners with my children and their spouses. Nothing
fancy. I make an effort to fit in walks and Hatha
Yoga, too, not frequently enough, I'm sure.
Some
writers might thrive on high drama in their personal
lives. I'm not one of them. Some might consider the
time I spend in meditation wasteful, but without frequent
internalization, I could never tap the inspiration
that makes my work what it is.
Q.
As Founding Director of VisionaryFicton.com, an online
forum to spread the word about the new literary genre,
you have made an enormous commitment to nurturing
community among visionary fiction authors, publishers,
readers and booksellers. Can you tell us about your
long-term plans for the site?
A.
Again, I must smile, because I personally don't have
any long-term plans for the site. I have dreams, though,
plenty of them. I have dreams that the visionary fiction
community we are building will do great things in
our culture. Take a lead in the struggle to keep our
society not only literate but reading for the sheer
joy of it. Help one another by networking, sharing
marketing ideas and professional contacts, by setting
the highest possible standards for the emerging genre.
Come together from time to time in conferences or
in some similar format, to brainstorm, grow our work
in the world, and acknowledge our accomplishments.
VisionaryFiction.com
represents many hours of my personal labor, but it
is not really my site. It belongs to the community,
and their dreams and plans for it will be every bit
as important as mine. My fondest hope is that the
site's many new browsers will become participants
who develop into leaders, to take the community in
ever new and exciting directions and keep it vital,
expanding, and useful to those it was designed to
serve.
For
additional information, please contact:
Kim
Weiss, Director of Communications, Health
Communications, Inc. or
Kimberley
Denney, Publicist, PR Department, Health Communications,
Inc.
To
book an author event with Alexis Masters, please contact:
Randee
Feldman, Author Events Manager, Health Communications,
Inc.
Feel
free to download these larger jpgs:
