Interview: Sam Jowett, Author of Cynthia Sylvia (Moonchaps by Moonchild Magazine)

Magical Cartography

By The Editors

Our friends at Moonchild Magazine have a new chapbook—ahem, Moonchap—out for you to devour! It's called Cynthia Silver and is a work of short fiction by Canadian author Sam Jowett. We asked Sam a few questions about their sparkly debut. Find out more about this cartographic fairy tale in our interview below:

Tell our readers about the story of Cynthia Silver. What's your elevator pitch? (Or a more magical version of whatever spell you cast to entice someone.)
 
It’s a fairy tale about a character who’s suspiciously active. I found with a lot of stories in this genre the magical world usually finds the character and sucks them in, or rather they happen to stumble upon the fantastic. This is because they’re deemed special via some esoteric quality, i.e “the Chosen One.” I wanted to do the opposite here. Cynthia is determined to find a Quest for herself, she actively seeks out the adventure rather than the adventure somehow scooping her up. I wanted her traits to come from her actions rather than some nebulous quality.

Why did you decide to choose a young female protagonist for the story?
 
I honestly think that’s just how the character strolled into my head. Subconsciously, I feel fantasy has been a genre that has offered a lot of fantastic girl leads, with my absolute favorite being Lyra Belacqua from His Dark Materials, and thus my inspiration perhaps stemmed from there. I feel Cynthia comes from a similar vein–bold, clever, ready for adventure, and likes to butt heads with alleged authority. Amusingly, another part of it was also due to wanting an alliterative name. I feel those always fit right as rain in a fairy tale story. Cynthia Silver was the first name that came to me and it just rolled off the tongue. I couldn’t not use it.
 
What role does imagination play in the story's plot and atmosphere?
 
Fantasy and fairy tales are going to take you to some place or give you some sort of element that has no analog in the real world, it has to spur the imagination into motion. Since you’re not watching a film, you have to take the words and form the images yourself. You’re reliant on the prose to give you enough information to kick your own imagination into gear. In the book, I wanted to clearly delineate between Cynthia’s Real World, and the Quest Worlds she travels too, questioning how real they truly are. It’s why these portions are written in this stream of consciousness poetic, narrative style–an endless run-on sentence that both gives the reader perhaps too much at once without a chance to pause, and yet is also over in a flash. It’s hopefully to evoke the feeling of traveling somewhere new. Whenever I travel abroad, it all goes by so swiftly, time appears to work differently. I find myself returning home sometimes wondering if it really happened. I hoped to get a similar sensation across when readers travel with Cynthia. The run-on sentence gives the illusion of length, but to us and our hero it’s over in the blink of an eye.
 
 
What was the timeline and process for writing Cynthia Silver?
 
Cynthia Silver’s first form was back in 2015. I was doing a competition for a writing website I was part of, and the one prompt asked for a fairy tale story. The actual first draft was rather rushed because I loved to procrastinate back then. Most of the writing came out in the space of a single day as the deadline suddenly loomed.

Afterwards it went into its chrysalis, slowly evolving. I had this fun, bubbly story I wanted to share, but I wasn’t exactly sure where to put it or if it was truly ready. I adjusted the poetry sections a bit more, made the Cartographer character non-binary when I realized I was non-binary and have basically been tweaking it constantly for the last four years. Now it’s all shined up and dressed in its best (I hope!) for the world to see!
 
Do you have more of a writing routine now?
 
Thankfully my writing routine is vastly different now. Less rushing and more thoughtful time to write out my prose. Generally, for these longer stories I find that hardest part of the task is initiating it. It’s like leaping over the precipice. To counter this, I try and just ‘tip my toe over the edge’ so to speak, and write at least 100 words on my current work to start off a session. If I like what I’ve started, I find it’s much easier to get that momentum and continue. It makes it much, much easier to turn 100 words into 1,000 in an hour. If I’m not enjoying those 100 words, then I’ll give myself a short break for 20 minutes and then try again.
 
How did you find Moonchaps? Why did you submit the story there?
 
I submitted to Moonchild Magazine one of my first ever poems and got a response in less than three hours. It was about a lot of personal gender experiences and was quite grateful when Nadia Gerassimenko [founder/editor of Moonchild Magazine] understood it all. She was just exceptional about constantly elevating each and every one of the works in every issue she releases. I knew that Cynthia Silver would get the same treatment. More so, I felt that fairy tale-like qualities went well with the other work published in Moonchild in general. A lot of it has a fun fantastical quality to it!
 
How would you describe working with Moonchaps?
 
Nadia is a wonderful, enthusiastic person to work with. She got me in touch with a fantastic illustrator [Christine Sloan Stoddard of Quail Bell Magazine], and added a ton of wonderful design flourishes to the book–my particular favorite being the cover page stating: “Quests by Sam Jowett, Cartography by Christine Sloan Stoddard.” Such little sparks add so much life to a story. She’s also a wonderful presence in the literary community as a whole, so I’m considerably excited that my debut chapbook is with Moonchild.
 
What are your hopes for Cynthia Silver?
 
Firstly, to get more non-binary characters in the mix. Characters where the plotline or conflict isn’t necessarily centered around their gender identity. Rather, they just happily exist in the world. I hope the Cartographer gets to do just that.
 
Second, I want to show off a different aspect of my writing. Much of my focus last year was on a lot of personal poems, and poetry was something I hadn’t really done at all before 2017. With this, I want to show my more playful side, something less personal and more fantastic.  It feels nice to get fiction published again!
 
What are your current and upcoming projects? 

Currently I have another chapbook coming up. It’s called Goddess Unbloomed and it’s a bunch of narrative poems telling a singular story. I would describe it as Paradise Lost meets Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Nadia of Moonchild Magazine actually helped edit that one, too! Curious folks can currently find two parts of that chapbook published in Prismatica Magazine and Silk + Smoke. After that, I have another chapbook I’m currently sending around, as well as a novel in the works that’s a sort of magical heist adventure.

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Sam Jowett is a queer, non-binary writer and law student living in Toronto, Ontario. They enjoy stellar magic tricks, playing the electric violin, and neon blue lipstick. You can find their work in Room Magazine, Hypertrophic Literary, Prismatica Magazine, Silk + Smoke, and on the moon during Earthrise.