Monday, October 15, 2018

Love & Bubbles Interview: V.S. Holmes

Today I'm pleased to host an interview with Love & Bubbles author V.S. Holmes!
 
V. S. Holmes is a gender-queer contract archaeologist and the author of Reforged and the Nel Bently Books. Smoke and Rain, the first in her fantasy quartet, was chosen for New Apple Literary’s 2015 Excellence in Independent Publishing Award. She can be found online at vsholmes.com, facebook.com/authorvsholmes, and @VS_Holmes.
 
Her L&B story is Familiar Waters. Bia, a catfish goddess, and her partner, Iguazu the river spirit, must hold onto each other tighter than ever when global warming changes their home.
 
You've written other fiction involving the sea. What's your favorite thing about writing ocean stories? I have! My short The Tempest, in the Out of the Darkness dark fantasy anthology, takes place on the ocean, and there are ocean-themes in some of my upcoming books. I'm fairly scared of water, though I force myself to face my fear by cave-diving and snorkeling at springs. I find the ocean--and any vast, unforgiving landscape--fascinating, and I like to explore stories where the environment is as much of an obstacle as the antagonist. My time in the Yucatan diving in cenotes inspired the jungle feel of Familiar Waters, though the South American jungle is very different in a lot of ways.

Do the names in your story have any special meaning?
They do! Iguazu is a river that serves as a portion of the border between Argentina and Brazil. It's best known for the beautiful Iguazu Falls just to the east of Paraguay. Bia is a shortening of the phonetic Spanish for "voyager" -- viajero.

Does your work as an archeologist influence your writing?
It certainly influences my Nel Bently Books, as Nel is also an archaeologist (though of the academic variety). I get to travel a lot, and often spend up to ten hours a day outside. We hike to very remote locations, often untouched by humans for several hundred years--even thousands. That close relationship with nature, particularly the wild, has a deep influence on my worlds. Our role as contract archaeologists to protect Native people's cultural histories from destruction and development also adds a lasting respect for other cultures and humans.
 

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