Please note, none of these questions are in any particular order, just as they occurred to me as I was typing!

How can I contact you?

Write to me via PO BOX 200, New Town LPO, Tasmania 7008, Australia.

When will 'X' book be released in 'X' country?

Believe it or not, authors are the worst people to ask! I have so many different release dates for different books around the world I tend to get confused, and I am also often the last person to be told, so I have given up trying to answer this question. Please contact Tor in the USA, and HarperCollins in Australia and New Zealand for details.

When is the next book going to be released? I throw my hands up! I have no idea! *grin*

What books of yours are available in America? As of early 2005, most of them are, or will shortly be. As from 2007 my books will be published world wide (English speaking rights) by HarperCollins Publishers, which will make things a little easier. Why did I change my name from Warneke to Douglass? I had no intention of using a pseudonym when I was first accepted by HarperCollins Publishers in Australia, but they asked me (for 'asked', read 'insisted') to change my surname because a book by Warneke would go on the lowest shelves in bookshops. Only dwarves who fell over ever bought books by "W's". They asked me to pick a surname between D and M (go check the bookshops and see what percentage of authors are 'strangely' in the D-M bracket!) because this was the surname range most likely to be on the eye-level shelves. So I picked 'Douglass' because, had I been a boy, that would have been my name. (I added the extra 's' to feminise it, but Douglass with the double ss is a fairly common name anyway.) So, if you think about it, 'Douglass' isn't a pseudonym at all. Will I continue the Tencendor series? 2005 update: Yes! No one has asked for at least 3 years, and that meant I have now been energised into actually signing a contract with HarperCollins (a world wide deal) which will see a new trilogy coming out from 2007. I'll add details once everything is more finalised. Stardrifter and Axis will be back ... (but none of the ladies, we'll have several new femme fatales). I'll also be incorporating Maxmilian from "Beyond the Hanging Wall", and Boaz and Tirzah's (from "Threshold") descendents will be back (as the bad guys!). The trilogy is called "Darkglass Mountain". In the glossary of Enchanter under the name Moonwalker it states that this is the name Rivkah adopted when she went to live with the Icarii, there is no listing of Goldfeather. Is Moonwalker the name you were going to call Rivkah or just a mistake? Moonwalker was Rivkah's original name, but HarperCollins Publishers Australia (original publishers) didn't like it, so it was changed to Goldfeather (more in keeping with the Icarii way of naming people). It was changed in BattleAxe's glossary, but not in Enchanter, and I've left it there through countless editions simply because it amuses me! Not one single publisher or editor around the world has picked up on it.

Is there going to be a sequel to Threshold?

Sort of. I am combining the sequels to the Tencendor series with a sequel to Threshold. StarDrifter meets Boaz. Should be interesting. You can check out the new page for Darkglass Mountain. While you won't see Boaz and Tirzah again, if you hang around long enough you'll meet their son, and the Goblet of the Frogs is right back in there. I'm still not sure about Fetizzah. The jury is out on her returning.

Which is my favourite of my own books?

Threshold, because it was a special book (hard to define why - but one of the reasons was because it was such a relief to get away from High Heroic Fantasy and do something very different; also the characters were particularly wonderful to work with). I loved doing The Crucible, though, as I could indulge my love of medieval history, and I'm looking forward to The Troy Game so much you wouldn't believe.

The violence against women (almost domestic violence romanticised) in Threshold doesn't bother you?

No, actually. It was needed for the plot, and I think it works. No one ever comments on the violence against babies in the book (the scene of infanticide at the beginning of the book ... and, may I add, a particularly gruesome form of infanticide!), so I guess the violence against women must be the 'in' thing to get all huffy about. Besides, the woman who is so violated is less concerned about the physical violence, as the fact that her tormentor forces her to learn to read and write - an abhorrent act in her culture, and one she interprets as a violent rape. Violence in our present society is endemic - I don't shy away from it, whether against men, women or children.

And the theme of incest in the Tencendor books? Oh come on, that was just plain fun! *grin* I really do like taking some of the sacred cows in modern western culture and turning them on their heads. I'm too old and tired to be consistently politically correct. Are there any books I regret writing? Noooo. There are a couple I might not do again if I had my time over because of the length of research that went into them versus the actual sales meant they weren't worthwhile spending so much time on, but I'm not unhappy about any of my books circulating out there. Do you have any say in the covers? Yes and no. In Australia I generally work closely with the artist. For overseas publicationsI don't have any say at all, although both Tor and HCP UK (for The Crucible series, at least) have commissioned wonderful covers. Can I base an online game (MUD, MOO, whatever) on your characters and worlds? Only if you purchase the rights to do so. If you're interested, contact Mr James Frenkel at James Frenkel and Associates, 1016 Vilas Avenue, Madison, WI, 53715 USA. Telephone (0011 1) 608 255 7977, Fax 608 255 5852. Unfortunately, if you don't purchase the games rights, then you're breaking copyright. Where do I get my ideas from? Where does my inspiration come from? How do I write? See my page on my Businesslike Approach to Baths to get full details on 1) how I write and 2) where I get my ideas/inspiration from. 'Ideas' are the result of many months of hard work. They just don't 'pop up'! Is it difficult working out the plot for a trilogy? Writing a series can be tiring, mainly because my enthusiasm only seems to last the first two books! By the third book not only has my enthusiasm dimmed somewhat, but I am thinking ahead to my next series, and can't wait to finish the current one to start work on the next series. Frankly, I'd like to write more stand alones, but they are not as commercially viable in the fantasy genre (apart from one or two notable exceptions) as series - readers want series not stand alones, which don't seem to sell as well. The Troy Game, my current project, extends over 4 books, but I think I've solved the enthusiasm problem as there are going to be four very different books, involving different research and approaches, and that will keep the enthusiasm up. Besides, the final book, set in London during the Blitz of World War Two, is the one I'm really looking forward to! Plotting for traditional fantasy series tends to be dense and complex, which is something I am trying now to get away from. In the Tencendor books there were plots over plots over plots and a cast of thousands to support them. I now prefer to write books and series with only one main plot, but with a few thousand red herrings thrown in to keep the surprises fresh.

 

Do you always know the plot for an entire series before you begin work on it?

I always know where I am starting, and I know where I will finish, but the middle book(s) are often a mystery to me to be discovered when I get there. So, I know the starting point, and I know where the series will end, but writing the bit between is a journey of discovery for me.

When is the next book coming out?

I have little to no control over this; sorry, but authors don't control this aspect of the process. HarperCollins publish me in Australia and the United Kingdom, and Tor in the USA. Contact them for details if you wish.

2005 update: From 2007 expect a May release every year.

If I send you books, will you sign them?

It's way too cumbersome for me to do that: postage costs far too much, and I'd be constantly wandering to and from the post office. I do signings around both Australia and America from time to time, so try and catch me at one of those.

If you write snail mail to me I will generally send back signed bookmarks.

Can you interview me, or have me appear at your function?

Requests for appearances and interviews in Australia can be made through HarperCollins publicity department (02 9952 5000 ) or through Tor in America (phone number unknown as I never ring them!). But be prepared for a "I'm sorry". I have a heavy schedule for the next couple of years, and my spare moments are very precious (I also loathe travelling like you wouldn't believe). I do very little promotional or appearance work compared to some authors, partly because I guard my private time very jealously, and partly because I have a wide (and widening) range of business and gardening interests that just keep me too busy (I won't travel through the six months of the Australian summer and autumn, for example, as I need to nurse my garden too closely then). I find literary events highly tedious (why in the world so authors spend so much time talking about themselves when they are writers?), speaking engagements too difficult to get to (thank God I live in relative isolation in rural Australia!) and, basically, I prefer to concentrate on my writing, which I enjoy, and my gardening, which I enjoy even more. I don't think much of the goings on in Constantinople at all (read Voltaire's Candide to work out what I mean! *grin*).

Am I a witch? A Neo-Pagan? A New Ager?

No. No. No. I am a perfectly ordinary person. I will not join your coven, and I will not be your Messiah. I am distinct from my books (most authors are) and my books offer few doorways into my personal life and beliefs. I am very down to earth, very practical, too lazy to think about the greater issues of life, death and the universe, and don't have no truck with no nonsense. *smile*

How can people from overseas get my books?

Contact Bob Hoffman at the Australian Online Bookshop if you have difficulties finding my books in your country. HarperCollins in the UK, Ernst Kabel Verlag in Germany, and Tor in the USA all have various contracts to publish my books - but I have no idea on the publication schedules, so ask them, not me!

Continue on to page two of FAQ's ...