{"id":1370,"date":"2024-05-04T05:28:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T05:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2024-06-04T17:14:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T17:14:11","slug":"orions-belt-interview-jennifer-skogen-april-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/orions-belt-interview-jennifer-skogen-april-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Orion’s Belt Interview: Jennifer Skogen (April 2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sara Omer:<\/strong>  \u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d has a bittersweet, melancholic yet hopeful, ending. As a reader, do you find that happier or sadder endings linger longer with you? As a writer, which do you feel more compelled to explore, and how do you keep a balance that feels so poignant and emotionally believable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Skogen<\/strong>: I always feel like sad or bittersweet endings stay with me longer. Happy endings are wonderful, and I love that feeling of closing a book or a story and mentally being able to put it back on the shelf, knowing that the characters and world are safe. But a sad ending is unresolved\u2013it is a puzzle to keep thinking about. What would make them happy? What happens next?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I find it next to impossible to write happy endings, even if I try really hard to do it! It is more realistic for me to leave a character with things unresolved in some way, with them still yearning for something that is, as of yet, out of reach. For \u201cBeautiful Dreamer,\u201d I actually set out to write a happy ending. And the characters are happy together at the end of the story… Whether that means they’ll be happily ever after is up to the reader to puzzle out, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO<\/strong>:       In about 1,000 words, you painted a rich magic system, where dreams can be woven into enchantments and nightmares into malicious spells. Did the magic system come to you early in your writing process and guide the story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS<\/strong>: I started the story with Lydia\u2019s occupation in mind: collecting dreams. I wanted her to have a connection to the sleeping princess that was more immediate than simply having heard a legend about her. I wanted the princess to be able to touch Lydia, and the vines and the dreams were the way I imagined that happening. The magic system arrived as I wrote and started to wonder what the dreams might be used for. The ending came from that realization\u2013that Lydia\u2019s dreams could, in turn, connect with the princess directly. That she could use them to help her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO<\/strong>:       \u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d reimagines Sleeping Beauty with a subtle sprinkle of sapphic longing, or queerplatonic undertones. What do you believe is the most valuable aspect of revisiting classic fairy tales or folkloric stories in the literary fantasy sphere?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS<\/strong>: Fairy tales have always felt most emotionally impactful when I can connect something from them to my own life. In this case, I wanted to explore how you can \u201csave\u201d someone who can\u2019t be saved. In our lives, you can\u2019t kiss someone and make everything better. There isn\u2019t a switch you can throw and change someone\u2019s life from \u201cstuck\u201d to free. But you can still exist with them\u2013join them where they are. And sometimes that is enough. Lydia is not the \u201cclassic\u201d prince charming, slashing through briars with a sword and forcing her way into the castle, stealing a non-consensual kiss. She is invited. This was also an important distinction for me when I revisited this story. You can\u2019t force your way into anyone\u2019s life and hope to do good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO<\/strong>:       Can you recommend any other reimagined fairy tales by yourself or others that fans of the grimness and serenity in \u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d might enjoy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I recently read a gorgeous retelling of Sleeping Beauty: the novella Thornhedge<\/em> by T. Kingfisher, with a thoughtful main character who I wanted to put in my pocket and protect with my life. I also highly recommend Aoko Matsuda\u2019s Where the Wild Ladies Are<\/em>\u2013a collection of Japanese folktale retellings. There was more humor in that collection than I was expecting, along with lots of magic and some very poignant stories! I also have to give a shout out to Kelly Link\u2019s book of short stories White Cat, Black Dog<\/em>. She has a way of transporting you deep into the heart of a fairy tale and making it brand new and deeply personal\u2013somehow exposing the beating heart of the story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS:<\/strong>       What other projects do you have in the works right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m revising a few novels right now (one of which is about a cursed princess, so I guess I have a type). I\u2019ve also really gotten into the flash fiction format in the last few years. This story came from a wonderful Clarion West flash fiction course I took online last summer\u2013where I met some amazing writers who gave me great feedback! I\u2019m also working on a series of poems about a journey through fairyland; a few of those poems have recently been published in Crow & Cross Keys <\/em>and Folklore Review.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SO:<\/strong>       Do you write to music, and if so, what kind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JS:<\/strong> I often write in silence (sitting on the couch in the living room while a cat tries to convince me that my lap is rightfully hers and not my computer\u2019s). But sometimes I listen to songs I\u2019ve heard a million times so the lyrics blend into the back of my mind and aren\u2019t distracting. Often folk music about love and death and grief with a few murder ballads sprinkled in: Neko Case, Escondido, and First Aid Kit are a few favorites I play on repeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sara Omer:  \u201cBeautiful Dreamer\u201d has a bittersweet, melancholic yet hopeful, ending. As a reader, do you find that happier or sadder endings linger longer with you? As a writer, which do you feel more compelled to explore, and how do you keep a balance that feels so poignant and emotionally believable? Jennifer Skogen: I always feel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","ph_site_tiers_settings":[[{"Price":"1.00","Tier_name":"Voyager","Tier_id":"prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"2.00","Tier_name":"Pioneer","Tier_id":"prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"5.00","Tier_name":"Cosmonaut","Tier_id":"prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"}]],"_ph_post_tiers":["prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB"],"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[532,530,615,614],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-april-2024","tag-jennifer-skogen","tag-orions-belt-interview","tag-sara-omer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1371,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}