We chat with debut author Eilish Quin about Medea, which follows the sorceress Medea, one of the most reviled and maligned women of Greek antiquity.
Hi, Eilish! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi, Nerd Daily! I’m Eilish Quin, a Gemini Sun with a predilection for Scandinavian crime dramas, cryptozoology, and long, meandering walks in inclement weather. I grew up in the smog and intrigue of Los Angeles, and received my BA in English Literature from UC Berkeley in 2019. I like to romanticise every element of my life by pretending I exist within the confines of a gothic novel, which is maybe why writing appeals to me.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
As a child, I spent an inordinate amount of my time reading. I had this sort of sacred conviction that the most valiant thing a person could do with their life was to write a perfect novel. And I suppose I still believe that, even today.
I wrote little stories from the time I could read, about everything from aliens to Julius Caesar. I remember crafting haphazard fragments of dystopian novels in middle school, meandering, slightly maudlin poetry in high school, and aimless, tragic short stories in college. I like to imagine that all have informed my current work in some regard.
My interest in Medea, specifically, also arises from my childhood. The Greek Myths were some of the first stories that my mother read to me before bed each evening. Our family had a very nostalgic D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, and the stories it housed fascinated me from some of my earliest recollections; the narratives of antiquity were illuminating, brutal and alluring in a way that felt very enticing to me. I sensed in them something of the shadowy infrastructure of many subsequent stories which would come to characterize my life.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
- First Book- D’Aulaires Illustrated Book of Greek Myths or perhaps, Where the Red Fern Grows.
- The Book That Made Me Desire of Becoming an Author- Crooked House by Agatha Christie, or Eragon by Christopher Paolini.
- The Book I Cannot Ever Stop Thinking About- It really is more of a tier: The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, or Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
Your debut novel, Medea, is out February 13th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Not merely a woman scorned.”
What can readers expect?
Magic. Monsters. Intergenerational Trauma. Witchcraft. Divinities. Betrayal. Sibling Bonds. Murder. Resurrection. Despair. And of course, love.
The daughter of a sea nymph, and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox: she is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline, and made powerless by the fact of her being born a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in the arts of witchcraft and sorcery, but soon finds it may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud. When the strapping hero, Jason appears on the scene, desperate to get his hands on the golden fleece, Medea is forced to reckon with the complexity of her being and decide between love, duty, family, and magic, all while pushing at the boundaries of fate.
One of the most exciting and unexpected aspects of writing this novel is that I’ve found a great deal of people seem unfamiliar with Medea’s story. I get a lot of, “Oh, who is she?” which is sort of wonderful because even though there are so many elements of Greek Mythology which have become rather ubiquitous (Medusa, the Minotaur, etc.) there are also a plethora of stories which are lesser known. I like to imagine that this book serves as an opportunity for people to thoroughly submerge themselves in an ancient mythology system which still has a very real bearing on the world of today, and which still carries intrinsic truths about ourselves and the universe. Ultimately, I’m hopeful that whether you’re familiar with Medea’s story or have never encountered her before now, that you will find this book absorbing and engaging.
Where did the inspiration for Medea come from?
Medea’s story is an incredibly ancient one, polished in the mouths and minds of skilled and eloquent composers, from Apollonius to Euripedes. I imagine that I found myself drawn to her for some of the same reasons that the poets of antiquity might have been. Her mind, complex and ruthless and volatile and vulnerable and resilient, defies easy categorization, as do the narratives which surround her. The Medea who scandalized antiquity commands a thousand associations and identities within the strange terrain of her semi-divine body. She is, all at once, savior and siren, mother and murderess.
And I also suspect that I felt a connection to her for reasons that are not shared by my predecessors. I found myself a little unsatisfied with the fact that frequently, when Medea is brought up in writing or conversation, she is reduced and simplified, distilled into a violent, savage creature: a witch, a kin-slayer, and perhaps most alarmingly, a bad mother.
In my mind, the whole purpose of the retelling as a distinct genre is that it serves as a kind of radical reorientation. Retellings allow historically censored protagonists the space to break free from the contexts and biases which might have previously ensnared them, and permit readers the ability to exalt in novel forms of complexity. Retellings are meant to make us question the reliability of the narrators we are given, and consider the other elements of form which we might normally consume passively. I hope that my Medea makes people think critically about how storytelling, when proliferated in the interest of existing powers of oppression, can compound harm– that by doing something as simple as recentering a traditionally marginalized experience, exhilarating and vivacious narratives can spring up.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I adored getting the opportunity to delve into Medea’s childhood, which is an area that I think is generally neglected in most of the narratives concerning her. Her proclivity for Pharmakon as well as her fierce adoration towards those closest to her flowed quite naturally; her history seemed to piece itself together in my mind with supernatural intuitiveness. I also derived a special enjoyment from writing about the crew of the Argo, specifically Telamon and Orpheus.
I like to imagine that within my books, the setting exists as its own distinct character. With that in mind, I had a terribly stimulating time crafting, in turns, the dismal gravity of salt-drenched Kolchis, the expansive beauty of the Aegean Sea, the rocky fields of Corinth, and the refined, cultural epicenter of Athens.
Writing, the sheer tangible process of forcing one’s thoughts, the ideal that lives in one’s mind, onto paper, into the external realms, breeds something remarkable and unexpected– a kind of alchemical synthesis which shows the writer what they know but does not know they know. This book might, despite being fiction, be one of the more autobiographical things that I’ve written. Not in the sense that I’ve gone through exactly what Medea has gone through by any means, but in the sense that her feelings are mine. Oscar Wilde said that, “To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.” By that logic one might assume that, ultimately, creation requires a kind of encoding of the self to be great. I do think that allegories and metaphors can be useful, essential even, but I also believe that the revelation of the self– the laying of one’s interior bare– without pretension– is a radical and moving pursuit.
This is your debut novel! What are some of the key lessons you have learned when it comes to writing and the publishing world?
I have collected a handful of rather useful and meaningful shards of wisdom throughout this process.
For one, writing can be a radical act of self-care. In order to actually sit down and compose, you have to have some level of faith in yourself, or in your own discernment. To write is to acknowledge you have something you want to say, something that is worth saying, if only to yourself, and that is an act of self love which is immensely important. I firmly believe that everyone has a few stories inside them that could be dreadfully poignant if shared.
For another, rejections, while frequently informative or even humorous, should to some extent, slide from your preoccupation like water off of a duck’s back, or dust from a mole’s coat. There will be many, but the opportunities which are meant for you will find you.
What’s next for you?
Although there are a host of other retellings I hope to circle back to in the future (the respective stories of Iphigenia and Cassandra strike me as particularly alluring and agonizing), I’m currently focused on exploring other genres and styles.
My next novel is a Los Angeles Gothic steeped in ancient Irish folklore– a queerly supernatural, detective procedural sprinkled with glamorous Southern California locations, obsessive female friendships and a healthy dash of Celtic mysticism.
I’m also composing a speculative science fiction novella that deals with the intersection of utopia, desire and divinity.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
In some respects, I make a terrible literary critic because I find all books enchanting. Recently I’ve been luxuriating in the irreverent poetry of Maria Adelmann’s How To Be Eaten, the emotional hedonism of Anna Dorne’s Exalted, the devastating clarity of Tara Isabella Burton’s The World Cannot Give, and the intricate realism of Katharine Beutner’s Killingly.
I’ve also been entertaining a fixation on the chivalric romance genre since the beginning of the year, which has entailed rereading a plethora of Tolkein translations (all of them, brilliant), as well as a number of related contemporary pieces (Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant and Sophie Keetch’s Morgan is My Name).
Finally, I like to be reading or listening to at least one Agatha Christie novel at any given time. I feel that her writing keeps my mind keen.
