We chat with author Lauren Wiesebron about The Palace Beneath the Sea, which is a sweeping, lyrical novel inspired by a mermaid folktale filled with exploration, love, adventure, and magic.
Hi, Lauren! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi everyone, I’m Lauren Wiesebron, author of folkloric fiction and writer of adventures for characters who don’t even know they need one. I am also a marine biologist living in Norway. Just imagine me stuffing a typewriter and sailboat into a bag of Mary Poppinsesque proportions.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Like many a writer, I’ve been a lifelong reader, and as a child I often slept with a stack of books under my pillow to sneak in some late night reading. After finishing my Masters degree I decided to celebrate by setting myself a challenge to write a novel (I am competitive, though mostly with myself!) and I haven’t looked back since.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Twiddlebugs at Work, by Linda Hayward.
- The one that made you want to become an author: Matilda, anything by Roald Dahl really.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: At the moment it’s Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier.
Your latest novel, The Palace Beneath the Sea, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Lush, salt-swept, immersive, dangerous, luminous.
What can readers expect?
The Palace Beneath the Sea is about a devoted lighthouse keeper, Nolwenn, torn between the city she swore to protect and the mysterious korrigez who captures her heart. It is a queer, salt-soaked tale of love and betrayal, mermaids, battle lighthouses, devious queens, and monsters waiting in the deep.
This is one for readers who love an impossible choice and a reluctant heroine who goes on a journey. Readers can also expect a smoldering romance between an undersea ruler and the woman they take prisoner—who may be the key to their salvation—and all of it taking place in a dangerous, enchanting world on the seafloor.
Where did the inspiration for The Palace Beneath the Sea come from?
The Palace Beneath the Sea was inspired by a Breton legend about the drowning of a legendary city called Ys. Legend tells that the daughter of the Ys’s king, Princess Dahud, opened the floodgates, leading to the disastrous flooding of the city. I was not satisfied with the explanations that she was wicked, or drunk, or was carelessly letting her lover into the city, and so I wrote my own version of what happened. I added in some color from Breton mermaid folklore and sea monsters, and mixed in my knowledge of the sea from my background as a marine biologist, and voilà! The Palace Beneath the Sea was born.
I also loved creating the undersea world, as I could let my imagination collide with my scientific background as a marine ecologist. I took a lot of inspiration from real science. For example, as a Masters student, I learned that a female clownfish rules over a group of male clownfish, and when the female dies, one of the male clownfish becomes female and takes control of the group. Scientists are still studying how this happens biologically, but what I was most interested in were the social ramifications. How would a society be structured if only a small number of individuals could reproduce, and changing sex—prompted by social cues—was necessary to do so? I found this idea very exciting and wanted to explore it in the novel: how sex change based on social cues would shape the social structure and worldview of the korrigez.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
This book was a joy to write. I particularly loved writing the chapters that take us into the undersea world of Ys-Below. Morvan, the mysterious ruler of Ys-Below and Nolwenn’s love interest, was particularly fun to write.
I really enjoyed writing the beginning of Nolwenn’s exploration of the undersea city, since I was discovering it just as she was! In particular I enjoyed writing those early scenes of connection between Nolwenn and Morvan. For example, I wrote a scene where Morvan gives Nolwenn a tour of the city and they come across a library. Morvan asks Nolwenn if she likes to read. Since she did not yet understand the korrigez language, all of Nolwenn’s interactions with Morvan are through mime and gestures, and I loved being able to show budding connection between the characters even though they could not understand each other through speech. It reminded me of times when I have met people on my travels whom I could not communicate with through shared language, but was still able to understand in other ways.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge that I faced was mischaracterization. I wrote two thirds of the book and then realized I had made a huge error and had to go back and rewrite half of what I already had. Alas, I am a discovery writer, so such travails are par for the course for me. But it was very satisfying to rewrite once I figured out what the issue was.
What’s next for you?
I am always working on something! Outlines tend to fly out the window, I don’t often know what the story will turn out to be until I’m done, and even then it usually takes a few drafts to really dig out the core of the story. I’m so excited about these characters and the world they live in, I hope I can share it with readers soon!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
So many good books! I read Anima Rising by Christopher Moore earlier this year which I thoroughly enjoyed. I am about to read The Antiquarian’s Object of Desire by India Holton and The Star from Calcutta by Sujata Massey.
