The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice by Lisa DeSelm, which is out October 13th 2020, is a standalone fantasy retelling that should definitely make its way to your TBR! Inspired by Pinocchio and Frankenstein, this dark fantasy novel will keep you hooked to your seat in your cosy blanket. It is a pleasure to bring you a conversation with Lisa about the book, her favorite fairytales and retellings, and much more.
Hi, Lisa! Can you tell us a little about yourself?
I’d love to! I’m a full-time mom, graphic designer and copywriter by day, and YA novel writer by night…and by early morning…and basically, well, whenever I can squeeze the time in. I’m a fangirl of all things Disney, Star Wars, LOTR and Narnia. Few things make me happier than a cup of tea and getting to sit down with a good book. I reward myself in chocolate for writing goals well-met.
The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice is your first novel. What was the moment when the idea of the book first came to be? What made you pursue it?
I don’t write any of my books by hand, but I do daily doodles and brainstorming by hand in stacks of notebooks that I keep lying around. I had just finished writing a sleeping beauty retelling that I was querying for at the time, and was brainstorming about what other fairy tales I’d like to explore and what unique angles I could take. I’d watched the Disney animated version of Pinocchio with my daughters not long before and felt that there was a lot left to the tale of Pinocchio that could be unpacked. As I brainstormed, my mind leaped to the question, “What if it was a girl made from wood, instead of a boy?” Once I landed there, that question hooked me and set me off on a spiral of imagining what it would be like to be a girl made from wood. I wanted to know how she came to be, and what she would struggle with and what she would want for her life. I instinctively felt like she would be an artist, a maker, in her own right.
Did you bring some of your own life experiences to this book through Piro and the other makers?
Yes, in an indirect way. I myself am not experienced at working with wood, but my dad is an excellent carpenter and builder, as was my grandpa. So I spent my growing-up years watching them work with wood, handing them tools (that was a job I could do!) and loving the smell of sawdust and glue. I’ve always had an appreciation for artisanship, for the old ways of making things that are so often lost—weaving, glass blowing, pottery, you name it. There’s such beauty and skill in working with your hands, and I love adding that to my stories. I lived in Germany during my high school years, and the opportunities I had during that time to travel in Europe and see the artisanship of people who still make candles and blow glass and build clocks and carve everything by hand is deeply embedded in my brain. I was constantly enchanted by what I saw.
How do you select the names of your characters? Are they just names that appeal to you or did you look them up for a special meaning?
It’s a little bit of both for me. I want names that feel right for the setting and time-period, which in this case is a gothic, old European world, heavily inspired by my own impressions of living in Germany. I also wanted it to be clear that this is a Pinocchio retelling, (which is originally Italian), so I wanted the main character to have a name starting with ‘P’ so it was clear what I was trying to do and there would be a direct tie. I tried out several ‘P’ names until I landed on Pirouette, which just felt right. As a nod to the original ‘Geppetto’ name for Pinocchio’s father, I settled on Gephardt, a more German-sounding name, which fit him perfectly.
I loved that makers and the Makers Guild were an integral part of the story. It made me curious to connect more with puppet makers, blacksmiths, tailors, glassblowers, clockmakers, etc. Did you talk to any while writing your book? What kind of research did you do for The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice?
Having spent four years living in Germany during high school, I had the incredible privilege to travel all over Europe—visiting castles and ruins and villages, watching blacksmiths at their forges, going into clock shops and strolling in the Black Forest. I’ve been to glassblowers’ studios in Venice and walked with my mouth open through the medieval crime museum (torture devices galore!) in Rothenburg, Germany. I’ve also been through several doll and toy museums and was captivated by the old wooden dolls, the intricate dollhouses and the elaborate puppets. So those years in Europe are really where I gathered all of my impressions and ideas for what became the Makers Guild, and are what piqued my own interest in how craftspeople do their work. Any specific research I needed to know, (for example, how long does it typically take to heat up a glass smith’s oven?), I went to the internet to hunt for the details or to watch videos of artisans at work.
Related to makers, how is art integrated in your life? Are there any special activities that you do that helps you in writing?
I’ve always loved art, specifically drawing and painting. As a graphic designer and amateur photographer, I get to get some of that creative energy out in my day job and doing things for my family, but I definitely don’t get to work with my hands and get dirty and painterly as much as I would like. When I have time to doodle and sketch before a writing session, I feel like that often helps warm me up, just the way you’d stretch before going on a long run.
I learned from your bio that you love fairy tales. Can you name two of your favorites from your childhood? Are there any stories that you would say influenced and shaped you as a writer?
The first would is Little Red Riding Hood. My grandparents babysat me when I was little and my grandpa read that to me every day. They owned one of those cloth dolls that looks like the old grandmother on one side and then you flip over her skirts and it’s the wolf underneath. I both loved and feared that thing (it lives on a shelf in my basement now) and it’s said that I would literally shiver and shake as he told the story. It didn’t hurt that a huge, black German shepherd lived next door and I was fully convinced it was the real wolf.
The second would be The Princess and the Pea, a story often read to me by my other grandma. I loved the illustrations in the book she had, the way all the pretty cushions were piled so high and how ridiculous it was to think of a girl feeling a pea through all those mattresses. And yet, that sensitivity was her superpower!
I think as far as retellings influencing me as a writer, those also often come in movie or TV form. I adored Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre as a kid, which we owned on VHS tape, and seeing many of those classic stories come to life for the first time that way was pure delight.
The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice is inspired by Pinocchio and Frankenstein. Have you read any retellings of fairy tales that you would recommend to your readers?
Indeed! It’s so hard to narrow the list, but here are a few of my favorites:
- Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge (Beauty & the Beast retelling)
- Sun and Moon and Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George (Based on the Nordic legend East of the Sun, West of the Moon)
- Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson (Peter Pan retelling)
- Enchanted by Alethea Kontis (Frog Prince retelling)
- Splintered by A.G. Howard (Alice in Wonderland retelling series)
- Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige (Wizard of Oz retelling series)
How important are stories to help us understand the world around us as well as the situations that come up in life?
I think they are vital, they are our oxygen. In Lisa Cron’s book, Story Genius (which I am re-reading again and getting so much out of of!) she says, “We don’t turn to story to escape reality. We turn to story to navigate reality.” This resonates with me, down to my bones. Being able to be inside someone else’s skin and hear their thoughts, feel their fears, navigate their tricky spots and face down danger is what helps prepare us to face the fear and the unknowns in our real lives. And there’s a lot of those going around—I’m looking at you, 2020. Stories arm us with empathy and ideas and solutions!
The Puppetmaster’s Apprentice is a Young Adult Fantasy. Do you envision yourself writing a book in another genre?
Not at this point. I adore contemporary YA and historical fiction, too, but for right now, I’m having such fun living in my fantasy, fairy tale worlds that I can’t see myself leaving anytime soon. I’ve drunk from the magical fountain, it’s too late for me! I would love to write for other audiences though, to challenge myself, and hope to try writing a middle grade series, as well as picture books, someday.
If readers could take one thing away from this book, what would you want it to be?
I think I want readers leaving this story with a sense of hope and belief in their own capacity to make beautiful things in the world. Whether you are fourteen or eighteen or eighty-seven, you have the capability to master something, to become skilled at it and to become an artisan. Just because you’re young (or older!), doesn’t mean you don’t know things and that you can’t accomplish huge undertakings. You’re so much more capable than you realize.
