Today we at TDF welcome Jon & Pamela Voelkel, authors of Middleworld! Our esteemed reviewer, WereGeek, asked them a few questions about their new novel, so give them a warm fangirl welcome!
WereGeek: Is the tourist hot pepper soup something you invented for the story or does that sort of thing really happen on tours? If it happens in real life, have either of you tried the soup? Did you pass the test? ;)
J & P Voelkel: What usually happens on tours is that the locals prepare their fanciest food and the tourists turn up their noses at it and get a burger back at their hotel. So we thought it would be funny to turn the tables and have the locals play a trick on Max. It seemed kind of appropriate because the Maya are usually portrayed as somber, almost grim, people and all the Maya we’ve met have twinkling eyes and a mischievous sense of humor. So the soup incident was made up – but it was inspired by an episode from Jon’s childhood. His family were guests of honor at a village and they were served freshly severed goat testicle. Everyone sat around to watch them eat. Jon can still remember locking eyes with the goat. So no, we haven’t eaten the pepper soup. But we love spicy food and we used to eat a lot of very hot curries when we lived in London, so maybe we’d pass the test. I just hope we would have seen the funny side and not stomped off like Max did.
WereGeek: How did you come by your extensive knowledge of the Maya? I see on the back cover that Jon grew up in Central America. Did he learn directly from the natives or was it formal study and/or comprehensive research?
J & P Voelkel: All of the above. The book was certainly inspired by Jon’s experiences growing up in Latin America, but our knowledge of the Maya was hard won. We’ve read every just about every book ever published about the Maya; we’ve attended lectures, seminars, and conferences to hear archaeologists speak about their latest research; and we’ve traveled extensively with our children in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico. Jon even took a short course at Harvard on reading and writing Maya glyphs– that’s where he met the professor who now checks all our facts.
WereGeek: With which character would you most like to spend time and why?
J & P Voelkel: Jon would like to spend time with Lady Coco because she’s such good fun and she’d have so many entertaining stories about life in a Maya court. Pamela would like to spend time with Lola, the modern Maya girl, because the Maya are at such a crossroads right now. I’d want to know how she feels about Landa burning the Maya books, and the last five hundred years of repression, and where she feels the future lies for her people. I’d also like to know who she thinks should play her in the movie of Middleworld – if there ever is one!
WereGeek: What are your plans for the rest of the series and when will those books be out? Are they already written or in progress?
J & P Voelkel: There will be three books in the series. The Jaguar Stones, Book Two: The End of The World Club, is in its final editing stages and will be out on 28th December 2010. Book Three will follow one year later. We’re in the process of writing it at the moment – although we wrote the final paragraph long ago, so we know exactly where we’re headed.
WereGeek: Thanks for chatting with us today!
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