Fantasy Authors Interview

Meet KaraCarreira

Here we are with the talented author KaraCarreira! They have won this year's collaboration contest by the Fantasy Team called Watt-A-Legend: Quorin Saga. We will then sit down and talk to this wonderful author to talk about all things fantasy.

Fantasy Team: Can you define Fantasy in your own words?

KaraCarreira: Fantasy is a genre of fiction where you can let your imagination run wild, whether as a reader or writer. Gods can walk among us, legends can be fact and the stars can have souls. Magic abounds, battles are epic, and the stakes are life and death. Fantasy is the name for the otherworldly realms we escape into and get lost within for hours, sometimes days, sometimes forever. Nothing is impossible (unless you, as the writer, say it is).

F: What is your favorite fantasy book on Wattpad?

K: Air Born by @juniormint94. It was one of the first books I ever read on Wattpad, and it remains one of my favourites! It's everything I love in a young adult fantasy story: a plucky heroine, family secrets, a school of magic, a fun group of friends, murky allegiances and a tendency to pull the rug from beneath your feet just when you think you've got the story figured out!

F: What has been the most challenging aspect of joining the Quorin Saga Collaboration contest?

K: For me, it was finding the time to give each prompt the care it deserved. I couldn't resist any of the ten prompts in the Quorin Saga contest, which left me with ten short stories to write, each with a different protagonist with a unique personality and outlook. It took a lot of time and effort to capture each story in the voice of the main character. I'm also an over writer, so I had to devote a significant amount of time to trimming my stories so that they were within the word limit. I'm a student, so free time is a scarce resource. As challenging as it was to commit time to each of my short stories, I had so much fun with this contest! Every spare minute I put towards it was time well spent.

F: Do you take inspiration from classics while writing your stories?

K: Yes, definitely! I was a voracious reader as a child, and all the classics I read played a huge role in shaping my imagination and how I write. I have a diverse reading taste, so even though I mostly write fantasy, you'll always find undertones from another genre in there, usually historical fiction, mystery, adventure and romance. Because the themes from the classics are timeless, I draw from them in every story I write.

F: What is your favourite classic fantasy novel? Why?

K: I really enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis as a child. I have since matured as a reader, and I haven't read the book in years, so I have no idea whether I'd still feel the same way about it, but when I first read it, I loved how it completely transported me to Narnia. There's something about the idea of another world beyond a wardrobe, one cast into eternal winter by a witch and waits for you and your siblings to free it. It was escapism at its finest for child me! I love historical fiction too, so I also enjoyed seeing World War II in the background. It helped me understand the difficulty of the period for many, and it also made the characters and the story seem so real.

F: What are your favourite sub-genres of fantasy and why?

K: I'm not sure whether fairytale retellings are technically recognised as a sub-genre of fantasy, but they're easily my favourite! I have loved [fairy tales] and Disney movies all my life, and I'm always up to read a reimagining of a classic tale in an unexpected setting or with an inversion of tropes. The morals and values are universal. You can't go wrong with a fairytale retelling, which is why it's also one of my favourites to write, even though it has its challenges in its execution.