S. E. Porter

S. E. Porter is a writer and artist. As Sarah Porter, she has published several books for young readers, including Vassa in the Night. Projections is her adult debut. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title Projections takes readers into the heart of the story, but through the side door. The projections of the title have a double meaning: they’re primarily the magical recreations of his young self that the sorcerer Gus Farrow sends back to the ordinary world. But they’re also his fantasy version of the protagonist Catherine, his inability to see her for herself. I wanted the title to be The Projections, but my publisher thought it was more dynamic without the article!

What's in a name?

I loved picking the names in this book! Angus and Gus are named, ironically, for the Celtic god of love; they consider themselves great romantics, but their version of love is utterly corrupt. Anura, the giant frog immigration officer in the city of sorcerers, has the scientific name for the order of frogs. Madame Laudine, a magical artist who makes enchanted fountains, is named after the Arthurian Lady of the Fountain. And Nautilus, the city of sorcerers, is named that both because the spiral of a nautilus’s shell follows a universal order, and also because the magic of the assembled sorcerers creates the city the way a nautilus makes its shell with its secretions.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

When I was a teenager I wanted to be an artist, so my teenage self would be a bit surprised I’d written a novel at all! But my great loves as a reader were fantasy and modernism, then and now. A work of literary fantasy like Projections is exactly what she would have wanted me to write.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Writing a beginning tends to feel like magic, as if a voice from somewhere beyond was suddenly flowing through me. It’s intoxicating, but as the story reveals itself I often realize I didn’t get everything right in those opening pages, and I go back to fix them. Endings are harder in a way, because there isn’t that delirious sense of a new adventure. But by then everything is pretty dialed in, so they don’t need much revision.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In the case of Projections, some of the influences include the history of Spiritualism in America, which I had to research for the book. I was amazed by everything I learned about it. The aesthetic of Nautilus is reminiscent to me of women surrealist painters, especially Leonora Carrington. I’m also a member of a longtime Burning Man camp, and the portrayal of Nautilus is both a homage to Burning Man and a critique of its problems!

Visit S. E. Porter's website.

--Marshal Zeringue