Five with Fisher - Tali Inlow
I was excited to interview Tali Inlow for Five with Fisher! A queer Native woman and a writer of fantastical nonsense, Tali is a healthcare professional by day with the federal government. By night, however, she gives writing a go!
Tell me about naming things. Characters! Books! Where do you struggle, and what do you love?
Oh, the struggle is real. Names are so important!
Naming literally anything is hard as hell! But I’ll tell you what I love: finding the right name.
It might be my sort of quirky, competing morticians in a paranormal romance with the surnames Strange and Od, or my main character in the Coyote & Crow novel I wrote named Niya (which means “quiet” in the language of their world, Kag Chahi; a fitting name for a quiet, determined character like her).
Sometimes I draw from the Cherokee syllabary/language or insert names from my childhood. I use random name generators an absurd amount, rifling through dozens and dozens of page refreshes before finding something that feels right. Because that’s what it comes down to for me: does the name feel right for the person/place/thing it will represent in readers’ minds? When the right name shows up, I feel it in my gut.
Yeah. Names are important.
Tell me about a comfort read and how it shaped you as an author.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. There are a couple of reasons for this.
First, something about this book captivated me when it first came out in 2013. I was in love with the voice, the strange women who lived at the end of the lane, and the magic. The magic in particular was this sort of every day, ordinary magic, dueling forces of good and evil, and what that looks like through the eyes of a child—or a grownup.
But then I read it again in 2015, and I was a different person because I had lost my dad, and the main character’s entire reason for visiting the ocean at the end of the lane after all his years away was for his father’s funeral. The entire lens of the story changed for me: it was no longer this story of good vs. evil, a story of being brave and fighting off your darkest fears, even when they manifest as real dangers. Instead, it was a story of memory—why we choose to remember things the way we do, why our brains hold onto one series of threads while letting another slip away. The main character, visiting home again after his father has passed away, and remembering things worth remembering; forgetting them again, no matter how hard he tries not to…
That book means a lot to me, as both a writer and a person.
Who’s your favorite side character (from any novel, yours or otherwise!) that you think deserves their own spinoff, and why?
I’m actively working on my serialized, self-published story right now called The Sisterhood, so I’ll go with my own for this one: Arke & Iris Whitmore, twins and respective right-hand swordswomen for my two main characters. Their family are the founders of the mysterious Whitmore School for Girls; their existence in the world is a charmed one, and they get everything that comes along with privilege and wealth—but when the world ends, their place in it changes. They are two opposites of one coin, forged from the same material, linked by blood and magic. Throughout the story, I get to hint at other off-the-page adventures they’ve had along the way, and I’d love to give them more stories of their own someday!
Give me an unexpected or strange piece of writing advice.
Write fanfiction of your own work!
Not sure how your character would act when confronted with an impossible situation? Write them into an AU (alternate universe) where they are playing a high-stakes DnD campaign with their besties. See how they handle a critical fail!
Trying to find inspiration for your romance characters? Take all of your characters—main, side, one-off mentions, who cares—and set them in a story where they all show up at the same speed-dating event!
Facing some classic “writer’s block”? Throw your main character and their love interest into a zombie apocalypse! Or rewrite them as rugby nemeses in junior college, or as eternal vampire foes.
(Oh no, are my favorite tropes showing? *smirk*)
Remember that we write because it’s fun. It doesn’t always have to be publishable, or for public consumption, or even good. Sometimes you just have to remind yourself what it feels like to put the words down.
Tell me about the “cheerleaders” in your writing life. Who are they and how do they shape what you do?
My wife, Bridget, is my number one cheerleader! She’s a writer, too—we actually met because we were both writing fanfiction for the same ship. The biggest influence on my writing and story development, she takes my nebulous, oft-absurd ideas and helps me shape them into stories free of holes and full of heart.
I guess that’s another secret writer’s tip for ya: write and kindly review fanfiction, because you just might find your soulmate!
Tali’s novel Hemlock & Sage is available now!