#alex mccarron

[308words-blog]

The North Wind’s Wife

by ALEX McCARRON

He hadn’t wanted her. Not at first. 

When he swooped down, tore the roof from their house, and rattled its walls to the four corners of the earth, he’d come for her sister, a girl as coldly delicate as a snow rose. But she held on, hard and heavy after years of tilling thin mountain soil. She held her sister fast until it seemed her bones would pull apart. She screamed, “Take me!”

The North Wind was no fool. He saw that they would both die otherwise, so he took her. 

At first, they avoided each other. In her eyes, he was old and wild. In his, she was rough and ugly. He scoured the earth while she tended his palace gardens.

One day, spent down to a breeze, he found her pruning a bush of snow roses. The North Wind saw her fingers sliced by thorns, and something stirred in him.

He took her hands in his. 

She pulled them away. “I came here to save my sister. Nothing more.”

Her blood melted through his fingers. “Go then,” he found himself saying. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

“I was never yours to keep,” she snapped. 

But when he drew back, she still felt his touch, burning her skin like snow melt. “I want to travel,” she found herself saying. “I’ve never seen much of the world. I’ll come with you, if you’d like.”

The North Wind smiled. “I would.”

She flew with him that night, laughing at his wildness while he marveled at her strength. You might see them still, on a winter’s night—side by side, wreathed in snow roses. Or so the story goes. It’s an old tale now, told to children beside a dying fire. 

“Look,” they say when northern lights ripple across the sky. “The North Wind’s wife is combing her hair.”

---

Alex McCarron loves fairy tales and fantasy

[teacuptrailstaff]

teatime talks: alex mccarron

by editor-in-chief christina

Teatime Talks is our interview series. Essentially, it’s where we do the virtual equivalent of taking some very cool people out for tea and asking them some probing questions. Then we post the results of our interrogation conversation on our staff blog for all to enjoy.

Today I’m very pleased to be able to feature Alex McCarron (berryandthorn), who has written two pieces for the Trail: “Fox Sister” and “The Girl Who Swallowed the Sea”. Here’s a little bit about her: 

Alex McCarron loves stories of all shapes and sizes. As a kid she drank gallons of seawater during family vacations but never managed to swallow an entire ocean. You can find her Tumblr here and her blog here.

Now, without further ado, let’s get a little peek into Alex’s no doubt fascinating mind!

TT: We noticed that you do an intermittent fairy tale art feature on your blog. (We think it’s fabulous.) What draws you to this style of art in particular? 

AM: Seeing different artists’ interpretations of the same stories. It’s fun to compare two different versions of, say, Beauty and the Beast, and see that in one picture Beauty is a little girl and the Beast is a stuffed animal (no joke!) and in another she’s a full-grown woman and he’s a terrifying monster. You’re looking at them through someone else’s imagination. But I’ll use any excuse to ogle pretty pictures.

TT: Much of your writing seems to involve the magical intersections between humans and nature. Is this something you incorporate into your stories consciously? If so, why? 

AM: I’m not a very outdoorsy person, so nature has always seemed very mysterious and a bit scary to me. Characters who are more comfortable in it than I am, and maybe even have some control over it, are scary and mysterious too. It’s a theme that crops up a lot in my stories, even though I don’t always notice it.

TT: The age-old, tired-out writer question: where do you get your story ideas? 

AM: If I read a book or watch a movie that I really love, I’m bound to wonder what I’d do with that type of story. Books and movies are probably my biggest sources of inspiration, but I’ve also gotten ideas from songs, pictures, and things I heard on the street. Finding ideas--at least for me--comes down to knowing what you like and paying attention.

TT: Do you have an ‘aesthetic’? 

AM: Yes, but it changes with every project. I spend a lot of time thinking about the look and feel of my stories, and one might be dark and strange while another’s bright and down to earth. Details like the color of the walls or the style of the main character’s jewelry are important even if I don’t actually mention them. A story only feels real to me once I can clearly picture it, and in the end that’s my only requirement.

TT: This is a bit of a daunting question, but an essential one—why do you write? 

AM: This sounds super corny, but for me writing is a way of giving back. They’re so many books that I’ve loved and that have enriched my life, and I guess I hope that one day my books will do that for someone else. Plus, I love creating characters and figuring out what makes them tick. I love playing around with language, and I love those times when everything clicks and my writing finally flows. They make all the hard and miserable parts worth it.  

TT: What do you think is the ‘theme song’ to your work? 

AM: I put together playlists for most of my longer projects, so each one has a different theme song. The playlist for my WIP about pirates includes music from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks (of course) and some traditional Celtic music, but the true theme song is probably “Wolves” by Rag ’n’ Bone Man, which is pretty dark--I wanted a good range. For general writing motivation, I like “Try” by P!nk and “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out of’ by U2.

TT: If you could travel to any historical era, where and when would you go?

AM: I’d go to Scotland around the year 1297, during the wars for Scottish independence. I’d love to meet William Wallace or Robert the Bruce.

TT: How do you go about building characters? 

AM: With short stories, I jump right in and figure them out as I write. They’ve usually been kicking around in my head for a couple months, so I already have some idea of how they move and think and sound. I basically collect characters in my head and wait for the right story for them. With longer projects, I’ll buy a notebook and make notes about their personalities and backstories and motivations. When I’m reading, I keep an eye out for the types of characters I think are interesting, and picking actors to play them in my head sometimes helps. My process isn’t very organized at all and more or less boils down to throwing a bunch of stuff together and seeing what comes out.

TT: What’s a wonderful film that you’d recommend to fans of your work? 

AM: Pretty much every movie I’ve ever loved has influenced my writing at some point, but I remember being blown away by The Secret of Roan Inish. It's about an Irish girl searching for her lost brother, who may or may not have been adopted by selkies. Something about it—the gorgeous setting, the mystery of the selkies, the fact that two kids got to refurbish an entire village all by themselves—really got under my skin. I was five or six when I first saw it, and I’ve loved Celtic mythology ever since.

(Unrelated editor note: I’ve been wanting to watch The Secret of Roan Inish for a long time, and now I only want to watch it more.)

TT: We know you’ve been waiting for it: let’s talk tea. How exactly do you like to take your tea (or is there another drink you prefer)? 

AM: I'll take any flavor (except maybe Earl Grey), as long as it has at least two spoonfuls of sugar in it!

Thanks for stopping by to share some things with us, Alex!

[308words-blog]

The Girl Who Fell to Earth

by ALEX McCARRON

Her name’s Isabel and she sits next to me in class. She says her father is Dawn and her mother is Dusk, and they’ve been fighting since the cosmos began. Last year their quarreling burst their palace walls and knocked her from the sky. Now she lives with her uncle, the North Wind, in an apartment on Euclid Street.

Mostly, I don’t believe her. Isabel says the sky is an ocean, and the constellations are like glowing masses of krill or deep sea divers. They shine brightly but they’re very, very cold.

“I’m sort of glad I fell,” she says, “because I’d become a star eventually. All they do is blink.”

“You’re nuts. Stars are burning gas.”

“Sure they are.”

I’ve seen Isabel’s uncle. He works at McDowell’s Garage and he changed my dad’s tires once. He has a long nose, blue eyes, and a wild head of hair. He’s not the North Wind.

“He works part time,” Isabel says, “because I was so sad when I first came here, before I met you.”

“He can’t be, Is. Winds can’t fix cars.”

“He’s going back to full time.”

“Come on!”

“It’s true,” she says, and suddenly she looks like she might cry. “I’m a star and my uncle’s the North Wind.” She turns and walks away.

Next morning, on the way home from school, Is comes up to me with something in her hand.

“My uncle picked it up last night,” she says.

She opens her fingers, and I see it burning in her palm. A star, a tiny world smoldering with rainbow colors like an opal. When I reach out, the cold burns my fingers.

Is wraps it in a tissue and puts it in my pocket. “Keep it in a jar,” she says. “Like a nightlight.”

Mostly I don’t believe her, and then sometimes--sometimes--do.

---

Alex McCarron loves fairy tales and fantasy.

[theteacuptrail]

The Girl Who Swallowed the Sea :: Alex McCarron

This girl is beautiful. She speaks in whale song and dolphin clicks. Fish swim beneath her eyes. She is pure as salt, as light on a wave. I talk with her. I listen to her voice. I won’t touch her, though it’s my dearest wish. If I touch her, my blood will turn to saltwater and I will sink, down and farther down, while all the sea fills my mouth.

She laughs at me, easy in her blood. But it ebbs in her veins like a tide, and I know the sea has swallowed her as much as she has swallowed it.

~~~~

Alex McCarron loves stories of all shapes and sizes. As a kid she drank gallons of seawater during family vacations but never managed to swallow an entire ocean. You can find her Tumblr here and her blog here. 

[theteacuptrail]

Fox Sister :: Alex McCarron

The fox isn’t painted on paper or sculpted in porcelain. She’s rank and sly, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. I love her. I see my eyes reflected in hers.

Where we live, your face is no more than skin, skin no more than a mask, a mask no more than who you are. We can be many things. My sister is a fox. Some nights I run beside her in the woods and I feel her wildness, as huge as a tree and as small as a seed. I pant to keep up. I shout and bark and laugh.

We run. We can be many things. A bend in the road is another twist in the tale.

~~~~

Alex McCarron lives in West Virginia. She’s always loved tales of magic and transformation and is delighted to have finally written one of her own. You can find her on Tumblr at berryandthorn.tumblr.com.