to narnia (& beyond!) a lunch with patti callahan
i started reading once upon a wardrobe by patti callahan today. and while the (gorgeously sunny) fall south carolina weather is the opposite of wintry narnia where lucy finds herself once stepping through the wardrobe, i do want to be there. in a stone cottage in england, plaster walls surrounding me as i read of such things.
this wednesday, i attended a lunch n’ lit event hosted by my local indie bookstore, mjudson. over a rushed meal at a local restaurant, we joined the author as she went around table to table autographing our new books. and while guests munched on their pecan derby pies, she told us about writing this story (her fifteenth novel!)
how, being 2020, three people were unexpectedly home from college and work— invading her writing sanctuary. and how returning to the magic of narnia was her daily solace. she said “[writing this book was] a still point in a madly-turning world.” each day she got to return to the manuscript with a tiny bit of hope: that one day this will all make sense.
and in that is the essence of why fairy tales still matter.
that through following the crumbs of stories in our lives we excavate both the conscious and the unconscious. (even if it sometimes takes a reader to see what the author didn’t realize they’d placed there to find!)
i wanted to go to this event not just because hello, narnia! but also because i wanted to see how a successful author presents herself to a room full of readers. how to engage people who haven’t yet read their book. how to well, talk to fans! and while i did manage to take the worst photo ever (dear photographer friends: i’ll be texting you soon for tips on how to take photos with petite people without looking like jack’s giant; also need to learn to tone down my goofy full-face smile for the camera! yikes!), i did learn how she carries herself with confidence, how she put others at ease, and how to give a good author speech—
it’s not just reading a passage (and you know how much i love to read aloud!), but perhaps engaging the audience with why you had to write this tale.
her impetus for this book? because we are made for stories. and logic cannot change a heart. being historical fiction, she of course did tons of research on narnia and c.s. lewis himself. (adding on to her bestselling becoming mrs. lewis.) on wednesday, she told us of all the narnia theories that already exist out there: “[but] my job is to tell a really good story to show you the magic—not to tell you what other people think.”
patti shared how when her family moved in the middle of high school, she was the new girl. a sophomore in a class of 700; and no one even noticed. she set out to become popular and make a ton of friends. so she joined the latin club. it didn’t work (!), BUT it’s come in handy. for example, the word “word” gets two different incarnations in latin: both logos and mythos. it takes both logic and myth to make words. and myth is where we find story and meaning.
how do we bring logos and mythos together? with love. by listening to each each other.
i’m only a few dozen pages in to this new book, but i’m excited to absorb this historical fiction account— younger brother george sick in bed and rereading the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe over and over again, as his older sister, one of the few young women reading maths at oxford, learns from c.s. lewis himself—through stories—whether or not narnia is real.
i believe the stories he tells might prove that at least in some realm, it is.
~hallie b., october 23, 2021
patti also wrote a short essay for parade magazine, “are we too old for fairy tales?” i’ve linked it here.
author photo and cover from her website.