Charles de Lint at World Fantasy

Originally posted in previous blog in November 2019 - The last day of World Fantasy I went to see the “Charles de Lint interview." What I wasn’t expecting to see was him seated in front of the panelist table with an acoustic guitar in his hands and his wife, Maryann Harris, seated next to him with a mandolin.

I first realized de Lint was at World Fantasy when I was standing in front of the consignment table looking at some books. A man in a dark jacket edged past me and struck up a conversation with the author signing her first novel. He struck up a conversation with the author with their first book and muttered, “Charles de Lint?”

So I’d been waiting since then to go to this session, but I hadn’t known he was also a folk music artist. He’s explained that he’s an Indy author now, writing as the writing takes him— just like the music does. He doesn’t miss “playing the traditional publishing game” and now enjoys writing what he wants, not what the publishers feel the market wants of him.

He asked the audience to interview him, so the Q & A started early, intermixed with him and his wife playing his original songs. He lives in rural Ottawa, Canada and explained his background is Dutch, if I remember correctly, Spanish, and Japanese.

He was asked if music affected his writing and he explained that what he wrote was scored like music, short paragraph after short paragraph making for a faster pacing, slowed by long paragraphs. He also shared that like playing music every day, if you write every day there are times when the story like a song effortlessly appears.

The hour long session ended too quickly for me as World Fantasy was coming to a close. de Lint smiled explaining that he and his wife, who is business manager and editor, and never hears a word about what he’s writing until he’s finished, had gone shopping for new clothes for the awards banquet. He chuckled, he’d found a new jacket that was a perfect fit the moment he walked up to the rack, which was far too quick for his wife’s search. Perhaps that sums up Charles de Lint writing at this point in his career, seemingly effortless and a perfect fit. The session ended fittingly with a song as well.

It was a great moment at World Fantasy.

D.H.