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Erzebet YellowBoy, author of A Spell for Twelve Brothers
Erzebet YellowBoy was born in Philadelphia, but was moved around quite a bit from state to state by her family. She continued this tradition as an adult until she finally relocated to England in 2006. She now lives in West Yorkshire with her partner and many lively houseplants including an African violet who is slowly taking over the world. All of her time is free. She spends it binding books, editing, writing and creating mixed media assemblages with a focus on the use of bones. She gardens and reads and concocts strange potions in the kitchen when she gets bored with the rest of it.
Tell me a little about “A Spell for Twelve Brothers.” What was the first image or phrase or impetus that made you sit down and spin it out?
It was really the birds in the tale of The Six Swans that inspired this story, but as I have a fondness for corvids I chose to turn the princes into ravens. While I don’t necessarily believe in it, I am often compelled to write stories about redemption, and this (for me) falls into that category.
If you don’t necessarily believe in redemption, does that mean your characters don’t usually find it?
Most of them do, but they are just as likely to achieve it by means of their own strengths as they are through some external force. In “At the Core,” the main character finds a sort of redemption in her dead grandmother’s letters, while “Following Double-Face Woman” is a tale in which there is no redemption to be had.
