I have loved Greek mythology since I first learned it existed when I was 10 years old. We studied Greece in Grade 5 and it’s been a fascination of mine for all the years since. Before the days of reliably fast internet at home I devoured books upon books on the topic and I watched a TV series called Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend that happened to be airing while I was learning about Greece in school.
My first novel is based on Greek mythology, as are several others that I’m also working on. I remember the exact moment that gave me the idea for the novels. I was taking an Introduction to Greek and Roman Mythology as an options course and one of the assignments was to do an interview with a figure from Greek mythology. I chose to do that assignment about Hera, who will be the feature of my second Olympian Confessions book. I remember reading through the myths about her and wondering why everyone just assumed that her actions were based on an innate cruelty and jealousy instead of a reaction to the events of those myths and how she was being treated. The actual assignment has probably long since been lost to crashed hard drives or lost disks so I can’t share it with you, though if I ever do locate it you’ll be the first to know. Anyway, that assignment had me thinking about other myths and how shallow the characters in them can be and how if I told those stories they would have more to them.
Hades and Persephone became a real story to me after forging my way through NaNoWriMo (http://nanowrimo.org/) in 2011, but I never actually finished it. It wasn’t my intention to finish it then, just to get a good start. If you’re interested, here’s the link to my personal NaNoWriMo page: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/erinkin I work on my books on a daily basis now, but I may drift back to NaNo in the future to prompt the creation of some different novels.
The characters in Greek myth are fantastical and dynamic, but I never found that I really connected to them or understood why they were doing the things they were doing. The concept of Olympian Confessions is my own examination of the myths, my interpretations and changes so that it makes sense to me. I wanted the characters to have real purpose, to have real reasons for why things happened. I hope that you enjoy my version of things. There are many alternative versions of these stories and if you want a traditional perspective you can check out Homer, Ovid and all those wonderful classical authors.
Thanks for stopping by!
-Erin