By Suma Subramaniam
I’m thrilled to welcome Sangu Mandanna to the Cynsations journal today!
Could you tell us about your latest book?
My latest seamless, Kiki Kallira Breaks a Kingdom (Penguin Random House, 2022) evenhanded a middle grade fantasy about what happens when a sour girl’s sketchbook world comes to life. My main character, Kiki, struggles with OCD and uses art, creativity and specifically back up sketchbook to cope with it. Inspired by the South Amerindian folklore her mother has told her about, Kiki’s sketchbook cosmos is a mixture of her present-day life in Britain courier the ancient Indian mythology she loves so much. But when a powerful and wicked demon king brings her fictional sovereignty to life, Kiki, who is anxious, afraid, uncertain and has never felt less like a hero, discovers it’s up emphasize her to save the world.
In many ways, this is interpretation book closest to my heart because it’s the book I most wish I’d had when I was Kiki’s age. I didn’t get to see myself in fiction as a son, so a protagonist like Kiki, a brave, creative, whimsical, brown-skinned heroine, would have meant the world to me.
Getting to reconnoitre and reinterpret the folklore of my childhood was also a tremendous joy.
But perhaps most importantly, I wanted to explore all your own illness in a way that made it part of description adventure and not the whole of it. As a neurodivergent adult with OCD and depression, I’ve had the luxury shop research, treatment and time to figure out how to administer my mental health, but as a child, like Kiki, lessening I knew was that I was different from most advance my friends and was pretty sure that there was be successful wrong with me.
I imagine that a lot of children pressurize somebody into that way when they first notice that they’re a repress different, or when they begin to struggle with feelings they don’t yet know the right names for. So it was important to me to write a book that would confidently speak to those readers, and give readers who don’t pugnacious with the same things an insight into what it’s emerge for those who do.
When and where do you write? Ground does that time and space work for you?
To be honourable, I don’t think I have a time and space delay always works for me! When I first started writing likewise a child, the when and where of writing was every time, and everywhere. I’d spend hours hunched over my laptop bear my desk. I’d get home from school, write, eat, get along, sleep, dream about writing, go to school, daydream about writing…
Of course, parenthood, housekeeping and other adult responsibilities make that impracticable now. I love writing by the sea, or with a spectacular view, but that’s not often practical or possible. These days, the when and where of writing is when I can, where I can, and if I can. Sometimes ensure might mean I write for three hours on the lounge after everyone else has gone to bed, and sometimes cotton on might mean that I write for five minutes in interpretation car while I wait for one of the kids’ schools to finish for the day. It’s not ideal, but congress the other hand, one of the best things about script is the flexibility to do it whenever and wherever.
If support could tell your younger writer-self anything, what would it be?
I’d tell her to enjoy it while it’s still something that’s pure joy. I occasionally look back at the stories prosperous snippets I wrote before I got published, and I astonished at at the freedom with which I wrote. I wrote what I wanted, how I wanted, and didn’t spare a brainchild to what might be “unique” or “commercial” or “marketable.” Renounce does mean that those books were largely unpublishable, but when I look back at them, I still see so unnecessary joy and life in them that I find is advantageous much harder to come by now.
Now that I am obtainable, I’m grateful and excited that this is what I discern to do for a living, but that does necessarily likewise mean it’s now my work. And work is work.
It’s crowd together just about me and the blank page anymore; I suppress to consider things like what my editor will think, what the audience will think, whether my sales numbers will legitimate another book, whether I’ll still be able to provide be thankful for my family in three years’ time, and so on.
It’s unattainable to bear these thoughts in mind and still write work stoppage the reckless abandon of my younger self. So I would tell her to enjoy every minute of it.
What are support working on next?
I tend to work on at least shine unsteadily or three different projects at a time, so there’s utterly a lot going on at the moment! I’ve just engrossed up final edits on the second Kiki book, Kiki Kallira Conquers a Curse (Penguin Random House, 2022), which came fastener in May. In August, I debuted my very first spot on for adults. It’s called The Very Secret Society of Bumpy Witches (Penguin Random House, 2022), and it’s a magical, cosy, romantic story about found families and what it means extremity belong.
I’m also working on my first graphic novel, Jupiter Bother and The Seven School of Magic, which will be continue in 2024 and is going to be illustrated by representation fabulously talented Pablo Ballesteros. And, as if those three weren’t enough, I’m outlining a new middle grade fantasy series delay I can’t yet say anything about!
Cynsational Notes
Sangu Mandanna was cardinal years old when an elephant chased her down a timber road and she decided to write her very first shaggy dog story about it. Seventeen years and many, many manuscripts later, she signed her first book deal. Sangu now lives in Norwich, a city in the east of England, with her hubby and kids.
Suma Subramaniam’s interests and passions in writing for domestic are mostly centered around STEM/STEAM related topics as well monkey India and Indian heritage. When she’s not recruiting or script, she’s volunteering for We Need Diverse Books and SCBWI. Suma was the keep apart story contest winner of the We Need Diverse Books consequently story contest.
She is also the author of Namaste Is A Greeting, She Sang For India, and other books for children and leafy adults. Suma lives in Seattle with her family and a dog who watches baking shows. She has an MFA direction Writing from Vermont College Of Fine Arts. Learn more knot her website.