Interview with Kevin Hearne

Please welcome Kevin Hearne to The Qwillery. Ink & Sigil, a novel From the World of the Iron Druid Chronciles, was published by Del Rey on August 25, 2020.

TQ:  Welcome back to The Qwillery! We last chatted in 2011. Since then you have completed The Iron Druid Chronicles, started new series, and now have returned the world of The Iron Druid Chronicles. How has your writing process changed since Hounded (The Iron Druid Chronicles 1) was published? 

Kevin:  Hounded was completely pantsed, as they say, with no outline whatsoever. I stopped to research as needed as I figured things out. Now I write outlines and then skip around the book nonlinearly to make sure I'm productive every day and don't get stuck on an early chapter when a really fun chapter is waiting to be written. It allows me to draft much quicker than writing from beginning to end with no idea of how it will turn out. 

TQ:  Why have you returned to the World of the Iron Druid Chronicles with Ink & Sigil? 

Kevin:  I love the world, basically, where all religions, all pantheons are real, the gods and monsters just out of our sight, and we have our modern accoutrements to distract us from what's really going on. 

TQ:  How does this new series fit in with The Iron Druid Chronicles? 

Kevin:  Al MacBharrais is a sigil agent, and they write and enforce magical contracts that have to do with the rights of gods and monsters to visit our world. The Iron Druid would occasionally do this work—kick demons back to hell or what have you—but there was a lot more work to be done than what a single Druid could handle, so Brighid made sigil agents to pick up the slack. 

TQ:  Describe Ink & Sigil using only 5 words. 

Kevin:  Whisky, magic, and wizard vans! 

TQ:  Tell us something about Ink & Sigil that is not found in the book description. 

Kevin:  Its very serious subject regards human trafficking, though it is primarily viewed through the lens of Fae trafficking. 

TQ:  Does Ink & Sigil touch on any social issues? 

Kevin:  It does. It tackles the widespread issue of human trafficking, and research for that was pretty harrowing. 

TQ:  Give us one or two of your favorite non-spoilery quotes from Ink & Sigil. 

Kevin:  

"A toast! Tae inks and sigils and straight razors, tae good bosses and wizards on lizards, tae outsmarting evil when ye can and kicking its arse when ye cannae do that, and tae distillers of fine spirits everywhere. Sláinte!"

TQ:  Thank you for joining us again at The Qwillery!

Ink & Sigil

From the World of the Iron Druid Chronicles

Del Rey, August 25, 2020

Hardcover and eBook, 336 pages

New York Times bestselling author Kevin Hearne returns to the world of his beloved Iron Druid Chronicles in a spin-off series about an eccentric master of rare magic solving an uncanny mystery in Scotland. 

“Ink & Sigil is escape reading, and I loved every word.”—Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of A Longer Fall 

Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails—and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae. 

But he is also cursed. Anyone who hears his voice will begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for Al, so he can only communicate through the written word or speech apps. And his apprentices keep dying in peculiar freak accidents. As his personal life crumbles around him, he devotes his life to his work, all the while trying to crack the secret of his curse. 

But when his latest apprentice, Gordie, turns up dead in his Glasgow flat, Al discovers evidence that Gordie was living a secret life of crime. Now Al is forced to play detective—while avoiding actual detectives who are wondering why death seems to always follow Al. Investigating his apprentice’s death will take him through Scotland’s magical underworld, and he’ll need the help of a mischievous hobgoblin if he’s to survive.

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About Kevin

Kevin Hearne hugs trees, pets doggies, and rocks out to heavy metal. He also thinks tacos are a pretty nifty idea. He is the author of The Seven Kennings series and the New York Times bestselling series The Iron Druid Chronicles, and co-author of The Tales of Pell with Delilah S. Dawson.

Website

Twitter @Kevin Hearne

Photo © Kimberly Hearne