Good morning, Towey. How are you doing today? Good morning and great
her are you absolutely fantastic? Wow? This book. You can be an
adult or you can be a young adult reader. And no matter what,
we all love our dragons. Oh I hope. So I've always loved dragons,
and I you know, still anything with the dragon on the cover,
I would be so excited to read it. Oh, you're so right about
that. Speaking of that cover, it is so vibrant, it's beautiful.
It's a work of art. Are you going to merchandise that in the way
of T shirts and posters and things? Because that's the kind of stuff that
we all love to have in our houses, right, I would love that.
So it's complicated, but if I can figure out a way, I
just I feel like So the artist for all of the novels and for this
guide is Joi Aang, and she's so incredible. I feel like we should
have her art on every wall in every house. Basically. So true.
And you know, one of the things, and I got to give you
kudos on this is the way that the book is designed. Because first of
all, it's a good size and I love a good large book. But
the way that it's all printed and everything like that. It's not a complicated
book to read at all. It's so inviting to go from page to page
to page and the colors that you've chosen for each page. Oh thank you.
Well, okay, so that's not me. That's my wonderful designer at
Selassi. He's so incredible. His name is Phil and he has like this
book goes so much work and he's the one who did that. He chose
all the colors and the borders and like where the art was going to go.
And he worked with Joy and I love him. I just feel like
I've been so lucky to get to work with him and with Joy, and
yeah, he's done an incredible job with this book. It's so beautiful.
How did you keep a true connection to this storyline in the way that I
mean, because I mean, sure it's fairly large. But the thing about
it is, though for an author to go from the beginning to the end
and now we're talking about it, that's a journey. That's true. I
mean for me, I think I have to think basically one book at a
time, or if it's a little bigger. I did. I did think
of him into like five book arcs. So books one, two, five
are one storyline, and I wasn't thinking beyond that until I got close to
the end of book five, and then I started planning six through ten.
But really the way I try to keep it focused is I make it each
book is about a different character, and so as long as I'm thinking about
that character and what they're experiencing, that I feel like is what keeps it
like, keeps me interested and also keeps me like focused on like what this
particular book is about for each one of those. I love the titles of
the different chapters, for instance, like the sluglike qualities of mud Wings.
I mean, as an adult, I'm going, ooh, this is how
you start a book that this is what I want to see. That's so
funny because that's actually a title like from within the book World. In book
one, they have a conversation about you know, there's a mudwing and a
nightwing and the night wings like, oh, I read this book about the
slug like qualities of night wings and the mudwing is like, I don't think
word slug like. I don't know what that means. And so actually the
guide is supposed to be an opportunity for dragons like the mud wings to tell
their own versions of it. You know, when you read that section,
the librarian at the school for all the Dragons is saying, like, so
I had this scroll the sluglike qualities of mud wings, and then one of
the mud wings wrote in it because she was like, this isn't right,
this is completely wrong, and so he was like, what we need to
do is get her to write her own scroll and tell us what mudwings are
really like. So that was, Yeah, it was really fun. I
tried to make it a little bit funny as well. Well you do,
and you make it very entertaining in the way of taking the mystery out of
our imagination because I mean when you're looking at the sea wings, I mean
the scales blue or green. I mean you look at their eyes, their
abilities, their habitat, you even show the map on where they live,
and it's just one of those things where it's like, wow, now I
know more about this. Oh I hope so well, So what it really
is I'm hoping is that it'll be inspirational for those kids who love to write
their own stories or draw their own dragons. Because I've gotten kids ask me
questions like this all through the years, mostly because they all are so full
of creativity and they you know, they want to write, they want to
draw accurate sea wings, and they're like what color can their eyes be?
And so to include all of those details, what I really I'm hoping is
that it opens up their imaginations and lets them feel like even more welcome to
come into this world and play with their own dragons and their own stories.
Yeah, we all have those dragons in the way that I mean, because
I mean, even when I'm looking at the rain wings, it's like,
oh, oh my god, I would love to hear the storyline from a
rain wing and to find out, you know, what kind of animation would
I see on television and all that, or even on a big screen,
because I mean, you totally set us up for something that's bigger. On
the other side, Yeah, I mean, I love to imagine that there's
this giant world full of dragons. And what I'm always telling the kids is
like, really, what the theme of the series is is that anybody can
save the world. It's not just one chosen one. And so I say
to them, like, you know, my dragons are saving the world in
the books, like over here in this part of the world, but your
dragon could be saving the world a different way at the same time, somewhere
else in the world. And so I wanted to feel like that, like
that there's a lot going on that you don't necessarily see, And so both
in my stories and in the stories that they're writing as well. Man,
I wish I could have been with you while you were putting these stories together,
because I love the way that you speak directly with the reader when you
go high Starlight. Have I mentioned lately how excited I am to be your
guide? I mean, you're you're you're speaking directly to that reader. Oh
well, And what I'm hoping is that, like the kids who love the
series already will find a lot of the characters they love in this book in
this guide little letters from each other. There's a whole story written by Kinkajo,
which I know is one of the favorite characters that hasn't had her own
book yet. So I was like, well, here you go, here's
Kiinkijo's own voice telling a story set in the rainforest. So, no,
did you create these dragons in the way that it all came from your imagination?
Because when I see something like an ice wing. I believe that the
ice wings are real, because I mean, this is this would be you
know, we've all seen frozen before, so if there's ice, it's got
to be an evil, evil thing. So funny. Yeah, I was,
Well, it was interesting because I was picturing sort of Western dragons,
like the dragons that we grew up with, liked in the Hobbit, right,
But I also wanted to make it feel like, you know, there's
this whole world of dragons, so there could be different kinds, Like where
would they live and like how would that change what they're like? So I
watched a bunch of nature documentaries about different habitats, and I started thinking,
well, what kind of dragon would live under the sea, what kind of
dragon would live in like an arctic part of the world, you know,
And based those sort of designed the characters the tribes of dragons around the part
of the continent that they live in and use that to sort of inspire their
names and sort of how they have structured their civilization. You know, they
live in this ice palace, or they live in the trees, if they
live in a forest, you know, And so trying to let the environment
inform what the dragons ended up being. Like we I have a a little
guy here in the neighborhood that loves dragons so much, and so I cannot
wait to sit down with him and let him go through this book because I
want his imagination to run through this forest in South Charlotte, North Carolina,
where he's gonna believe that those dragons exist in this forest. Because that's the
kind of book this is. Oh, that was exactly the kind of kid
I was. I kept expecting like fairies to pop out of every bush and
like a dragon to show up and take me on an adventure any second.
So yes, this is definitely for those kids. So when you've got the
imagination that you have, where along the lines did you give yourself permission to
set it free so the rest of us could feel your energy. I mean
I always wanted to be a writer, definitely when I was a kid.
And I will say to all the kids out there who want to be writers,
if you start, if you love starting stories but have trouble finishing them,
don't let that discourage you, because that was one hundred percent of me.
I would just get excited about the next idea and want to go write
that instead. So I had a lot of beginnings with stories, and it
wasn't until really after college that I finally made myself sit down and get all
the way to the end of a book to get it published. Well,
you're so right about that too. In the way that I wrote my first
book in the eleventh grade, it was published thirty two years later. So
yeah, don't stop the writing process. It will happen. But you've got
to feed it right, and you've got to like and the more you write,
the better you'll get. It's kind of like playing an instrument. So
like, even if you don't finish an entire story, everything that you write
is still really good practice. It's like making you a better writer ali the
way, and hopefully like whatever you do right will inspire something that you can
use later on in a book. Wow. So where can people go to
find out more about you? Because they're going to get this book and then
they're going to want to have their own journeys and explorations. Well, my
website is Twoe books dot com. It's Tui books dot com. I'm also
on Instagram at two ey Sutherland and then the books are available in any local
bookstore. Hopefully do you get to sit down with the young adult readers and
to basically to feel their energy and what you're doing. I actually just went
on tour this fall, and it was so much fun because I hadn't been
out on the road in such a long time and finally getting to like see
kids again and get to talk to them about their stories and see that all
their art that they brought me was just incredible and so in awe of like
all of the wonderful imaginations out there. It was a very exciting adventure.
Wow. Well, you've got to come back to this show anytime in the
future. The door is always going to be open for you. Oh,
thank you so much. This was really fun. I appreciate it. Well,
you'd be brilliant today. Okay, thank you.