Colfer, Eoin

A Class Colfer and the Classics

If you wanted to create a “perfect hothouse for an aspiring storyteller,” you would surely cast one parent as an historian with a deep love of the written word and sense of place and time and the other parent as an actor who mesmerizes audiences with the spoken word and is a superb storyteller. “I would do my mother’s lines with her,” recalls Eoin Colfer. “It was a great way to learn to read.”

“By the time I realized that it was an unusual environment, I was locked into being a reader,” he explains. Upon going to college, he and his brothers were encouraged to combine their passions with their degree or to find a field where they could also have time to do the things they loved. “So I became a teacher, thinking that I would have two whole months in the summer to work on a book–it took a long time but it worked out eventually,” casually remarked the author of the best-selling Artemis Fowl books.

Though its success now seems predestined, the author remembers some trepidation when the first book was released. How would people respond to the devious and calculating Artemis? The response to Artemis’ journey was overwhelmingly positive. Surprisingly, Colfer did not have a grand outline for the series. “I did them one book at a time. I didn’t realize until Book 8 that I had reached the end,” Eoin laments. “Once he did something selfless and not for profit, that was the end. I reluctantly let him go.”

Because of his background in teaching, Colfer has a comfortable connection to his readers. He knows that he has to write up, not down to his audience. “If I go too far, I let my editor rein me in,” he confides. “I like to write adventure stories. Sometimes the story is for kids, sometimes it’s for adults,” but the boy who grew up on Peter Pan, Ivanhoe, Robin Hood and Treasure Island is quick to point out that “a good story can be read by anybody.” Nowadays, “Given a choice, I always choose swashbuckling.”

And sometimes it’s both. “I go to a reading and there are as many adult fans as kids,” he notes. “I’m always trying to slip in some jokes that the kids wouldn’t get–my job is to get them interested, so if I can get a parent who is grumpily awaiting the end of the reading, I try to give them some reward,” the thoughtful author reveals.

Occasionally, it’s Colfer who is reluctant. When he was offered the opportunity to continue Douglas Adams’ classic HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books for the 30th anniversary, he initially said “No! That’s a really bad idea.” The books were very important to him when he was growing up. He and his friends would quote them at each other–“It was a way to belong. “When Adams’ wife and agent both talked to him and explained that “Douglas wanted to finish in a happy way,” Colfer relented. “As soon as I said yes, I got really excited about it but I only had five months, so I had to drop everything and go hell-for-leather,” he remembers. “It was such an enjoyable five months–I tried to get back into that head space of the teenager who has that superior snigger. Only afterwards, when it was finished, did I discover there was a big internet storm about me doing it.” The net result is that the attention catapulted the entire Hitchhiker series back onto the bestseller lists and an entirely new audience discovered Eoin Colfer and Artemis Fowl.

His newest series, W.A.R.P., is another riveting adventure, which he describes as “all gothic and dark with a Grimm fairy tale kind of violence.” Here’s a hint for adults from the author: “I like the idea of parents reading chapter one first–that’s why the most gruesome thing that is going to happen will be in the first chapter.” You have been warned, or, at least, advised.

Perhaps the classroom experience has also given the author a certain appreciation for the smart aleck kid. “I like to encourage that–I see value in being a funny person.” Someone’s phone goes off during a talk? A student asks him which is his worst book? “I think it’s a gift,” he answers with a twinkle in his eye. He gets questions that range from really serious questions like why he chose a certain path for a certain character to the usual how much do you earn and the less common how does your wife like that beard and what is your worst book?

His talks to students range from a single classroom to the Royal Albert Hall which seats 10,000 people. When taking questions at the latter, he noticed his own son kept raising his hand to ask a question. His wife had earlier advised him that if Finn asked a question, he had to call on him. “I ignored him for a while but then I had to let him ask.” Finn Colfer’s question? “Mr. Colfer, I believe you have two sons–which is your favorite?”

It’s another classic Colfer moment, but from a new generation. And, as the author wryly points out, “Everyone likes to see the guy with the mic getting nailed.”

Interviewed by Ellen Myrick, November 2014

 

 

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