I finally scored an interview with Dr. Jonathan Rogers, the brilliant author of The Wilderking Trilogy.

Jonathan Rogers grew up in Georgia, where he spent many happy hours in the swamps and riverbottoms on which the wild places of The Wilderking Trilogy are based. He received an undergraduate degree from Furman University in South Carolina and holds a Ph.D. in seventeenth-century English literature from Vanderbilt University, where he taught English for five years. Rogers makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and six children, where he makes a living as a freelance writer.

Sally: Wow! Six kids and you make a living as a freelance writer. You are busy. So I'll jump right in. What were your three favorite books when you were a kid?

JR: I mostly read things like animal encyclopedias. There was a grocery store around the corner from our house that was always having some kind of promotion. For a couple of years there, if you spent a certain amount of money at the grocery story you could get that month’s volume of a 20-volume animal encyclopedia. I doubt each volume was even a hundred pages long. I would just go nuts when we got a new volume—devour it in a day or two. I was always spouting off little-known facts: “Did you know the screaming hairy armadillo fends off predators by spraying them with super-concentrated urine?”

The same grocery store, by the way, had a horse-racing game that was tied in with some televised horse races. They gave you a game card at the check-out, and on it were the names and numbers of horses. On Tuesday evening you’d sit down with your game card and watch the horse races, and if the horse on your card won, you could take your card back to the grocery store to get a prize of some sort. When my dad explained that the races were pre-recorded (so that’s why it’s broad daylight at the race track and dark here!), I was heart-broken. They knew who would win before they printed the cards?! It’s my earliest memory of feeling that I’d been set up.

But I digress. You were asking about my favorite books as a child. Animal encyclopedias. The regular encyclopedia. Stuart Little. I also loved a history book called This Is Your Georgia. I actively disliked the Little House books, which is something I can’t explain. Now they’re the kind of thing I love, and I should think they would have been when I was little.

Sally: As a matter of fact, I didn't know that about the screaming hairy armadillo. I wasn't even aware that armadillos were hairy. Amazing stuff you are teaching our impressionable young readers.

JR: Even regular armadillos are hairier than you think. But the screaming hairy armadillo is extra hairy.

(((::::Sally scrambles to open a Google search. Is this guy serious? Ack! There really is such a thing as a screaming hairy armadillo. Kind of a cute little guy even, in its own warped little way.::::)))

Sally: Mmm hmm. So now we know to make friends quickly if we ever run into one of these screaming hairy fellows down at the mall. This underscores how profitable reading is.

So what do you read now? Do you read children's books? CBA fiction?

JR: I probably read equal parts fiction and non-fiction—whatever I take a notion to. I read some children’s fiction, but I certainly don’t try to “stay up on” anything…you’d be surprised at what I haven’t read. I like Florida-related books. I went through a phase of reading books about the Balkans a while back. I read Jonathan Edwards, Uncle Remus (which I should have mentioned among my favorite books as a child), lots of 19th-century humor—some of the stuff that influenced Mark Twain.

Sally: What about Lewis? I thoroughly enjoyed your book The World According to Narnia and I can't escape the feeling that you and Jack are old friends. Do you have a favorite Lewis book? A favorite Narnia book?

JR: I came to Lewis from the apologetics side of things. I absolutely love The Great Divorce, and like everybody else, I love Mere Christianity. I hate to admit it, but I had kids before I ever read any of the Narnia books. There’s no doubt that Lewis has shaped my thinking and writing more than anybody else. When I was working on a Ph.D. in literature, Lewis’ literary criticism was some of the only lit crit I could bear to read. When I sat down to write The World According to Narnia, I hoped to apply the critical principles I learned from Lewis to Lewis’ fiction. I viewed it as a sort of homage—giving the man the critical treatment he deserved. Whether or not I succeeded, I leave to others to say.

My favorite Narnia book is always changing. I love them for different reasons. At the moment, my favorite is Prince Caspian. That may be the most pleasing plot structure in the world.

Sally: Why do you think Narnia books are still best sellers?

JR: Because they’re that good. And because you don’t have to be very old for the books to do their work on you. And because parents want their children to experience what they’ve experienced with those books.

Sally: Are you a big fantasy lover? Why did you choose this genre?

JR: I wouldn’t describe myself as a “fantasy lover.” I love The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books—and Beowulf—but I’m pretty ignorant of the genre as a whole. Why did I choose the fantasy genre? I’m not sure I did. I wanted to tell a knights-and-castles kind of story, but I also wanted to write a story with settings that looked like the wilds of Georgia and Florida. That left me with no option but an imaginary world. Adventure story, swords and armor, prophecies, imaginary world…such a story gets classified as fantasy because there’s no better classification for it. But it doesn’t have some of the staples of fantasy—no wizards or dragons or magic stones.

Sally: Oh, but there are feechies and they are way better than wizards and dragons and magic stones. Is there an official feechiefriend club yet? Have any hysterical mothers called up screaming that their sons have tattooed or branded their forearms?

JR: There’s no Feechiefriend club. I do, however, get the occasional report of feechiefied behavior by my young readers. A family of kids in Mississippi built a string of feechie tree houses in the woods and wallowed in a mud hole to achieve a feechiefied skin tone. I know a boy here in Nashville who’s been wearing himself out trying to capture a squirrel or rabbit in order to earn a feechie name. I suggested that he try something more catchable—a lizard, a turtle, or even a possum—but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Sally: Or an armadillo even. Like those two Nashville boys, Larbo and Hendo Dillotugger.

Speaking of feechies, I wanted to direct readers to another interview you gave, wherein you said you based Dobro on a fellow you worked with. That is amazing stuff.

Elsewhere you've said:

"There’s been a re-awakening of interest in healthy boyhood in the last few years. Books like Wild at Heart and Bringing Up Boys remind us that to raise a God-fearing boy is not to domesticate him, but rather to harness and direct his sense of adventure, his warrior spirit—his God-given wildness. But parents who are inspired by these books still face the challenge of finding books that will inspire their boys. The Wilderking grows out of my desire to write that kind of book."

I don't really have a question about that, but I want to tell you that girls like these books, too. My daughter, my niece, and I love these books at least as much as my husband and son. We like reading about noble and brave boys more than reading about milquetoasts.

JR: Virtue is one of my favorite words—when it entered the language, a good synonym would be ‘manliness’—the word meant ‘power’ or ‘strength’ before it ever meant ‘good behavior.’ Virtue is a kind of power, of course (John Milton is very strong on this point).

I’ve been very pleased with the reaction I’ve gotten from girls. I get more fan email from girls than from boys…of course, I think girls write more fan email than boys anyway. Now I’ve got a daughter learning how to read, so I’ve been mulling a girl-centric story or two. We’ll see what comes of that.

Sally: Well hurry up with something. I can't wait for more.

I guess that means I better give you your final question and let you get back to the business of writing fiction. A Pulitzer Prize or a Newbery Award—which one would satisfy you most? In other words, will you write more delightful children's books for us or will you turn to stodgy, old, boring-but-pretending-to-be-profound grown-up stuff? What's next?

JR: I’ll have to go with the Newbery. I always like the books that win the Newbery, and I don’t always like the books that win the Pulitzer. I do want to write some grown-up novels, but hopefully they won’t be any more pretentious than the Wilderking books. The jury’s still out on what is next now that the Wilderking is done. I’ve had a novel brewing since 1993—a novel about social climbing and a road-kill alligator (it’s always alligators with me). I don’t know when I’ll actually get around to writing it.

Sally: Social climbing and a road-kill alligator are story features I don't want to miss. If anyone else has said that!--but I have no doubt you can pull it off. So hop to it, man. Your fans are waiting.

Oh, and speaking of fans, I want to make sure everyone knows about the The Wilderking Weblog. It's a great blog.

Thanks for your time, Jonathan.

JR: Thank you for having me. I love your weblog. And it’s always a pleasure to come down here to the Children’s Publishing News tower. Do you think you could get one of your interns or editorial assistants (or even the Vice President for Authorial Relations) to show me out? I always get turned around in this place.

reviews:
--The Bark of the Bog Owl
--The Secret of the Swamp King
--The Way of the Wilderking