Colorado author, Carol Berg calls herself “a software engineer, who majored in math to avoid writing papers”, as she comments on the mystique surrounding her own success as an author of epic fantasy novels. What began as a hobby, has since taken over her life, with thirteen published books currently to her credit, was a surprise to her and her family, according to her interview with Dallas Speculative Fiction Examiner, Pat Hauldren (March 16, 2010). Not your typical writer’s story, with a stack of rejection slips before finding the right publisher that is willing to take a chance on an unknown author, Berg achieved her first publishing break from entering a writing contest. She won the contest with the Pike’s Peak Writer’s Group for Best Unpublished Novel, for Song of the Beast (2003), which earned her a reading of the opening of Transformation (2000), with her acquiring editor, which, in turn, led to a contract with Roc, an imprint of Penguin Putnam. Song of the Beast eventually went on to win the 2004 Colorado Book Award for genre fiction, from Colorado Humanities and Transformation won the 2005 Geffen Award for Best Translated Fantasy Novel, from the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, as well as becoming a finalist for the 2001 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award and a Runner-up for the 2000 Barnes and Nobel Maiden Voyage Award.
When asked if it was scary to submit her work to that first contest, Berg states,
“It is always difficult to submit one's work for judgment or critique. Writing comes from deep
within us, and it is easy to interpret criticism of one's writing as criticism of oneself - even if
it isn't. Fortunately, I had worked for a number of years in engineering. Going through the
process of engineering design reviews is very similar, so I had learned that the process of
bringing new eyes to bear on one's work was a necessity, not a burden.”
Winning the contest pleased her, of course, but at the time,
“I had no idea that doing well in the contest might signal a readiness for publication. Though
I knew that Song of the Beast was a step above all the writing I'd done so far, I was only
beginning to imagine that anyone would ever want to actually read anything I'd written.”
Ironically, one of the few rejection slips that Berg has ever received came for Song of the Beast, right around the time that she sold it. Other Berg books that have gained recognition include Daughter of the Ancients (2005), which won the 2006 Prism Award, and her Lighthouse Duet: Flesh and Spirit (2008), which was a finalist for the 2008 Colorado Book Award, and Breath and Bone (2009), which was the winner of the 2009 Colorado Book Award. The Lighthouse pair was also the recipient of the 2009 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, from the Mythopoeic Society.
Writing is now a way of life for Carol Berg. She writes faithfully every day and the stories flow onto the page from a single idea. She spends a good deal of time on character development and world building, as well as the revision process. Of course, it is not always easy,
“Nope. Not easy at all. Some days it flows. Some days it sits. Some days I bang my head
(figuratively) on the computer because I find myself writing and rewriting the same passage
over and over again. My head, unfortunately, will not progress to a new piece until I've
wrestled the current piece into a semblance of a finished scene.”
Her favorite part of the writing process is,
“Writing revelatory scenes involving characters that I’ve come to know very well. I also love
the aspect of revising a scene that I love and feeling the moment when it settles into exactly
the form I want.”
Berg also enjoys networking with other writers and readers, socially and via Internet, although she finds Internet activities to be “incredibly time consuming”, and so, are fairly limited,
“I just love networking with people who share this cumbersome, awesome, delightful,
maddening vocation. Only fellow writers understand a writer's agonies… I actually do enjoy
interacting with readers. I love hearing what they have to say and I find that my readers are all
interesting people in their own right.”
The input of others is also important to her, as she refers to good critiquers as “priceless”. She defines a good critiquer as someone who reports “what they perceive” without trying to reshape the work into their own vision. Editors, too, play an important role in Berg’s writing,
“My first editor was truly excellent. She taught me how to revise and improve without mutilating
my story, but to take it to another level. No editor has asked me to cut out specific pieces. But I
have done it myself, because I know the book is stronger without. That being said, I do write
"wordy." And, especially in recent years where the pressure for smaller books is coming from
booksellers and economics - NOT readers - I have had editors ask me to try and reduce my
overall word count. They leave it to me to judge how to do so, and thanks to my first editor's
training, I can do a pretty decent job of that without impinging on the story.”
When asked what she felt was the most important quality for a fiction writer to possess, Berg replied,
“A love of stories. All the other things you can work around. But if you don't love it, you won't
persist through the hard bits and you won't dig deeper to fund the truth of your characters
and the logic of your plot.”
Her current project is The Soul Mirror, which is the sequel to The Spirit Lens (2010), and is due to come out in 2011, followed by The Daemon Prism, in 2012. All three books make up her Collegia Magica series, and promise to be enjoyable reading for lovers of fantasy worlds and magic.
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