An Interview with Seth MacGregor - hero of Gillian Philip's Firebrand

Alright, so this may be a little unusual, but today I bring you a unique and rather special guest: one Seth MacGregor, a Sithe, the main character of a remarkable novel, and a right handful.

Seth’s "boss" is Gillian Philip, author of the amazing and epic Firebrand. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s fair to call Gillian Seth’s boss, as I get the distinct sense he does far more bossing about than she does. It can get like this when your characters take control… Seth, for goodness sake, even Tweets. I’ve yet to see him on Facebook, but I’ve no doubt he’ll make his presence felt there in due course.

I met Seth a few weeks ago, having heard so many people enthusiastically talking about him. He appeared from between the pages of his book and grabbed my attention. His story, as told in Firebrand, is one of the best stories I’ve read for a long time. You watch this space; Seth, Gillian Philip and Firebrand will be going on to great things yet, because Firebrand is the sort of novel that’s up there with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series. Yes, it’s that good. It has been said by Amanda Craig in her review for the Times, that Firebrand is the best children’s fantasy novel for 2010. I can’t disagree. It might even be the best fantasy novel of the decade.




But let’s not muck about, the Sithe hate to be kept waiting, especially this one, who’s a right hot-head…


So, Seth MacGregor, tell us about yourself, what it’s like to be a Sithe, and what the Sithe are like as a people. And how are you different from us, the full-mortals?

What’s it like to be a Sithe? Um… I dunno, what’s it like to be a full-mortal? Tell you what, though, we are allegedly not very nice. That’s full-mortals’ opinion, anyway. We’re supposed to be baby-stealers, for a start. As if we’d volunteer for all that squalling and shi… I mean, nappy changing. You’ve given us a very bad reputation over the years, you know.

Deep down we’re a lot like you. Except we live a lot longer. And we’re faster (in all sorts of ways). And for some weird evolutionary reason you can’t do the telepathy thing.

Seth MacGregor
(he's a dead ringer for one Billy Crudup, you'll notice, which means, of course, that Billy is probably a Sithe too...)

Now, you’ve said that you don’t have much of an opinion of full-mortals (for my readers – that’s you and me…) – why’s that?

Well… you know, I’ve mellowed a bit in my old age. (Not that I’m old old, you understand; I’m still looking pretty hot, if I do say so myself.) I used to hate full-mortals, but you know I had good reason, Nicky. There was all that witch-persecution business… but let’s call that water under the bridge. I’ve got to know a lot of you much better since then. Some of you are fine. One or two of you may have saved my life over the years. Actually, one of my best friends is a full-mortal (but that’s another story). And by the way, some of you are pretty hot yourselves. What are you doing Saturday night?


Have you found since you’ve been hanging out with the boss and her friends, that there’s any chance of hope for full-mortals or are we utterly doomed?

You’re probably less doomed than we are, but that’s not saying much. There are a lot more of you, for a start – is that why you’re inclined to try and wipe each other out? The Sithe do like a fight – nothing we like better (well, not much) – but we’re not trying to achieve mass extinction. (Except for one of us, but let’s not discuss her.)

I think you need to work on the telepathy, you know? Getting inside other people’s heads. It’s like, even if I want to kill another Sithe and she wants to kill me, we at least understand the way each other thinks, what it’s like to be the other person. Oh, and I think you need to look at the stars more. Good gods*, the chances of us and the planet existing at all are so infinitesimal, you’d think a bit of self-preservation would be in order.

*not that there are any


I notice, by the way, and not to put too fine a point on it, that despite your dim opinion of us, it didn’t stop you from falling in love with a full-mortal girl. Why Catriona, what made her so different from the rest?

You’re being tough on me, aren’t you? OK, so I wasn’t very nice to Catriona to start with, but you have to consider the circumstances. And believe me, I did not intend to fall in love with her. It was Catriona who made me realize I did like full-mortals.
Actually, can we not talk about this any more? It’s kind of a sore point.





So, given, that you’re not entirely averse to full-mortals, who, looking around you in the modern world, might take your fancy? (I do notice that from time to time you bat your eyelashes at Lucy Coats…) What characteristics make up your ideal lover, Seth? (Girls, will you please stop panting, you’re steaming up your screens.)

‘Not entirely averse’ – heh, that’s one way of putting it. There are some fabulous ladies on Twitter, and you’re right, that Lucy Coats is hot stuff. She knows her faeries, too.

I don’t really have an ‘ideal’ lover… I like somebody who can stand up to me, I guess, somebody with a sense of humour. I like smart women who can shoot and are good with horses. The ‘ideal’ person is one I’d want to bind to, I suppose, and I’ve never met anyone like that. I’m not keen on the idea, to be honest.

So anyway, you never answered my question about Saturday night…

We'll get to Saturday night, patience, boy!


Now, as I mentioned, you have your own Twitter account. How do you enjoy engaging with the full mortal world through it? And how did you persuade the boss to let you have a Twitter account?

I didn’t persuade her, I snuck onto her laptop when her back was turned. She’s kind of possessive and she was as mad as a demented kelpie when she found out. I’m really enjoying it, though. The Boss doesn’t actually interact with me as much as she should, so I used to get bored – it was seeing her on Twitter so much that gave me the idea. It’s fun. There are some great conversations going on; it’s almost like being in a bar with a bunch of Sithe pals. There’s an awful lot about Spooks and Doctor Who and Merlin, too, but that keeps the Boss happy.

By the way, when I call her ‘the Boss’ I want you to imagine a really sarcastic tone of voice.

The "Boss"...

Your world, behind the Veil, is like ours in many ways, and yet quite different. Do you think you could paint a picture of just what your world is like?

It’s incredibly like your world, but – how can I put this? – less spoiled. That’s not very fair of me, because the thing we do steal (not babies, I emphasise again) is bits and pieces of technology. You’re clever that way, and I’ll grant you’re a lot more advanced than us. So we take things through when we go home. I had to take some CDs for Eili last time (we can’t download tracks, for obvious reasons). Not just small things, though – I like your wind power technology, your plumbing gadgets. Yeah, you’re smart. But if we take those things from you, we don’t need the whole industrial-production thing ourselves.


You have a water horse, I don’t think many full-mortals know what a water horse is, can you tell us, and tell us what’s so special about having a water horse and how you come to “own” one another?

Our other word for them is kelpies. I think full-mortals call them that, too. Opinion’s divided among the Sithe, to be honest – I know people who think they shouldn’t be tamed (not that they ever really are) because they have essentially wicked natures. In the wild they’re famous for hanging around near water and enticing travellers to ride them – they’re very beautiful and they can be charming. Once a stranger’s on a kelpie’s back, though, he can’t get off, and the horse takes him underwater, drowns him and eats him. Pretty good hunting trick, when you think about it.

I wouldn’t be without mine, though, and neither would Conal or Sionnach. There’s nothing like riding a water horse because you have to get inside their mind, and let them get inside yours. And it’s strictly a one-on-one thing. There’s no way I could ride Conal’s horse, for instance, and no way Eili could ride mine.

Water horses in action...

In the course of your adventures, you have more than one encounter with a Lammyr. Without terrifying my readers too much, could you tell us what the Lammyr are, and why the Sithe hate them so?

Supposedly, we’re related. The Lammyr and the Sithe, that is. It’s hard to describe them: cadaverous creatures with papery skin and colourless blood. Translucent, in certain light. You could mistake one for a seriously underfed human, I suppose, but their aura of evil is so strong, just the word makes you feel sick if you’re not used to it. Having one around, that’s even worse. It’s not that they don’t have emotions, because they do – just not especially nice ones. They’re truly loathsome. The only thing they love is death, and they love it more even than their own life.

They do, however, have a pretty funny sense of humour.

I have to tell you, funny's not exactly what I'd call it... but still.


Your real name is Murlainn – a small, deadly falcon. That would seem pretty accurate… Do you feel the essence of the falcon in your veins – and especially when you take your sword or your dirk to your enemies?

Oh, my true name. It doesn’t half upset my brother, who got stuck with being ‘sheepdog’. It could have been better – I’m not especially keen on the ‘small’ part – but it could have been worse. I overheard somebody in the dun once, saying he’d no idea there was no Gaelic word for ‘snake’. Unkind, don’t you think? Anyway, his name is now ‘Nosebleed’.

As for feeling like a merlin-hawk? More like a wolf, but that’s because when I’m fighting I’m in Branndair’s head half the time, and he’s in mine. You can probably relate to that, Nicky. Nice fangs, by the way.

Ssh, not everyone knows I'm a werewolf, Seth. They think I'm a sweet, chocolate-drinking writer. Help me keep up the pretence, here, please.


You and your brother Conal were forced into exile, and it seems this is not entirely uncommon for Sithe who’ve peeved their queen. Are there others of your people in the full-mortal realm and how is that we seldom know you walk among us? On the flip side, how many full-mortals cross into the world of the Sithe and how do we get on once there?

Oh, all the time, all the time. There are Sithe who like being here, as well as the ones who have been sent over against their will. And there’s been a certain amount of – how can I put this? – inter-tribal breeding. The offspring tend to be sickly, though. That’s – look, that’s kind of a sore point too.

Full-mortals tend to get through to our world too, it’s true, but it’s never a good idea. There are lots of legends about this stuff, because it’s hard for full-mortals to get out unharmed. Our queen is a bit of a bitch about this: falls for a full-mortal, tires of them, and then… well. Your man Keats even wrote a poem about her.


Your world and mine are divided by the Veil. What is it, and why does it seem to me that it grows thinner during the hours of 2 and 4 in the morning? And what would happen if the Veil were to tear or dissolve?

Hah. That’s the big question, isn’t it? Our world is more fragile, and ours is the one that was made separate, so it wouldn’t survive the collision. And the Veil is what keeps our world in existence, so if it ever vanished, so would our world. We wouldn’t; we’d just be stuck with living in yours. Without the Veil’s protection, I might add, because it also acts as a filter, a kind of distorter of your perceptions. It’s why we’re not so noticeable in your world. The witch-queen has a beef with that, because she wants power in your world, and she can’t have it with the Veil there. So she’s got this mad idea of destroying it. Not that she has to, because it’s thinning anyway, and one day it’ll die of its own accord.

My stepmother has some mad idea about strengthening it, but she’s a witch too. Superstitious old bat. Talks to soothsayers too much. I’d rather just fight it out.

It’s perceptive of you to notice the Veil’s thinner in the small hours. That’s what I’ve always thought, too. If you see things in the corner of your eye at that time of the night, you’re probably seeing through the Veil.

You’ve given us, very kindly, the first years of your very long life in Firebrand, will we be seeing more of you – and when?

Ah, I’m working on it. There have been quite a few years since my Firebrand days, but things are starting to happen around here. Conal and I are still sneaking over the Veil, naturally – as if he could stay away from Eili – and we’ve got a feeling something bad’s going to happen quite soon. Kate the witch-queen seems to be making moves. At least we’ll see some action again. It’s time somebody put a stop to her.

On which note… Bloodstone is due out next August 2011 - if she gets her act together…


A huge thanks to both Seth and Gillian Philip for this interview – I look forward to meeting both of you, in person, really soon, when there will, I hope be wild tales, dancing, singing and whisky.

And thank you, Nicky. I’m sure there will be all those things, and as you know I get along great with wolves. In the meantime… about Saturday…?

Well, I do have a date with Dr Who to go time-travelling in the Tardis on Saturday, but I tell you what… whisper whisper whisper…


Follow Seth MacGregor on Twitter
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To read more about Gillian Philip, see her website
Follow Gillian Philip on Twitter
To order a copy of Firebrand go to Amazon.co.uk

Gillian Philip at a book signing

Images either courtesy of Gillian Philip, or nicked from the internet.

An interview with YA author, Gillian Philip

Sometimes in life you just get lucky. I feel that way about having made friends on Facebook with Scottish author Gillian Philip. When I friended her (or she friended me – I forget which way round it was), I didn’t know anything about her, let alone what she’d written. But as is the way of these things, you get to know someone a little and you decide to read their books. Reading Gillian Philip's books has been a total treat for me. The strength of her voice and the honesty with which she deals with some tough subject matter makes me rate her up right up there with my favourite teen and Young Adult authors – who include Kevin Brooks and Meg Rosoff.

Basking in the Scottish sushine, Gillian claims not to miss the tropics.
Hmmm...
Photograph courtesy of Helen Giles

I’ve so enjoyed Gillian’s work that I’ve asked her to share some of her thoughts about her writing, and what she’s working on, here.

Let’s first talk about writing in general.

So here’s the old stock in phrase question, Gillian… What motivates you to write?

My overdraft! Just kidding… well, half-kidding… that’s what gets me to my desk in the morning, because I have to treat it like a regular job (what my mother would call a ‘proper’ job). But what really, seriously motivates me? Those characters banging on the inside of my skull demanding I tell their story. Isn’t that what motivates us all?

And that other classic question… Where do you get your ideas from?

For this one I used to quote a facetious Russell T Davies – ‘The Ideas Shop in Abergavenny.’ But no, I’m trying to take the question more seriously these days, because it’s a perfectly reasonable one!

The very worst moments are when I really have no idea what to write about, and those do happen. I’ll sit at my desk banging my head against a hot cup of coffee, but I know what I should do: either go for a long walk, or turn on the news.

I worked out the basic story for Crossing The Line when I was walking round Aberdeen, thinking of characters who would appear in it and the things they might get up to in certain locations. Some of them were the wrong characters: Allie started out as a little brother, before becoming a little sister in a blinding revelation. Some of them came out right the first time: Lola Nan sprang from my head fully formed in the middle of Springfield Road. Which was quite a sight.

My other favourite hunting ground is the news: headline stories, magazine articles, even opinion columns in the Sunday papers. It’s not the frontline stories I’m looking for, but the people in the background: the kid in the rubble looking for his football; the favourite niece of that adulterous footballer or politician; that murderer’s little brother, the one with the shocked face, who used to worship him. Once you readjust your focus and tune into the background noise, stories really are limitless. Well, the ideas are limitless. Turning them into stories is of course the hard part…

My starter collection of Gillian Philip's books - I'm expecting the pile to grow...

And then there’s that other one… How long, on average, does it take for you to write a book?

Ooh, tricky one. I’d estimate a first draft at between two and three months, but that really would be a rough first draft. It’s the rewriting and polishing that take the time, but that’s the part I enjoy the most. With edits and rewrites, I’m very nitpicky and I can never resist changing just one more word, one more scene. But getting it on a blank page to start with, that’s blood from a stone.

When did you start writing and was it a long slog to getting published – what was the journey to becoming a published author like?

It was a long slog, yes, but nothing I didn’t expect. I’d always wanted to write, but in a defeatist way I thought getting published would be impossible. So when I lived abroad for twelve years – I was jobless and childless and I had so much time I really should have been turning out two fat sagas a year or something – I wrote and sold short stories. I didn’t really enjoy them – I don’t think I’m that good at short stories – but I assumed I’d never sell anything longer, and I couldn’t think what to write anyway.

In 2001 I had my twins and came home to Scotland; at around the same time I discovered YA books (I bought them on the pretence of building a library for my kids’ future, but read them all myself). YA was in this golden age, and I found it was what I really wanted to write. I also discovered manuscript advice services like Hilary Johnson’s, and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Then I had a few very frustrating years. I started with the attitude that I would give it my best shot, so that I wouldn’t be able to berate myself later in life for not trying. But of course, it doesn’t work like that, and the books I was writing became my complete obsession.
My worst moment came when my (eventual) agent, who had been agonising over a fantasy called Rebel Angels, eventually turned it down. I thought I’d blown my best chance. But she did then accept the novel that became Crossing The Line, and sold it to Bloomsbury; and in the meantime I’d sold Bad Faith to Strident, a small Scottish publisher – so I had two books published within a year. I’d say the whole process was no more difficult and frustrating than I expected, but it certainly needed doggedness, as well as a big dollop of brass neck. Writers do need a brass neck and a thick skin, so it was just as well I developed both!"

Waiting in the freezing Scottish mist for her son to take her photograph, Gillian's on the verge of changing her mind and going inside for something warming...

What would you say most motivates and informs your writing?

Probably when I get mad about something. I suspect I have a useful streak of misanthropy, but humans fascinate me, too – the things we do to each other in the name of politics or religion, love or revenge, envy, national pride, the movies of Richard Curtis… anything. I’m dreadful to my characters – that’s a writer’s job – but most of the time they will get through it all, because I love ’em, and I want them to win the day. Mostly…

How much contact do you have with your readers – and do you think contact with your readers is important?

I’d like to have more! I love meeting and talking to readers and yes, I think it’s hugely important. I almost can’t believe there are writers who wouldn’t want to talk about their books – even to readers who disliked them, if only so that you can argue the toss and try to convert them. I thoroughly enjoy school visits, love doing talks and workshops, could do Q&As for hours on end. JD Salinger I’m not.

Gillian with some of her readers
Image courtesy of Gillian's website

Now, let’s get into the actual books…

Like Kevin Brooks and Melvin Burgess, you’re not afraid to tackle really gritty subject matter, which involves protagonists who are in their mid teens. Cass, in Bad Faith is 15 and Allie (although not the main protagonist), in Crossing the Line, is the same sort of age. What motivated you to write these books - and for this age group?

It’s such a terrific age, a difficult, frightening, exciting age. It’s right in the heart of the teen years and secondary school, and you’re dealing with all those hormones, all that fear for the future; all that heartbreak, and optimism, and bravery…

I do like gritty subject matter, but I’m not trying to send messages or teach lessons. I want to tell gripping stories, make the reader care about the characters the way I do. And as I said, that usually means throwing the most awful stuff at the poor beggars.




Crossing the Line, which has been nominated for and won several awards, deals with, amongst other things, knife crime and has been banned in certain schools. What is your response to that? And why do you think it might be important for teens to read this sort of novel?

Yes, I was bewildered when I heard that (and pretty cross, obviously). Of course schools are entitled to stock whatever books they like, but the attitude was based on such a misreading of the book (or perhaps no reading at all). I was told (via a third party) that the ban was down to Crossing The Line ‘glamourising knife crime’… which simply isn’t true. The book does investigate how blades and violence hold an element of glamour for some young men, which is something I think we can’t ignore.

But I wasn’t out to send a message about anything – that’s what email’s for. I treated the theme responsibly, but essentially the novel was about my characters and their actions and decisions, and how they deal with some terrible events. I hope I never get so tangled up in issues that I forget the story. I don’t think it’s important for teens to read any particular sort of novel – I just think it’s important that they should read. Otherwise they’re missing out on so much!




Bad Faith deals with religion gone out of control. Your father was in the church so how did your own religious experiences inform the writing of Bad Faith and what is it you really wanted to get across in the book?

My father was a very liberal priest in the liberal and tolerant Scottish Episcopal Church, and that’s how I was brought up. I’m lapsed now, but I still have a great fondness for the Anglican church and I’ve been shocked by some of the attitudes it has allowed to stand in the name of unity. So together with the direction religions all over the world have been taking, it got me thinking about the desirability or otherwise of closer religious ties and church unity. Politics and religion do fascinate me, especially in conjunction, and for the background to this novel I wanted to write a world where the greatest world divisions were between secular states and theocracies.

But that’s the background! Mostly I wanted to write a heinous murder, with plenty of scandal, family secrets, blackmail, mystery and romance thrown in. I wanted to find out if my protagonists Cass and Ming could get together in the end without getting themselves killed!



You also write to commission and the Darke Academy series which is a fantasy/paranormal is quite different from some of your other work and is also written under a nom de plume, Gabriella Poole. How do you find writing to commission and what motivates you to do it? And, why the nom de plume?

The nom de plume Gabriella Poole actually belongs to the book packager Hothouse, who devised the Darke Academy series. This protects both the company and me, because if either of us want to bring the partnership to an end, Gabriella can continue to exist! It’s an increasingly popular phenomenon in publishing.

Hmm, what motivated me? Curiosity; the fact that they liked my sample chapter enough to offer me the job; the fact that I really liked the concept and the characters they came up with; a reliable pay day! I hugely enjoy working with the Hothouse team – it is of course completely different to working on my own novels with my own characters, but it’s collaborative and fun and lets me stretch my writing muscles.




In both Bad Faith and Crossing the Line you write with a remarkably powerful, connected and authentic voice, how do you feel then, about writing material that doesn’t come from the heart in the same way?

I couldn’t have taken on the Darke Academy contract if I didn’t like and engage with the characters. It’s true that they didn’t come from my brain, but I’m very, very fond of them (I confess to a deep affection for the sleazy Richard Halton-Jones).

When I got the brief, the outline and the concept attracted me straight away. I loved the idea that the school moved to a different exotic city every term, and I liked the uniqueness of the idea – these people weren’t vampires, but possessed by ancient spirits, and I wanted to find out where they came from (and I should add that we started work on the Darke Academy series before Twilight even appeared!)

It is a very different way of working: very much a team effort. My first draft – expanded from the editors’ outline – will always be altered, but then if I have some objection or quibble or a sudden idea, I know I can put it to the editors and that it will be considered very seriously, and more often than not worked in. It’s a bit like how I imagine it would be working for a US sitcom, or a British soap – the characters didn’t come from my head, but working together we can make them the best they can be, and keep them consistent and the story cohesive. It’s been tremendous fun working with Cassie, Ranjit and co. It’s not the same as my own work but I love it.

The Shades series

What sort of relationship do you have with your characters and do you find they really get into your head and stick there? Who, do you feel, has been your strongest character to date and why?

You know that song Can’t get you out of my head? Like that, but even more irritating.

But seriously… that moment when a new character takes up residence in a space in your brain, makes themselves at home and demands a drink and a bowl of olives: that’s one of the most fabulous moments in writing. But you know this, Nicky – I’ve heard you talk about your own characters!

Strongest characters… well, I hope my main character in each novel is the strongest. That’s what I’m aiming for of course, and if they weren’t, I’m sure someone else would have taken over the plot. I’m not sure which characters other readers would find powerful – objectively speaking I think Orla and Shuggie in Crossing The Line are strong characters in their own right…

As for my most tenacious character, the one who won’t leave me alone: that would have to be Seth in my upcoming Firebrand. The little sod. He started out as a villain, took over the story without so much as a by-your-leave, and I haven’t been able to get rid of him since. When I started writing Bad Faith – which came after the Sithe books in writing order – I thought I was going to need an exorcist.

You have another new series coming out this year with Strident Books. Can you tell us a bit about that?

That would be the Rebel Angels series, starring the aforementioned little sod. Firebrand is the first book; it’s set in Scotland at the end of the sixteenth century and tells the story of Seth MacGregor, who’s the son of a Sithe nobleman, at the time of civil war and rebellion in the Sithe world. The next three books in the series move right up to the 21st century and bring the characters into the modern world (they live a long time, those Sithe). The story has evil queens, treason, assassination, telepathy, witch trials, burnings, kelpies, monsters, car chases, junkies, betrayal and cat burglary. And romance, of course. (Can never resist that last one.)

What else do you have planned?

Right now I’m working on a second book for Bloomsbury, provisionally titled The Opposite of Amber. It’s another contemporary novel, like Crossing The Line, this time with a girl called Ruby as the main character. It’s another murder mystery, and there’s a serial killer involved…

And finally, a number of aspiring authors read this blog, what advice do you have for new and aspiring authors?

Just – do persevere! Persevere, and take advice from objective sources. I know how disheartening it can be, but the important thing is to keep writing. As soon as you send something off to an agent or a publisher – and before you hear back from them – start the next book. The more you write the better you get, and if you have the talent and you don’t give up, you’ll get there. Keep writing, and take note of constructive criticism and advice. And GOOD LUCK, aspiring authors!

Gillian Philip and furry friend
Photograph courtesy of Gillian's Facebook Fan Page

Many thanks to Gillian for agreeing to do this interview.

And can I just say – thank so much, Nicky, for inviting me! I feel equally lucky to have met up with you!


Do visit Gillian Philip at her website or her Facebook Fan Page and consider following her on Twitter: @Gillian_Philip

Gillian's books can be found on Amazon and a several other online bookstores.

Gillian Philip's bio can also be found on Hilary Johnson's website.

If you'd like to ask Gillian a question, do so in the comments section and she'll get back to you.