Meredith Mansfield, Author

The last post was about dragons. This one is about everything else.

I write fantasy, so fantastic creatures creep into my stories all the time. Sometimes I plan for them to be there. Other times, they just show up.

BLOOD WILL TELL/BLOOD IS THICKER have unicorns as well as dragons. Other fantastic creatures (or, as they are called in this world, magical races) are mentioned, but don’t actually have much of a role. At least not yet. There’s still the third book (tentatively, BLOOD STAINS) to be written. And since that one will involve a battle to defend their home, who knows which ones will turn up to take a part in that?

MAGE STORM also has griffins as well as three kinds of dragons.

SEVEN STARS remains the only novel-length story I’ve written with no fantasy creatures in it at all. Hmm.

MAGIC’S FOOL has some creatures of my own devising, sort of. There’s something very similar to a saber-tooth cat (although I’ve made my own revisions and additions) and a kind of zebra-like wild horse with leopard spots instead of stripes. In addition to wyverns and maybe a hippocampus, later stories in the series will have more odd creatures from my own imagination. In an earlier version of these stories, there was an unusually large and intelligent spotted flying squirrel, a sort of cross between a wild pig and a rhino, and possibly some really mean miniature unicorns. Making up my own creatures can be fun. I should do it more often.

At least right now, the plans for THE BARD’S GIFT don’t include anything other than dragons. But, I haven’t even started writing it yet, so who knows what may show up.

I’m also wondering what imaginary creatures I might want to include in my retelling of the fairy tale “Little Furball”.