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What if you hated the idea of Peter Pan, then learned that your own skin sheds the fairy dust you need for traveling to Neverland? That’s the magical start of Kara Swanson’s Heirs of Neverland series, which began last year with the fantasy novel Dust. That book won three Realm Awards last July, and today Kara Swanson flies into our window and helps guide us to fantastical truth.

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• A. J. Chamberlain’s thriller novel Cain’s Redemption
• Dragon and Rider game Kickstarter fundraiser

From our Lorehaven review of Dust (fall 2020):

Kara Swanson’s Dust shares the magical story of Claire, a girl who hates Peter Pan but who may be the key to saving Neverland. Because of Peter Pan, Claire’s brother is missing. In London, she meets a boy who helps her discover truths about herself and the strange and powerful dust that sheds from her skin. Her dust may not be the curse she always thought—it may be exactly what she needs to find her brother. She must evade pirates and rogue lost boys and learn whom to trust. Nothing is as it seems, and wishing on stars will get her nowhere in this delightfully twisted sequel to a classic.

• Read the full review

Introducing novelist Kara Swanson

As the daughter of missionaries, Kara Swanson spent her childhood running barefoot through the lush jungles of Papua New Guinea. Able to relate with characters dropped into a unique new world, she quickly fell in love with the fantasy genre.

Swanson is the award-winning author of The Girl Who Could See and Peter Pan retelling/sequels Dust and Shadow (from Enclave Publishing).

Kara is passionate about crafting stories of light shattering darkness, connecting with readers, and becoming best friends with a mermaid—though not necessarily in that order.

1. What happy thoughts lifted you to biblical faith and fantastic imagination?

2. Which pirate maps led to your stories, including your version of Neverland?

• Peter Pan history, from the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH)

3. Where will you fly next in your creative journeys?

Follow Kara Swanson to Neverland and beyond

• KaraSwanson.com
• @KSwansonAuthor on Twitter
• Kara Swanson, author on Facebook
• @KaraSwansonAuthor on Instagram

Com station

Commentator “notleia” returns, regarding episode 77:

Welp, isn’t this all as clear as mud. For as much as this might be intended to serve as a Article Zero or Article Point Five, it still feels a bit reductionist. To use the hats metaphor, we all know that we all wear many different hats, but I don’t feel the need to put a hierarchy on the hats, but ask what each hat might bring to the discussion. But I am admittedly a follower of the postmodernist school of reading where it’s all thrown in the pot and stirred until something falls out (and then you argue about what that thing is and what it means).

Also I might argue that stories are not necessarily a deep-seated want in of themselves, that we have a deep-seated want for meaning, and we largely achieve that by means of the stories we tell ourselves.

But also, mostly unrelated, there’s a lot to unpack in these little side bits about people trying to gain authority by the Teacher, or the Evangelist or the Author, and how that relates to an authoritarian culture, but that’s my psychological/sociological nerd hat talking.

Also also: is “deconstruction” becoming a new negative buzz word, like “canceling”? Why? Admittedly I’m biased because I love deconstruction.

Next on Fantastical Truth

This month marks the twentieth-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Maybe you dimly recall these terrible events, but Zack and Stephen remember them quite well. We also recall the stories and other images we used while trying to understand how people could do this. We will explore not just Sept. 11, and similar events today, but the greater question of how we use fantastic fiction to process real wars and rumors of wars.