So, Why a Carnival? A Guest Post by Steph Post

This month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Steph Post. She is an award-winning author of three novels and has also had several of her short stories included in anthologies. Her newest novel, Miraculum, is scheduled for release in January, 2019. Post was our featured writer on February 15, 2017.
 

In a few different instances, I’ve been called some variation of “the voice of working class Florida” for fiction, a title that I am immensely proud of. My first three novels—A Tree Born Crooked, Lightwood and Walk in the Fire—all take place in north central Florida and all revolve around working class characters, or, in most cases, reluctant criminals, navigating the perils of their often dangerous world. The setting of these novels has never been called into question, because it is so obvious why I am writing about this area: I am a north Florida native, going generations back, and the land is in my blood as much as the unique struggles and eccentricities of its people.

But in January, my latest novel, Miraculum, will be released and while the larger setting is still the South—spanning from Texas to Georgia—the intimate setting is a traveling carnival, on the dusty roads in the 1920s. 

So, why a carnival? Many of the characters in my previous works are only a few steps removed from actual people in my life, but, I’m somewhat sad to say, as far as I know there are no carnie in my family tree. No acrobats, no lion tamers, no clowns, no ringmasters, no geeks or even freaks. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to a big top circus and my contact with carnivals has pretty much been limited to county fairs and the Cirque du Soleil. To write Miraculum, I did a mind-boggling amount of research, but I didn’t learn to eat fire or walk the high wire. I held snakes, but didn’t learn to charm them. 

It is not, then, a personal connection that made me fall in love with carnivals to the point of centering a fantastical novel in its midst. The Star Light Miraculum of the novel was born more in my imagination, as are its central characters, Ruby, a tattooed Snake Charmer, and Daniel, a mysterious newcomer to the carnival trade. And it is in the power of the imagination that the carnival is so appealing. It is a setting that lends itself to mystery and mystique. It is the perfect framework to tell a story about characters who live on the edge, who challenge boundaries and who are certainly not all that they seem—themes that have always been central to my work. 

My hope is that readers who love my Florida books, who believe in authentic characters scrabbling through gritty landscapes and questionable situations, will find the same in Miraculum. Only with more glamor, more flare, and certainly more imagination. 


For more information, visit her website at stephpostfiction.com