Victoria Costello's Blog

I'm pleased to share that ORCHID CHILD has received the top prizes for GENERAL FICTION and CROSS-GENRE FICTION from the American Book Fest Awards. Woo-hoo! Thanks to Goodreads reviewers for helping create word of mouth on my debut novel.

Every #neurodivergent character is unique, with or without a diagnosis. So how do novelists and writers of creative nonfiction reach the threshold for authenticity? There are two spots left in my 10/14 seminar at WritingWorkshops.com where you'll join a small group to deepen your understanding and hone your craft for writing #neurodiverse characters -- like Jamie in How To Build a Boat and Teague in Orchid Child -- and their worlds.

Find out more and register: https://bit.ly/3RNwCP5

Like most children growing up with fairy tales and Bible instruction, I believed in miracles and magic. But it was the death of my father at age eight, then having his spirit return to my childhood bedroom to comfort and reassure me, that planted in me a core belief in dimensions beyond material reality. Other influences, including living as a neurodiverse woman and raising a neurodiverse son, working as a science journalist, and reading quantum physics, helped me re-embrace the liminal as part of my adult worldview. The most interesting novels to me often carry subtle messages and bring awareness to underrepresented people and issues, and many do this using magic and the fantastic.

In my debut novel, Orchid Child, a teenage boy who hears voices and talks to trees taps his neurodiversity and wisdom of his Celtic ancestors to confront a century of family trauma. As you might have guessed, the 'hard thing' to talk about in my novel is mental difference.

Writing and talking about the blend of real and magic elements in Orchid Child made me take another look at how authors of recent novels have used the fantastic in otherwise realist scenarios to explore social/political issues we find difficult to talk about in real life, like prejudice against people of color and climate change, or questions we wrestle with like how to balance life and art, and what makes a 'good mother.'

Here are five newish novels that, like Orchid Child, use magic to deal with aspects of our individual and collective lives that are hard to talk about head on.

Read my whole post on Shepard, a cool new site for connecting readers with the books they're looking for.

https://shepherd.com/best-books/reali...

It's been a long journey but here we are! To mark the publication of Orchid Child on Tuesday June 13, Liminal Books is offering the Kindle ebook for this unbelievable price. Order today at https://amzn.to/43wSLnE and my novel will appear on your device first thing Tuesday morning. THANKS to all of you who've posted reviews. I really enjoy finding out what you took away from this novel. The truth is authors don't always realize what we've written until our readers tell us. And I learn something new from every review.

Cheers. Victoria

For example, "eejit" ... To my ears, eejit adds an extra layer of scorn to the tamer idiot. Such as when Liam, an Irish teenager, uses it with his younger, American friend, Teague, who complains about being drawn into Liam’s computer hack of the mental health clinic where both are patients. “You’re the one who gave me the password, eejit.” https://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot....
Read the whole post on TNBBC blog, which featured Orchid Child this month.

Towards the end of my forthcoming novel, Orchid Child, which explores intergenerational legacies and debts in an Irish American family, an American teenager is walking in a wooded East Galway with an older Irish relative he’s just met, when a gust of wind rises seemingly from nowhere, creating a mini tornado of leaves and twigs, complete with sparks of light and a whirring sound.

“We call that a faerie eddie,” the old man tells his visitor, noting that the Good Folk must be pleased at this meeting of far-flung kin on property still in the family.

I view this bit of folklore as an apt metaphor for the swirl of mixed emotions generated by Joe Biden’s nostalgia-filled visit to Ireland this past week. Like everything else about the relationship between Ireland and its 32 million, far-flung, American kin, it’s complicated.

From both sides of the Atlantic, we shared a laugh about the British display of pique over POTUS relishing his Irish roots for four whole days while skipping the coronation. To which I say, spare us, and Harry and Meghan, too, while you’re at it.

Many can also relate to Fintan O’Toole’s discomfort about Biden’s outdated conflation of Irishness with Catholicism. As is true in both countries, “The Church” is simply no longer THE church. A fair number of us have even gone pagan.

Where it gets trickier is when we take in the embarrassed reactions of Irish commentators at Biden’s unabashed displays of sentiment about his Irish roots. I get that the Republic of our Irish American imagination can be cringeworthy to today’s politically progressive, Euro-Centric Irish public. And yet, Joe Biden makes a good point when he says, “you can be nostalgic about the future.”

Read the rest of my post on an Irish Writing Site
https://bit.ly/40uYcBz
...

"With masterful prose and lyrical storytelling, Orchid Child will transport you back to Ireland as you explore one family’s struggle for healing and redemption over several decades."

This introduction to my interview on WritersnAuthors.com made me think about my grandparents, Ellen and Michael Costello, whose real life journey from Ireland to New York City inspired my debut novel, ORCHID CHILD.

Read the interview here...https://writersnauthors.com/interview...

I'm delighted to name ten books, including novels by Alice Hoffman, Alka Joshi, and Jamie Ford, that inspired me to write ORCHID CHILD. They did it by expanding my understanding of what fiction can do.

All ten were published in the last decade. I’ll start with three historical novels I loved, each based
on real people and events. In BEFORE WE WERE YOURS, Lisa Wingate follows siblings stolen from
impoverished parents by a corrupt orphanage director, and the adult granddaughter who
reunites them later in life.

To write her autobiographical novel, SEND FOR ME, Lauren Fox drew on her grandmother’s letters, written after her daughter, Lauren’s mother, escaped Nazi Germany, while her mother was forced to stay behind. Another story of female hardship and courage was THE HENNA ARTIST, inspired by the unfulfilled dreams of author Alka Joshi’s mother growing up in India.

Three novels inspired me to tap Celtic folklore and include a parade of ancestral spirits and a
pair of mischievous fairies in my otherwise realist novel. Alice Hoffman’s WWII story, THE WORLD THAT WE KNEW, pivots on a human-like girl hero made from mud—a golem.

Eowen Ivy’s THE SNOW CHILD depicts a probably imaginary nymph bringing joy to a childless, homesteading couple in 1920s Alaska. While Sally Magnasson’s THE NINTH CHILD presents some angry Scottish fairies having their say on encroaching modernity, with consequences for the unhappy wife of
the waterworks engineer.

Read the rest of this post on Whispering Stories... https://www.whisperingstories.com/ten...

What does an author do when her characters can't agree on the nature of reality? As the neurodiverse author of a work of fiction centering a neurodiverse character, this question kept me from finishing my debut novel for years; that is, until a fifty-year-old literary theory showed me how to do it. And, I'm thrilled to announce that ORCHID CHILD is publishing this June! Get the whole story bit.ly/3JYJXA1