About Diana Iolande

I am not a scholar. The information provided on the FYI pages and in my novel Trivium is strictly to enhance my contemporary fantasy.  It attempts to provide theories to support the premises accepted by the novel's main characters. My interpretation is just that: my interpretation.

With that said, I started writing and reading my stories to my classmates in grade school. Every morning, my teacher would ask me to stand and read what I had written the night before. The memory of that peer-appreciation experience  helped build the confidence I needed to see myself as a writer again after a hiatus of many years.

Stories stamped by the ambiance of place intrigue me. In seconds, I can travel from the swampland surrounding New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana to the ancient city of Constantinople. When reality closes in on my imagination, I can luxuriate in the elements that make contemporary fantasy so appealing; I can conjure air succulent with musk and spice or wallow in a writer's hell of mildewed stagnation.

For me, mystery and puzzle-solving, psychological quagmires and secrets from the past hallmark a good attention-grabbing story.

My favorite go-to authors are Mary Stewart and Daphne Du Maurier. Stewart's stories feature a spunky heroine confronted by a dire situation, but it is her ability to evoke a location as intriguing as the main character that I admire. Du Maurier writes quirkier more nuanced main characters. Her protanganists range from the meek second Mrs. DeWinter (Rebecca)  to a man addicted to drug-induced time travel (The House on the Strand). 

As a newer member of this neoGothic, paranormal writing clique, Susanna Kearsley creates parallel storylines where modern-day women with modern-day problems find answers in the mysteries of the past. She writes relationships with a subtle hand; her heroes are mostly action with no need for unnecessary diaglogue complicating their practicality.  The love between her main characters is subtle and private with little need for bodice-ripping details. 

George R R Martin's wins my award for brutal audacity. His battling Starks, Lannisters and Targyreans are focused, driven and merciless.  Despite Marion Zimmer Bradley's unsavory personal life, her Mists of Avalon and The Firebrand epitomize my notion of a fantasy/mythology crossover. Madeline Miller in "Circe" and "Song of Achilles," also brings gods, goddesses and demiheroes to life.

When it comes to modern classics, you cannot beat John Fowles. His French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus are journeys into literary perfection. His language imitates poetry and yet it defines his scenes with a precision second to none.

My latest find is Turkish author Elif Shafak. Her The Forty Rules of Love tells the tale of how the dervish , Shams of Tabriz, transformed the lecturer and scholar Rumi into the most renowned love poet in the world.  I am reading Shafak's novel called The Architect's Assistant now and enjoying how easily she resurrects the world of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent .