Eoin Colfer at The Swan Theatre in Worcester
By Leah Matthews / Spinebreakers Crew
On the 13th of August I was given the chance to meet and interview Eoin Colfer, the credited author of the award winning series “Artemis Fowl”, before watching his live show “Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence”. Equipped with note book, questions and a copy of his latest book “Artemis Fowl – The Time Paradox” I headed to The Swan Theatre in Worcester.
As for first impressions I shan’t lie, in the kindest possible way the first thought that popped into my head was “funny little Irish man”, which to a degree I found was correct after laughing myself silly at his live show. After all it does take a man with quite an imagination to write an exceedingly popular series about teenage geniuses, mutant trolls and farting gnomes.
After interviewing him I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at how down to earth he was, when I asked him whether he expected the amount of success he has had, he replied that all he had set out to do was write stories for people to enjoy, not to earn fame, just to bring a wage in and pay for the family holiday. He confirmed this opinion of him further when I asked him what advice he may have for young writers, he advised not to set out for great success, just write something that interests you and be sure to bring something new to the table.
Eoin was born and raised in Ireland, where he taught in schools for a while before pursuing his career as an author. He had written from a young age, however didn’t make anything out of his talent till the age of 18, it was always a hobby even when he was teaching, for instance he would write stories to teach children simple lessons. One of these stories he told us about during his live show, written on request by the Mother of a young boy who was refusing to admit he wet the bed. This among other stories showed the audience how he blossomed as a young author and explored his talents before Artemis came along.
As I’ve mentioned before, many of the things Eoin writes about aren’t what your average author tends to write about, his books are a mixed genre of fantasy and science fiction, twisting our image of pretty faeries into complex, gadget carrying, beyond human life celestial beings. I find this approach to fantasy intriguing, something that other authors haven’t attempted in such depth before, and when I questioned him about this particular technique he replied again that he liked bringing something new and interesting onto the cards. I inquired whether he believed in any of the out of this world creatures he wrote about, and he answered that no, he did not, however he did believe in things beyond scientific explanation, and would love it if something such as a yeti was discovered.
Moving on to the characters in his books, I found his answer to my question “Do you have a favourite character?” to be most interesting. He informed me that he thought Mulch Diggums, a gas filled dwarf, had a lot of potential – beyond the flatulence that is. As I expected though, he felt like any author does that he knows his characters better than anyone else ever will, and he knows every fact about them, right down to what they were like at a very young age. The Artemis Fowl books take on a very different approach to many other series, the most noticeable one of these is that the main character, Artemis, is the “bad guy”. The criminal mastermind. When I raised this point Eoin said this was because he felt that far too many books took the basic storyline of “hero is asked to do this, hero fights battle with self about doing it, hero does it, hero is triumphant”, and yet again he wanted to make sure he was offering something new and not just the same old tale of a hero. Also as Artemis’s intentions are always (sort of) good in his adventures, he felt being the bad guy was acceptable.
Eoin’s show went into more depth about the discovery of his characters, how and what they evolved from, along with hilarious tales about brothers, sons and Gollum look-a-likes. I don’t think I will ever be able to say the word “actually” ever again without giggles rising to my throat, not after hearing Eoins’ theory that when his son says the word it is actually his way of saying “You’re stupid”. He explained how Artemis himself was inspired by his mischievous younger brother Donald, whom enjoyed pouncing on Eoin from the attic and knock him out – all in the pursuit of pocket money. A character relation I found particularly amusing was him likening himself to Foaly, as he sees himself to be that type of computer nerd, sitting in corners with a laptop talking and sniggering to himself, causing family friends great concern.
To conclude, I really did enjoy meeting Eoin Colfer and the privilege of interviewing the mastermind behind the criminal mastermind, and I would highly recommend fans going to see his live show.