{"id":1632,"date":"2011-12-06T16:54:42","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T14:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethingwicked.co.za\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2011-12-06T17:08:29","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T15:08:29","slug":"writers-cornered-domyelle-rhyse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/2011\/12\/06\/writers-cornered-domyelle-rhyse\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Cornered: Domyelle Rhyse"},"content":{"rendered":"

interview by Joe Vaz
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\nFrom Issue 16 (Dec 2011)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Where is home?<\/em><\/strong>
\nCurrently, I’m living in Georgia, but I’ve lived most of my life in California or Ohio. I think my roots are more dug in along the East coast. California is a concrete jungle, and I didn’t realize how much I missed the green until we moved. I don’t know if I can say Georgia is home, but I suspect home will be somewhere along the East coast when my husband is ready to open his restaurant.<\/p>\n

Do you write full time? <\/em><\/strong>
\nYes, and no. I’ve recently become an editor for a small press, and I have an autistic son who needs my attention. Plus I run an online workshop. Those three things take a chunk out of my time, but writing still takes up the majority of it.<\/p>\n

What inspired this story?<\/em><\/strong>
\nIt may sound weird, but it’s rare for me to be able to pinpoint a particular inspiration for my work, especially my short stories. I suspect a big part of that is the ADHD. My brain is almost always in super drive, and I rarely think about one thing at a time (I did a 10 minute stream of consciousness exercise once and it was scary how many different threads of thought went on in that short bit of time). So when I get ideas, I write down a quick blurb in a notebook. When I need something new to work on, I peruse the notebook until something strikes me. The good news is I have an endless supply of writing ideas. The bad news is I have an endless supply of writing ideas. Lol. It’s unlikely I’ll ever get through them all.<\/p>\n

I believe “God of Light” was one of several stories that came out of my desire to show my Lit professors (some who told me that writing SFF was a sure way not to get an A in their classes) that SFF was as good as literary fiction and revealed humanity just as well. I received A’s in every class, so I think I made my point.<\/p>\n

Could you describe to us some of the religion you created and how the ritual of Guides works? How does one become \u201cchosen\u201d?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI don’t world build as much for short stories as I do novels. My general idea was a religion that didn’t accept dissension and had control of society. How far would they go to stop those who stood against them? How would they explain it to society? Those who are chosen to be a Guide are those who have spoken out against their religious rulers. Everything in the ritual itself is designed to make sure these rebels are under control.<\/p>\n

The funny thing is, religion shows up in a lot of my work: a vampire who goes into a church and tests the idea that she is evil and would be destroyed, a woman who wants to do nothing more than serve her goddess but who is called to be more than that, and so on. I don’t actively try to give my work religious overtones, and it doesn’t show up in every story I write, but it does keep coming up. Faith has such a capacity to do good, to bring out the best in people, but it also reveals hypocrisy or can be taken to the degree seen in “God of Light”, where dissent isn’t tolerated.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a very definite point, for me, where there seems to be a shift from reality to hallucination, but how much of it is going on in Ilkyia\u2019s mind and how much is real?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI actually wanted to leave a lot of the end open for the readers to decide what’s happening. Does she get saved and only dreams of the God of Light? Or does she really go to the God of Light? So how much is real and how much is a drug-induced hallucination?\u00a0 And how much of the hallucination is based on reality? All that is up to the reader to decide. I’ve heard the ending interpreted in very different ways, and the reasons for those interpretations have all made sense. As for what I believe, I’ll never tell. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Are you working on anything right now?<\/em><\/strong>
\nBecause of the ADHD, I’m a bit of a multi-project girl. I’m finishing up my second novel, Blood Charms<\/em>. The main character, Randi, is half angel, half fairy and hunts fallen angels\/demons while searching for her father to make him pay for the death of her mother. I’m really excited to be nearing the submission stage for it. When I need a break from Charms<\/em>, I’ve been tinkering with the second book in a trilogy for an epic fantasy novel that’s on the market-go-round now. Unfortunately, epic isn’t selling well, so I may end up putting that one on the back burner. I also have a\u00a0YA novel I’ve been developing, as well, plus I’ve begun plot building Randi’s second book. Once Charms<\/em> is done and being submitted, I’ll have to choose which of the three to focus on.<\/p>\n

As for shorts, I started writing them to learn the form and to explore different genres, but I don’t write too many of them now. I have a few I’m working on polishing, but I don’t work on them as consistently as the novels.<\/p>\n

Where might we find more of your work?<\/em><\/strong>
\nI have three shorts up at Anthology Builder<\/em> right now, two under the name D. “domynoe” Loeb (\u201cIn The Blood\u201d and \u201cIntended\u201d) and one under Domyelle Rhyse (\u201cPresence\u201d). A few of the magazines with my older work are still available at Sam’s Dot: Aoife’s Kiss #22<\/em>, Sounds of the Night #2<\/em>. Voices of Autism<\/em> is still available at B&N and Amazon, as is Distant Passages – Volume 1: Great Short Stories and Poetry<\/em> from Double-Edged Publishing. For anything else that comes out, people can check my author site, www.Alden.nu<\/span><\/a>, for news.<\/p>\n

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[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockOpen’ \/]<\/p>\n

Joe Vaz<\/a><\/h2>\n

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Joe Vaz<\/em> is the founder and editor of Something Wicked<\/em>, which occasionally affords him the honour and good fortune to hang out with really cool people.
\nIn his other life he is a film and television actor who gets small parts in big movies, most recently in Dredd 3D<\/em><\/a>, due to be released in September 2012.<\/p>\n

[hana-code-insert name=’ArticleBlockClose’ \/]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

interview by Joe Vaz
\n\"\"<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n
\n

I believe “God of Light” was one of several stories that came out of my desire to show my Lit professors (some who told me that writing SFF was a sure way not to get an A in their classes) that SFF was as good as literary fiction and revealed humanity just as well. I received A’s in every class, so I think I made my point. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\"\"
\nFrom Issue 16 (Dec 2011)<\/span><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[134,63,133,39,100],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-non-fiction","tag-domyelle-rhyse","tag-interview","tag-issue-16","tag-joe-vaz","tag-writers-cornered"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/somethingwicked.co.za\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}