A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

My research for Curse breaks down into three major areas: the woolen industry, the fairy tale and folkloric elements of the story, and the social history of the 18th century. For me, research is addictive, and I find it so interesting and so rewarding on its own merits that it can become a form of procrastination. How much time do we have? I'm almost not kidding. What kind of research did you undertake for the novel? Fortunately, I have friends in the textile arts, and through sheer happenstance I live not too very far from a 19th century woolen mill, so it wasn't terribly difficult to brush up on. I'm not a spinner or a weaver, but my sensibilities were in the right place, and my understanding of the fiber arts was certainly a plus.

My background as a needlewoman provided the initial germ for Curse-the idea of straw spun into gold thread, and thus taking place in a textile mill (and not the grist-grain-mill of the fairy tale) but very quickly thereafter I realized I was out of my element. How did that inform the writing of A Curse Dark as Gold? You also have a long background in the fabric arts. It took me ten years to find another group like that!

We worked on the school literary magazine together, took all the same literature and creative writing classes, passed around the latest Piers Anthony and Patricia McKillip books, and read each other's poetry. I was lucky enough to be surrounded by friends who also loved to write, and we served as a sort of critique group, though of course we'd never heard the term. It suddenly occurred to me that writing novels was a job, done by real people-and that it was something I could do, too. But it wasn't until a few years later-when I was a sophomore in high school-that I really got serious about writing. My first attempt at a novel involved a gutsy princess with amnesia, and was written at summer camp when I was twelve, in a spiral notebook I kept under my bunk. I think so-all my serious efforts, anyway. You've been writing since a fairly young age, yes? Can you tell us a little about your earlier efforts? Have you always written fantasy?

A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce