Today we are very excited to share an interview with Author Matt Hughes (The Emir’s Falcon)!
Meet the Author: Matt Hughes
MATT (Matthew) HUGHES writes fantasy, space opera, and crime fiction. He has sold twenty-four novels to publishers large and small in the UK, US, and Canada, as well as more than 100 works of short fiction to professional markets. His latest novels are: Henchmen and Yalum, fantasies set in the far-future Dying Earth.
He has won the Endeavour, Global Book, and Arthur Ellis Awards, and has been shortlisted for the Aurora, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Endeavour (twice), A.E. Van Vogt, Neffy, and Derringer Awards. He has been inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association’s Hall of Fame.
The Emir’s Falcon was shortlisted for the High Plains Books Award
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About the Book: The Emir’s Falcon
“She was raised to be free, not some rich man’s pet . . . It’s just not right!”
Bernie Cholach’s dad wants him to take over the family’s rural Alberta feedlot, but Bernie has other ideas: he wants to be a biologist, an interest sparked by his experiences as a volunteer bird handler at a Canadian Wildlife Service facility that breeds and rears peregrine falcons for release into the wild.
Sheik Nasur bin Mukhta, son of a Persian Gulf emir, studying petroleum engineering at the University of Alberta, dutifully accepts his life’s course, laid out for him by his traditionalist culture.
Rosie Leboucan, daughter of a Métis trapper, running her injured dad’s trap line in the Swan Hills, is focused on keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table.
Then the Government of Canada decides to give the emir one of the peregrines as a diplomatic gift. It’s more than Bernie can stand. Impulsively, he takes the bird he has been tending—he’s named her Skyrider—and flees to a remote cabin in the Swan Hills wilderness.
The RCMP mount a search. Nasur, sent by his father to collect the bird, insists on being on the scene—which turns out to be both Rosie’s trapping territory and the territory of a hungry and dangerous mama grizzly bear with cubs.
The paths of the young people and the bear converge—and their coming together will send each in a new direction.
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~Author Chat~
YABC: What inspired you to write this book?
Back in the 1970s, I was on the personal staff of the Canadian Minister of Environment. One component of the department was the Canadian Wildlife Service, which operated a facility for bringing peregrine falcons back from the near extinction they had suffered because of the chemical DDT.
The Canadian government, at the time, was trying to sell a small nuclear reactor to an emirate of the Persian Gulf. To sweeten the deal, the government decided to give the emir a breeding pair of falcons from the facility. I knew that the birds were being tended by teenage volunteers, and I wondered how one might react to their bird being given into captivity.
Almost fifty years later, I decided to make a novella out of it.
YABC: Is your main character like you?
To some extent. Bernie is a young man trying to decide what to do with his life, and under pressure from his family to choose a career that does not call to him. I was once a young man who had started out on a career in journalism but found myself segued into a career as a speechwriter. I remembered the sense of dislocation.
YABC: How do you know when a book is finished?
At the heart of any piece of fiction is a dramatic question. The question is answered by what the characters do. Once the answer is found, the story is complete.
YABC: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
In my mid-teens. I won a couple of prizes and discovered I had some talent.
YABC: How do you keep your ‘voice’ true to the age category you are writing within?
I become my characters as I am writing them, feeling in an attenuated way what they are experiencing. It seems to work.
YABC: What type of scene do you love to write the most?
I like dialogue scenes that are essentially duels between two characters with differing agendas.
YABC: What hobbies do you enjoy?
I read. I play the piano, though not very well. I like old movies that pop up on YouTube.
YABC: What’s your least favorite word or expression and why?
“At this particular point in time.” It’s over-wordy and wrong. Space contains points. Time contains moments.
YABC: What fandom would you write for if you had time?
I have the time, as I write for a living. I am strongly influenced by the great science fiction grandmaster Jack Vance, who died in 2013. I write for his fans because I am one.
YABC: What’s up next for you?
I am currently working on a historical novel I have been thinking about for sixty years. When I was sixteen, I wanted to be a historical novelist and I came across a rumor that Alexander the Great sent out a ship to sail around Africa, because he meant to conquer it. Then he suddenly died. No one knows what happened to the ship. I am exploring whom he might have sent and what their fates might have been.
Title: The Emir’s Falcon
Author: Matt Hughes
Release Date: August 20, 2022
Publisher: Shadowpaw Press
Genre: YA general fiction
Age Range: 14 to 18
