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My guest today is author Simon Rose, who has published twenty-one novels for children and young adults, eight guides for writers, more than a hundred nonfiction books, and many articles on a wide variety of topics. Today he’s here to tell us more about his two latest novels, The Memory Bank – All in the Mind and The Memory Bank – Prisoners of the Prism.
Nina: Welcome, Simon!
Simon: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be here.
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Nina: Where did you get the idea from to create The Memory Bank novels?
Simon: For these books, I was first inspired by how people often have casts made of a beloved pet’s paw made when their faithful friend passes away. It’s certainly something I’ve done over the years. I then remembered how death masks have been created of notable people throughout history, well before the invention of photography, so that we know what some of these people actually looked like and in some cases the mask closely resembles the person’s face as portrayed in a painting. The ideas began to converge.
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Nina: There are some quite well known people of which death masks were made, aren’t there?
Simon: Yes, there are masks that were made of the faces of Martin Luther, Oliver Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots, Marie Antoinette, Isaac Newton, Horatio Nelson, John Keats, Ludwig van Beethoven, and a number of others. Perhaps the most notable one for me is Napoleon Bonaparte. Some people dispute whether it’s really him, but the mask does bear an uncanny resemblance to his many portraits. There are links included in both books and here on my website in the Sources of Inspiration page if you’re interested in learning more about this topic.
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Nina: I know that you’ve always been fascinated with different historical eras. We can see that from many of your previous novels. Were the masks something that you’ve always been interested in?
Simon: Yes, I’ve always wondered about them, but I wasn’t sure how I’d ever be able to include them in a story. I was also aware of masks worn at carnivals in Venice, which seemed to be a natural fit as I was putting the story idea together for The Memory Bank.
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Nina: How did the pet souvenirs serve as inspiration for the story?
Simon: Without giving away too much of the story, for the two novels I speculated how in the modern era masks could be made of a person’s face. This would then preserve their memories, as seen through their eyes, for their family members to see on a screen after the person’s death. This would be just like viewing photographs or watching home movies.
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Nina: Sounds incredible. You certainly have a wonderful imagination. Tell me a little bit about your next project.
Simon: I currently have a couple of fantasy projects that I’m working on, so they’ll probably be taking up most of my creative time for the next little while. I’ll also be out there promoting The Memory Bank novels whenever I can. For regular updates, people can subscribe to my newsletter, which goes out on the first day of the month. They can do that on my website at www.simon-rose.com where they can also learn all about my other books.
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Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For the lates on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020. You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.
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