Witchcraft and Revolution: A Profile of C.C. Finlay

Yesterday, speculative fiction author Charles Coleman Finlay (C.C. Finlay on his book jackets, Charlie to his friends) taped a radio and video interview in the Columbus, Ohio, studios of NPR. Today he's talking into an ancient tape recorder over a lunch of pizza and burgers about a career that has ranged from painting houses to teaching creative writing.

The ease with which he switches milieus is unsurprising in an author who's equally comfortable writing quest fantasy (such as his 2005 novel, The Prodigal Troll) and societal science fiction (such as The Political Officer” and “The Political Prisoner,” both Hugo and Nebula finalists).

Over eight years of publishing short stories in Fantasy & Science Fiction and On Spec magazines, Finlay has been nominated for both Hugo and Nebula awards. The Prodigal Troll was well reviewed, but sold moderately. This trend may improve with his new Traitor to the Crown mass market trilogy, which mixes history, secret societies and good old-fashioned storytelling in a crowd-pleasing formula. Del Rey is bringing out The Patriot Witch, A Spell for the Revolution and The Demon Redcoat in May, June and July respectively, using the rapid-fire release schedule that's launched other authors to historical fantasy stardom.

Finlay is the first to say that this is “a definite departure from my earlier work.” Rather than a fantasy world or distant future, the setting is a historically accurate (down-to-the-weather) American Revolution, rousingly retold, changed only by the inclusion of functional witchcraft. In planning this series, Finlay, who worked as a research assistant on the award-winning American history titles The Other Founders and A Well Regulated Militia, pored over primary sources hunting for the appearance of the supernatural. He was surprised by its abundance. “Even though the Revolution takes place during the Enlightenment, people believed in the supernatural as much as they did the scientific,” he explains, citing Paul Revere's membership in nearly every secret lodge in early America and Ben Franklin's fascination with the occult. Finlay soon found he could write a historically accurate tale and still respectfully insert the magic between the lines.

“A lot of modern fantasy tends to treat magic as a science,” Finlay says. “I wanted to do something more organic.” Early Americans had a much stronger belief in the actual words of the Bible, according to Finlay, and his witches, far from being Satanists in black pointy hats, focus their magic on Bible verses. “I immersed myself in magic sources from the period, everything from witchcraft trial records to grimoires [homemade books of spells], and I cherry-picked the most useful material.”

Not content to just write and teach, Finlay started his own writers' retreat, Blue Heaven, in 2003. A dozen writers—some regulars, some first-timers—meet annually on Kelley's Island in Ohio to workshop their latest novels. “We thought the workshop would be successful if in five years we were selling books,” he says. “In 10 years we'd know it was successful if people were copying the idea, and in 20 years we'd know if we'd had good careers.” Things are moving ahead of schedule: participants have already sold more than 20 of the novels workshopped at Blue Heaven, and a similar group started by a former participant has begun meeting in Arizona. The last three William L. Crawford Awards presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts for best first novel have gone to Blue Heaven participants. Finlay says he is as “as proud of Blue Heaven as I am of any of the books I've written.”

Though Finlay seems to have finally found a genre niche with mainstream appeal, that hasn't reduced the number or variety of his ideas. More Traitor to the Crown stories are a definite possibility, but he's also considering a second look at the Civil War. He's eager to explore more of the “secret history” of the Americas. “Once I decided that I was going to stay within the historical record,” he says, “my narrative options became much more constrained, but history has forced me down more complex and interesting paths.” That sounds a lot like work, but Finlay laughs at the thought. On the contrary, he says, it's “all part of the fun.”