“In
the bayous of Louisiana a young woman is uprooted from her home by forces
beyond her understanding. The face of evil hides behind a benevolent smile and
promises a new world order of peace. Warrior priests protect an ancient blood
line from an enemy determined to eradicate it from the world. Faith and reality
collide as final prophecies come to pass. Will evil reign or will the righteous
rejoice? Two children hold the key, and they are silent.” – Synopsis of In the Time of The Cathar Moon.
This
month, we’re doing something a little different. Holly Sullivan McClure is an
author of novels about spirituality and faith, with some mystery thrown in.
15) Holly,
you’ve described yourself as a priest in the Celtic Christian
Church. Can you give us a little backstory about how that came about and
how did it lead you to become a writer?
My journey to the priesthood began many
years ago when I was on the nursing staff of a hospital outside Atlanta. I
worked on a unit where we treated critically ill, often terminal patients.
There were times when a patient from a sacramental background didn’t get the
spiritual help they needed from our protestant chaplain, so I called the priest
from my little Episcopal church to come visit them. I saw the peace it gave
them when he administered the sacraments. He taught me to assist him with the Eucharist
and I witnessed so much comfort from the few minutes we spent with people who
had every reason to be afraid. My priest, Father Bob Fisher, encouraged me to
consider seminary and mentored me as I began exploring the possibility.
When both he and the bishop who advised
me died, I gave up on the idea, until 2005, when I had a long talk with a
Celtic Christian bishop who helped me see why I should reconsider. She honored
spiritual ways that came from my Cherokee mom’s background and helped me
understand how this was an asset to my priesthood rather than a liability.
After six years of study and preparation, she ordained me on May 16th
2010. My first duty came early the following morning when I was called to the
hospital to administer last rites to a man who was dying. His nurses joined us
and were amazed when this man who had been so frightened, was at peace, smiling
through tears and talking about all the people who would be waiting for him
when he left his body. I knew then I had made the right decision. As for my
writing, many of my characters aren’t traditionally religious, but their
spirituality adds another dimension. In Cathar Moon, the historical
element is the inquisition against a Christian sect that didn’t adhere to the
accepted dogma of the church that dominated their world, but followed a
different path, honoring the rights of each person to seek sacred knowledge
beyond the accepted teachings. It begins with the historical martyrdom of the
last known Cathar Perfect, and then becomes a fictional imagining of the Cathar
descendants in present day. I tried to be as accurate as possible, traveling to
the South of France, exploring Cathar sites and interviewing people who said
they were descendants and believers. My book, Conjuror, goes back to my
childhood and draws on the spirituality of my Cherokee people. Some of my books
explore the soul after death, paranormal abilities, and different ways of
viewing the powers latent in humanity.
14) Your
religious faith and ordination as a priest aside, what led you to choose
spirituality as a genre? Was there a life-altering experience?
Life altering experience. I don’t often
talk about it, but at the age of twenty, I had a near death experience that
altered my perception of the nature of our existence. Without going into gory
details, the birth of my son resulted in a ruptured uterus, and I bled out.
According to a nurse who was with me at that time and visited me after I was
conscious a couple of days later, there were a few minutes when she couldn’t
detect vital signs. During that time, it felt as if I had expanded into a
different reality. I was greeted and welcomed home by people who loved me and
who I recognized as my loved ones, even though I didn’t see anyone physically.
We were likes lights flowing into each other, knowing each other’s thoughts and
memories. I was given information that would save my son’s life. I was shown a
medical condition that would require surgery if he was to live. I chose to
return to this life to give him a chance to survive. It was difficult to get
his doctors to take me seriously when I tried to tell them about his problem
because I didn’t know medical terminology, just a description of what I saw. As
he got sicker, a pediatric surgeon consulted and knew what was wrong. He had
the surgery and grew up healthy. The doctor complimented my ‘mother’s
intuition,’ so I let it go at that. My experience didn’t fit any spiritual
beliefs I knew of, so I came to feel I had to find my own path.
I wouldn’t say that I chose spirituality
as a genre. It’s just something I see in my characters that rounds them out.
13) Tell us
about the Low Country Mystery Series. They’re not your typical whodunits. The
series is driven by the twins, Aislinn and Audrey. Even though they’re teens,
what makes them so engaging and effective as detectives?
The Low Country Mysteries began with an
appreciation of the low country as a place with a sense of mystery and history.
Each book has a historical element that becomes part of the mystery. The
importance of family and connection to ancestors is a driving force in this
series. Audrey and Aislinn are aware that their parents have secrets that make
them different from others. A sadness prevails, an estrangement from their
beloved grandmother, and a forbidden heritage that finds a way into their lives
when they turn thirteen, changes their lives in ways they never imagined. They
have secrets they must protect as they move into their ancestral home, make new
friends and learn to live in a place that feels alien to them. The psychic
abilities inherited from their grandmother who has solved many unsolved crimes,
helps them follow in her footsteps as she teaches them. Their first ghost, a
boy who died on their property when he was fifteen, loves doing detective work
with them. My own background growing up in a family that saw ghosts and talked
to the dead, prepared me to understand the family in these books. I understand
how a family draws closer when they are different. It’s important to appear
normal, even when you know you are anything but.
12) What is the
intersection of faith and fiction? Or are you more interested in parallels than
intersections?
Mythology became important to me when I
was still in first grade. My grandfather’s stories, and the stories of other
Cherokee people in my community, taught me to look for greater truths within
the story. I loved Norse, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and came to understand
that what we called myth, was the religion of the people of their time. In the
stories that currently unfold with the translation of cuneiform tablets, we see
the origin of stories in the Bible as they were told long before Abraham was
born in the land where they were created. They are all stories that contain a
deeper mystery. That’s why they survive. “Secrets lie in the heart of myth,
like light within a shuttered lamp.” I like to think some of my writing
holds veiled secrets that are perceived by the reader.
11) Plotter,
pantser or plantser?
I’m a hybrid. I begin writing when a
character or plot comes to mind, then start jotting notes by hand in a notebook
I keep beside my laptop. Some of those notes become an informal outline with
random ideas of how things might turn out unless my characters decide to go a
different direction. They most often go where I had not planned in the
beginning.
10) When you
were growing up in the Smoky Mountains, who were some of your favorite authors
and had any of them gone on to influence, inform or inspire your own work?
Growing up in Robbinsville NC, my
favorite place was the little library across from the store where my parents
bought groceries. While they shopped, the librarian picked out age-appropriate
books for me. I don’t remember who the authors were but I still remember some
of the stories. They were pretty basic and I enjoyed them, but my favorites
were the ones my older brother brought home. They were paperback mysteries with
lurid covers, usually with a picture of a gun toting detective and a scandalous
looking woman. I loved the process of solving crimes and bringing bad people to
justice. Mom and Dad didn’t think they were appropriate for me, so I had to
read them in secret. That made them even more appealing. When I discovered
Tolkien, that began a whole new chapter. Epic fantasy in created worlds took
over my reading time for a while. I love Science Fiction and discovered
Bradbury, Asimov, and the other greats of their time.
9) I have to
admit, when I first began reading the synopsis for one of your earliest books, The Promised
Child, the first
thing I thought about was Dan Brown. Then in the second paragraph, one sees, “This
book isn't the next Da Vinci Code, nor is it intended to be. It goes beyond
where that book stopped.” Can you please explicate what you were aiming for in
this book?
Promised Child was first published
by a British publisher who didn’t do much with it. When the contract was up and
the rights returned to me, I rewrote some of the things I didn’t like and
republished it as In the Time of the Cathar Moon. As
for what I was aiming for, it was to complete a story I had been trying to
write for over twenty years, long before Dan Brown’s book.
8) What is Grace
St. John’s heritage in In the Time of
the Cathar Moon and what have
the Cathari been guarding for the last two millenniums?
I met a Cajun man in New Orleans who
said he was a Cathar. He said he was descended from Cathars who escaped the
inquisition against them, and migrated with the people who later became known
as Cajuns. He talked about their beliefs, including that the descendants of
Jesus and Mary Magdalene still alive and were protected until it was safe for
them to be revealed. Those descendants, and the book the Magdalene wrote in
which she discloses the teachings Jesus told her and no other, were the
treasure guarded by an order within the Cathars.
7) In the
standalone, Twisted Hair and
the People of One Fire, you revisit
the threat of some impending doom or apocalypse. Do you see imminent
annihilation as a necessary crucible through which your characters have to
successfully emerge in their spiritual journeys?
Twisted Hair and the People of One Fire is from my
heart. One of my most treasured memories is listening to the stories of
Cherokee elders during my childhood. They were full of pain, sorrow, hope and
wonder and a promise that stayed with me until I saw it fulfilled. The Twisted
Hair is a holy man, a storyteller who travels the land bringing the stories and
sacred ways to the people, and collecting more knowledge wherever he goes to
share during his journey. He is safe, even in the land of the enemies of his
people because he wears an elaborate hair style that marks him as one to be
honored.
This book begins with his journey to a
sacred town in the mountains covered with smoke, the mother town of his people.
He brings the story of the arrival of turtle people who prophecies foretold
would cause the end of their world. The mother town sits in the bend of a river
around a mound where the counsel house stands and the sacred fire that unites
the seven clans burns. There the wisdom keepers live. We were told the town was
the first town of the people and had been there for ten thousand years. During
the attacks on the Cherokee, followed by the removal the mother town was
destroyed, the people scattered and its location lost. We understood it would
be found again when the ancestors returned and showed where it was. It happened
when bones were found in a site in the bend of a river, and dated by
archaeologists to ten thousand years ago. The Eastern Band now owns the site
and honor 11,000 years of history in the area where I grow up. This book
compresses the stories I heard into one book. It is filled with sacred mystery,
which was the way of life I treasure.
6) Describe your
typical writing day, if there’s any such thing. Do you write exclusively in a
notebook or journal or is it all done on your laptop? Do you set word goals
and, if so, what are they?
I wish I had a typical writing day but
my life isn’t that well-ordered. My goal is simple- just finish the book as
quickly as I can. I love the days when I can get lost in creating my story so
completely that I forget the time. I still have family and friends who claim my
time, and my work as a priest can take me away when I least expect it. I don’t
have a church, just my home and people who know they can call me anytime they
need me. I also work part time as an extra-actor for movies and TV shows
filming in the Atlanta area. My writing is sandwiched among all of that. I
sometimes take my laptop to bed with me and write until I fall asleep. That
makes for some interesting dreams.
5) In novels
such as Conjuror, your work seems happiest when it straddles the
lines of fiction, fact and fantasy. In your mind, does one seem more powerfully
predominant over the other or are all three equal?
Conjuror, weird as it
is, is as close as I will come to writing an autobiography. My grandfather
delighted in telling stories that would scare us to death. One of those is the
basis for the very bad thing that happens in this book. It came out of memories
of myself as a little girl, listening to those stories, hearing about all the
supernatural beings who lived around our home, and believing every word because
my family believed. In the book, I’m Wren. My parents, grandparents and
brothers are in it as I remember those days. Names are changed, and they aren’t
exactly the same, but they recognize themselves. Of course, the murders and
mayhem are fictional, as far as we know. Writing it was like taking a trip back
to childhood and revisiting the imagination of a little girl who never gave up
believing the unbelievable.
4) Coming from a
Cherokee/Scots background, you seem to have united both in a seamless meld in
perfect proportion to each other. Was this something you did naturally in your
life and fiction or was/is it an ongoing struggle to do so?
Both sides of my family were
storytellers. From the Scottish side, I learned of a boy married to a fairy
woman who returned to the family when they needed him. He brought back a fairy
flag that would protect them in battle. I recently visited that flag which
still hangs over the mantle in Dunvegan Castle on Skye in the Scottish
Highlands. So, fairies are real! The Indian side told of the immortal Nunne’hi
who lived all around us. Little people lived in the woods and would try to lure
us to their villages. This was all just a natural part of my life. I wasn’t
asked to believe or disbelieve. I listened and repeated these stories to my
kids.
3) What do you
consider your strengths and weaknesses as an author?
My strengths and weaknesses. My strength
is the wealth of stories I inherited and the love of creating my own versions.
I hear the music in the language of myth and am inspired by it. My weakness is
that I’m lazy. There are so many things I enjoy. I often chose a hike on a
mountain trail or a paddle on the lake in my kayak, over a productive day of
writing. If I get an invitation to go out to lunch or hang out with friends, I
find it hard to say no and keep working. I’m a very social person and enjoy
people way too much to finish a book on time.
2) According to your website,
you’d also written a preschool children’s book entitled, Too Big Buck. Are there any plans to go back into children’s
books?
I’m planning to re-release Too Big
Buck. Buck was our 32-pound Pomeranian who we rescued from a woman who
disliked him because he was too big. Turns out, he was an amazing dog who made
up for the lack of love in his early months of life, by loving and being loved
by everyone. I told his story in a picture book for little kids because little
kids were his favorite. He lived with us for 15 years. I’m thinking of writing
another book about the last chapter of his life. He and my husband Jack were
both diagnosed with terminal cancer about the same time. They were inseparable
and gave each other comfort in bad time. I once heard Jack tell him about the
rainbow bridge and how that’s where they were going. The first to go should
wait at the bridge so they could cross together. Buck went first. Just before
Jack died, he told me Buck was there to get him. I let Buck’s book go out of
print but I think it’s time to bring it back, maybe with more of his story. He
was a good dog. That was my only children’s picture book.
1) So, what’s
next for Holly McClure?
What’s
next for me. I’m working on two books. One a paranormal mystery and one about a
very special group of people I knew in New Orleans while I was working in a
psych facility. Also, I’ve ordered a new kayak so more time on the water. I’m
planning to spend some time in the mountains reconnecting with the Smokies. I’m
determined to spend more time writing, but with summer coming on, I might fail
that plan.
If
you’re interested in learning more about Mother Holly and her work, please use
the handy links below:
https://www.hollysullivanmcclure.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/holly-mcclure-b2b63818
https://www.amazon.com/Books-holly-sullivan-mcclure/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3Aholly+sullivan+mcclure
https://www.fictiondb.com/author/holly-sullivan-mcclure~153907.htm
https://www.mupress.org/cw_contributorinfo.aspx?ContribID=3028&Name=Holly+Sullivan+McClure
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7338081-promised-child
https://www.wheelers.co.nz/browse/author/2705683-holly-sullivan-mcclure/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbUMFI-XmyQ
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-guardian-holly-sullivan-mcclure/1137327763
https://sk.pinterest.com/motherholly/
http://www.fjordsreview.com/reviews/conjuror-book.html
https://www.childrensbookstore.com/shop/books/ghosts-of-hanover-hall-9780998227931/
