EOIN COLFER

— AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Irish native Eoin Colfer (his first named is pronounced "Owen") was a school teacher augmenting his income with several successful novels published by a small Irish house before unleashing his breakthrough book, Artemis Fowl — a novel for young adults about a preternaturally brilliant boy criminal on a quest to find his father and restore the family fortune by any nefarious means necessary.

The novel, a sardonic synthesis of Irish folklore and high-tech fantasy, sparked a bidding war and a promised film.

The series also drew criticism from some reviewers turned off by the books’ mild profanity, scatological humor and James Bond- (film) level violence. Those critics missed the point — shunning several centuries of children’s literature encompassing the Brothers Grimm, Jonathan Swift, Rudyard Kipling and the pulp magazines of the 1930s and 1940s that spawned The Shadow, Doc Savage and a host of comic book characters that sparked the imagination of Artemis Fowl’s creator.

Eoin Colfer spoke with the interviewer from New York City where the author was in the early phases of his North American tour to promote his third Artemis Fowl adventure, The Eternity Code.

McDonald: I’ve read that Kurt Vonnegut writes all of his books with his sister in mind as his reader. Do you write your books with a particular reader in mind?

Colfer: Kind of a selfish answer, but I kind of like to write the books I would have liked to read as a kid. When I was 12, I was kind of forced into the adult book market because I couldn’t find anything aimed at 12-year-olds. I know now there were plenty of books, but I just couldn’t find them, so I would read people like Robert Ludlum and Stephen King and JRR Tolkien. They are the kind of books that I always wished were available for kids, so that’s the kind of book I’m trying to write now.

McDonald: I was impressed reading your books that you don’t "write down" to kids at all.

Colfer: That’s part of the same theory, I suppose, in that when I was 12 I was well able to read Stephen King, for instance. I was sure that there were a lot of other kids who are at the same level, if not higher, than me. I saw no reason to write down to kids. The only concession I made would be that the books are appropriate for children — in my opinion.

McDonald: You have, at best, mild profanity and there is some scatological humor — one thinks of Mulch Diggums, particularly. Do you ever get any guff on that aspect of the books?

Colfer: I do, I do get a little bit of guff. But, you know, the old maxim holds true — you can’t please all the people, all the time. For some people, that’s one of their favorite parts of the books — that humor. I think if you overuse it, it does become tedious…if every character was like that. But I think just a little touch here or there, just for a little light relief, is okay. In my opinion that’s fine. I don’t think it would be harmful or have any bad influence on kids, but I do, of course, understand parents who think that their children might be too sensitive for that. I always urge parents to read the books first themselves if they have any worries at all.

McDonald: Do you have any sense of an adult audience — not necessarily finding the books through their kids, but on their own?

Colfer: I didn’t beforehand, before the first book that I wrote. But I did imagine that there would be read-along adults, or adults reading the books to their children, so I saw no reason not to throw in a few references and jokes for them. But, again, that’s an area where you do have to be careful. If it becomes too knowing, then it can swamp the book. Just a couple of little references. I think a few movies get it right, like Toy Story, that kind of thing, where adults and kids can enjoy it, but you can go too far and then it becomes an adult book and that’s not what I want.

McDonald: Yeah, I was surprised by a few of those touches, here and there in the Fowl books.

Colfer: The whole idea of the Fairy Police Force is kind of based on Hill Street Blues. That, for me, was how I saw it. I just thought it would be funny to have fairies with actual emotions and feelings and real lives rather than just being floaty-floaty, here’s-a-spell kinds of things. I remember as a kid, we were only allowed to stay up to watch two programs after 9 p.m. They were Hill Street Blues and Roots, so they had a huge effect on us, but especially on me. Hill Street Blues I watched for years and that’s what I imagined: a kind of a grotty police station and all of these little people running around having problems. I thought it would be kind of funny.

McDonald: You’re writing for a theoretical 12-year-old audience. How does your readership break across gender lines?

Colfer: When I wrote it, I was teaching 12-year-olds and I was really trying to hook the boys because it is very hard to get boys to read, in my experience. Not all boys, obviously, but a high percentage of them do not want to be reading about a famous battle when they can be outside having a famous battle. There was no money, really, involved. My first three books had been successful in Ireland, so I had made a couple of thousand dollars a year, but it was really a hobby. I had no idea this whole publishing thing would happen. I expected it to be mostly boys who would read the books. But as a nod to the girls, I put in the hero — the female (Captain Holly Short). From what I can gather from my fan mail, it’s a pretty even split. Maybe 60-percent boys, but there really is a large percentage of girls reading, too. They seem to really like the fact that the hero is a girl. I get a lot of letters from adults, too. It seems to be breaking down really well. I think the secret of getting adult readership is not to look for them.

McDonald: What do the adults write you?

Colfer: First of all, they always say they’re embarrassed because they’re not a 12-year old-kid, but they just picked up the book. Sometimes they pick it up to vet it for their children. Sometimes they are given it by a friend. It’s like they’re making an excuse for reading it, like it’s some kind of secret hobby, or something underhanded or illegal, as if they had been arrested: "Well, you know, it’s not mine…." Occasionally you do see adults reading it underground or on a plane. I do like that. I must admit it does appeal to my vanity and it does give me encouragement to go on and write an adult novel.

McDonald: You envision doing that at some point? I know you’ve written some things for your brother, who is an actor.

Colfer: Yeah. Donal, my brother, came to me and he said, "Write me a play." He was kind of struggling. I said, "Are you sure?" So I kind of took revenge on him for all of the years of stealing my clothes and I made him the dumbest person on the planet. Which kind of backfired, because of course audiences always love that kind of character. You know, Woody in Cheers. He brought it to Dublin and he had a really good run. He’s been after me ever since to write another one but I just don’t have the time. But, again, that play was kind of — I don’t know if you know Benny Hill?

McDonald: Benny Hill was foisted on the American public by PBS many years ago.

Colfer: It was kind of like Benny Hill, but not so intellectual. I don’t accept responsibility for Benny Hill. It wasn’t that crass, but it was that kind of a visual, slapstick style. I had no idea whether it would work or not, but it seemed to go down really well.

McDonald: I understand you’re supporting yourself purely through your writing now. Do you miss teaching?

Colfer: Yeah, I do, I do miss it. I thought I would not miss it, to be honest. When I left, I was really delighted to be leaving because I had been doing it for 15 years. As I was driving away from the school I was shredding my lesson plans. But now, I do miss being part of a group. I am part of a serial extended group, but I miss being part of a daily group where you interact with people. I tend to go back to my school where I worked even though when you’re out, you’re kind of out. You can’t really go back to the same extent. But I do keep involved and I teach creative classes up there occasionally. I would hope that maybe in five or six years, if I have established myself enough as a writer to my own satisfaction, then I can maybe go back and teach five or six hours a week. But my problem is I couldn’t sign a contract as I’d have to go off for a couple of months on tour so it would have to be with an accommodating principal.

McDonald: How did the codes in the book come about?

Colfer: Initially, the codes were only a plot point. They weren’t actually real. They were just mentioned — that there were these fairy codes. Then my British editor said to me, "Our designer thinks it would be a great idea to include these codes as an extra dimension, so would you write a little sub-story?" I thought it was a great idea. So I did, and I’ve done so for the three books, but it’s become an amazing phenomenon. People are writing to me in codes. Every time I’m opening a letter I’m saying to myself, "Please God, English…Please God, English." I get a lot of letters 10 pages long, written in codes. These kids spend hours. There are whole web sites dedicated to this code. I understand it, because it’s something I would have liked myself as a child.

McDonald: Maybe I missed it, but I was flipping through the second book again — the North American edition — and I’m not finding the codes there.

Colfer: No, unfortunately. I don’t know why the American publishers decided not to print it (the code) in the second part, but it’s available in the English version or on the web site. A lot of kids are very disappointed by that, so I always point them toward the web site so you can get the story and the code if you like to do that sort of thing.

McDonald: Have the North American versions been altered in any other ways for the readership in terms of terminology, vernacular?

Colfer: No, not really. In the second book, there was a particular passage, it was a kind of a sting, toward the end of the book. We discussed — did I think it was too difficult for the kids to get? I really didn’t think it was. Basically they were saying, "Maybe we should say beforehand this is a trap." I was saying, "Well, that will ruin the whole suspense of it." We talked for a while and eventually agreed with me that to set it up to much would ruin it. And the kids got it. Now I think they trust me, as such. There was nothing taken out in the second book, or in the third book. There are a few Americanisms changed and a few spellings, but other than that, the books are identical.

McDonald: The Artemis Fowl books are usually summarized as an unusual blend of the mythical and technological. How technologically grounded are you?

Colfer: I’m not particularly techno-smart, but I’m interested. I love my computer, for instance. I love obviously, the James Bond movies, that sort of thing. What I don’t like is when I don’t believe it. If you’re looking at a James Bond movie, for example: In the last one, they had an invisible car and I don’t believe that, you know? What I was trying to avoid was having gadgets that could not work, or weren’t believable — that they wouldn’t be available in a hundred years. So I did do research into all of the gadgets and I did draw them out and try to describe them in such a way that people could say, "Okay, I can believe that…that might happen in fifty years." But people now think I’m very technological and ask me to take a look if their pager isn’t working.

McDonald: Do you write on a computer or do you write longhand?

Colfer: I write on a computer now. My first three books I wrote longhand. And I think it was kind of valuable to do that, just to see how a book comes together…the shape of a book is such. It’s like learning html before you design a web site. It’s a good exercise. But now I work on my beloved PowerBook. And, it is ESSENTIAL to have the most up-to-date PowerBook in order to write any book. That’s what I tell my wife every six months….

McDonald: When you have to upgrade to the newest model….

Colfer: Exactly.

McDonald: You have a young child of your own now.

Colfer: We have two kids now. One is just two months old.

McDonald: Congratulations.

Colfer: Thanks very much. It’s the hardest thing about touring — having to leave the baby behind.

McDonald: At least you’re sleeping, though.

Colfer: See, I’m not admitting to being happy about that.

McDonald: No, no. I bring it up, because, looking at the chronology, you were writing many books for young children before you had children of your own. I’m wondering if having your own children has affected your writing in any way in terms of material or subject matter?

Colfer: Definitely. My older son, who is five, just a few months ago said to me, "Dad, you write these books for children." And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I want you to write a book for me." I said look, "Here’s a bar of chocolate." He said, "No, I want a book." So I did a picture book for him that will be coming out next year. That has given me an amazing amount of satisfaction. With picture books, people think you sit down and you write them in ten minutes, but they’re really difficult to craft and every word has to be perfect and the idea has to be really strong and simple. I really can’t wait to get the book and give it to him — to sit down and read it to him at bedtime.

McDonald: Did you illustrate it yourself? I understand you had an interest in being a comic book artist.

Colfer: I did. I had an interest, but not an aptitude. I think up until you’re about 16, you think that you’re fantastic at everything, then reality hits home. I would like to think that if I had a year I could illustrate it, but they showed me what this other guy did in five minutes, so I said, "Go with him."

McDonald: What kind of comic books were you reading?

Colfer: Every kind. Mostly superhero books. My favorite when I was a kid was Will Eisner, who did The Spirit. There was one street stand in Dublin where you could get these comics — only one and we didn’t even live in Dublin. Every three or four months we would get up there and go to this one stand. We had saved some amount of money, and we’d buy The Spirit and Vampirella and Creepy.

McDonald: You were into the real ghoulish stuff.

Colfer: Yeah, yeah. The original Shrek, of course — there was a Shrek before the Shrek we have now. I loved those comics. In more recent times I’ve started to read Frank Miller who does the Sin City series.

McDonald: And Batman’s recasting.

Colfer: Yeah, the Batman. There’s a great amount of comic obsessives in the book world, so everywhere I go people are now saying, "Have you read this?" The one I have to get now is the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I’ve been advised to get that.

McDonald: The film will be coming out this summer.

Colfer: Yes, someone told me don’t see the film.

McDonald: It’s based on an Alan Miller comic.

Colfer: Alan Miller — yeah, I think he’s really good. There’s only one good comic store in Ireland, so when I’m on tour, every time I go to a bookstore, I try to pick up a few comics. My suitcase is weighed down by the time I go home.

McDonald: Any possibility of Artemis Fowl making a leap to that medium?

Colfer: There is, actually. There’s an Italian company who works with Disney and they’ve approached me. I’m going to have some talks with them in September, so I’m extremely hopeful. They’ve sent me some draft sketches and it really looks good.

McDonald: Would you write for the comics?

Colfer: I don’t know. That’s what the discussion is about. If they had someone who could do it, I’d prefer just to have some kind of script O.K. because I’m just so busy at the moment. I’m signed up for three or four more books. And I find it very hard to go back to things. When I’ve finished them, they’re out of my head and the next book is in. Even editing I find really frustrating, even though I know it has to be done. I just want to get onto the next thing. So I don’t know if I would, and, anyway, I don’t know if they’d ask me.

McDonald: When did you know you had a trilogy on your hands? I don’t know if a lot of this happened in the editing, but a lot in book two is foreshadowed in book one.

Colfer: Oh, I had planned to have three books before I started.

McDonald: You had the loose plots of all three in mind, going in?

Colfer: Yeah. I loved the foreshadowing thing. I saw that first in Robinson Crusoe and I always loved that — to finish off with, "Of course, he would be dead by then." I thought that was great. My editor said, "You’re doing it again!" so I have to try and not overdo it. But I had the three books done out. I had actually finished the second book before the first book came out. Again, I thought it was all going to go to my small Irish publisher. I was lucky, in a way, because I avoided the second book’s pressure when the first book was such a big hit. The pressure was on to do a good second book, but I had finished the second book so that was okay.

McDonald: Obviously, you were already successful in your native country, but the Artemis Fowl books took you up many levels.

Colfer: Yeah, I kind of bypassed many levels. In a way, it’s kind of nice to live in Ireland, because you just…I mean, when I read all these newspaper articles, I don’t think it’s me in a way. I don’t take it seriously. I come on a tour for a month and I meet whatever thousand kids but I treat it like a holiday. I don’t treat it like my life. I think if I lived in New York or London that I would be constantly on the circuit, but they don’t really call me because I live in Ireland and they’re not going to fly me how many thousand miles just to do a half-an-hour reading. I’m very much out of this. In Ireland I don’t think people realize….

McDonald: How big it is?

Colfer: Yeah, they don’t. Which is great.

McDonald: You don’t feel that weight of being a public personage?

Colfer: No. It’s nice to be a children’s writer because you can be successful and completely unknown on the streets. Maybe people would recognize J.K. Rowling, but that’s it. Maybe Roald Dahl if he were still alive would be recognized. Mostly, you’re completely anonymous. You can be in a children’s book shop, in the children’s book center, beside your book with your picture on it and people still wouldn’t recognize it. Even wearing a T-shirt saying "I Am Eoin Colfer." Even if they do, adults aren’t going to get all riled up about it. Occasionally, a child will come up to you. I did a TV show two years ago, Good Morning America, and for two days after that in New York I was getting recognized and I really, really, really didn’t like it. You’d be in The Gap with your wife and you’d just see people looking at you and it was very uncomfortable. I was glad when that passed. Although my wife doesn’t go to The Gap often, I have to say.

McDonald: Quick to qualify that. You’ve set it up for a fourth book. You stated you went in as a trilogy and there will presumably be a fourth book?

Colfer: Yeah, well, I don’t want to do a fourth book immediately, because I feel if I did one now — having been kind of living and breathing these characters for five years nearly — it wouldn’t be up to standard. What I want to do is take a break and write another book. I’m working on a science fiction book, which is another love of mine. The nice thing about having a measure of success is that you really are given leeway to write what you want then. So right now I’m writing a science fiction book, then I would like to get back to comedy, so I just really want to write a funny book after that. Then maybe I’ll do the fourth Artemis. The nice thing is that I’m signed up to do a fourth Artemis, but it’s when I want to do it. I don’t have to do it immediately, so I can do it in ten years time, so that’s great.

McDonald: Artemis is aging a bit, but more than most children’s characters tend to.

Colfer: Yeah, he’s three months older in this book than in the last one. You can kind of cheat time, in a way. Even though two years go by, you can have him get two weeks older. I don’t want him to get much older. I don’t really want to get into girlfriends and romance.

McDonald: You’ve described him as being on a definite character arc. I wondered how far you would take him.

Colfer: Maybe in two or three books he might get a girlfriend. Most people ask me, "is going to get together with Holly Short," who is a fairy. But I could have all sorts of leagues up against me if I had him get into inter-species breeding. It could be a mine field. And, also, she’s 80. I think I would introduce another character if I was going to do that, but I definitely won’t do that for a few more years.

McDonald: What is the status of the Fowl film?

Colfer: It seems to be really close. They’ve paid me. I can’t imagine them paying me and then not making it. Every six-and-a-half-months I get an e-mail that’s been copied to four-and-a-half-million people (I’m the last one) saying "the script is finished and we’re now entering casting," but then I haven’t heard anything since then. To be honest I don’t know. Most people think I’m holding something back and I’m in the loop, but I really am not. One writer told me there’s two ways to go: you can harass them and be involved and do everything, or you can just let it go. Either way, the same movie is going to get made, whether you break your heart or just turn up on the premiere night. It will be the same movie. So, I’m just going to turn up if they ever make it.

McDonald: I was determined to get through this interview without bringing up that other Celtic author of young adult literature you mentioned, but then I read your novel’s release was pushed up to more or less get out of the way of the next Potter book.

Colfer: The explanation I received was that when Harry Potter came into the shops, they wanted my book on the shelf already.

McDonald: As a companion buy?

Colfer: Yeah, exactly. Also, there is the obvious reason that if you don’t get out before Harry Potter you get absolutely swamped. It’s a phenomenon.

McDonald: Was the book completed, in so far as your efforts were concerned, when the scheduling change occurred?

Colfer: Oh yeah. I had finished the book last summer. We did have a few edits to do, but they just rang up and said, "Could you come over in May?" (for the U.S. tour) and I said, "Sure." The whole book world is gearing up for Harry Potter — not just the kid’s section. I go to bookstores now and there are buyers who are just very close to breakdown. The pressure is on them now — this is the big cash cow now for this year, and, possibly, next year. It’s bigger than Stephen King or John Grisham or anybody.

McDonald: It’s insane.

Colfer: It is insane.

McDonald: Your web site supplies a list of authors working in the young adult fiction realm whom you admire. Who do you read and admire writing for a mature audience?

Colfer: I’m reading a lot of Irish writers at the moment. My favorite would be a guy called Ken Bruen.

McDonald: Oh, uncanny. I was going to ask you about him, specifically. He’s become an obsession of mine, lately. He was just published over here.

Colfer: He’s great. He’s brilliant. He hearkens back a little to the Raymond Chandlers and that kind of thing, but he gives it a completely modern spin. And, it’s a side of Ireland that you never see. You don’t imagine that anyone is drinking or taking drugs — well, okay, drinking, yes — or that there are any bent cops in Ireland, but he really shows the underbelly. He writes so sparsely, but he’s very literary as well. I really like him.

McDonald: His books also give us a sense in America what has happened because of the technology industry in Ireland. Have you found your corner of Ireland changing quite a bit?

Colfer: Very much so. People still have this Quiet Man vision of Ireland, and that does exist to a small extent, but Ireland has the largest growing economy in Europe and we have more computer plants per capita that I think anywhere else in Europe, as well. There’s a lot of American big business in Ireland — Mac and Dell and all these companies are there. A very high percentage of people are working in computers and are computer graduates. There are a lot of Porsches and BMWs driving around now that you never would have seen twenty years ago.

McDonald: Anything special you’d like to convey to your North American fans?

Colfer: The obvious thing to thank them for sticking with me and over the last couple of years and I hope they enjoy the last book as much as they did the first two. I’ve been here three or four days and already spoken to about four thousand kids. It’s very scary for a man from a small town to go into a gym and have a thousand kids sitting on the bleachers and growling, "Entertain me now." But, it’s enjoyable. It’s character forming.

— © C. McDonald, 2003