Question 1

What is Intermagical?

Accepted Answer

Intermagical is an urban fantasy novel, written by TS Davis (aka Fiona Davis).

Intermagical is also an identity used to describe a community of people characterized by a particular neurotype, which includes the ASD neurotype, but also extends to include a wider group of diverse, creative, imaginative and unique individuals whose divergence from the norm could be mythically explained by a magical heritage or ancestry.

Question 2

Can I get a synopsis?

Accepted Answer

It's the nature of the hidden folk to stay hidden...

Fiona just wants to find her birth family, to finally find a place where she feels like she fits in. When she crashes off the road and into the rainy, though beautiful, Oregon wilderness, the last thing she expects is an adventure leading to the discovery of real magic and a secret society of fae folk living alongside, and intermixing with humans.
 
Helpfully, she has her natural luck to rely on, as she narrowly escapes sticky situations and delves ever farther into a world of logical mysticism, with faeries (and a minor African fertility deity) as her teachers.
 
They prepare her to take her rightful place on the front lines of the New World Fae’s eternal struggle with the forces of evil: the amorphous CCC, representing Capitalism, Climate Corruption, and Conformity, and its current local figurehead, the Deacon of the Valley of Christ’s Heart Evangelical Church.
 
But, with the help of the Pacific Northwest’s original land stewards, it is Fiona’s own ingenuity that ultimately saves the day, and the broken hearted princess, using the powerful human magic of community organizing.

Question 3

What themes can I expect from Intermagical?

Accepted Answer

The book Intermagical, and the New World Fae series as a whole, address a significant number of sensitive themes, including, but not limited to:

Anti-Capitalist 
Anti-Evangelical 
Religious Criticism 
Community Organizing 
Speculative Religious Theory 
Plant Medicine/Cannabis Use 
Sexual Aggression (*never serious SA) 
Positive Representation of Mental Illness
Interracial Relationships
Bars & Drinking Alcohol
Paganism & Witchcraft 
Natural Psychedelics 
Magical Thinking 
Sapphic Themes 
LGBT+ Inclusion 
Trans Children
Fat Positivity
Adoption
Land Back

Question 4

Is Intermagical intersectional?

Accepted Answer

Intermagical the book is as diverse as the author and her loved ones. Though fictional and imaginatively fantastical, the characters in this novel are largely based on individuals in the author's own life.

In no particular order, representation in this novel includes:

Female Hero
Autistic/ASD & ADHD main character
Fat/Body Positive main character
Adopted main character 
Black/AA character 
Native American characters 
Interracial relationship 
Blind character
Character with multiple identities 
Character with a developmental disability
Character with a congenital heart defect 
Sapphic characters 
LGBT+ characters 
Trans kid

***

Intermagical as a term for neurodivergent community and self-identity is also intersectional. Like 'interracial' or 'international' the 'inter-' in 'intermagical' is inclusive of a world of different types of neurological and physiological diversity, allowing us to mythologize our own existence using our own global cultural imagination as a resource, and come together under one umbrella of magic.

Intermagical is inclusive of all functioning and experience levels of ASD, and other life-limiting differences, as an extreme amount or presentation of magic can make life in a human world extremely challenging.

Question 5

I hear tell that Intermagical has an interesting origin story...

Accepted Answer

Yes, I would say that it does.

I never set out to be an author, although I lived with and loved one for the better part of my twenties. But, after listening to the 13th-or-so novel in my cousin’s favorite fantasy series, I thought to myself, perhaps just slightly unimpressed, “I bet I could write a book as good as that, if I had Jim Butcher’s instruction manual.”

And, once my husband kicked off my thought process by asking, “What would you write about?” the answers just seemed to fall out of me.

I would write about faeries.

I would write about a changeling girl who comes to Oregon looking for her birth family.

…like me.

And, having started, I found that this story just poured out of me, in the course of only about three months, lying on the floor next to my young son’s bed as he fell asleep, typing late into the night.

I wrote it, essentially, from beginning to end, with Deborah Chester’s Fantasy Fiction Formula as a guide, and a lifetime of hyper-fixation and personal research to fill in the cracks.

Almost every time I re-read it I find another small connection or bit of foreshadowing that I didn’t even realize I had included, making me feel like I might even have channeled this story from a nearby universe with something important to share with us.

As I wrote and asked myself more questions, dialing in on the specific details of the plot unfolding before me, I realized that it was my cousin, the one whose favorite book series had set me on this journey, who would become the heart, if you’ll excuse the pun, of the story.

She is a real, fee-identified person who was born with a serious and life limiting disability - a congenital heart defect, and our government and community are not able to give her the support that she needs to live comfortably.

The plot of the novel centers on the plight of Faeryn, the broken-hearted Princess, and our heroine’s attempt to save her and her spectacular, if illusory, faerie city.

It is my hope that this book will allow me to help save the real, live Faeryn as well, by using the proceeds to provide for her comfort, and making her life as pleasant and full of joy as possible.

And, if this story is able to catch the cultural consciousness, and spread beyond providing what she needs, I am excited to see what else I will be able to accomplish, for our greater intermagical community.

Oh, and I wrote the second novel for Nanowrimo, in November 2022. If anything, I like it maybe even a little more than I like the first… Really, it feels like I’m channeling them!

Update 4/21/2023:

Tragically and unexpectedly, 26 days before the novel's scheduled release date, Faeryn passed on.

More information in 'What about Faeryn?'

Question 6

What about Faeryn?

Accepted Answer

Intermagical was written for, and in no small part, about, one particular fae-identified individual who is near and dear to my heart.

We meet Faeryn, the character who bears her chosen fae name, about halfway through the story, and from that point on, saving Faeryn becomes the heart and soul of the plot.

As fiction mirrors reality, I had grand imaginings about how I might use any proceeds generated by this novel to radically change her life and circumstances, and to give her all the nice things and experiences she wanted. To make her as happy and as comfortable as possible in the time she had left.

Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough time.

Faeryn passed on just 26 days before the book's release.

Although unexpectedly sudden, we thought we might have several more years with her, her passing was peaceful and she is free now.

And, while I regret that she won't get to see and benefit from whatever this story goes on to do, I do know how much she valued the fact that she will get to be known and loved by all of you, in fantasy, forever.