Q&A with Bea Donaldson: Author of Pabulum and The Cerridwen Series

We had the pleasure of chatting with Bea Donaldson, author of Pabulum and the upcoming sequels in The Cerridwen Series. Bea shares insights into her creative process, what readers can expect from the series, and her inspiration behind the journey of Pabulum.

Q: What inspired you to turn Pabulum into a series?

Bea: I was inspired to write more about the world of Pabulum when I began to finish the book and realized that I still had more to tell about it. There were so many details I wanted to add to Pabulum, but it felt like it would take away from the storytelling aspect if I did. I'm autistic, and am partial to simple, direct details vs lengthy descriptions. I felt that if I added more to the book, then it would convolute the words. And I was particular about those. I felt, within myself, this story pulling out that just needed to be shared.

Q: What characters will show up in the next books?

Bea: Most of the characters from Pabulum will show up in Pariah (Book two), a few new characters, and definitely some gripping situations.

Q: How did you decide on the series name?

Ceridwen

Bea: It was really tough to decide a name! I thought I had one once, and apparently I didn't write it down? Which is a terrible habit of mine. I get my best ideas when I'm gardening or showering haha unable to write it down! So I laid all of my notes out in front of me on the floor and sifted through them. I flipped through the second proof. Then it just popped out and it was like, duh! So obvious! I called a key in the Pabulum "the Cerridwen key" and Cerridwen, or sometimes spelled Ceridwen, was a Celtic Goddess and Keeper of the cauldron of knowledge, inspiration and rebirth. She rules the realms of death, fertility, regeneration, inspiration, magic, enchantment, and knowledge. Cerridwen is a shape-shifting Goddess, able to take on various forms. She is also associated with herbology and astrology. The name Cerridwen is pronounced with a hard C in Welsh (Key-ruh-dwen). I have heard both pronunciations used. When I first heard it in my mind, it was a soft C and for that purpose I will continue to use the soft C in pronunciation. Cerridwen represents the need for change. It's a beautiful story and I thought it fit perfectly with this series.

Q: How do you plan to maintain continuity and cohesion across the series?

Bea: A lot of the same characters will remain throughout the series. They will change and become different versions of themselves, but like the day has different stages, it remains the same day. So will these characters transform from what we started with to what they become.

Q: Can you share any details about new themes or subplots introduced in the series?

Bea: Most of the themes will remain the same: transformation. But there are many subplots, and they grow deeper as everyone ages and experiences more. I want to bring more themes of energy work and magic into the story and share further insight to the invisible realms and how they interact and the effect it has on each character; how it shapes their desired outcomes. I have found that diving into the dark parts of our psyche really help us find the answers we're looking for. So the themes will be more along the lines of having sympathy for the darkness.

Q: Did your writing process change when working on the series compared to the first book?

Bea: Oh gosh yes. I first thought that Pabulum would be a singular book. As I began to finish it, I realized that there was so much more to the story than I had first imagined. My thought process became more serious and I realized that it wasn't just a fun story I wanted to share, but something deeper that might be relatable to real life. I realized that the story wasn't just about characters developing, but also I was as a writer and a human who is still processing traumatic events in my life.

Q: How do you keep track of the intricate details across multiple books?

Bea: I have to go back and read over everything many times and write myself notes so that I remember all of the details. It may seem chaotic from an outside position, but there is order to it for me.

Q: How have your readers responded to the news of the series?

Bea: There has been excitement! Which makes me nervous, "will I deliver?" but also VERY excited to share this story!

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from the series as a whole?

Bea: I hope that readers will take more time to notice the small, intricate details in life and not dismiss them. They will notice when they are seeing a certain type of flower or butterfly and not just think "Oh that's lovely" but wonder if it has deeper meaning. I want readers to understand that they may not feel very powerful, but they can still do powerful things. The point is to do something, anything, to create momentum.

Q: How many books do you plan for the series, and is there a definite ending in mind?

Bea: I have three books in mind for now, and I am hoping that is it. There is ALWAYS more I want to add, but I am not an overly detailed person and so I really do enjoy others interpretations. I like leaving room for questions and pondering. There is an ending in mind, but the details are still a bit blurry. I know they will sort themselves out as I write it down. I definitely didn't go into the first book with a solid ending in mind, but then it all just unfolded as if something larger than me was pushing through.

Q: What are you most excited about in the upcoming books?

Bea: I am most excited for Zylphia's transformation. It's going to be big and when I thought of it, I excited myself. It popped into my head so suddenly, I was in the middle of a conversation with one of my best friends Erin, and I ran inside her house and grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled it all down. When I finished, I cried a little. I was so happy with the outcome. And I hope it makes my readers cry a little too, happy tears! But I also hope that it inspires them and ignites that flame deep inside.

Bea Donaldson has crafted a world rich with transformation, magic, and deep emotional layers in Pabulum and The Cerridwen Series. Through her candid reflections, it’s clear that this series is not only a journey for her characters but a reflection of her own personal growth as a writer. With exciting subplots, evolving characters, and themes that resonate on a profound level, readers can expect to be drawn into a story that touches both the heart and the mind.

Be sure to preorder Bea Donaldson's Pabulum, available September 30th! Don’t miss your chance to immerse yourself in the beginning of The Cerridwen Series. And stay tuned for updates on the second book, Pariah, which promises even more gripping situations and transformations!

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The Madrinega Missiles: Is it a true story?

At the Howard Zinn Book Fair this past December 3rd, the question I was asked most often about my book was, “Is it a true story?”  The Zinn crowd is big on history, so many people asked me – in what was clearly a sort of litmus test -- if The Madrinega Missiles is fiction.  My answer was and is a qualified Yes, but not really. It is a spy thriller that is nonetheless a thoroughly researched work based on the geopolitical events and forces, both revolutionary and reactionary, that drove the headlines emerging from Central America at the time.   

While the story admittedly has a certain slant, I have depicted U.S. foreign policy in Latin America accurately, if untactfully.  It is historical fact for example, that the U.S. has supported repressive regimes and sought to assassinate emerging foreign leaders who are perceived as posing a threat, real or imagined, to U.S. interests. The motives and internal political discussions and concerns of the guerillas likewise receive no sugar coating, especially their ruthlessness in using violence when the need arises, their pre-occupation with the likelihood of some action on their part triggering American armed intervention, as well as their collective determination to maintain an opportunistic frame of mind, manifesting itself in the form of an eagerness to exploit and propagandize even those events that represent setbacks.  Neither side emerges with clean hands. 

Madrinega, although a fictional country, is based on the culture and the evolution, political and otherwise, of many nations in Latin America.  A former Spanish colony, with generations of Spanish overseers mixing with the indigenous population, its modern iteration reflects a blend of Spanish, Honduran, Cuban, and native cultures.  It was at one time a left-leaning democratic republic, but its government was overthrown in a CIA coup during the Eisenhower years, as was Guatemala’s;  most references to cuisine in the book originate from Honduras; the fear instilled in the population by the Secret Police conjure ghosts of los desaparecidos of El Salvador and particularly the victims of the DINA of Chile under Pinochet.  Many of the names of Madrinega’s villages and cities, including its capital, Valmonte, are derived directly from Spanish words. Others, like the village of Panactatlan, reflect the construction of words of the original, purely indigenous culture.  And as it has throughout Latin America, the influence of the United States has also left its mark. 

While The Madrinega Missiles has an unapologetically political vein, it is primarily a story about people struggling for the freedom of self-determination wrapped in the context of a spy thriller.  Its length is due in part to a deliberate effort to not merely tell a story, but to develop the ensemble of characters along the way, only one of whom is African-American.  Leighton is an American agent with a specific mission that is directly opposed to one of the guerillas’ immediate objectives, but as an educated, aware human being, he is neither blind nor unsympathetic to the armed indigenous movement he encounters up close and personal in Madrinega.  The story is in part a chronicle of his escalating inner conflict and how he ultimately resolves it as he, in the words of his superior Miller, does harm in the midst of doing good.  

For me, the greatest test at Howard Ziin was the reaction of an older woman from El Salvador who approached my table and asked me about the book.  Her eyes lit up as I described an African-American agent’s effort to infiltrate a guerilla movement fighting to topple a repressive regime, who wrestles with an inner conflict as the beautiful guerilla leader Zorrita, believing him to be a journalist, seeks to indoctrinate him while he is working to undermine her cause.  The basic theme of the story seemed to ring true for her.  She did not need cajoling or salesmanship – she bought the book on the spot. 

While The Madrinega Missiles is presented to readers as a fictional spy thriller, as I wrote it, the deeper I got into the story, it became less and less a creature of my imagination and more a three-dimensional being with its own texture, brought to life by the emerging personalities of the individual characters in the story – some of whom I have known in life, with minor artistic changes.  By the end, I felt I was not writing fiction at all, but rather chronicling events that had already happened.  I had become not an author but merely a scribe. 

The Music Behind The Madrinega Missiles

Initially I had no plan to select a soundtrack for the book, but since the consensus among the friends to whom I circulated the manuscript is that my writing has a distinctly visual style, I began thinking in terms of the sounds that would convey the mood and tone of specific parts of the story, were it ever to reach the big screen.  Music is immensely important in this way, and as a lifelong fan of cinema, it wasn’t a difficult leap for me to make.  

Like many countries in Latin America, Madrinega reflects a blend of cultures – in this case Spanish, Honduran, and Cuban.  It has been colonized, freed, allowed to briefly experiment with democracy, and then placed in political restraint by the demands of the Cold War and the overriding need of the United States to control events in the Western Hemisphere. 

As the story opens, Madrinega with its authoritarian government has managed to avoid being targeted by overt or CIA-sponsored counter-revolutionary campaigns of the era, but due to internal conditions, poverty and political violence among them, it has not escaped the strife and bloodshed that accompany oppression arising from a fear of both communism and loss of economic control. 

For these reasons, the soundtrack is a blend of many genres: American pop music circa 1983 including works by the Eurhythmics and Men at Work; Chicano-Latino songs including Jingo, a timeless piece by Carlos Santana and El Quinto Sol, a political protest song performed by a talented but not-so-famous group out of San Francisco, Los Peludos; plenty of Spanish guitar by artists from Ottmar Liebert to Luca Stavos to Diego Fernandez; and a few offerings of classical music by Philip Glass complementing the more emotional, thoughtful, or brooding scenes of the story.  It is in short, an eclectic musical collage reflecting if not of the times.  What follows is a partial legend of where individual pieces in the soundtrack fit into the novel. 

The Eurhythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) is playing on a car radio as the story opens; it hit the top of the charts in September 1983.  It triggers in Leighton a flashback to a woman he left behind in Hawaii and their all-too-brief sexual encounter just as his vacation was getting started -- and just prior to his being recalled for some as-yet-unknown emergency.  The lyrics remind him of the R&R that he desperately needs and will not get, and as he meets with his superior Miller to be briefed on his new assignment, he is in a foul, irreverent state of mind.  

In Chapter 1, readers learn that General Vilar, dictator of Madrinega, has used American-supplied cruise missiles to destroy a hospital in the quiet village of Panactatlan.  El Pueblo by Jose Mendez, with its slow, sleepy guitar rhythms, is an ode to Panactatlan and the small villages like it caught up in a war its residents do not understand, placed in a crossfire by geography and circumstance. 

El Quinto Sol, performed by Los Peludos, is unique in that it is the only song in the soundtrack that is expressly political.  A protest song, it was often performed at events in the United States during the early to mid-1980’s as, at a minimum, an expression of concern about U.S. policy in Latin America and particularly El Salvador.  It fits the tone of the novel perfectly, but Leighton is surprised when he hears in it a nightclub so far from home.  

Goza Negra, by Celia Cruz and La Sonora Matancera, is an extremely popular song originating from pre-Castro Cuba, and is well-known and widely performed in clubs throughout the Americas, including the United States.  Performed by a beautiful Afro-Latina vocalist at the Villa Palmera nightclub, it underscores the club’s status as not merely a popular watering hole, but the capital’s premiere night spot, one of the few locations where a fragile truce between the government and the guerillas exists, and a place where patrons are certain to have a good time. 

And finally, Symphony No. 3, Movement 3 by Philip Glass, Michael Riesman and Anne Manson is a pensive, classical piece replete with violins that – without spoiling the plot – imparts the deep struggle associated with suddenly being forced to grapple with issues of life and death, and the lasting anguish associated with steeling oneself to perform foul but necessary deeds.  

In listening to the soundtrack, my hope is that the story becomes as real for you as it has for me. 

Enjoy the music and the story.   

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