Question: What is it about the magical realism, fantasy genre that appeals to you as a writer?

Helene Opocensky: I've always been fascinated by magic. My grandmother used to read Grimm's Fairytales to me when I was little, in Germany where I was born and lived until I was seven. In German, the stories, the märchen, don't start with the phrase "Once upon a time." Instead, they begin with, "Dar war einmal." It means, "There was once." I was three or four years old then, and when my Oma said "There was once," I believed her. So, for me the things that happened in Hansel and Gretel, Aschenputtel and Sleeping Beauty were real. They were once, just like she said.

When I was a little older and had learned to read, I threw myself into reading and explored on my own the stories in my grandmother's books, hunting to find the time mentioned in the fairytales, the once that was. I read history, looking for that magical time, and though I found many interesting things that happened, things that enthralled me, things that fascinated me, I never found the particular time that was. So, I thought that perhaps the time referred to in the tales wasn't a particular time in the past, maybe it was all time, maybe even my own time.

I had evidence of that possibility at age five, when the circus came to our small medieval town of Leutershausen, Middle Franken. Back in those days, we children could wander around on our own even when very young, and my brother and I often did just that. When the circus arrived, we, along with every other kid in town, went to the field where it was being set up and watched, amid brightly colored wagons and strangely dressed people, as the men hoisted the giant tent. The atmosphere there was exhilarating. It had a sparkle to it, a kind of allure, an enchantment. I could hear it in the roaring of the lions. I could smell it in the scent of the elephants. I could almost taste the adventure of it all in the air. To me, it felt magical, and when my family went to the performance I found that it was magical. It had actual magic in it, real magic, a genuine magician who could make things appear and disappear at will. I was entranced. The magic in my grandma's stories was real. It was real in the time that once was, and, I believed then, real in the time I lived.

Of course, I grew up and learned that the magic of the circus, the illusionist's flimflam, wasn't real at all. It was parlor games, a trick disguised by smoke and mirrors. So, I put childhood fantasy aside and went about my life. I eventually became a lawyer and worked to help secure financial stability for children.

However, hidden within the logic of my adult mind, within the recesses where the little girl still lived transfixed by the conjurer's tricks, the magical world that I never stopped searching for, the one hidden behind the smoke and mirrors, continued to exist. It is still something that could be, something once there was, something that is. This series, Smoke and Mirrors, is that world.

Q: Can you describe your writing process for us?

Opocensky: The most important part of writing fiction for me is knowing how the story ends. Once I know that, I know what my goal is and what the general idea behind the story is. The most difficult part is where to begin it. After I decide that, the rest of it flows. All I have to do is describe what happens. As I move along to the ending, I keep asking myself what happens next so that I can get to where I'm going. I learn more and more about my characters as the story unfolds. Sometimes I feel as if they are telling me their stories instead of my making them up. Sometimes I'm surprised by what happens. Often, I have to go back and rewrite because of something one of them told me.

Speaking of rewriting, I do that a lot. I edit continuously, and by constant editing, I flesh out the story and learn more details about what happens. Sometimes I feel like the story writes itself.

Q: What do you think readers can most relate to about your characters?

Opocensky: That their differences make them special instead of odd.

Q: What was your favorite part of creating the magical world in Smoke and Mirrors?

Opocensky: The back stories of the world and the characters. I know a lot of back stories that don't make it into the books.

Q: What books or authors have inspired your writing?

Opocensky: Harry Potter (of course), J.R.R Tolkien, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jane Austen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Kerr, Elizabeth George, Guy Gavriel Kay, Sue Grafton, Garth Stein, Patricia A. McKillip, Robert Graves, etc.