Interview with "Call Me Fuchsia" author--Jo Mitchell

 While work continues on the upcoming winter release of the third and final installment in my Old Greenesboro Trilogy, we're going to turn the spotlight on a different author today--my oldest daughter, Jo Mitchell. It may come as no surprise to you, but Jo has been writing for nearly her entire life, and I'm proud to announce her debut science fiction novel Call Me Fuchsia, out now in both print and Kindle editions. But enough of me yapping. I'll turn it over to Jo.

GM: Hey, Jo. Well, I certainly know who you are, but tell us about yourself. 

JM: Hey! I’m Jo Mitchell. I’m a science fiction author and college student from Northeast Arkansas.

GM: Tell us about the book!

JM: My new book is Call Me Fuchsia. It’s the first of a trilogy. This book is about a woman named Tanzee Clyborne and her feelings towards her best friend, Pepe Bijiola. When Pepe is given a job opportunity in a world of mechanical and corrupt politics, Tanzee becomes suspicious (and jealous), and chooses to investigate.

GM: What initially inspired you to write Call Me Fuchsia?

JM: There’s a lot of different places I took inspiration from, really. During my freshman year of high school, I was in a Civics course that watched the 2020 election. About the same time, I heard a sermon over the letter to the church of Thyatira discussed in Revelation. I took the two and melded them into a world of politics, devotion, and lies that I penned about twenty songs over before sitting down to character plan. Ultimately, the world started to get too big for music, and I realized I wanted to dedicate time to the stories I was trying to tell.

GM: Though this is your first published novel, you’ve written several stories before. What made you decide to pursue this one to publication?

JM: Honestly, a lot of it was timing. I scrapped the project twice, picked it up again, rewrote the trilogy, and prayed so many times over it. Despite hesitating dozens of times, I think the sheer amount of time I spent over it pushed me to completion. So much of my high school years were spent writing or planning the trilogy, and even though I’ll never be completely satisfied with my product, the opportunity to write it has been an honor and a privilege. As tacky as it sounds, a lot of different versions of myself worked on Call Me Fuchsia, and I think those versions deserved to see it come to fruition.

GM: What do you hope the reader gains by reading the book?

JM: We live in a world of constant digital and mechanical struggle, where so much of our time is spent debating whether or not our own advances and creations are good for us. In Call Me Fuchsia, I wanted a technology that could speak for itself without the chatter of human dictation. I wanted a robot whose rapid advancement paralleled that of our hand-held electronics. I hope, somewhere in the overwhelming and neon-lit world of my novel, readers see characters that make poor decisions that still feel guided. I won’t act as though my first novel is the perfect book or a radical, cyberpunk dialogue. It’s also just a story I wanted to tell with characters that I wanted to build. Still, as the story progresses, there is a story of constructed truth, false hope, and the sting of humanity.

GM: What’s next for you?

JM: Book two and three of the trilogy are my current priorities. Call Me Fuchsia itself is over sixty percent aligned with its first draft, which I wrote at 15. The next two books, though, are more recent and tell a story that feels truer to my abilities now. After that, I can’t promise one specific title. I’m certain it will be science fiction; the genre is easily my favorite type of writing. Whatever it is, I want it to be very different from this trilogy while still sounding like I wrote it. A lot of Call Me Fuchsia was my attempt at modernized, grandiose science fiction, and I’m sure my next project will lean more towards the media that I’m digesting now. All art is a nod to previous art.

Thanks to Jo for stopping by, and be sure to go check out Call Me Fuchsia today!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Tanzee Clyborne and Pepe Bijiola exist as two of millions in the gloomy capital of New Thyatira. The poor quality of life in the city, known for its class divisions surrounding the color purple, leads the pair to find refuge in both art and rather intimate interactions with each other. Too often, Tanzee wonders if their connection is more than physical. 

However, a unique career opportunity suddenly has Pepe whisked away to the rich neighborhoods of the East District with a woman who claims to be the next ruler in a once monarchial state. Tanzee, rightly skeptical at first, becomes obsessed with learning all she can about Pepe's new employer. With the help of her friend Atlas--a repairman in large, black sunglasses--Tanzee must decide if she is more concerned with Pepe's wellbeing or what will become of her life without him.

From breakout novelist Jo Mitchell comes "Call Me Fuchsia": a tale of love, lust, and the abyss that is the in-between.