Written and interviewed by Nuraina
Zack Shah is back again with another new published poetry and short stories collection titled A Strange and Wicked Magic. The best-selling author of “More than Words” gave me the honour to spend some time with me in answering some questions on how his new poetry book came to life. Let’s dive into the author’s mind in creating A Strange and Wicked Magic.
- What was the main idea/inspiration behind A Strange and Wicked Magic?
The inspiration behind this book is inspired by my own interest in things like I’m a big fan of occult and dark things and readers can see that the poems in this book are dark, melodramatic, and twisted which mirrors my interest in those areas. For this book, I wanted to try something different than writing the sappy, lovey-dovey poems in More than Words. And don’t get me wrong, in ASWM there are those cliché love poems because I will always love writing love poems, it brings me to a time where love is simple and not complicated but in ASWM it gets more complicated even with the sentimental aspects. I mean that’s the point of love, there are sentimental and sappy things but it’s also challenging, it can mess you up leaving you depressed. So that’s why in ASWM, the poems touched on substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, sexual taboos which I think these themes doesn’t get talked about a lot enough. So, I’m trying to correlate all those things.
The Title
The title A Strange and Wicked Magic came to me two to three months before the publication date because the original title was called Lost Souls which is the name of the first chapter of the book. The main idea or intentions for my second book was to only be a collection of poetry called Lost Souls rather than becoming a poetry and short stories book, but my publisher advised me to add more poems as well as short stories to increase the pages for my second book because More than Words had only about less than 100 pages. My publisher advised that readers highly enjoy thicker poetry books. The title “A Strange and Wicked Magic” was inspired by my previous book called A Magic and Madness in which I only shared before to my readers. So that book with the word “Magic” inspired me to rename it into A Strange and Wicked Magic.
Lost Souls
Last year, when my publisher reached out to me to publish a second book, I was already on board and had the previous unpublish book A Magic and Madness. So, I was in my final semester, doing my internship and final year project, struggling and juggling finishing my thesis and finishing the manuscript, so it was all very chaotic in a way, but I feel like it turned out well.
Déjà vu
I added new poems into Lost Souls (the first part) and Déjà vu (the second part) has my previous poems from A Magic and Madness so that my older readers who read A Magic and Madness might notice those old poems and can reminisce to the old days. My readers who have read Magic and Madness before can have a sense of familiarity with those older poems and feel like “déjà vu” when reading poems in Déjà vu.
Incantations
Now this is very interesting because these poems are inspired by classic witchery and magic TV shows like Charms and Sabrina. These classic shows are my childhood TV shows. I love spells and incantations, magic, and witchcraft and all these “occult” like themes. And knowing that my book has some magical themes, so I thought to myself, why not make an entire chapter dedicated to incantations. So, with the publication date coming closer I had to quickly think and write at least 10 to 12 spells. I thought it was a great idea because I was already writing my own spell books on the side because I was living vicariously through the fantasy of witchcraft and magic. So, I took some spells that I had already written, and gave it a little twist. I feel like no one has ever done this before to have spells included in a poetry book because usually magical or witchcraft stories and novels, the spells would be part of the story used by the characters. The Incantations is like your very own spell book and living vicariously that makes you feel like you’re a witch yourself.
- What led you to write the classic short stories with a twist of your own? (Where did you get the idea or what inspired you to write in that way?)
“Maybe we can keep this magic thing going.”
Zack Shah
Is what I thought to myself after finishing Incantations. So that’s why I wrote Twisted Tales. You know, fairy tales are quite magical stories, and I thought normal fairy tales are kind of boring. Since, Lost Souls have a very dark theme and are melodramatic, the poems are quite wild because it includes sexy and taboo themes, and the words “twisted tales” came to mind. I thought that it would be fun making a twist for the classics fairytale stories that’s why it’s called Twisted Tales. And the themes for the short stories are the same as poems like having those good sentimental love aspects and combining it with the taboos and destructiveness part of love. Especially in The Cruel, Cruel Sea, it’s basically about star-crossed lovers and writing this short story, the part where Serena and Dimitri had to part ways, writing that part of the story messed me up so bad to the point I was crying. I was already crying before I had written that part because it was already playing in my mind because the thought of Serena never seeing her lover again is heartbreaking and messes you up even though love is something beautiful to experience.
- Which of the three short stories are your favourite and why?
It would have to be The Cruel, Cruel Sea because that’s like my first short story that I wrote. And I feel like this story touches more on the love theme compared to the other two short stories. Because the other two short stories are quite darker, and the story wasn’t much about love. It was more to just write something different with a twist in the story. Like The Dragon’s Secret, I delve into something much darker and is solely more to just write a twist in the story and The Price of Magic is basically more of a story with a final lesson and moral value like be careful on what you wish for. And I think The Cruel, Cruel Sea is my favourite short story because growing up I love mermaids and I would watch The Little Mermaid every single day.
- Which of the poems in your book is your favourite and why?
I have a long list! But I love all my poems and I’ll give you some. So, my favourite ones would be Losing Battle, Something More, Sugar and Salt, New Wounds, Old Scars, Infinity, Fleeting Moments, Simple Pleasures, Ephemeral, Creatures of Habit and Always and Forever. I’ll explain why I love these poems the most. I can’t really remember why I wrote this or the process of writing these poems because these poems were written so long ago, like I can’t remember the thought process that went into these poems. Reading them again now, I don’t know what my past self was thinking but it was like, to me, it felt like I didn’t write these poems because they are masterpieces and I thought, back then maybe I was inspired by a higher force.I like to think that inspiration itself is an actual living sentient force and chooses who wants to be inspired, kind of like a spirit giving me inspiration. The rhythm, rhyme, the word choice, subject matter, and word play, everything aligns exquisitely with these poems. These poems are exactly what I aspire to write. I would say these poems are masterpieces because they’re structural, compositional, and aesthetic. So, these poems are my ideal of a good poem because everything about them appeals to my inner perfectionist.
- Would you say that those poems are the most heartbreaking or impactful or are there any poems that are heartbreaking to write that you still think to this day?
“I live vicariously through my poems. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a true relationship to really experience.”
Zack Shah
I mostly channel from other people, songs, TV shows and movies so I try to capture the essence of feelings from a third person’s point of view. Because I’m an empathic person, I can’t watch sad movies because it will mess me up for days. The same with sentimental feelings like I would feel them deep inside my heart and reproduce those feelings into a poem. I can’t really think the most heartbreaking or impactful poems, but I feel Something More is quite depressing because the feeling behind this poem tells you that we can be chasing so many things in life like wealth, status, power, love and in the end, we’re going to die anyway so there has to be something more so that’s why magic is such an escape for me. Like magic or something supernatural or something that’s bigger than me to give that something more. Just like the poem Purpose also, has basically the same theme where we’re so caught up in our life doing work and we only have a short time on this earth so like we should be experiencing more in life instead of spending most of our time in front of our desk. City of Sadness has a lot more sad poems because it touches on themes like struggling with your mental health, struggling with your relationship problems, and struggling with your purpose in life.
- Are there any poems that did not make into the final edited manuscript? Do you plan to share them with your readers?
There are poems that did not make the final edit of the manuscript because the poems were a bit too explicit and sexual, so those poems had to be removed. And if I were to publish those poems, I would have to re-edit them and make the sexual element more subtle for readers. This situation was also one of the reasons why I decided to add the poems from my first, first book A Magic and Madness. Like I say MTW is my first published book, but there was a first book before my first published book. And A Magic and Madness only sold like 20 copies, so I felt like those poems are my most memorable pieces that’s why I added them to ASWM. For future books, I would add more from A Magic and Madness because I feel like those poems did not receive the recognition it deserves like these poems have yet to have their moment like the ones in MTW and ASWM.
- Since you have short stories in your recent book, do you plan on writing a full-blown novel for your readers?
I was dreading to answer this question because I’ve tried writing novels so many times, I’ve come up with so many stories, but I can never finish them. It’s not that I’m lazy to write but it may be because of my short attention span. I do want to publish a novel, at least one before I die. I am working on something right now, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to finish the manuscript because sometimes life gets in the way. I’m currently working, writing articles, and doing editorial work and on weekends I can be very tired to even switch on my laptop sometimes because I’m on my laptop every single day. So, I will see how it goes.
- What career or job would you pursue if you didn’t become a writer?
Well, currently I’m working as a content writer. So, writing is sort of my job. But it gets a little monotonous sometimes because I’m already an author and as a content writer I’m doing more writing to the point I feel like I do want to change my career. A career change that is not too drastic and that is still in the realm of editorial. So, if I wasn’t doing writing as a career right now, I’d probably be a teacher or a visual artist if I had pursued art when I was younger because growing up, I enjoyed drawing and painting. Back then, I thought art wasn’t something practical and I couldn’t make a career out of it. And now, I see so many artists out there doing digital art with their tablets. Or I would probably become an English teacher because it seems like a simple career for me if I wasn’t writing and as a person who is very talkative, I feel like I’d be a pretty good teacher.
- Do you have any advice for aspiring poets/authors?
My advice would be to write as much as you can while you’re young and when you have the time. I know that college life can take so much of your time or depending on what career or industry you’re in and you would always be busy with life and work, but if you can spare your weekends while you’re young, while you don’t have so many responsibilities, write as much as you can, even if it’s terrible. So, make use of your time. Because, once you start working full time like me it’s quite hard to dedicate a time to writing but try to spare or make time for it.
I had an amazing experience talking with Zack Shah and it was an honour to interview him and get to know more of him and his process of creating A Strange and Wicked Magic. You can get his new poetry and short stories collection on all major bookstores or visit our store to purchase his new book!
