Hello again, everyone! Today, I have Joanna White, author of “The Ones Who Endured” in Iron Walls, with me. She is the second to last author in the group to interview with me, and we’ll hear from the last on the list later this week. Today is our release date, so what better way to kick it off than with an interview? So let’s dive right in.
First, Joanna, can you tell us a bit about why you chose to participate in this dystopian anthology?
My main reason is that I love dystopian but the secondary and likely the more important reason is that I feel its important to explore the consequences of what happens when governments become totalitarian governments. Today, I feel the message is important to get out of how good people are hurt when the government oversteps their bounds of what they should and shouldn’t do.
Yours is a more standard message for the genre then! The anthology has a good blend of traditional and non traditional focuses, and I think readers will appreciate the blend. So, before we get into the themes and philosophical messaging of your story, would you share with my readers what your story is about to offer some context for the rest of the discussion?
My story is about a future earth where the government started to believe and teach the people that strength is everything. Creativity and religion and love are considered weaknesses, so in a society where you aren’t supposed to love or have religion, my main character Talon was raised religiously, and he loves his wife. It’s about his struggle as he tries to survive in a world that’s been trying to indoctrinate him since he was a teen.
That’s definitely a different take on the usual tropes. Given that, what do you feel is the overarching theme or message in your story?
The theme is that strength takes all forms and can mean more than physical prowess. Sometimes, knowing when not to fight can be a strength. Love can be a form of strength, as well as enduring persecution when you believe in a certain religion that is widely disliked around the world.
Okay, so pretty straightforward. What led you to choose that theme or message, and why did you want to write it?
Because I feel that today’s world has been oppressing the basic rights of people and that we are slowly heading toward a society of complete government control where they tell the people what they can and can do, say, think, and believe. Strength doesn’t really have anything to do with it, but I wanted to use a theme that readers would see as more oppressive. Such as telling someone that loving or creativity is weakness. I felt like that was an idea readers could understand and really feel for, to help bring them into the idea that any type of government telling people what to believe in is wrong, regardless of what they’re telling the people.
So you’ve sort of hinted at the message in your prior answer, but let’s talk about it explicitly. Can you share with us the philosophical message behind your story?
Behind the themes of “strength is everything” there is the concept of a government that oppresses their people. They want the people to live a certain way, and the people have been conditioned to believe in strength—that love, creativity, religion, are all forms of weaknesses and all weaknesses are to be eradicated to survive. In today’s society, we are told to do certain things in order to “survive.” We can’t pretend that the governments do that, in reality or fiction, for the good of the people. Survival is simply the excuse that the government uses in order to take control of the people. By creating a fear mentality—telling people: do this or we won’t survive, it is naturally going to cause people to flock to the government’s side. They’ll lay down and do as the government asks. Then, it also allows for an even more dangerous thought to fester—that anyone who doesn’t do this thing is literally hindering our survival, which isn’t true.
So, as I ask every author I spotlight here, how does that message extend from your own philosophy. Why do you feel it’s so important to share with the reader? In other words, what is it you want people to learn from this or hope they will reconsider about their own worldview/philosophy?
My own philosophy is that the government is meant to serve the people, not the other way around. Creating and inciting fear on a disease that has a high survivability rate, for example, is an excuse to gain control of the populace. You get them to wear what you ask, to inject themselves with what you ask, and I paralleled that with the idea that in the past of my story, the government took control of the people and taught that weaknesses must be eradicated because of some terrorists attacks. The people who died in the event is tragic, just as it is with real life. But that doesn’t justify the government coming in and telling the people what to do, especially when its dangerous and risky.
Certainly a very present issue on people’s minds with everything happening of late, at least in America! So, can you share some of the points or scenes that were your favorites because of how they highlighted that philosophical message or aim in your story?
I actually really loved a prologue that was in the original version of the story. It was a summary of the back history behind how the world in my story came to be what it is and it really highlighted the theme that I wanted to convey—the parallels between what the government did in the past of my story and what I feel they’re trying to do now. It was taken out in editing to keep the flow of the story correct, but it’s still one of my favorite aspects.
Now, to close out the interview, let’s discuss takeaways. If you could ensure readers learned just one thing from your story, what would it be?
People in power will always want to be in power. That’s why the United States created a checks and balances system, where one branch of the government could keep the others in check—so we never again had to face a situation of anyone or any sort of council becoming a dictator to the people. We are losing that in today’s society and it may not happen for another few years, but when good people stand by and do nothing, evil prevails.
Well, everyone, that wraps up today’s interview! If you’d like to read Joanna’s story, you can find Iron Walls on Kindle and KU! As I mentioned, it released today! We will have a paperback out soon but have had some delays in its release, unfortunately. Tune back in on Thursday for the final interview in the blitz of interviews with authors in the new release! We’ll have Amanda Wrights with us to discuss her short story, both here and over on The Fantasy Nook, where we’ll take a look more at the writing side. Until then, everyone!
