Maurissa Guibord of Scarborough is the author of a new fantasy novel, “Warped.” The book is published by Delacorte Press and was released nationally Jan. 11.

  Q. Could you briefly describe the plot of the book?

A. The plot is about a girl named Tessa who lives in Portland with her dad, and one day at an auction they buy a box of used books and find an old tapestry that had been inadvertently included in one of the books. When Tessa accidentally pulls a thread from the tapestry she releases this secret that has been held for 400 years inside the tapestry and subsequently gets the villainess on her tail.

Q .What inspired you to start the book?

A. As far as the actual idea for the novel, “Warped,” the inspiration came from another book. I was in Scarborough Public Library and I was looking in their sections on fiber craft, because believe it or not I was looking for a pattern to crochet an afghan, and I happened to come across this book about the unicorn tapestries called “The Oak King, the Holly King, and the Unicorn,” that delves into the myths and symbolism surrounding the unicorn tapestries. These are real actual tapestries that were made in the early 1500s depicting the mythic hunt of the unicorn and they’ve always captured people’s imagination because of the myth behind them and the lore of the unicorn. There are seven of them and they’re housed in The Cloisters in New York City in the Metropolitan Museum.

So within the tapestries themselves is a lot of symbolism, that is, religious symbolism, even to the plants and the trees and the tiniest flowers in the tapestries. For instance, the holly, because it grows in the wintertime and is green and vibrant, it represents resurrection, and the unicorn itself was felt to represent sacrifice, and specifically Jesus Christ, in the tapestries. 

So all these fascinating bits of symbolism started to reveal themselves through this book and I started thinking about the tapestry and I thought to myself, ‘You know, what if it was actually more than just a symbol of sacrifice, what if someone had been sacrificed and put into a tapestry?’ From there I sort of had to figure out how that would happen, how an actual man could be trapped inside a tapestry. So it kind of took off from there. It took a long while for the idea to come together, the different aspects of it, and I took in a lot of mythology, Norse mythology, with the fates and the three sisters who weave the threads of life. They were kind of integral in making the story happen with how this person got trapped in the tapestry. 

Q.Could you delve a little bit more into the creative process of writing the book? How did you think of all the different characters? Is there a unique world they live in?

A.Well the book actually takes place in Portland, but it’s a fictionalized Portland, I just took a lot of liberties. I used the basic feel of the city and the setting by the ocean, but I created streets and a fictional bookstore where my character lives. During the story she is transported from real-life Portland into an alternate dimension, because it’s sort of a time travel story, so she gets transported back into the early 1500s where the tapestry was originally created. But I drew on a lot of the flavor of downtown Portland and the Old Port, so that’s where the story takes place.

Q.Were there other factors in your own life that directly influenced the subject, characters or direction of the book? 

A.I love stories with mystery in them and archaic or antique artifacts, relics, so that got incorporated into the story a little bit. The character discovers this ancient tapestry in a box of old books, basically because her father is a bookstore owner. So she kind of discovers this tapestry and sort of the secrets of the tapestry get revealed as the story progresses.

Q. What traits do you feel are essential to become a successful fantasy author? 

A. I think you have to be willing to take chances and let go of what you think people want to read. You have to be willing to just tell the story that is unique to you and that only you can tell and sort of be damned with the consequences. Otherwise if you’re trying too hard to write what you think the market wants or what a particular audience wants to hear it’s never going to be true to yourself. 

The other thing that is really important is persistence. This is the third novel that I’ve written and the first to be published, so you have to be willing to try and write but then to accept that not everything is going to culminate in publication. You have to be willing to take criticism, which isn’t always constructive, especially in this environment we have today with the Internet and social networking sites where people, you know, voice their opinions about things so freely and sometimes anonymously. So you have to be willing to understand that some people will like your story and some people won’t and that’s still OK.

Q. What in particular appeals to you about the fantasy genre?

A. I like the fantasy genre because it allows you to explore human nature in a realistic way, but without boundaries. So even though your character is realistic and your reader can relate to the character, you’re allowed to explore a world or set of circumstances that they wouldn’t otherwise experience. I think the character always has to be someone believable and relatable in order to fully enjoy the fantasy story, at least in my experience.

We all love to fantasize about being the real person or “everyday Joe” who gets to experience something fantastical. To me, that’s what is appealing about the genre.

Q. What is your background as a writer?

A.I came about this in a very roundabout way. Originally I was a doctor, I still am, but I just don’t practice. My husband and I met in medical school and I went on to become a doctor of internal medicine, but after we got married and began to have a family, I decided that I wasn’t really able to balance both the way I wanted to. I wanted to be at home with my kids basically. So being at home with three toddlers – I have triplets – I really needed an escape and a creative outlet and so I began writing when the kids were about 2 years old with short stories and poems for children’s magazines and I joined the society of children’s book writers, which is a great organization that gives a lot of support and educational opportunities to writers. 

Eventually I hooked up with a critique group to share my writing with and it sort of took off from there. I started submitting and looking for an agent and seeking publication of the novel, but it sort of grew gradually. I didn’t necessarily grow up wanting to become a writer, but reading and books were always vitally important to me and it’s something that has sort of grown into more of career lately. 

Q. You mentioned you wrote three other books in the past, what happened to those?

A.Basically they got shoved under the bed. I still have hopes for one of them, but really it’s almost something I just need to keep moving forward with. Sometime it’s hard to revisit something like that because you want to rewrite it from the beginning and it’s almost easier to just keep going forward. I never run out of ideas for new stories so those will always be there, but I don’t know if they will be published or not.

Q. Do you have any hopes to turn the book into a series?

A. No, “Warped” is a stand-alone. There are some loose ends that could possibly lead to a sequel, but right now I don’t have any plans to write one. I’m working on another novel now that is in a totally different setting or realm, if you will.

Q. Could you tell us a little bit more about your plans for the future?

A. I’m going to be writing two more novels for Delacorte. I’ve signed on for two more books, so now I have to write those and this is the other thing, a contract and a deadline are wonderful inspirations.

So I’m going to have two more books, I don’t know what the publication dates will be yet, but the next book I’m working on is also set in Maine and it’s going to be a fantasy. It’s about a girl who comes to an island off the coast of Maine and when she arrives there she has family she’s never met before, but she discovers that the island is sort of ruled by this class of demigods of the sea and there are sea monsters and a whole insulated community of people that have been living in tandem with these creatures. So it’s sort of set in the real world but it’s apart from the real world and I’m having a lot of fun with that.

Q. What would you say is the appropriate demographic for your readers?

A. I would say teens and primarily girls because my novels do involve some romantic elements. They’re suspenseful and have adventure, but there’s a fairly strong romantic element too.

Q.How did you first get in contact with Delacorte?

A. How it happened was that I attended a conference in New York City for this society of children’s book writers abbreviated SCBWI. It was at that conference that Delacorte had an editor that was asking for submissions. A lot of these publishing houses don’t accept un-agented submissions, in other words it’s usually closed. But if you attend one of these conferences, often the editors will invite the conference attendees to submit for a certain window of time, say for the next month or two, and will accept submissions for everyone who attended the conference. So I ended up e-mailing the manuscript of “Warped” to this editor, basically a short synopsis and a few sample pages, and what was astounding was that she e-mailed me back within 30 minutes, and said, ‘I’m here in New York and I’m snowed in at home and I’d like to read “Warped.”’ It was just one of those circumstances that was kind of funny. So I e-mailed her the whole thing and she was snowed in and she read it and said she really liked it and within a matter of weeks we had a contract. It happened super fast. After years of submitting and trying to get an agent then getting rejection letters and things like that, this happened really quickly, so it kind of felt like it was meant to be.

Q. And the book is going to be distributed in Border’s stores nationwide?

A. It’s going to be in all major bookstores nationwide. In fact I can’t wait to go see it in the bookstore, that’s going to be a very surreal moment.

Q. How difficult was it to receive that kind of distribution?

A. Getting in with a publisher is the key thing and it is a difficult thing especially in this day in age where the economy has been hard and everything. I do feel very, very lucky that I was able to get in with Delacorte, and they’re a division of Random House so it is a major publisher

A lot of people are self-publishing these days, but it’s very difficult to then translate that into getting your book into the bookstores because authors basically have to do all of the distribution and publicity themselves. That’s not a way I would ever attempt to do it, because I just don’t have that much time on my hands.

Q. Do you feel books such as the Twilight series or Harry Potter have rekindled an interest in reading among young adults? Have you noticed an influx in younger readers over the years?

A.I don’t know if the interest ever really died away. I think there have always been classics and favorites that kids have enjoyed. In some ways I feel like those particular novels have almost lit a fire under more adults than they have children because there’s been a lot of crossover interest with adults reading the Harry Potter series and also the Twilight series. I think in every generation there’s going to be great stories that capture everyone’s imagination and become big hits.

I think a lot of it depends on the household you grow up in, I mean we’re a really bookish family, so my kids read a lot. I guess it’s all in your environment really, but yeah, there are plenty of other choices and distractions now, so maybe it’s becoming more challenging to get kids hooked on reading, but I hope that’s not the case. 

Q. What is your primary occupation now?

A.My primary occupation is writing, and stay-at-home mom and chauffeur.

Q. Is there anything else you would like to mention?

A. There’s going to be a launch party for book on Jan. 15 at Scarborough Public Library from 2 to 4.

There’s going to be a giant loom, because the story involves a tapestry and weaving. So they have this giant loom in the library that they have used for community projects and weaving and I just went in and restrung it with all the warped threads, because the title, “Warped,” refers to the weaving terms, the warped threads are the lengthwise thread in a loom, and then the weft threads are the ones that go sideways. It’s kind of a play on words, as in warped threads, but also like the space time continuum and warping through that. So we’re going to have a giant loom, so people can weave into it if they want and we’re going to be having some prizes and foods, so it should be really fun.