The Story:

This is the story of Narata, a girl growing up in a world that is not our own. Mother Mountain is their home, and it also represents their Great Mother Goddess, who has sheltered them from their enemies for as long as anyone can remember.

As Narata grows up, like most other young people, she finds that beliefs she once held as truths now come into question, and the world she experiences as an adult is a far different place than the one she believed in as a child. And, as she learns her world is a far more complicated place than she could have ever imagined, the world of her people, which has been a certain way for as long as anyone can recall, is also changing rapidly around her.

The story is divided into three parts, which may be separate novels.

Part 1 centers around Narata, and to a lesser extent, her childhood boy-friend Tarala. It is a sometimes-humorous coming-of-age story in which a girl from a rather conservative hometown leaves everything she once knew and discovers a much wider, and wilder, world around her.

Part 2 shifts gears rather rapidly, as world-changing events occur around Narata, the people of her hometown, and the wide variety of people who come to make up her new life. Not only does Narata’s view of her world shift severely (as so often happens when a child grows up), but the people of Mother Mountain come to find that their world is very different from the one they were once so certain about.

Part 3 shifts even more. It presents Narata’s world, and the events surrounding it, from the point of view of an entirely different character, a girl from the lowlands, whose people Narata have been at war with for as long as anyone can remember. And the reality of these people changes, as well!

These little descriptions barely scratch the surface of a story that is filled with many unforgettable characters, and creates a world that is very different from our own, and so much like it in many ways! If I had all the time in the world, I would spend it working on this wonderful project!

The Story Behind the Story:

Many people seem genuinely surprised I am writing an actual words-only novel (rather than the drawn-book, graphic novels that I am well-known for.) Actually, I used to write words-only all the time! I started a few words-only novels with fantasy or science-fiction themes in High School that I never completed for one reason or other, and which seem to have disappeared during my many moves since. Thirty years later, I started typing out words again, and Mother Mountain is the result.

Of course, there is no way I can NOT include art and other side-trips! I have drawn lots of portraits of these people, as I was trying to design their appearances. I have created several depictions of their Goddess, and I have even concocted recipes based on the food eaten by these folks.This has been the most enjoyable creative process I have ever been involved in, and I hope future readers will be able to lose themselves in Narata’s world for a while.

After decades of carving out a niche for myself in comics, graphic novels, drawn books (whatever one calls the words-and-pictures format), I was seriously bitten by the prose bug. The world of "Mother Mountain" was one of the side-stories in my graphic novel, Winging It, a race of winged people confined to life on a mountain with seriously-depleted resources, existing in a state of seemingly-perpetual warfare with the people of the lowlands.

As I was finishing the Winging It storyline (as ‘finished’ as it can be for now) I was inspired to draw a story with a more detailed look at these people and their world, seen through the eyes of a girl who has just grown up and who has some difficult decisions to make. I loved drawing their little aboriginal world, (and their wings!) though I never could decide exactly what they looked like. They were originally human, and then they became less human, and in the drawn version, originally published in Mythography, and reprinted in the second volume of Winging It, they looked very horsey. There is a strong animal metaphor running through the storyline, (only one of the numerous themes in both works) and by the time they get to Winging It, they have been throughly “domesticated.” I have redrawn another version in which I may have finally settled on their appearance. They are human, but not too human in appearance, which is appropriate for the story.

Having to come up with concrete illustrations is one of the DRAWBACKS of the words-and-pictures format! When one is writing words-only, the writer is allied with the imagination of the reader. I remember several years ago, around 1997, having finished the first of the Mother Mountain stories, wondering what a certain scene would read like if it was just words, like most other novels. I started writing the scene on my ancient Mac SE, (which I was just learning how to use) and became hooked! I started from the beginning and stayed up all night re-writing the beginning of the story. Sometime around 7AM, I managed to LOSE the dozens of pages I had accumulated! I stared at the screen in dismay, then started over again while it was still a bit fresh in my mind. After several rewrites, I am at last happy with the story’s beginning. Excerpts will be available on this site.