Welcome to episode 16 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Ira Ribbon, author of The Demon of Elderstay, book one of the New Dark Saga.
Ira is going to be chatting about her debut adult fantasy book, and how Dungeons and Dragons helped to bring her main character to life and inspired her to write his story. She'll also weigh in on the recent Meta AI scandal, and reveal what she's working on next. Listen Here:Show Notes:
Here are all the links included in this episode.
About Ira:
Ira Ribbon is the New Zealand based author of the humorous fantasy series The New Dark Saga. She shares her life with her tolerant husband, a neurotic rescue dog, and a labour-intensive vegetable patch which demands as much attention as the aforementioned. She enjoys writing stories about a gnome fire mage burdened with demon, and wiling away the weekend arguing with her brother about the pronunciation of fantasy places.
Read the transcript:
Kay M. Weston (she/her): Welcome to episode 16 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast.
Today, I'm joined by Ira Ribbon, the New Zealand based author of the humorous fantasy series, the New Dark Saga. She enjoys writing stories about a gnome fire mage, burdened with demon and wiling away the weekend arguing with her brother about the pronunciation of fantasy places. Ira is going to be chatting about her debut adult fantasy book, and how Dungeons and Dragons helped to bring her main character to life and inspired her to write his story. She'll also weigh in on the recent Meta AI scandal, and reveal what she's working on next. Ira Ribbon: My name is Ira, and the I is the I in I. Ribbon. That is a pen name that I use for any of the books that I write that have some kind of involvement with my brother because it's an anagram of an Italian word, meaning briccone, which is scallywags, which is what we used to call each other as children. I am 34 years of age. I am part English, part Italian. I was born in England, but I grew up in Italy, in a small little town called Perugia, and for about the last 15 years I've been living in New Zealand. When it comes to what inspired The Demon of Elderstay, it's a long-winded story, I will try and keep it short. But I am a Dungeons and Dragons player, oh, I love me some D&D, and my brother was organizing something called a one shot, which is a shorter D&D campaign, usually only one session about three hours long. And it's always enough of an avenue and an opportunity to make these really wild characters that you're not going to carry on so much. So, he wanted to organize this thing to introduce a friend of ours to the game, and I was sitting at the kitchen table at my parents' place and I thought, what character can I do? And just suddenly out of nowhere, I just had this image of a shorter man with ginger hair, green eyes, and I knew he was a fire mage, and suddenly I knew everything about this person. I knew he was possessed by a demon, but I thought, why was he possessed by a demon? It must be something stupid. And so I essentially came up with this character. Obviously, we went and played the one shot. It was an unmitigated disaster. I'm pretty sure all us died after about two hours of play. We called it a day, but the character stayed with me and I remember telling my brother, I would really like to play this character again, this character who is Gerome. And the opportunity presented itself about six months later with another one shot where my brother had gathered about five of our friends, and he just essentially organized the whole thing online, through a thing called Roll20 where you have all the maps and the tokens of your character can move around, and we just did the whole thing over Discord. Again, one shot's are classically this way, one of my friends was playing, I think she was a Paladin that was named after a Justin Timberlake song. Another one was a Warforge that was just, I am a robot, the whole time. Again, about two or three of us died at the end of the campaign. But what stayed with me was the setting that my brother had created. He'd envisioned this cursed city with a dome over it, and I loved playing out the character. I know. It was just fantastic, and I loved playing the Gerome character because he, how'd you'd say, isn't the classic hero of any kind of story, and I really, really enjoyed playing him. But after that campaign was over, what happened was he just wouldn't leave me alone. It was almost as if I had a character on my shoulder all the time telling me his story, and I thought, I have to write this down, I have to write this story, and I have to actually turn it into a story because a one shot is by no means a completed plot. You actually have to give it threads. You have to actually deepen it all out. So, I know a lot of people do mention that it sounds like a completely unhinged D&D campaign that's gone off the rails. That's how it was born. It was very much born from one of those. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That's great. I mean, I think I did say that to you previously, is it does really feel like a chaotic D&D campaign at times, but in the best possible way. I knew from your Instagram that you're a D&D player, so did that sort of influence the way that you wrote certain scenes? Did you, sort of, put your dungeon masters head on almost, or did you collaborate with your brother to develop that at all? Ira Ribbon: A little bit of both. I find that what D&D does for me, it helps me get into the headspace of the character, and because he's a first person narrator, he's unreliable. It just helps me, when I play a D&D campaign with him as the character, it just really helps me get into that headspace. So, I find like I'm playing the character and I'm getting really down to what he would say, how we would relate to others. And whenever I'm stuck on something that I'm writing, yes, I have actually used my brother. And again, that's why I use the I. Ribbon. In fact, what we've ended up doing, and I can mention this briefly, it's for other books. Because what happened is, I wrote this story, I wrote it because I needed to, because it was just, as I say, this character wasn't leaving me alone. It felt like a new idea, something fun, something very different than what I've ever written in the past. And I said to my brother, I said, I wonder if we can do this again, because I had the outline for the second story and I knew the characters. I knew I'd made character sheets, I'd made plot threads, I'd structured the whole thing. And I said, I wonder if it would help me draw him out again if we played another one shot. So, we literally gathered him and my mother, who happens to play D&D , and I just told her, you be this character because this is who I've come up with, and I just let it happen. I did say to my brother, I don't care what comes out of it, even if we just do it for the fun, but it just helps me get into that headspace. It helps me get a beginning, a middle, and an end to a story. Even if we don't necessarily use all of the details, all of the scenes, it just really helps me draw that out. And it was successful again, because I finished the second about two years ago and I'm currently at the stage of editing it, and I'm doing it for the third as well. So, I think I'm onto something, Kay. I've figured out how to draw creativity out of me without prodding. Kay M. Weston (she/her): See, I'm just over here playing D&D for fun and I really should be using it to help me with my stories. Ira Ribbon: Oh, you know, I think as long as fun is always at the forefront, I really believe that creativity should always be fun. So, I used to be a bit of a plotter as an author. I would have one or two scenes that really engaged me and I would work towards those scenes, but I would plod my way through and pine over everything instead. This way of drawing out the creativity actually really, yeah, it felt more fluid. In fact, The Demon of Elderstay's first draft was written in a month, which I assure you is unheard of for me. I know, I'm not that way. I'm usually a six months to a year type of draft person, and then the editing's another year. In fact, the editing took a year because I'm OCD, but the actual writing down of the story, that was very quick. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That's great. Going back to what you were saying about these unhinged characters. Yeah, I've got the same. I DM games, so I've got a game with my partner and a friend of ours, and my partner plays a badass purple-haired druid. She can turn into anything, most notably tiny creatures apparently. Instead of big, giant ones, it's always spiders and mice. The other one is like the Terminator. So, literally just wanted to be a metal man with a gun. So, it's crazy what they get up to. They couldn't be more polar opposite characters, but it's so much fun. So obviously, in D&D there's a great sense of humor. Is that why you blended the dark fantasy D&D vibes with humor with your book, or was there another reason? How did that humor come about? Ira Ribbon: I think with me, with the story, definitely there's huge humorous elements in D&D, but I love stories that handcuff drama and humor to the same radiator. I'm a huge fan of Sir Terry, Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld series. He managed to make some really, I guess, poignant assessments of the human condition while also lathering the whole thing in hilarious jokes, and I find that it really delivers those emotional punches when one minute you've been laughing, the next you're like, oh my God, this is terrible, and it just delivered those hits so much harder. But also, I think it's because of the first person narrator. I know that Gerome is wise-cracking, sarcastic, and currently very cynical about his life, and I think that comes across better with the humor that is, you know, all that is Gerome. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, I actually found the humor dynamic between Gerome and Al, the demon who is possessing him, I found that fascinating. I absolutely loved their dynamic because it was tense and serious, but also really funny. So, how did you go about crafting that relationship, so balancing that humor and tension, and also the looming threat of Al breaking free? Ira Ribbon: Honestly, with difficulty, because Al can only emerge once Gerome is low on drugs. So, it was always a timing thing because he just couldn't appear at all times. But at the same time, he has to appear in important moments in the book when the character is under some kind of threat, has run out of drugs, and so there's that looming threat all the time. I do love their interaction. I love writing their interaction. I know how polar opposite they are, but also how similar they are because as, again, I'll try not to spoiler anything, but there's some things I have mentioned in the first book, which is, in a way, Al was crafted after a lot of Gerome's insecurities. Like every way he wanted to look, every way he wanted to be. So, in a way, it's quite confronting for him as well to have this other character that is all of the things, but at the same time a demon. So, he's nefarious, he's evil, he's got his own agenda and intentions, and Gerome wants nothing more than to get rid of him. But again, he is, in a way, a part of him, and so I love crafting that relationship, and I can't wait to explore more of it as this relationship evolves in future books. Kay M. Weston (she/her): I'm really excited to find out sort of how that grows and what happens. I mean, as you already said, Gerome is such a refreshingly, unconventional hero. He seems to have a healthy sense of self preservation, but with the magical drug addiction and getting himself into trouble. So, he's just a really fascinating character. He's also an LGBTQ+ main character. So, can you tell us why that was important to you to include that representation in your story? Ira Ribbon: The world is a very diverse place and also everyone is unique, so I think that there is a certain urge to portray that, but when it came to Gerome being gay, I knew everything about this character when he walked into my mind. So, I knew what his name was. I knew how many brothers he had. I knew what he liked to eat, what he liked to wear, and this isn't something that's happened to me with other characters before. I knew everything about him, and I knew without a shred of doubt that he had been possessed by a demon because he did something pretty stupid for the love of a man {inaudible}. And so, yeah, I knew without a shred of doubt who he was and what he was about. Kay M. Weston (she/her): I know you said he came to you sort of in a moment, did all of that come in a moment, or was that with the help of sort of going through the character sheet and just building him out and fleshing him out? Ira Ribbon: I think what came from the D&D sheet were his powers. I thought, you know, the magical system, at least in my story, was very much of it takes a very, very long time to master the magical arts, so usually wizards or witches are specialized in one thing. So, I made him an elemental manipulator so he can master fire, but he took a minor in evasive magic so he can go invisible, which is incredibly convenient. And also "no space", as you know, is the little pocket dimension that he can fold himself in. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, that's seriously cool. I want one of those just to escape certain social situations. Ira Ribbon: With all my favorite things, and my snacks and little mini bar. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Oh my gosh. Have you seen, I don't know if you're a fan of Critical Role. They had their Legends of Vox Machina campaign turned into a TV series. Ira Ribbon: I love them, meaning my brother has listened to the podcast throughout. I'm shocking, like, I read synopsis, so oftentimes what I do is when I become interested in something, I will read the whole story out instead of actually spending the time listening to it. My brother's listened to the whole thing. I've watched Vox Machina season one. Where are we at now, season three? Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, I think so. Ira Ribbon: I watched them all twice, at least. Once with my brother then once with my husband. So, we've gone through. I love Vox Machina, I really do. I wonder if they're gonna do the next season, the second part, you know, season two, it's not Vox Machina, it's the other one. Kay M. Weston (she/her): The Mighty Nine. Yes, I think they are actually, I think it's been green lit and I've seen some early animation, so I think it is coming. I don't know when, but the only reason I mentioned it was because, when I read the Demon of Elderstay, when I was reading about Gerome's pocket dimension, and it reminded me of Scanlan's, I forgot what it's called, but where he has his like retreat, and I just thought it was such a fantastic thing. Ira Ribbon: You know what I think the inspiration may have been from, you know the spell blink? One where you can take yourself to another plane of existence. I thought, wow, how neat, what if you'd made it and you could go there. I do realize it's {inaudible} in the sense that at the moment he can take himself off, but because of the drugs that kind of gave him that weakness that he wasn't always able to concentrate or focus sufficiently to get himself out of trouble. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, I think the way it was designed reflects his character as well. Like, it could have been this big, huge, lavish place, but Gerome just wanted somewhere small that he could just get away and be by himself. So, I think it reflects him quite well. So, what was your favorite scene or moment to write in The Demon of Elderstay and why? I hope this isn't a spoilery question. Ira Ribbon: I'll put a spoiler on it at the beginning just in case I do say something, but with The Demon of Elderstay, I found, and this is something I found with all of the books from the New Dark Saga that I've been writing, something happens, there's a scene that kind of cements in my mind and I find myself working towards that scene. Now, in The Demon of Elderstay it was a not particularly exciting scene. Gerome had taken himself out of trouble. It was at the end there when the big bad may or may not have been defeated, and he's taken himself off and he comes back, and he's looking around the underground cavern and he sees Polly there. And there's that moment of, I think it's almost great compassion from him. It's almost like he's looking at her and he realizes, you know, you were tricked by a demon. No one else will get it, but I get it. And all he says at the end of all of that reasoning is, he reaches out for her and he says, let's go. I think it's actually one of the first times, she's very averse to being touched, and I think that is probably one of the more positive interactions that they'd had. So, he takes her away and that scene for me was essentially what The Demon of Elderstay was built on, like all working my way to that moment, to that particular scene. As I say, not a particularly exciting moment, not a particularly anything moment, but that stayed in my mind as the scene I was working towards. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, it's definitely a scene that resonates. Ira Ribbon: Yeah, I'm glad because I know, as I say, it wasn't necessarily the most exciting part, the biggest part, but I think it was the part that kind encapsulates understanding Gerome as a character and where he's at. He's at his worst in The Demon of Elderstay, for sure. There was another scene that I had a lot of fun writing, which is when our heroes have charged down to the bridge to fight the undead hordes that are coming out of the city, and Gerome considers leaving and then he is like, you know what? No. And then he snorts the equivalent of cocaine and runs himself down to the bridge, and at that moment I'm not even writing anything prosaic anymore, it's just a flow of conscience. But he's even making his own soundtrack, like, bam, bam. That was great fun for me to write, and I've recently had the opportunity to work on an audiobook with a tremendous audiobook narrator called John York, and I cannot wait to share it with the world. He has done this book so much justice. He's just tremendous, all of the characters, he's given them a much deeper dimension. It was just, honestly, it was mind blowing for me as the writer and I just cannot wait to share it with the world. It's currently being uploaded to Findaway Voices. It is taking their sweet time to distribute it, but I know I'll have some free redemption code soon. So, I have been offering them out and then people will essentially click on the link and go to Spotify and be able to listen to it. Obviously, it would be lovely to get a honest review, as always. Kay M. Weston (she/her): I love audio books when I've already read the book because it's just having those characters then come to life as well. Ira Ribbon: Yep, a hundred percent. Kay M. Weston (she/her): So, aside from Gerome and Al, who was your favorite character to write, and did any of the characters surprise you as well? Ira Ribbon: Yes, and this again ties into the audiobook. Initially, I thought that not many people would like Polly because I thought she's a bit bratty. She's a teenager. She doesn't like to be touched. She's not very socialized, and instead she turned out to be the most popular of my characters, and I actually really enjoyed writing her. Another character I really enjoy writing is Bijan, because I think, what is the most self-righteous, pompous thing I can say at any given time to just be this quintessential hero, which is great contraposition when you put him next to Gerome, who is quite the opposite at the moment, and obviously looks at him quite admiringly, among other things. Yeah, I really enjoyed writing Bijan. I noticed that in the audiobook, I loved both of these characters even more, Polly and Bijan, they just really come out. Their voices are very individual and I really felt for them, and I started to really understand why so many people loved Polly the way they did. That's extra dimension I think that the audiobook provides. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, she's a great character. Like you said, at the beginning, you're almost not sure what to make of her, but as the story develops she sort of gets under your skin in a few different ways. Going back to what you said before about the scene with Gerome going across the bridge, that actually was, I think, the scene that made me think most that it was a D&D campaign. It was almost that moment where somebody in the party is trying to split the party or just trying to do something for themselves, and then suddenly the barbarian rages or something, and they just charge in without thinking. Ira Ribbon: Without any plan. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah. So, you improvised some of this as almost you were doing the D&D campaign. Were there any specific moments that came out of the one shots that you did that went into the book? Ira Ribbon: Yes, there will be. I'll be honest. Kay, I probably won't remember exactly which scenes, but I do know that there were some scenes that really kind of cemented, as I was writing this plot down. I seem to remember that one member of our party decided to resurrect a Goblin, and I remember thinking, that's a weird thing to do. But then I really put it in a different context. I thought, well, what if you have this character who's really poorly socialized, who's had all these things happen to her that she thinks that it's okay actually to bring things back to life in such a way, and in a twisted way think, we've already lost so many people, or we might lose people along the way, why not bring one back? So, in this twisted, messed up way to do so. So, I gave it a reason other than what a character did, which is just do it for fun. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah. So, just a quick, fun question. If you were gonna join an adventuring party alongside your existing characters, what D&D race and class would you play as and why? Ira Ribbon: You know, I think they're in dire need of someone stealthy. They're in dire need of someone who actually thinks things through, who can do things quietly, who can actually persuade his way through things. So, definitely a rogue, someone who can open all the doors, disarm all the traps, open all the locks, and I have a historic love for dragon borns. My very first D&D character is called Bedius, and he was a dragon born rogue. Very tragic backstory, as always when you're playing your first D&D character, they've the most tragic backstories. After two years, I played Bedius for two years, a very long campaign, and in the end of the story, he sacrifices himself to save everybody else, and I don't think I've ever recovered. So, I'd probably play him again. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Maybe you can get someone to resurrect him. Ira Ribbon: Yeah, exactly. Kay M. Weston (she/her): So, you've already mentioned, The Demon of Elderstay is book one of the New Dark Saga, and you said that you were working on books two and three, I think you said. When can we expect book two? Do we have a date for that yet? Ira Ribbon: Now, I'm always very conservative with estimates, just in case something happens that is outside of my control, but I'm very happy to say that I have edited book two now about five times. I am at the last four chapters from the end, and this is like my final edit, my final reread, just to make sure that I haven't used a million adverbs. I have a terrible tendency to just, here we go again, I use just. Just goes everywhere. It's this softening word that I seem to put in every place. So, I actually have a piece of software that helps me find when I have repeated a word too many times. So, I go in there and I change it, and so that's what I'm doing at the moment. I've lined up my editor for mid-April. She's going to take the book, she's wonderful, and usually within a month she's done, just in time for me to incorporate those changes, give it a last read for myself, because again, I'm quite pedantic. I just really wanna make sure that people are reading something I'm proud to put out. So, unfortunately that means that it takes a bit longer than I'd usually plan. But yeah, so I'm estimating that definitely an official release by October, but the ARC readers can expect it, I would say July/August. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Okay, brilliant, and the audiobook you said is sort of imminent? Ira Ribbon: Oh, John was brilliant. He'd actually finished it pretty much in November/December, and I had made a newsletter in January saying, it's happening everybody, and then uploaded it and it didn't happen, and it didn't happen for two months. So, I've been going back and forth with Findaway Voices, and just yesterday there's been a development. I think that it's been uploaded correctly and that now I'll be able to retrieve the redemption codes. So, fingers crossed, very soon, I'm hoping a couple of weeks. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Are you working on anything else in the meantime as well? Ira Ribbon: I am. I'm working on the third. I find that I am quite bad at doing, I'm either editing or marketing or writing, I am very bad at doing all of them at the same time. In fact, that's why my poor readers sometimes must get absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of posting I do, and then suddenly I vanish for a couple of months, don't do anything, 'cause I'm sitting here editing or writing. And I think it's that balance, I'm sure every writer goes through this, balancing your family, your mortgage paying job, and the writing side, and then that's very much what I'm doing at the moment. But yes, definitely writing the third, which is called The Seer of Hopper-Tikker, and that will be a bit of a watershed book, that one. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Okay. I mean, I can definitely relate to the writer thing. I sometimes just do bouts of marketing because I think I need to do it because I've gone quiet for ages, but I haven't actually finished doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing. So, it's always a struggle. Is the New Dark Saga gonna be a trilogy or will there be more books after the third? Ira Ribbon: I am planning, this is a very loose number at the moment, seven or eight. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Brilliant, that's amazing. Ira Ribbon: Yeah, and there's actually quite a few, but I've been talking about it with my brother and husband, and they think that I have 13 or 14 in me, and I said, well, maybe, but I don't want to do more than necessary. But the books initially are episodic. One comment that was made to me was, this book is great, but it's short and there wasn't much lore, and the thing is, I'm planning on bread crumbing the lore throughout the book because it's very much from the first person view of one person and so they'll tend to, it will come up in conversation, it will come out in that way, but I won't do lore dumps. It's not really a high fantasy, it's more a quippy, quick, unreliable narrator, dark fantasy with humor. Kay M. Weston (she/her): I like that though because sometimes you can get a huge info dump and it kind of puts you off a little bit, and I like when it's sort of dropped through. I think it keeps it interesting so you learn bits as you go along. Would you say that each one almost, just tying it back to D&D, do you reckon each one's kind of like its own little one shot and it builds, sort of like each one's a session that builds into like a whole campaign? Ira Ribbon: That's a hundred percent what I'm doing. I read this book by Elizabeth Gilbert one time called Big Magic, which is a tremendous book for creative, so I would highly recommend it. But there's something that she says in there which is, be the trickster. She makes reference to an episode where someone was struggling with very bad writer's block and so decided to try and get over their writer's block by taking themselves off with a bunch of girlfriends to have a nice weekend at the batch, and she did this thing where they were having wine, they were laughing, and she would get pieces of her manuscript and read them out to her friends, and then they would bounce back ideas off her, and then she'd run off and start writing again, and then come back with more ideas. It's essentially about using different ways to sometimes unlock yourself creatively. And I found that D&D did that for me. I just play it for fun, but sometimes there's just something, like a little gem that comes out from those sessions, and it feels quite rewarding this way of getting ideas, of being creative, because I know that formally that was not how I was, as I mentioned before, I was a bit of a plotter. I'd sit there and just think my way through it, and it was less fun. Instead, this gives it a lot more fun. Of course, I still have to do the plotting part of actually writing it, but it comes more easily once I've, in a way, lived it before. Kay M. Weston (she/her): So, you mentioned writing before as well. Is The Demon of Elderstay your only published book, or do you have others? Ira Ribbon: I do, but I kept a degree of separation because I actually write middle grade animal stories for children. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Oh, wow, okay. That's lovely. Ira Ribbon: I know, under my own name. As you can imagine, I didn't want the two mixed just in case I had some child read this. No, no, we don't want that. I was recently at a Comic Con event and there was this lovely 8-year-old, and she turned up at the stand, and my covers, it's got two covers. One's a bit darker, it probably implies that it's a bit more adult, but the other one is colorful and the characters are on it. So, she was like, oh, can I read this? And I was making a gesture at the parent, I was like, no, no, no, no. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Save it for when they're older. Ira Ribbon: When they're older. I just went to her and I said, just have a read of the content warning. Kay M. Weston (she/her): So, again, fun question. If you could step into the world of The Demon of Elderstay for one day, what's the first thing you do or what character would you want to hang out with the most? Ira Ribbon: There is a place I would like to go. I've described very briefly or mentioned the Enchanted Institution and the biggest, I guess, part of the Enchanted institution is called the floating faculty, which is literally like a floating Hogwarts. I love the concept of dark academia and of magical academia. So, the Enchanted institution has this faculty called the floating faculty, so I would love to go there, and I would love to hang out in Gerome's office and play with all his magical baubles and things. Yeah, probably I'd hang out with him. I'd ask him, where is this going? Can you stop harassing me? Tell me the whole story. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That's great. Does the magical institute come into the future books any more? Ira Ribbon: It will, it will definitely feature. I think what I'm trying to do here is I will have a lot of different books set in different parts of Tellerin, which is the planet or the world in which the story takes place, and then it will be episodic in nature to introduce different characters from all different parts of this world. Then as the story rises and stakes, I'm going to pull everyone back together. So, it's a bit of a saga, a bit of a journey that I'm wanting to go on with this particular book. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That sounds great. Can you reveal at all who the protagonist of book two is? Is it still Gerome or have we switched? Ira Ribbon: It's still Gerome because I love writing him, and I love his situation with Al. He's definitely gonna be the protagonist throughout. However, I have dabbled with the idea, I've seen other writers do it, of writing short novellas at times to deepen the stories of other characters, and those would be written in a third person. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, that's a good idea. So, obviously we've talked about your book is pact with humor. What's the funniest or most unexpected piece of feedback that you've received from readers so far? Ira Ribbon: This was a big surprise to me, and I've had it now from a few readers, so I'm starting to really listen, that Gerome is a bit of an a-hole. I hadn't realized at the beginning 'cause of course I love him. I know him intimately as well, of course. I know where he's going. I know what his background is. I know everything about him. So, I think I have a very different perspective of him, but I heard it. When I listened to the audiobook, I was like, oh, I see it now. I see it now, you are a bit like that, aren't you? Because he was so self-centered. I also think the fact that he had an addiction and that, that was the focus, like his prime focus is he just wants to get paid. He just wants to get paid and just get out of here, he doesn't need any of this, and he makes it quite clear that he doesn't want any trouble, that this is it. So, I think that's quite different from many other heroes, and I think he came across as a bit jarring to a lot of people. Some people absolutely loved him. They said to me, oh, you know, I feel sorry for him. Like, what have you done, Ira? You made his life horrible, and I'll redeem myself for that. But also this feedback that yes, he wasn't the most beloved character, Polly was. Hands down, everybody loved Polly. Kay M. Weston (she/her): See, I love Gerome. I get the asshole thing, but he's like a lovable asshole. So, he has many, many redeeming qualities. Ira Ribbon: Sprinkled throughout everything else. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah. So, finally, I mean, this has gone so fast, I've had so much fun talking to you, but could you tell listeners where they can find out more about you and your work please? Ira Ribbon: Yes. I am all over the internet or I try to be. So, I have an Instagram account, I have a TikTok account, I'm on Threads. All of this is, I managed to keep the same handle pretty much for everyone, but on Instagram and Threads and TikTok, it's @iribbon.author. I also have a website which is www.iribbonauthor.com, and I am very much a fan of emails. Anyone who wants to get in touch with me can do so through there as well. I try to keep my websites up to date, and as I say, whenever I have something to say, I pack my social media. I also have a tight knit group, a street team, on Facebook. I have a much smaller Facebook presence, but I do have a street team called, I Ribbon Author Gerome's Party. So, anyone who wants to come find me there. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That's great. Just to add a very final question actually, just because you mentioned Facebook and you don't have to answer, but I feel like I must ask. With the whole Meta mess that is going on at the moment, I noticed that you discovered that your book was on the list of books that had been used to train Meta's AI. It's crazy what's going on around this, and I just wondered how you feel about it. Ira Ribbon: I can, of course. It's so topical at the moment. I will try not to use any swear words coming up in the next five minutes. Kay M. Weston (she/her): It's so hard, isn't it? Ira Ribbon: It is. I expected better, especially from a company that is so wealthy that actually had it within the realms of their capacity to actually reward people for their work instead of just taking it from a pirate site that they know to be a pirate site. But on some level, Kay, I've always suspected that eventually generative AI would get its hands and scrape the internet, so it would get its hands on either my work or the work of many other authors. To have it so black on white, this is what happened, was in a way a relief because I knew for certain that it had been scraped instead of it being a will they/won't they, will it be in such a backhanded way that I won't know? Instead, I think this gives us the opportunity to rally and to put some parameters around AI. Like, I'm not against AI in principle, I'm against AI in the creative industry. I think it has a business being in to diagnose patients. I think it has a great ability to code, to provide design in engineering, in an engineering sense to do simulations, models. I really do believe it is just among many of the tools that we will be using in the future as part of our technological advancement, but it really had no business scraping the internet for, what is it, 7.5 million books? Kay M. Weston (she/her): It's a staggering number. Ira Ribbon: A staggering number, so much so that it affected so many people that I don't think they can get away with it, because now we have authors lobbying their governments. I have already signed up to the American Author's Guild and sent a letter that has ended up in the void to Mr. Zuckerberg. I've already been contacted by the New Zealand Society of Authors to put my name down to say, yep, I have had my book stolen as well. I have even gone so far as, the American Author's Guild is now offering human certification on the book. I mean, the world we live in now that you have to say that, yes, this was written by a human. So, I am human certified. I can spot all of the traffic lights and all of the buses in the little squares. So yeah, essentially this is now what we are dealing with. So, I am very much looking forward to seeing what happens in June, 'cause my understanding is there's a court case playing out in North Carolina, which will give us a sense if we can take class action or if it will be individual action, but something will come of this, and I do think it will set some legislative and procedural parameters around the use of AI, which I can't wait for because it's simply moved so fast that governments and everybody else hasn't really had the time to catch up. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah, you hear so many things from the government saying, we're gonna put funding into AI. We want to be the leaders in AI, but I still don't think they actually know what it means and how it affects people. It's one of those things where I think, as writers, you know that piracy sites exist, you know that certain people are gonna be using them, but on this kind of scale, it's just shocking. Ira Ribbon: Yep, a hundred percent, and I feel for all the other authors who found their work on there as well. AI came to affect me quite personally through my brother. He unfortunately is a graphic artist, and he lost his job due to AI, and so I know he felt very strongly about this particular topic, hence he is my AI art detector. If I'm about to hire a graphic artist, he will look through their stuff to make sure that it hasn't been stolen. He's got some magic power. He can just see if it's AI or not. Kay M. Weston (she/her): That's very good, good skill to have. Ira Ribbon: Yes, it really is, and I'm getting a bit better at it as well. Even to recog recognizing text, I'm starting to understand what people are saying, seeing the patterns. But it's an interesting new world in which we live in, but I'm sure that the chips will fall somewhere, so we will come to some kind of clarity as to where this is all going in the future. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to end what was a lovely, upbeat, happy conversation on a very doldrum note, I'm so sorry. Ira Ribbon: It's okay, and thank you for making this such a wonderful experience and such a personalized interview. I was very, very humbled, very happy. This is my very first podcast. Kay M. Weston (she/her): You've been fantastic, and thank you again for getting up so ridiculously early to do this. I didn't actually realize that you were in New Zealand until we spoke, and then I was like, oh, no. Thank you so much and have a lovely rest of the day. Ira Ribbon: You too. Kay M. Weston (she/her): Thank you, speak soon. Ira Ribbon: Thank you, Kay, bye.
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