{"id":514,"date":"2018-02-26T08:07:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T08:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/?p=514"},"modified":"2018-02-24T23:32:29","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T23:32:29","slug":"guest-post-who-goes-to-magic-school-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/2018\/02\/26\/guest-post-who-goes-to-magic-school-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Who Goes to Magic School, Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Guest Post is by author Christine Norris, who is both a writer and a school librarian. It is very likely that she is the librarian at a magical school. She has that look about her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hi! *waves to all the people*<\/span><\/p>\n

Jagi asked me to write a guest post for the Magic School blog because I\u2019ve written a couple of books about well, a magic school. I\u2019ve known for about a month and I\u2019m sitting here writing it on the weekend before it\u2019s due. Such a student thing to do, a writer thing to do, I guess. But anyway, when she asked I had no idea what I would write about that wouldn\u2019t be completely boring and overdone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then I got to thinking about all the books I\u2019ve written. There have been a few, nearly a dozen. They\u2019re all fantasy and have magic of some kind or another, and that got me thinking some more about the characters I\u2019ve written and how they come to be practitioners of magic. And then I decided that\u2019s what I would write about. I do hope it\u2019s not boring and overdone.<\/span><\/p>\n

In my two Wizard Academies<\/em> stories (which started out as a shared universe project that never really went anywhere, so I published them myself, just to have available to people), Kingsbridge Academy<\/a> is very much like Hogwarts. Students are selected because they have the predisposition to be wizards, have displayed magical abilities. Penny Miller, the main character, comes from a long line of wizards who attended the school (as her mother always reminds her), but her best friend Lucy, is Mundae (Muggle) born.\u00a0 Just like those students in Harry Potter, it seems to be something in the DNA that allows them to have their special abilities.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s that way in many stories about magic school — certainly The Magicians <\/em> is another variation on that theme.<\/span><\/p>\n

But is it the only way to learn magic, to be born to it? In my other series, The Library of Athena<\/a>,<\/em> the main character, Megan, begins as a regular teenager, never having been touched by magic. Circumstances and a lot of running later, she becomes The Librarian, the sole protector of a huge cache of rare and potentially world-destroying items. The person who built the library became a wizard later in life, and so Megan decides to learn magic as well. It includes learning a lot of Latin, some wand waving, and intention to change something. Completely different than HP and\/or most magic school stories. (In my first book, Talisman of Zandria<\/em><\/a>, there is a wizard, and a boy who is his apprentice, but the idea of being predisposed to magical ability never seems to come up. Hmmm…)<\/span><\/p>\n

As much as I love Harry Potter and magic school stories (if you saw my new tattoo you\u2019d know just how much I love them. Universal Studios this August, here we come!!!), I rather like the idea that magic could be accessible to anyone who desires it, that it\u2019s an ability anyone can learn. I suppose it\u2019s like the idea of talent; is it innate or the result of dedication to practice?<\/span><\/p>\n

Which do you like more, the idea of being born to magic, or being able to learn?<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

See Once Upon a Sorcerer<\/em><\/a> on Amazon<\/p>\n

Find out more about Christine Norris at her blog<\/a>
\nTwitter and Instagram: @cnorrisauthor<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Guest Post is by author Christine Norris, who is both a writer and a school librarian. It is very likely that she is the librarian at a magical school. She has that look about her.\u00a0 Hi! *waves to all the people* Jagi asked me to write a guest post for the Magic School blog because I\u2019ve written a couple of books about well, a magic school. I\u2019ve known for about a month and I\u2019m sitting here writing it on the weekend before it\u2019s due. Such a student thing to do, a writer thing to do, I guess. But anyway, when she asked I had no idea what I would write about that wouldn\u2019t be completely boring and overdone. Then I got to thinking about all the books I\u2019ve written. There have been a few, nearly a dozen. They\u2019re all fantasy and have magic of some kind or another, and that got me thinking some more about the characters I\u2019ve written and how they come to be practitioners of magic. And then I decided that\u2019s what I would write about. I do hope it\u2019s not boring and overdone. In my two Wizard Academies stories (which started out as a shared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75,74,76,73],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-post","tag-christine-norris","tag-kingbridge-academy","tag-library-of-athena","tag-once-upon-a-sorcerer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":526,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.superversivesf.com\/fantasticschools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}