Note: This post first appeared in my newsletter on 26 January 2022.

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The first Sunshine Walkingstick story I wrote was Greenwood Cove, which is also the series' first novel. In it, Sunny investigates some strange occurences having to do with the local waterways.

That story was a convergence of several ideas. When Sunny came to me (exactly as she appears in the books, by the way), it was the perfect opportunity to present the backwoods South realistically, meaning not as Southerners are portrayed by Hollywood.

But the story itself formed based on ideas and legends that had been fermenting in the back of my mind for a long while: folklore concerning a man-sized catfish living in a local lake; the legend of Melissa, a sorceress, a contemporary of Merlin; the proximity of this area to the Eastern Band of the Cherokee; and the characteristics of people I've met over the years. Jazz, for one, is based on a real artist, someone I went to school with, though the "real" artist didn't do the things Jazz does in the Sunny stories.

When I was a teenager, some of my favorite stories were myths and legends, so naturally, I turned to those when filling out Sunny's world, and I included Cherokee myths collected by ethnographer James Mooney (which you can read here). If you're at all familiar with Cherokee mythology, then you'll recognize Spearfinger and the Ewah, for example. And, of course, we're all familiar with Medusa and some of the other characters from Greek mythology that appear in the fifth book.

I've always felt that readers come to Sunny's stories for the monsters and cryptids, and stay because the story world is filled with such great characters.

Some of the characters, though, can be just as monstrous as, well, the monsters.

Take Belinda, the avaricious real estate agent who has been Sunny's rival since they were in high school. Belinda was one of the masterminds behind the major conflict in Greenwood Cove, and she continues to hound Sunny over Riley (and other things) throughout the series...even as she helps Sunny, albeit reluctantly, in the fifth book, Devil's Branch.

Like many of the other monsters in this story world, Belinda sits in a gray area between good and evil, neither fully one nor the other. The same with Fame, Sunny's moonshining uncle who took her in when her mother (his sister) was arrested for murdering Sunny's dad. And with Sheriff Treadwell who, despite his long-running feud with Fame, comes to terms with Sunny's place in his son's life.

I think that's what makes those characters so interesting. They feel like real people, like you and me and the people we know. And that's the kind of characters (and monsters) I enjoy writing most.