Author Interview: Todd Calgi Gallicano’s Mythical Creatures World
When you get the chance to interview a blossoming star, you jump on it.
That’s what we did with Todd Calgi Gallicano, author of the wildly successful Sam London Adventure series.
His first two books in the series, Guardians of the Gryphon’s Claw and The Selkie of San Francisco, were a big hit for fans of mythical creatures and adventure novels.
Gallicano brilliantly uses the U.S. Department of Mythical Wildlife as a vehicle to tell his plot twisting story. He defines the organization in this way, “The U.S. Department of Mythical Wildlife (DMW) protects and monitors mythical creatures who secretly reside within our nation’s national parks. The agency works with America’s park rangers to prevent interaction between these creatures and humankind.”
The following is our interview with author Todd Calgi Gallicano.
Walk us through how your passion for mythical creatures formed and evolved.
I always had an interest in the unknown. I loved these kinds of stories as a kid and it stuck with me into my adult years. Nowadays, I’m fascinated by how these creatures cross over to so many cultures and continents.
For example, variations of bigfoots are seen in folklore from multiple countries and regions in the world (yeti, yowie, grey man, almasty, etc). and the same could be said of countless other creatures. They come from our collective dreams and nightmares and are a reminder of our shared human experience.
What is your favorite mythical creature and why?
I can’t say or the others will get jealous. Truth is, it’s always changing. I’ll come across a new creature in my research and it’ll become a temporary favorite. Hint: the current fave is in book two of the Sam London adventure series and rides on rainbows.
Many of your characters are richly developed. Why is this a focus of yours?
A world is only as interesting as the characters who populate it. I want my characters to be relatable, to connect with readers in different ways. It makes the stakes that much higher for the reader. I also think the more we see ourselves in a story’s characters, the more invested we are in following their journey.
There’s a lot of me in Sam London – he struggles with finding his “one special thing” and I experienced something similar when I was his age. Some kids are great at math, science, sports…It seemed like I wasn’t good at anything. I think that’s something many kids deal with…Finding where they fit in, especially as they transition to middle school. But sometimes it takes a different perspective to put things in greater perspective – something Sam learns on the course of his adventure.
You do a great job of visiting your audience at school visits. What questions do you get most often from kids or adults, and how do you answer them?
Kids always surprise me with their questions, but the one I get most often is: is the Department of Mythical Wildlife a real government agency. And of course, that information is classified. Although you can write to the DMW and ask them directly at their address in Washington, D.C.
How did you get started as a professional author?
I started out as a screenwriter and I initially thought this idea would be the basis for my next screenplay, but quickly realized the scope of this story was far too big to be executed within the confined medium of a script. This idea felt more like a book. Problem was, I had never written a book before…But there’s a first time for everything, right? I knew the key to completing the novel would come before the first words were ever typed on a page, i.e. preparation. If I prepared enough and had my plot ducks in a proverbial row, then my focus could be on exploring the characters and amplifying the adventure.
Being this would be my first novel, I decided to try a different process than how I wrote screenplays, which is on a laptop. My wife bought me an antique typewriter for Christmas – one similar to the kind Ernest Hemingway used – and I began typing the manuscript, old-school style. Once I completed a chapter, I’d edit the pages then input them into the computer with the changes. Then print it out from the laptop and make more edits…wash, rinse, repeat.
What does a typical week look like as an author in the middle of book writing season?
It varies. I’m often spinning several plates at once, so that means I’ll jump from one project to another in the course of the day, whether it’s writing, outlining, or researching – and this goes for screenplays and novels. I’m often working on a few of both at any given time. When it comes to typing out a first draft of a Sam London adventure, I type earlier in the day – as it’d be too noisy to do after my daughter goes to bed.
What are some surprising moments that have come out of your journey as an author?
I think it’s experiencing the fans of the series. The ones who draw me pictures or make Halloween costumes based on the characters. That’s so much fun for me to see – to experience how others view and recreate the world of the books.
What inspired you to write this particular series?
It was the time I met a mythical creature in Redwood National Park…in a dream I had. Like the character of Sam London, my journey began with a dream about a gryphon. Like many of my ideas, I catch a hint of them in a dream and wake up to desperately scribble down whatever wisps of it I can recall. A feeling, a concept, an image…Trying to record it before it vanishes from my mind.
My inspiration for this type of storytelling comes from my favorite books and movies as a kid. I was a huge fan of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and the “Race Against Time” series and I love adventure movies like Cloak & Dagger, The Goonies, Indiana Jones, The Last Starfighter, Legend of the Lone Ranger, and so many others.
What’s the biggest tip you’d pass along to aspiring authors?
Someone told me a long time ago, “Writers write.” This seems like rudimentary advice, but it’s so critical to anyone who aspires to be a writer. Get your ideas on paper! The more you put on the page, the more room you’ll have in the ol’ noggin to think about ways to expand on those ideas or make them better. Write terribly and be okay with it. Editing in your head can be a block to your progress. No one needs to ever see those early drafts, but writing it down allows you to see what works and what doesn’t.
Where can people go to learn more about your books and your world?
They can visit the world of the books at mythicalwildlife.com. We have video trailers for the books, an area for fans to access special files related to the world, information about mythical creatures, as well as content for parents and teachers, including free lesson plans on our website.