Bellingham author Alma Alexander reads from "Spellspam," the second in her "Worldweavers" trilogy for young people, about a girl whose magical abilities are both an asset and a source of confusion for her in unusual and sometimes threatening situations.

Question: Your Worldweavers series has much to do about the ideas of change, choice and courage, and finding one’s own talents and strengths, especially as they relate to young adults. Why do you think these ideas are necessary to consider and think deeply about as one grows and matures?

Answer: All of those ideas are central in their own way to the whole concept of "growing up." It is inevitable that in some sense they all involve a loss of innocence, and certainly some contexts in which change happens or a choice is forced or courage is necessary are more fraught than others, or come sooner than any parent might have wished their children to face them.

But I think the greatest compliment that a parent can pay a child is to enable that child to make informed decisions when the child is ready to make them; and that means establishing early on a relationship of trust and respect that extends to both sides.

I would like to think that the way Thea Winthrop finds her way through the maze of the intense high expectations heaped upon her on the one hand, and being treated like a child incapable of fulfilling them on the other, holds inspiration for both other teens to try and discover their own path, and for the parents of those teens to better understand them and their motivations.

Q: What's the importance of fantasy literature and science fiction in today's world, and how has it changed as a genre over the last few decades,?

A: Many of the things we take for granted today would be a matter of high enchantment for the inhabitants of an earlier era (try explaining the Internet to someone from the early 19th century) — and, equally, we are fascinated by the idea that we ourselves are capable of being the barbarians who stare in awe at the high-tech of some other era or species.

That sense of wonder — both looking forward in anticipation of our own and looking back and understanding that shown by our ancestors to the world we live in today — is the essence of the literature of the fantastical, and it is (in my own opinion) something without which the human race would have no soul. We, my fellow writers of fantasy and SF and myself, stand as guardians at the gates of the land of imagination and inspiration and dream. And it is a responsibility that we are all very much aware of and humbled by.

Things are always in flux and they are changing faster now than ever before. In a previous century it would take years, sometimes decades, for some new invention to change society in some fundamental way. We're down to a handful of years for that to happen, now.

We live in a world of wonders. And science fiction either writes about the predictions of even more wonders that could still be, and fantasy writes about wonders that could perhaps never have existed, and both contain valuable insight into how the world of today really works.

Q: When you conduct research for a book, say, for example, for "Spellspam," on e-mail and spam and the capabilities of computers, word processing and the Internet, do you have some "Ah ha!" moments when you discover something you can integrate into your novels?

A: Research can be both a joy and an utter frustration, often at the same time. "Spellspam" was perhaps a little less research-intensive than most of my books, simply because the research aspects of the Worldweavers books tended to gravitate more into the first book in the series (the Anasazi, and the Native American folklore) and the upcoming book (Nikola Tesla). But "Spellspam" contains both the fruits of one and the seeds of the other, so there were lots of "Ah ha" moments while I wrote a story that wove it all together. This was a book of integration, the first revelations of a greater pattern in the storyline, integrating back story and hints of what is to come.

But I do have those moments when I research books, in general. They are part of what makes the act of research for any given storyline so potentially intoxicating. There are always things hiding behind stuff you were looking up, things you were really looking for in the first place but just didn't know that until you had found them.

Q: How much of a back story is important to knowing what "Spellspam" is all about? And can you give a bit of a hint about your next book in the series?

A: Well, there is a story arc to the three books, and it is kind of important to know the whole story — I would hope that "Spellspam" would stand on its own merits, but at the same time I do encourage readers to start with "Unmage," because that way they will come in at the beginning of the story and it will undoubtedly help them to understand the whole arc better.

Going back to those three ideas — if "Unmage" (the first book) was very much about choice (Thea choosing not to use her magic), "Spellspam" is about change, and how Thea is changing to fit her new place in the world, and the price she needs to pay for that change. And "Cybermage", the third book, is the book of courage — because Thea is called upon to make a potentially devastating sacrifice.

Tesla plays a major part in the third book. When he was among us, in his heyday, he was called "The New Wizard of the West." Well, in my book, he truly is one.

And his story is both humorous and poignant, and his relationship with, and legacy to, Thea is an important part of the third Worldweavers book.

Q: The cover for "Spellspam" is quite clever, with the Web and all that it implies. I'm curious what you think of visuals as they relate to literature, both the visuals in one's mind as a reader, and what film adaptations or even book illustrations do for a story and for one’s imagination.

A: I have been extremely fortunate in my covers — and I have seen the first sketches for the next book, and it looks fabulous. It is often said that you should not "judge a book by its cover," but it is inevitable that all of us do, to some extent, and getting a cover artist who understands the vision in one's own head is a gift.

I have deliberately not described my protagonists too closely in these books, leaving room for readers to color in aspects of themselves into these characters. There aren't enough words in the universe to fully describe something so that another person will "see" it precisely through your eyes, but a few deft strokes with the word brush and an outline, a shape, will often launch the most intense flights of imagination.

Film adaptations make a book come to life in a certain way, but I wonder how many writers found themselves puzzled by the casting choices made for the movies made of their work, or unable to shake someone else’s vision, which then supersedes their own. I wonder, for instance, if J. K. Rowling ever saw Harry Potter in quite the way she had first imagined him after she had seen Daniel Radcliffe in the title role in the first movie. It can be very difficult to remember that you'd ever "seen" that character in any other way.

Movies are inevitably re-imagined for the big screen. This sometimes repels me; there are favorite books of mine which I would never go to see in the cinema, too afraid of what might have been done to them.

Sometimes I simply prefer the rich picture show unfolding inside my own imagination.