An Interview with Thomas Keene
by Molly Tarr
Eavesdropping
on the next table at the al fresco cafe, we are thrilled to hear something of
note. Apparently an interview of a prominent citizen is in progress...
How did you happen to wander into the Pan Historia neighborhood, and what is
that keeps you coming back?
“I wandered in about 5 or 6 years ago. At the time I had an interest in
writing fan fiction and found Pan Historia. Eventually I ended up at Hogwarts
and then decided I didn’t like JK Rowlings magical world and created Salem.
“Salem keeps me coming back,” he chuckled self deprecatingly, “I am my
biggest fan.”
Would you tell us a little about Thomas Keene, his family dynamic seems
pretty tabloid-worthy?
Another chuckle escaped and he shook his head, “Yeah it really is, isn’t it?
I wish I could tell you a little but I know it will be a lot.
“Thomas is the Dean of The Salem School, a school for magical children, both
‘earth witches’ (Wicca type) and natural witches, the Harry Potter/Bewitched
type. He’s also the superintendent of the east coast schools. He loves
baseball, apple pie and is a terribly picky eater.
“Thomas is the product of a very well known and incredibly powerful European
“Wizard” and a groupie. He lived with his rather detached mother, adoring
step father, younger sister, Lacey, and brother, Elliot, in an apartment in NY,
with a very overbearing and demanding father calling the shots from Europe. He
lived at home until things started bursting into flames. He was about 8 years
old, when he was diagnosed with autothermogenesis. He then was sent to the Salem
School where he spent many weepy and homesick years. As a young man in the 70s,
he did what everyone did... sex, drugs and rock & roll. A bit too heavy on
the sex which ultimately had him discovering children he never knew he had later
on down the road. His son, Jon May, is a magical FBI agent, who Thomas learned
about when Jon was a young teen entering the Salem School. His daughter, Pelagie,
who lived in France, isn’t his biggest fan since her mother felt abandoned and
used. Pelagie also was introduced to him as a young teenager. I’m sure there
are more out there, we just haven’t discovered them yet.
“He’s had an on and off relationship with his girlfriend of about 15 years,
Sidi Ross, a woman who was living with his best-friend when they hooked up.
It’s off when she finds a young guy she’d like to play with, and then on
again when she gets bored and comes back. Right now it’s off, but he’s
fallen for a non-magical Cincinnati farm girl, Tabitha Vincent, so he’s not
real interested in Sidi’s antics. He met Tabitha by accident via instant
message when the US Department of Magic’s Secretary of Magical Education
required everyone to have a computer to use email and made a profile for him.
Tabby did a profile search for ‘apple pie’ and sent a bewildered Thomas a
message.”
I noticed that Keene is in recovery for just about everything, a widower, and
a grieving father, sufferer from a dangerous chronic disorder. Put upon doesn't
seem to cover it. Is the angst level a help or hindrance in getting your story
across?
“It’s a big help, a very big help. Salem is about hardship and trying to
overcome hardship by the choices you make. Thomas’s history kind of shows it.
He took off after high school to do his own thing but his father caught him and
dragged him to Europe to learn how magical education should be done. He didn’t
want education, he wanted to be a baseball player. He met and married his wife
Mimi, who had a form of Viral Therianthropy called Lycanthropy. She turned into
a wolf at certain times of the month. Mimi passed on the virus to their
daughter, Tawny, in vitro. The baby died during her first transformation. He has
autothermogenesis, which means he’s a firestarter, but sadly sets himself on
fire internally as well as setting fire to the outside world. You see, the more
powerful you are in the Salem world, the more serious health issues you have.
Oddly, that came about because of all the people who wanted to be super-beings
applying to the novel. I, however, love it.
“Thomas is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. Because of the witches’
history of oppression , discrimination, etc. substance abuse is rampant. He’s
no exception, except his problems were more about massive self esteem issues and
feeling like a loser than poverty and repression, not to mention being a young
man in the times when recreational drug use was popular. He struggles.
“Recently Sidi induced a downward spiral, he hit the bottle, progressed to
stolen Ritalin and then graduated to meth. His issues are great tools to
progress or even suddenly end some plots and they also give me ideas for others.
Thomas is very, very well developed so there is a lot to work with. Needless to
say, the Magical community elite isn't thrilled with the posterboy for the
witches rights movement being so flawed.
“The current mad-scientist and magical elitist Gaston Clerec, most
specifically, hates his guts. It's a passion motivated by his opinion that
Thomas is only where he is because of his parentage and apparently communicated
enough that one of his Gaston's students tried to kill him in a misplaced
loyalty inspired sacrificial offering sort of way. We'll be seeing more of
Gaston's sociopathology in the future.”
What do you enjoy most about being Thomas Keene?
“What I enjoy most about Thomas is that he is a really, really nice guy. He
doesn’t even swear! Here he has this great power, yet it makes him very weak
and vulnerable. It makes him his own worst enemy. He can’t go into an airport
or hospital or places like that unless medicated, something no witch really
wants to do because their power is neutralized. One time he needed to be life-flighted
to a hospital in NY, and the life-flight pilot refused to fly the helicopter
thinking it was a risk to his life. Magical energy doesn’t mesh with that of
modern technology. Thomas has to think before doing mundane things like getting
into an elevator, or even going to a hotel or coffee-shop because of Wi-fi! That
is unless he astrally projects, which sucks, because his body is left
vulnerable, and who wants to be invisible when hanging out with friends anyway?
Its all about energy conflict issues, or ECIs; a witch’s energy can overload
or just plain burn things out. Between that and the illness... Thomas has set
the school on fire more than a couple of times.”
What do you hate?
“I guess what I hate about Thomas is how much of a real person he is to me and
how much is going on in his life that in a truly real person’s life would
happen in minutes, hours or days, but I have to post it bit by bit, taking days
and weeks and months! Honestly, sometimes even a year. Thomas has such a
detailed past and a full future of both great and not so great things to come. I
just can’t crank it out fast enough. I mean, I can’t even make a dent in it.
I hate it!"