Just Your Average Cosmic Struggle with Humanity at Stake
A QUETZAL’S LABYRINTH Talk with Karla Valenti
So…. I don’t wanna brag… but I wanna brag. I’ve got this really killer writing group. It’s here in the Chicago area and it contains some stellar members. One of them may have missed her calling as an editor, actually. You know the kind of person I mean. The sort who has such a firm, concise method of giving notes that I’m just kind of in awe of her. I am speaking, naturally, about today’s guest, Karla Valenti. It isn’t just that Karla’s a Pura Belpré Award-winning author. It isn’t just that nobody writes fantasy the way that she does. A lot of it is, instead, the simple fact that whenever there’s a new Valenti novel on the horizon, it is an EVENT. Today, we celebrate one such event. Quetzal’s Labyrinth comes out September 1st and is a marvelous mash-up of Aztec gods and the occasional sassy rubber chicken. Or, put another way:
“From the Pura Belpré Award–winning author of Lola comes an action-packed middle grade fantasy where Aztec mythology crashes into everyday life. When twelve-year old Diego discovers ancient gods are real, he must journey into a deadly labyrinth to stop a vengeful power before it destroys the world.
Diego never believed his abuelo’s stories of gods and monsters and the ancient magic woven through Mexican history. Not until he finds himself sprinting down a dark hallway, chased by a beast straight out of lore—its fur as coarse as iron and five human hands clawing furiously at his throat.
Turns out, the myths are real, and their magic is erupting into Diego’s world. As shadowy creatures besiege his apartment, abuelo’s dog Cholo fixes Diego with a human gaze and speaks. Cholo reveals they’ve been unwittingly ensnared in a centuries-old rivalry between the great God Quetzal and his ruthless brother Tezca. Tezca is rising, summoning an army of minions, while Quetzal, the only one strong enough to stop him, has vanished.
The stakes are legendary, but maybe, deep down, Diego is too.”
Today, Karla joins us to give us the inside scoop on all things Quetzal.
Betsy Bird: Karla! Thank so much for answering my questions today! I don’t want to brag, but I had the chance to read a very very early draft of QUETZAL’S LABYRINTH a while ago, so you can imagine how friggin’ thrilled I am to see it in its final form! But before we get into any of that, let’s back up a bit. Tell us about the origins of the book. Where did you get the idea to go all in on the Aztec gods with this story?
Karla Valenti: The book actually started as a story about two human brothers who stumble on a hidden maze in their grandfather’s building—a maze that leads to a secret world coveted by an evil billionaire. The billionaire pits the brothers against each other with ugly consequences for the brothers. While I was drafting that version, I was also deep in research for my Legendarios chapter book series. At the time I was specifically exploring the Aztec origin myth, featuring two cosmic brothers who fight each other with devastating consequences for humanity. The overlap was hard to miss and suddenly my story pivoted to focus on two brothers locked in a cosmic struggle with humanity at stake… except now the brothers weren’t human but gods. Once I made that connection, the rest felt inevitable and the story opened up into full Aztec mythology, a rich storytelling terrain to pull from!
Read on here to hear a most insightful encapsulation of why Greek myths are better known than Aztec ones in the States (the Spanish play a part) and much more.