This week I have the privilege of speaking with Victoria Belue about her journey as an author. She is the author of the Tarot Legacies series and has been reading tarot cards and interpreting dreams for thirty years. Before embarking on her writing journey, she was an award-winning writer and producer for network television while moonlighting as a tarot card reader. Switching channels to writing urban fantasy novels about the tarot was a natural progression for her. Victoria integrates the world of the physical with the realm of the metaphysical not only in her stories but in her practice of card reading and dream interpretation. All with the intent for her and her clients, friends and family to live at their highest potential. Her series The Tarot Legacies was inspired by getting acquainted with the Waite-Smith tarot deck over a span of twenty years. She came to know the major arcana and royalty cards as friends and allies. They began to speak to her about the books they wanted her to write. Some secrets aren’t meant to be revealed, but lie in plain sight. It is her pleasure and privilege to tell their stories.
SS: So, Victoria, what did you want to grow up to be as a child? Has that child’s desire appeared in your work?
VB: The first, and only profession, I ever wanted was to be a writer. I realized that in middle school when I joined the newspaper staff and wrote fictional stories. In college, I was the film critic for my campus newspaper. In addition to being a writer, I also knew that there was a part of me which existed in a metaphysical realm. It doesn’t translate well in words, but I’ve always understood that more than our conscious awareness was in play in life. That has been proven to me countless times since then.
SS: Do you have a day job? If so, is it a distraction, or does it add another element to your writing?
VB: I read tarot cards and interpret dreams as my day job. Becoming familiar with tarot lead me to write my series, The Tarot Legacies, where the members of the major arcana are actually living among today.
SS: Did anything in your past push you to write about your book and the conflict(s) in it?
VB: A voodoo priestess and a psychic medium both told me at separate times decades ago, and unasked by me, that I was meant to either be a psychic or work with psychic energy. I transferred my struggle to become authentic about my true self into my main character, Vesta, and her quest. Standing with one foot in each ‘world’ is always a balancing act for both of us.
SS: When I read other authors’ biographies, mine seems dull by comparison. How do you feel about your life story? Have you ever been tempted to jazz yours up?
VB: No, in fact, I usually don’t mention about half of my life story because people either don’t believe it or are startled by it.
SS: What are you working on at the moment?
VB: I’m working on my fifth book in The Tarot Legacies. It grapples with the concept of striving for immortality—those who have it, but perhaps don’t want it anymore or treat it recklessly versus those who will do anything to achieve it. It will be the darkest in the series so far, but I feel it is the natural arc for a couple of my characters to explore, and a theme that needs to be explored given the subject matter.
SS: Who do you consider to be your biggest and best mentor and/or inspiration?
VB: I love the stories Anne Rice tells. Eloquent, piercing and a genre I enjoy. And Stephen King can write better, tell a story better than anyone else, in my opinion. I’m not a horror fan, but I will read his books. Also I deeply respect the work of Salmon Rushdie.
SS: If you were deserted on an island, which three people would you want with you? Why? One fictional character from your book, one fictional character from any other book, one famous person that is not a family member or friend.
VB: The fictional character from my series, The Tarot Legacies, I would most enjoy on a deserted island would be Liam Spencer. Why? Because he’s endlessly entertaining. And being the Fool of the tarot, he is a risk taker who is always in search of a fun time. A fictional character from a book not my own who I would take with me to the island would be Lestat from Anne Rice’s vampire series. Why? Because he too would be entertaining, even when he became moody and petulant. He and Liam share some of the same qualities and together they would have bouts of loving each other then, hating each other. And the famous person would, of course, be Leonardo da Vinci. I would never be bored, and he would probably invent a flying machine from resources on the island to rescue us.
SS: I agree about da Vinci. He’s one of my favorite humans. What is a fun or strange source of inspiration that ended up in your book (a name, location, line of dialogue, etc.)?
VB: The labyrinth of Chartres Cathedral in France is a main source of inspiration for me and my books. I saw an article in National Geographic about the medieval cathedral when I was barely a teenager. I felt a resonance with it; a feeling that I’ve not experienced with any other place. I’ve visited the cathedral and walked the labyrinth many times. It is magical, healing, and inspiring.
SS: Do you ever incorporate something that happened to you in real life into your novels?
VB: Yes. And because the incidents are so bizarre, most readers would never imagine that those things really did happen to me.
SS: Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
VB: Of course!
SS: Do you think that self-revelation is part of the writing process?
VB: Absolutely. I believe that’s how great novels are born.
SS: How do you create and construct distinctly individual supporting characters?
VB: Many of my characters are inspired by the major arcana of the tarot; the archetypes. The rest come from the stories I feel compelled to tell. The characters walk into my mind’s eye and introduce themselves. We then begin a dialogue where I get to know more about them.
SS: Are you looking to entertain or illuminate?
VB: Both.
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The Tarot Legacies (4 Book Series) is available through Amazon.
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You can follow Victoria on social media here:
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