Who is Peter Borley?

When Indira P. of Brazil (our Supporter of the Moment January 2010) started metempsyche and so many amazing readers joined so quicky to support Green, The Metempsyche novels, and my writing, I decided that I really needed to give something back.

The first offering I have is Peter Borley.

Peter is one of my very favorite characters to inhabit the Metempsyche universe, and he was my natural choice to star in the first Metempsyche companion short story. Because a release of Green itself is still TBA, I wanted to be able to give something (always spoiler-free!) back to the community members, readers, and well-wishers to whom I feel so indebted. I'm hoping to release a short story starring one of the secondary or tertiary characters from the Metempsyche world every 6-8 weeks for as long as I'm able, and Peter Borley the neighborhood poltergeist is just the first!

So why Peter?

Peter is a character who snuck up on me while writing Green and made sure I paid him attention. He's quirky and wry, and he was a blast (not of electromagnetic energy) to get to map out and explore more fully. He has a very interesting perspective to write -- Tribocharge is one of the most research-heavy pieces I've ever written, considering I haven't studied physics since I was sixteen. (Hopefully, he's also pretty fun to read! Focus Group readers of Green seemed to pretty unanimously clamor that he's "swoony.")

Being a variation on poltergeist mythology, Peter is a creature borne of yearning, but not the sort that is so prevalent in YA lit (and Green itself, to be fair). Peter can never touch another living creature, and the ways that limitation shapes his view of relationships was a really fun writing exploration. And trying to put myself into the mind of a kindergartener was pretty fun, too!

Peter's narrative in Tribocharge takes place before Green, so if you want to know where he is two years later or find out more about the universe in which he lives, then click to read some more about Green!