Elves, while I’ve read more than enough fantasy as to encounter hundreds, there’s a reason this is a Silm blog, so my top 5 elves?

1. Finrod Felagund – actual noble king, loves humans and other mortals with every fiber of his immortal body and respects them, wishes to learn from them as much as share his own vast knowledge and prosperity, has a great death, his major flaw is treating people with more faith than they deserve.
2. Ingwë Ingweron. So okay my head-canons count for a lot of this, but begin with this: the head elf of a species of incredible bad-ass assholes and leading his people to successfully defeat a big bad and to have almost un-interrupted lives of peace and prosperity and having never in the history of the world committed atrocities and terrible acts towards peaceful fellow sentient beings. That so little is known about him precisely because he didn’t leave the world worse off in some way, only ever better. If one is to have an archetypal Good Elf King, he is it.
3. Lúthien Tinúviel. cheating on the elf here, add her to the other list. Action heroine without being one that does traditional fighting. Who uses singing and dancing and willpower and guile while staying a good person. Who is so very feminine coded but also undisputed the most powerful and successful hero in this book about epic heroes. Who loves this traumatized scruffy interloper, demands to be with him, argues with him when he tries to patronize, stands ups up to her powerful royal parents but is able to have some reconciliation and then still be independent of them. 
4. Elu Thingol- you’re an ass but also a good king -or at least trying to be, who tries to protect his people and tries to protect their culture from being erased or subsumed, who has many flaws but for the most part is also self-aware of things like his temper and tries to make amends. (That is a rare and attractive trait). That he works as hero in some parts of the book (romantic one at that) and also the minor antagonist, and has a very Greek tragedy ending. He feels exactly like a main character of myth and epic while also being the ‘elven king’ on which all others are based. And fun to write.
5. Círdan and Olwë tied for the novelty of sea/ship elf. Which you don’t see mariner elves in fantasy as much as you do in Tolkien, shame. Olwë for dropping truth bombs and being like Ingwë, Círdan for friend and ally award of every age and being the weary seen it all will be here to the end.

Okay, for five favorite female characters (and I won’t call this a top five list because like any time I’m asked to definitively rank I can’t) from fantasies I re-read or thought about recently:

1. Already mentioned Lúthien, so putting Andreth here instead
2. Catelyn Stark
3. Sabriel
4. Shallan
5. Granny Weatherwax

• 3: what motivates you?

SPITE. 

Okay, that’s a gross exaggeration and not entirely accurate for every story I’ve written. But to out-pour all my love for Indis, Elu and the Sindar, write about the Valar, Bëorians up in Dorthonion, wax eloquently and profusely on the Swanships, that the Bór will dump the Fëanorians just like Huan and all dogs did – that writerly effort is loving in defiance of not just fans and fandom wank, but for instance my anger at how the Game of Thrones TV ruined the only characters/plot that held my interest in ASoIaF is why I wrote as much as I did for Release from Bondage. On nicer notes, I’m also inspired by songs and footnotes and of course the ‘how can I make this fusion work?’

• 33: favorite one-shot you’ve written?

I hold a large litter of puppies in my arms, as the fluffy little things squirm in my grip, you ask me to pick just one. I stare at you.

Uh, maybe Grief is an Undertow.  Ilsë’s list of the unjustly slain is my id candy and the fundamental anger of the Teleri is me as this tower of salt.