WRITER THINGS
How long have you been writing, and what are your preferred genres and settings?
I was seven when I wrote my first story that had an actual beginning, middle, and end. I wrote my first novel of over 60,000 words when I was 14. I can, without hesitation, say they were both absolutely awful. Luckily, I’ve grown some skills since then. It’s taken writing thirteen more fairly terrible novels (that will never see the light of day) and dozens of short stories (some of which may rise from the dead) to come to a point where I truly love the finished product and don’t hate myself for sharing it with world.
My long-time love is science fiction, though I have been getting into speculative and urban fantasy of late. I love to explore dystopian worlds, what-if scenarios, and looking at the ordinary, everyday world through different lenses.
Who or what originally inspired you to try your hand at writing?
I was a hyperlexic child – reading when I was four – and I devoured every book I could get my hands on, which probably led to a lot of my stranger core personality traits. It wasn’t until I was around ten that my parents got wise and started trying to enforce age restrictions, but by then, it was too late.
That first story when I was seven was a test to see if I could write something, to see what the magic was. I was twelve when I finally read a book that I thought was utterly horribly written, and that inspired me to Do It Better. I developed a serious opinion circuit about Good Stories With Bad Writing (blame George Lucas), and while I could have once produced an extensive list of my favorite writers – Clarke, Asimov, Anthony, McCafferey, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Vonnegut – I can’t say that my style is specifically influence by any of them individually.
(Except Terry Pratchett. He gave me permission to be silly, and that’s been invaluable, especially when writing horror.)
What lengths of stories do you prefer, i.e. short stories/flash fiction/novels? What formats do you like to release your work in, i.e. ebook, paperback, audiobook?
I’ve learned that my stories will end up exactly as long as they intend to be. “Thiside of Anywhere” is made of thirty short stories, all in the same universe, and all tangentially related – which meant that I had to approach the planning phase as though it were a novel. “Throwback” is also a story collection, but each piece is a little longer and beefier, and they can mostly stand on their own once you know the premise. When I started “Middle of Nowhere” (should be coming out next year), it was just a little short story about a picture prompt I saw. When my friend (who loudly did not like science fiction, least of all post-apocalyptic dystopias) read it, I was physically threatened into writing “the next chapter”, and then the one after that, and so on until I had 125,000 words of story.
I write for all formats, and I’m working currently on audiobook versions of “Thiside” and “Throwback.” Releasing audiobook versions is important to me to provide better accessibility. I’d also like to publish editions in dyslexic-friendly fonts like Comic Sans or OpenDyslexie, but that can be prohibitively expensive for readers who can accomplish the same access with e-readers. Still, there’s a bit of demand, so maybe some small print runs with fancy fonts?
What’s your publishing method – trad or self – and are there any companies, agencies, or platforms you really like working with? Are there any that you absolutely will not work with?
I’m mainly self-published now, for a few reasons. The first is that windows of availability I have to write are limited, and more so are those windows when I can devote time to submitting to magazines, agents, or publishing houses; I don’t have the luxury of waiting months or years to hear back from someone if they like me or not. The second is that the time it takes to get to print is often incredibly long when going out on my own is so much faster – a few months of development (after the story’s done) compared to a couple of years.
The caveat to this is that I have a pretty fantastic editing team and a family full of incredible artists, plus I have my own background in marketing and advertising, so I have the same set of skills that a publishing house would provide.
Would I work with other publishing houses? Sure, if we were all on the same wavelength. I like the way I do things right now, though.
What does your writing environment look like? Are there specific or unique features to your drafting and writing process that you feel are interesting?
I can write anywhere that I have access to a keyboard; typing with my thumbs, not so great. I am of an age where touch-typing was a requirement in junior high or high school (maybe both), so I tend to just “think with my fingers”. Sometimes I lay my head back and let the “movie” play in my head, which works great unless my fingers have drifted and I end up typing absolute gibberish for a couple of paragraphs (or pages).
Inspiration comes in lots of forms: my dreams are surprisingly narrative, and driving decent distances always sets my imagination wandering into what-if-land. What I use to map out a story depends entirely on the needs of it. I use world-building engines (I’ll talk about that in my presentation) and mind-maps sometimes, I use research and reference managers to keep me on task, and then there’s the good ol’ dot-grid notebook. (Once you go Dot, lines are forgot!)
Music is weird because I love narrative songs while my brain is building the story, so that’s all blasting at top volume while I clean. My house is never cleaner than when I have a story brewing or a paper due! For the actual act of writing, words in songs are not my friends, so I listen to a lot of lo-fi or ambient noise, mostly to drown out the background rumble of a household going about its business.
What are your thoughts on pen names?
As a femme-presenting human, pen names are almost necessary. I’ve had a few over the years, and I use different ones to write under different genres, to see if the style will fit. I think there’s a feeling that you must have a single name to build a brand over time in order to be successful, and maybe that’s true, but we also live in a world where women are compulsively required to change their names when their marital status changes, so maybe the only perfect pen name is the friends we made along the way.
MEATY THINGS
What, if any, social issues do you feel like you address the most in your work?
I think my work is mostly made of up of intense social issues, stitched together with strong narratives, deep research, and a little light cannibalism. I spend a lot of words exploring the problems of prejudice and bigotry, of injustice and autonomy, and I don’t think I would have the first idea of how to write something that wasn’t inspired by some hurt or need or want that I see in the world.
But, I also don’t want anyone to feel like I’m beating them over the head with my overdeveloped sense of righteousness, so if queer, polyam, neurospicy people aren’t really your thing, you might not want to read my books. These populations and the challenges they face are just matters of fact in my stories.
Are there any marginalized populations represented in your work, and how do you relate to those populations?
I myself am queer, polyam, and neurospicy, and the majority of my community are as well to the point where I forget quite often that we are a social minority. I know enough about neurodiversity (and all that entails) to also know that my experience is not monolithic: when you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met ONE autistic person. I am grateful to be in a community where all different types of weirdos feel comfortable being themselves around me (even though they know I might write about them).
What kind of material or social impact would you like your work to have? What would you like your literary legacy to be?
I think I’d really love my work to inspire people to create a better world, not through grandiose inventions or massive upheavals but through seemingly mundane and everyday choices. I want people to realize the power that they have to forge a good world, to build their own future, and by that, recognize the need to help and support others. The lie of individualism is busted wide open; strength is in community.
How do you think fiction that takes place in future contexts influences or describes either the present or how we collectively might turn out in the future?
I’ve heard it said that all science fiction – especially dystopian – is a comment on the present. Reading “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and “1984” by George Orwell makes that abundantly clear since both Huxley and Orwell were illustrating what they saw as the worst case scenario for where their societies were going.
When I write science fiction, I think I start with trying to figure out how society must’ve evolved – or unraveled! – to get to where the narrative begins. Okay, so here’s this generational colony ship with a very specifically balanced population: what could have been going on way back in the 21st century to lead them to establish these tenets? And by that, maybe we realize the changes we need to make now so that we can get to the stars one day.
PROMOTIONAL THINGS
What works are in your current bibliography?
Thiside of Anywhere: A Cryptid Collection, Vol. 1
Throwback
My other stories are listed on my portfolio site, and you can read my academic rantings there, too.
Which one(s) are you the most proud of?
I’m very proud of “Thiside” because I wrote the entire thing – all thirty stories – in (roughly) thirty days. The chapters are named in an ordinal fashion, in part to help me keep track of the days and also to inspire the stories as they unfolded. It’s also palindromic, in that the first story is resolved in the last story, and the second story is resolved in the twenty-ninth story, and so on.
“Throwback” is a different type of “proud of” because it was a challenge my husband put to me. He gave me this idea and said, “Do something with it,” and I ended up doing ten somethings with it.
What stories do you have coming out soon that we can look for?
I’m dusting off “Larry, Inc” for release on Campfire either later this year or early next year. It’s about the daily lives of people who may or may not decide to be superheroes.
“Lost Ground” is that generational ship story, and it should be out in the spring.
“Middle of Nowhere” is undergoing major overhauls, but I’m shooting for summer of 2025 for it to see the light of day (again). It’s a post-apocalyptic story that features a strong female lead, lots of diversity, and the aforementioned “little light cannibalism”.
Do you have any social media channels that you’re especially active on? Where can people follow you (in socially acceptable ways)?
I have an author page on Facebook, and I have a blog on tumblr that I forget exists sometimes. Also, I am building an email list, and I promise only one newsletter per whenever I feel like it but probably not very often for a while.