Exclusive Interview between Alex and author Jenn Alexander

Jenn Alexander is an author born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, she lived in Texas for three years while completing her M.S. in Counseling, and is currently living back in Edmonton, where she works as a play therapist. She is a graduate of the 2018 class of the Golden Crown Literary Society's Writing Academy, for which she was the year's recipient of the Sandra Moran scholarship. When she’s not writing, she spends her time playing drums, traveling, and spending time with her family. She lives with her daughter, Addison, her girlfriend, Sandra, and their two troublemaker pets.

Jenn is the author of three, soon to be four novels and a number of short stories.
writes mainly (though not exclusively) slice-of-life dramatic romances about compulsively readable, beautifully flawed people.

Her debut novel, 2019's The Song of the Sea from Bywater Books, is the story of a broken-hearted woman mourning the loss of her infant son, and the new family that may be the key to healing that trauma she finds on the East Coast of Canada, if she can allow herself to love again. The book was the 2020 Independent Publisher's Awards (IPPY): Canada East Regional Fiction, Gold Medal winner.

Jenn has also published the Texas-set Home in 2020, last year's Vancouver set rock romance Live It Out, and the forthcoming Bloodline which blends late night coffee shops with vampires, and publishes on April 9th.

Words Worth: Given that we're a bookstore, I like to start my interviews (admittedly you're only my second) with you as a reader rather than a writer. Can you give us some insight as to what you've been reading lately and/or what are some of your favourite books of all time?

Jenn Alexander: I've been reading a wide variety of books lately. I recently finished Only The Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, which was a dark and gritty horror novel that has left me thinking about it ever since. I also recently finished Quiver by Rachel Spangler, which was a wonderful, emotion-rich sports romance. My favourite book of all time is The Giver by Lois Lowry.

WW: It goes without saying that all authors put parts of themselves into their writing, but I noticed that you went to school for three years in Texas, and used that as the setting for your sophomore novel, Home. You were trained, and presently work as a play therapist, similar to Faith, one of your two leads in Live It Out, who's a counselor in a women's shelter. All that is to say that I'm curious: how much do you feel your life experiences impact the stories you tell?

JA: My life experiences are usually the jumping off point for my writing. I start with something I'm interested in and go from there. When I started planning Live It Out, I was playing drums in an all-queer band (granted we mostly played in my basement, rather than to sold out crowds) and I wanted to put that love of music into a book. I thought an all-queer band could be a fun backdrop for a series of romance novels.

WW: Speaking of Live It Out, in that book there was something of a fun little sort-of cameo in that Lisa Whelan, one of the protagonists of your debut novel The Song of the Sea, was name dropped. Do you think of this as hinting at an interconnected story universe (the JLU, perhaps) or was it just a fun nod to those of us trying to read all your work?

JA: It was mostly just a fun nod to anyone who has read all my work, and a chance to share a little of what Lisa might have been up to since The Song of the Sea. I saw the opportunity to connect the stories and went for it. If more opportunities come up to link books in the future, the interconnected universe could certainly grow.

WW: As a writer myself, I'm always curious about authors' creation process, so how would you classify yours? Do you think of yourself as a planner? A pantser? Some hybrid of the two? And what's your favourite part of the writing process?

JA: I'm a pantser all the way. Once I have a messy, meandering, plot-hole ridden draft, I make a plan for edits so I can try to get the book to resemble a book. It is a completely inefficient writing process because I usually have to do the bulk of the story writing during the second draft. I only keep about 10% of my first drafts.

My favourite part of the writing process is the editing process (usually around the third draft) when I can see the book take shape and it starts to look more like what I have envisioned.

WW: One of the things that has struck me in all your work has been how human your characters are. Beautiful and flawed and so relatable, even if the reader's lives may differ from your character's individual experiences. Most of us may not be Juno-nominated rock stars like Spencer Adams, but I'd be willing to bet many people can relate to Spencer's pain and wariness about revisiting a past love. What makes you fall in love with the characters you write?

JA: First of all, thank you! I hope that my characters read as real and relatable.

I'm a pantser, but once I sit down to write a draft, I have usually been daydreaming my story for so long that I have a good sense of the characters. They feel real to me by the time I start putting words to the page, and then they become more real with each draft. The characters usually guide my stories. I almost always know the internal conflict. External conflict and plot are where I struggle.

When I sat down to write Spencer, I had been listening to Brene Brown's TED Talks and had read a few of her books. I spent a lot of time asking myself what Spencer's shame story was and what her core beliefs about herself were, and I let that guide the conflict.

WW: Most of your published work so far has fit firmly into the 'real world'. Social workers, artists, restaurateurs and the like. The two exceptions to that that I'm aware of are 'Tilly's Tarts', your contribution to Bywater's recent Soul Food Stories anthology, and your upcoming novel, Bloodline. Is there anything you notice about the act of writing stories with more fantastical elements that differs significantly to your more slice-of-life stories?

JA: Slice-of-life is easy for me to write. People and emotions make sense to me. Like I mentioned, external conflict and plot are where I struggle, so navigating more fantastical elements is a challenge for me. Specifically, when bringing fantastical or supernatural elements into a real-world situation, I find it hard to introduce those elements in a way that feels plausible. If I ran into a demon, I'd probably seek psychiatric help before I made any supernatural deals with her. I'm not sure what kind of proof could convince me that something supernatural exists. I'm probably too much of a skeptic. But big claims require big proof, and I find that difficult to write in a way that plausibly invites readers to suspend their disbelief for the story.

WW: Speaking of Bloodline, I had the opportunity to speak with Anna Burke last summer who talked about bringing to life her latest, In the Roses of Pieria. She told me how it started life as a vampire novella writing project between you, her, and fellow Bywater author Samara Breger. The way Anna tells the story, as she was writing Roses she was unable to pare down the writing to novella length, and so she talked to you and Samara and said you both had to make your stories into full novels as well. What's your perspective on this whole thing...were you gently strong-armed into writing a vampire novel? Hehe

JA: Haha, yes, the book is all Anna's fault.

I had actually written the first draft as a submission for the International 3-Day Novel Contest, which is a Canadian-run writing contest that challenges people to write a "novel" (they're usually novella-length) over the course of the labour day long weekend. Entries get submitted and a winner is selected for publication. It is an amazingly fun writing contest that I have participated in probably about ten times now.

Through that, I ended up with a vampire novella and no idea what to do with one. I got in touch with Anna Burke and Samara Breger, with the plan for us to bundle three vampire novellas together. Then, Anna's story exploded... It was a challenge to start thinking of my little story as a full-length novel, but now I can't imagine it being complete otherwise.

Bloodline was a story, however, that began as something I was writing entirely because I enjoyed it, and I hope that the fun I had writing this book comes across to readers.

WW: In an act of pure Canadian-ness, you dedicated your contribution to Soul Food Stories to butter tarts. In it, the main character Tilly sold her soul to be able to make the best butter tarts in the country, so I have to know, who has the best butter tarts in Canada in your opinion? Or, alternatively, do you have a soul-worthy butter tart recipe of your own? Final butter tart addendum: Plain, pecan or raisin?

JA: I have to admit something blasphemous. I don't actually like butter tarts all that much. If I were to find plain or pecan butter tarts, then I'm sure they'd be delicious, but usually my utter hatred for raisins turns me off of them. I almost only ever see butter tarts with raisins in them. Nanaimo bars are the way to go in terms of Canadian sweets, but Tilly's Nanaimo Bars didn't have the same ring to it.

---

If Jenn ever finds herself out here in Waterloo, the non-raisin butter tarts from Sweet & Savoury are definitely on us! In the meantime, I would like to extend a huge thank you to her for donating her time to this interview! Online, you can find Jenn at https://jennalexander.ca/ or on Instagram, and remember to pre-order Bloodline! (Psst, she is running a Bloodline Pre-Order Giveaway! Check out her website for details, only good while supplies last and prior to publication April 9, 2024!)

Exclusive Interview between Sarah and author Kerry Clare

Photo Credit: Stuart Lawler

KERRY CLARE is the author three novels: Asking for a Friend (out now from Doubleday Canada), Waiting for a Star to Fall and Mitzi Bytes, and editor of The M Word: Conversations About Motherhood.

A National Magazine Award-nominated essayist, and editor of Canadian books website 49thShelf.com, she writes about books and reading at her long time blog, Pickle Me This. She lives in Toronto with her family.

Words Worth: Hi Kerry Clare! I'm so happy to be chatting with you!

Since I work in a bookstore, I'll start by asking what you're reading right now and what's coming out soon that you're excited about?

Kerry Clare: I'm just finishing Charlene Carr's second novel, We Rip The World Apart, to be followed by Waubgeshig Rice's Moon Of The Turning Leaves (which I'm late to, but I gave it to my husband for Christmas, and so had to wait for him to receive the gift and read it before I could steal it), and next up after that is As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow, by Zoulfa Katouh, which I gave to my teen daughter for Christmas and which she initially picked up begrudgingly ("It looks SAD!!") and then was absolutely swept away by (points for Mom!).

This spring I am excited to read Ariel Gordon's new book on mushrooms, Fungal (coming from Hamilton’s Wolsak & Wynn), and Adrienne Gruber's Monsters, Martyrs, and Marionettes.  Kate Hilton and Liz Renzetti's cozy mystery Bury The Lead is a lot of fun, and Emily Austin's new novel Interesting Facts About Space is MAGNIFICENT!

WW: Kerry, I've been reading and loving your writing for so many years now, as you know.

I have made an executive decision that your newest book, ASKING FOR A FRIEND is the absolute perfect book for Valentine's Day because of its depiction of deep, female friendship. I know you will obviously agree. Let's talk about why and how did you write such a wonderful book about the often overlooked relationship?

Kerry: I love this decision! Thank you, Sarah! I wrote a love story about female friendships because my own friendships have been some of the great love stories of my life, defining and enduring. And they've not been easy—though it feels like they are more so now as we settle into middle age. But staying in touch with each other as we were becoming ourselves (and not always our best selves) was hard work, and I wanted to write about that challenging process, which many readers have identified with, the complexity, fiction and strife. Although I was surprised by others who didn't get it, and labelled the relationship between Jess and Clara "toxic" and decided that they would have been advised to break up at the end of Chapter One if the novel were a romance. I was not expecting that! And that's interesting too because while there is not a cultural script for navigating long friendships (as there is for, just say, marriage) there is also something less disposable about friendships as opposed to romantic relationships. It's unusual to break up with a friend. Which is where the crux of the book comes in—how do you know if an old friendship is worth holding on to? That's something we have to figure out on our own, and it's a tough question sometimes. But I am glad that Jess and Clara persisted.

WW: What are some other books about female friendships that you love? (for instance, help me make a display!)

Kerry: Wahala, by Nikki May; Big Friendship by Aminata Sow and Ann Friedman; The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; Summer Sisters by Judy Blume; The Last Goldfish by Anita Lehey; In The Shade by Marg Heidebrecht; Who We Are Now by Lauryn Chamberlain; Old Books, Rare Friends by Madeline B. Stern and Leona Rostenberg; A Memoir of Friendship by Carol Shields and Blanche Howard; Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart; And Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Gabrille Zevin, which might not be female friendship, but it shows that friendship between men and women can be beautiful love stories too.

WW:  You write a lot about swimming and tea and plants in your book, why is that? And I love it by the way!

Kerry: Whenever I write a novel, I always end up using whatever I have around the house, and swimming and tea are pretty ubiquitous in my day-to-day life, so they couldn't help to creep into my narrative. Tea was never actually important to me during the years I spent contemporaneously with Jess and Clara in university, and wasn't a staple in my life until I lived in England a few years later. But during my years there, I really bought into the idea of "putting the kettle on" being a monumental occasion, a kind of sacred ritual, and I think it becomes that way between Clara and Jess for sure.

I didn't set out to write a swimming book, but the swimming scenes found their way into the story as a wonderful way for the characters to be intimate and vulnerable with each other, for the barriers between them to crumble down.

And the plants are a big deal in Clara's story. There is something very luscious and fecund about Clara (even though she struggles to get pregnant and have children) and I think all the growing things in her realm are pointing to that. I am still very much in love with her residence room, which I vividly remember filling with her ‘stuff’ when I wrote the book's opening scene almost a decade ago now. Like Jess, Clara is very much the kind of person that I've always wanted to be like.

WW: In your story, there is a strong sense of home throughout the women's lives? Was this intentional? 

Kerry: It was, as much as one intends anything in fiction! Quickly the themes emerged and it was clear that both women had found a sense of home in each other—and there would be a sense of exile whenever they were estranged or apart.

WW: This isn't a spoiler. The friendship between Clara and Jess—which is written about so beautifully, I get goosebumps thinking of it—begins with a hard situation for Jess, she's looking to have an abortion. Why was it important for you to start their story here?

Kerry: I love the idea of an abortion as the beginning of a story, which we don't see very often in narrative—usually it's a painful decision that comes at the end. But in real life, abortion is just a single plot point in a story that is (hopefully) rich and long. I had an abortion when I was 23 and it really was the gateway to my real adult life, a life of consequence. This also shows us just what the stakes are, how much human potential can be snuffed out, when abortion access is restricted.

WW: Can you tell us about your writing process?

Kerry: Asking For A Friend is actually my second novel, although it's the third one I've published. I started writing it once I'd signed the deal to publish my first novel Mitzi Bytes, and wrote it in between edits for that book, and then the writing/editing of Waiting For A Star To Fall. I have learned SO MUCH about writing novels since I started building Clara's room on the page all those years ago. The novel really came to life when I started to dig deeper and realize who my characters were and really start mapping their complicated emotional terrain. All my novels, I've written little by little, 500 or 1000 words a day. One step at a time is the only way I know how to get anywhere!

WW: What are you working on now? What's exciting in your world?

Kerry: I just finished work on a book I've been writing here and there since 2021. It's called ONE HAND IN MY POCKET, a modern day twist on a Barbara Pym novel, about a woman who blows up her marriage and decides to build a new life from scratch. It's inspired by equal-parts Katherine Heiny and Emily Henry. The title refers to the fact that (like Alanis circa "Jagged Little Pill") she doesn't have it all figured out just yet.

My other cool things are that I'm launching a podcast in March called BOOKSPO, in which authors enthuse about the works that inspired their new releases. And I've committed to writing an essay a month on substack this year, a focused exercise that's an attempt to defragment my brain after too many years too much on social media. 

Publishing books is tough so it's nice to be able to return to my original credo, which is GET EXCITED AND MAKE STUFF.

We are so thankful to Kerry for taking the time to speak with Sarah! You can get more from Kerry at picklemethis.com or on Instagram.

Exclusive Interview between Charlie and author Nic Brewer

Kicking off 2024 we are starting the year right with a phenomenal local author, Nic Brewer, writing of the brilliantly twisted Suture. Here she is being interviewed by Words Worth’s own, equally brilliant Charlie. ~ Alex

Photo by Becca Lemire Photography, 2019. Nic doesn’t look like this.

Nic Brewer is a queer, autistic writer and editor from Toronto. She writes fiction, mostly; her first novel, Suture, was published by Book*hug in Fall 2021. She is the co-founder of Frond, an online literary journal for prose by LGBTQI2SA writers, and formerly co-managed the micropress words(on)pages. She doesn’t look like her author photo, doesn’t have an MFA, and really wants to hear about what you love most in the world. She lives in Kitchener with her wife and their dog.

Suture by Nic Brewer is a gory depiction of what it means to love an artist. This novel is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach, because it's filled to the brim with gorgeous prose juxtaposed by gruesome body horror. I loved this book from start to finish because a little part of me felt seen in each of the main characters.

Nic also curates the Sad Girls Book Club (Non-girls welcome, sadness optional) We reached out to Nic by email to get her thoughts on her process, the catharsis of writing graphic scenes, and drinking in her life.

Words Worth: Because we're a bookstore, I'd love to know what you're currently reading and how you're enjoying it (or not!) so far. 

Nic Brewer: I have two books currently on the go: I'm reading Jade City by Fonda Lee, and The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. When I was much younger, middle-school age, I absolutely loved fantasy, and then I went through an elitist phase of my life and denounced all genre literature at all, and then a few years ago started dipping my toes into speculative, sci-fi, and fantasy books again. I am not a reader who reads for story, though; I read for the writing. So obviously, then, I am quite literally obsessed with N.K. Jemisin. My wife and I have "car books," which I read aloud to her while she drives, something we started on our honeymoon road trip. We finished Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy last year, and I couldn't wait to read more - so now we're in book two of the Inheritance trilogy. I simply cannot recommend N.K. Jemisin highly enough. Jade City has been intriguing, and I'm making my way through it fairly quickly, but it's not a standout for me personally (although I see why people like it!) -- I think I just personally crave a little bit more from the storytelling.

Suture copyright Nic Brewer

WW: Suture is a book about art, pain, mental illness and support systems, all of which are heavy and  personal topics to delve into for a debut novel. What was your main source of inspiration when coming up with the concept? How did you feel while writing the graphic scenes? 

NB: My own broken brain was my main source of inspiration for Suture! The concept itself was borne of a university assignment, where for a third-year course on satire we had the option of writing a satire for our final assignment. I wrote a story about art school and called it "On Judging Art," satirizing the absurdity of suggesting criticism of something as deeply personal as art could ever be harmless or objective. (I cringe a little now, at that sentiment, but we have all been 20 once, we have all been young). Over the course of the decade it took for me to write what would become Suture, though, my own little life--passing through some small horrors--fueled the story. The graphic scenes were cathartic to write, because although I spent the better part of my twenties in almost constant distress from depression, anxiety, and emotional abuse, for the most part I seemed fine: it was a relief to write something as obviously and horrifically painful as the innermost workings of my mental illness.

WW: All authors have unique writing processes. Could you tell us a bit about yours? Do you prefer writing based off of an outline or not? Suture is a very character-driven novel- how did you go about discovering your characters' personalities and behaviors? 

NB: My writing process is slower than honey, honestly. It took me ten years to write a 40,000 word novel, and I suspect it will take me ten more to write another. I absolutely need an outline (probably the autism), but I also will rewrite the outline dozens of times over the course of a manuscript's life. I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'm writing, and I'll jot down notes or phrases or feelings and then eventually, after weeks or months or maybe even a year, I'll sit down and I'll really, truly write: I'll draft an outline, I'll draft a pitch, a summary, and I'll write it. And then it needs to sit again for awhile, and I need to think more, and then I'll need to go back, and I will have grown and so I will tend and prune the story so it has grown with me, and apparently after a long time it may be ready for some generous publisher to take a chance on us.

Suture's characters are all inspired by personalities from my life - most of those are mine, some belonged to an ex, and others were passers-by. You know, it's funny, Suture is unquestionably fiction and theoretically that means I made it all up, but sometimes it feels more like I just put it together. People watching has always been one of my very favourite things, and I have filled pages and pages with tiny observations about behaviours, conversations, personalities. Maybe this, too, is the autism: always studying, always trying to figure out what it means to be here in this world.

WW: I'm curious about your personal reading habits, and I'm always on the prowl for a good recommendation. What books are sitting on your bedside table? Do you have a favorite read from this past year? What new release are you most looking forward to in 2024? Do you tend to read lots of body horror for inspiration in your own writing, or is there another genre you gravitate more towards? 

NB: I wish I had better reading habits! 2023 was a pretty great reading year for me, and I averaged about two books a month, but goodness gracious I wish I read more. My top four picks from my 2023 reads were Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi, Burr by Brooke Lockyer, Outlawed by Anna North, and Beloved by Toni Morrison: to me, these were books whose stories and storytelling were inextricable from each other, rich and sharp and tender and vivid, travelling through the hardest parts of being human. (Oh, wait, as I'm writing I also just remembered Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body, by Megan Milks, and I have to include it, too.)

There are SO many amazing books coming out this year, but a few that immediately come to mind that I'm excited about are: Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin (Canisia is, I think, literally a genius, and it remains one of my life's greatest accomplishments that she provided a blurb for Suture), These Songs I Know by Heart by Erin Brubacher (she has a tiny poetry collection that I adore and I am beyond curious about what kind of novel may come from the brain of someone who writes beautiful tiny poetry), and Disobedience by Daniel Sarah Karasick (their debut book of poems really struck a chord with me, and I just love queer and trans speculative fiction). Writing those out now, I realize these are all novels by poets, and it's true, I really love novels by poets.

In terms of what I read--currently I gravitate towards books that make trauma into something physical, I think. Could be ghosts, could be body horror, could even just be honesty -- when I'm discovering something new, I absolutely gravitate towards horror and speculative fiction by queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and racialized folks, but a good pitch or a pretty cover can win me over too.

WW: I'd love to hear anything you'd like to say about up and coming projects of yours. Do you have any plans for another novel? If so, has your writing process changed after having published your first book? Can you tell us a bit about the premise and/or genre of whatever you're working on? 

NB: You know, Charlie, I would also love to know more about my up and coming projects. Har, har. I do have plans for another novel - wrote a grant application for it and everything - but I have been trying to listen to my soft little body and take some time to rest. My twenties were brutal, and then all of a sudden at 28 I met the love of my life and we bought a house and got married and started planning for a family! And my life is amazing! And so I'm just drinking in this lovely little life of mine for now, resting, playing with my brand new baby niece and her even more brand new baby brother, et cetera. Soon, though, I hope to carve writing time back into my days, though, because I have a weird little story about ghosts and trauma and the weather to write.

We would love to extend a huge thank you to Nic for agreeing to answer our questions! You can find her at notnicolebrewer.com/ or on Instagram. 

Exclusive Interview between Alex and author Anna Burke

Being an independent book store, we love to deal with independent and small press publishers. And with that in mind, I am very excited this month that I got to have a one on one email interview with one of my favourites, and someone more readers should know about: Anna Burke.
~Alex

Anna Burke is the author of an impressive seven books since her debut, Compass Rose in 2018, her most recent being the brand new release, In the Roses of Pieria. Raised in Upstate New York, Anna received her MFA from Emerson College in 2021. She was the inaugural recipient of the Sandra Moran Scholarship for the Golden Crown Literary Society’s Writing Academy and currently lives in
Massachusetts with her wife and teaches Creative Writing at Emerson College.

If you’ve talked to me for any length of time in the past two years, or asked for my recommendations for what to read, I have most likely brought up the book Nottingham, or its author Anna Burke. I discovered her work quite by accident when a customer ordered the title in early September of 2021 and, being intrigued at the premise, I ordered my own copy. I went on to devour it, reading it in a day…I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed this book. I proceeded to order in and read every other title Anna had published up to that point.

If you’re amongst the few who haven’t heard my sales pitch, Nottingham is a gender swapped retelling of the Robin (or Robyn, as it’s spelled in this story) Hood myth. In this version, Robyn is a peasant girl forced into life as an outlaw following the execution of her idolized older brother and an illegal hunting accident. We also deal with the perspective of Marian, daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham struggling against the expectations put upon her as the only child of a small-time wannabe noble, and her confusion about the feelings she feels after meeting a certain young outlaw. From there, we get into the classic story, yet it all comes across as new, and fresh, and intersectionally feminist, managing to be both modern and true to 10th century England all at the same time. The novel reads at a fast clip, is thoroughly researched, and just an enjoyable read!

I have since put this book in the hands of most of my co-workers at the store, and many, many customers as well. As of this writing, we’ve sold 82 copies in the past 2 years, along with many copies of Anna’s other books. The interesting thing about this is that we learned a month or two from our sales rep that deals with Anna’s publisher — Bywater Books, a great small press out of Michigan that focuses on sapphic fiction — that Words Worth Books is responsible for half the sales of Nottingham in Canada. This knocked my socks off and made me just want to introduce it to more people to this amazing author.

Well, as stated above, Anna has a brand new release, In the Roses of Pieria. This much anticipated release is the dark academic story of Clara Eden. Clara is barely making ends meet as an adjunct professor of classical antiquity specializing in the little-known, short-lived citystate of Nektropolis when she is out of the blue offered the job of her dreams: to catalogue and translate the private collection of eccentric estate owner, and Nektropolitan collector, Agatha Montague. Clara finds herself lost in an ancient world, and an ancient correspondence as antagonistic as it is romantic. Even as Clara starts to grow closer with Agatha’s assistant Fiadh, she begins to realize that she’s found herself in a darker world than she imagined, full of supernatural beings her academic mind can scarcely wrap around.

In anticipation of Roses release, David encouraged me to reach out to Anna to see if she would answer a few questions about her work and process, and while balancing her duties as an author and college professor, she very generously agreed.

Words Worth: We're a book store so obviously the first question must be: What're you reading right now and/or what are some of your favourite books of all time? I know personally I hate the term 'favourite', it often comes down to so many qualifiers, so use whatever metrics you choose.

Anna Burke: A brutal opening question. Well, currently I am listening to Nettle and Bone by T Kingfisher, and I am in the middle of reading quite a few books, including The Faithless by C. L. Clark, Ink, Blood, Sister, Scribe by Emma Törzen, and a stack of nonfiction history and nature books. My go to favorite authors (see how I avoided the book question, there?) are Robyn McKinley, Tamsyn Muir, and N. K. Jemisin, and I am also absolutely obsessed with This Is How You Lose the Time War. I suppose that would be my favorite book, if I had to choose.

WW: So far in your writing, you've tackled historical fiction/fantasy with Nottingham, dark fairytale retellings with Thorn, contemporary romance with the Seal Cove series, climate dystopian sci-fi with the Compass Rose series and now dark academic horror with In the Roses of Pieria. Are there any genres you long to write and book/books in, or conversely any genres you love but wouldn't want to write a story in?

AB: Genre-hopping might be the result of ADHD, haha, but I also believe writers can learn so much by writing in genres outside of their comfort zone. I don't think there is a genre that I am averse to exploring, though I do not think I am clever enough to write mystery!

WW: One thing I tend to do when selling readers on your books are just how wonderfully, intersectionally feminist they are. Be it casting (literarily speaking) Little John as a trans man in Nottingham or the various race, class and ideological differences/privileges that make up the core drama in the relationship between Lillian and Ivy in Night Tide, you always try to offer inclusion in your stories. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors that are passionate about writing inclusive stories?

AB: I try to write stories that represent the people I know and the world I live in, but I also make mistakes. The best advice I can give writers interested in writing inclusive stories is to do your research and be prepared to own your mistakes. There are many resources now for writing across identity, and the discussions surrounding #OwnVoices are a good place to start!

WW: With In the Roses of Pieria, you now have 3 on-going multi-book projects, including the next book in the Compass Rose series and Seal Cove romance series. As someone with seemingly a million WIPs myself, and enough neurodivergence to make me jump from project to project, I have to ask: how do you settle on what novel you want to work on at a given time with so many ideas rattling in your head? Any tips you can offer?

AB: Ahhhh isn't that the question. I typically work on several projects at once, which is why the releases don't always make sense. For example, I am currently working on the next Seal Cove, the last Compass Rose, and the sequel to In the Roses of Pieria, along with a few other projects. Eventually one of the projects takes the reins and I commit, leaving the others in various stages of drafting. Then the process repeats, spitting out a sequel every third book or so, it seems. It is not, perhaps, the most efficient system or a system that makes my readers particularly happy, but I am at the mercy of my neurodivergent brain, and this is just the way it works. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is accept that the way we write/work might not be efficient or chronological or tidy, and that's okay, even if it takes longer. If it works, it works. If that system isn't working, however, and no projects are getting finished, then the multi-tasking might not be the issue. Sometimes we're waiting for the right project to come along and grab us in its teeth. Other times it is a matter of discipline, and that, luckily, can be learned. And of course neurodivergency creates its own unique set of writing issues.

WW: Roses follows Clara Eden, a scholar and adjunct professor of classical language and antiquity with a focus on the ancient city-state of Nektropolis and its mysterious founder, former general of Alexander the Great, Nektaria. Both the city-state and its founder are fictional creations, but you infuse them with such verisimilitude that I don't imagine I'll be the only reader who ends up googling both to try and learn more. Obviously, the further removed we are from classical antiquity the less we know for certain, but can you talk a little bit about what went into creating characters and a society that blend so plausibly with established historical knowledge?

AB: I'm glad it blended plausibly! I am a huge nerd, and I love research. It is one of my favorite parts of writing—there is always something new to learn and explore. Developing Nektopolis allowed me to take what I've learned about the Mediterranean region in Antiquity and create a city-state that hopefully speaks to the time and place. I like to think of research as an iceberg (an analogy coined by wiser minds than mine); what ends up in the final drafts represents only a fraction of the research, but you have to do the iceberg's worth in order to figure out what details do matter.

WW: In the acknowledgements you said you were (not) sorry about this book starting out as part of a novella project with two friends, implying this decision led to the creation of three incredible novels as opposed to shorter (albeit no less incredible, I'm sure) novellas. Can you expand on both that fun little note from your acknowledgements, what's the story behind that?

AB: I mentioned on social media that I'd written a vampire novella for Patreon, and Jenn Alexander saw the post and approached me about a possible novella collaboration, as she was also working on a vampire novella. I'd started writing mine as "brain candy" during the semester (I teach at Emerson College), because I needed a stress-free place to escape. I then dragged Samara Breger into the equation, and she agreed to write a novella as well. Fast forward a few months and a lot of agonizing, and I realized that my attempts to shorten the story during revision just were not working. I considered writing another novella from scratch, but didn't know if I would finish in time! Neither Jenn nor Samara was particularly pleased with me, I imagine, when I derailed the project, but they rose to the challenge.
(Interviewer’s note: The resulting novels by Samara and Canadian author Jenn Alexander are A Long Time Dead, which launched earlier this year, and Bloodline, which publishes next April, respectively, both from Bywater Books)

WW: Also in your acknowledgement you mention that Roses started life after you suffered a concussion and had to be looking down more, which made you take notice of all the mushrooms that grew around you, then photograph them and learn about them. From that sprang out a novel of dark academia, vampires, plant-based body horror and fungal fae. Help us connect those two things...what was the creation process like?

AB: Messy. Very messy. The short answer, however, is that as a result of my mushroom preoccupation, I learned about lichen. Lichen are very cool. Are they plants? Fungus? Both, actually! I love a good composite organism (Portuguese man o' war jellyfish are another example of composite organisms) Then one day I was walking in the woods, as I do, and I started wondering what a fungi/mammal composite organism might look like. There's an argument to be made that we already are composite organisms, as we are full of fungi and in fact depend upon it. We have at least 80 species on our skin alone. That isn't as exciting as real lichenization, however, so I just had to create my own. Since we already have an established connection between fey mythology and mushroom, the rest fell into place with a series of bad puns. Hyphae, anyone?

WW: Obviously there's prep and planning with any writing, and doubly so when it involves bringing in established history and/or lore creation, which Roses does both of. But as noted above, your originally planned novella expanded to a full novel which couldn't have been part of the initial intention. So I'm curious, where do you fall on the planner < — > pantser writers spectrum?

AB: These days I am somewhere in the middle. I started out a pantser, and I usually let myself pants for a bit when I'm exploring a new idea. After I've played around with that enough to feel like I know the characters, however, I come up with either an outline or at least a synopsis to help shape the story in my mind. Sometimes the outlines are detailed, but usually they remain pretty loose, leaving me room to mess around. I have yet to make an outline I actually followed all the way to completion, but that's the way it is with most plans.

WW: Roses involves all manner of supernatural beings and creatures taken from myth and legend, both ones on the page as well as more that are mentioned (and may appear in the sequel, for all I know). Some of those creatures are relatively unknown and others, like vampires, have been featured hundreds if not thousands of ways throughout the centuries. Without getting into spoiler territory, how do you approach writing such beings in an original way while still maintaining their mystery, or maybe majesty is the word I want to use?

AB: I am so glad you think I managed to maintain some mystery! Honestly, that's a great question, and I don't have a concrete answer except, perhaps, that I grew up reading Robin McKinley and Patricia McKilllip, both of whom write exquisite retellings that strike that balance between curiosity and mystery. I love a detailed magic system where I feel like I understand everything, but I also love magic that feels like magic: inexplicable and haunting.

WW: This question comes from my coworker Rosemary: She really loves how you write masc lesbian characters. Robyn in Nottingham, the Huntress in Thorn, Captain Miranda and Orca in Compass Rose, they make her feel very seen. A lot of sapphic media out there, be it film, television or literature, tends to focus more on more femme characters in general, whether that character ends up with someone or not. Obviously the whole masc-femme thing is often a spectrum open to interpretation, but was that an interpretation you intended with those characters, and do you have any advice on writing masc characters in a sea of femmes?

AB: I love writing masc lesbian characters. I also enjoy writing femme characters, don't get me wrong, but you are absolutely right: femmes far outweigh the rest of the spectrum in media, for obvious reasons (cough: sexism, homophobia, etc). I didn't intentionally sit down to write more masc characters; I sat down and wrote about the queer community I know and love, which is incredibly diverse across all spectrums. On a personal level, I've always fluctuated between those two poles. Miranda, Orca, Isolde, Robyn, Morgan—a masc interpretation is very much intentional. I could go on at length about the intricacies of navigating masculinity (or perceived masculinity) in a culture as steeped in toxic masculinity as my own, but I won't go full Gender Studies on you.
For writers who also want to explore writing characters who break the femme-femme model the best advice I have is very Nike: just do it. Write the characters that you want to read about. You'll be spending a lot of time with them over the course of writing a novel, and writing a character you feel like you should write over the character you want to write deprives you of some of the joys of the process.

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I’m just going to wrap up this piece with a very heartfelt thank you to Anna for taking the time with my questions. As a writer, her work grabs you from page one, and as a person, she’s warm, intelligent and engaging. And I hope this piece inspires you, beloved readers, to pick up one of her books soon. Spooky season is just around the corner, and In the Roses of Pieria would be a perfect darkly supernatural addition to your library in time for Halloween.