Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:11 Hi, and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. And the second week of March this month, we have author and anthology curator Elise Russell, talking about graphic novels, anthologies, and her own short story, Greg Mother Mountain. And here are some news from our sponsors. Hunter Book two of the Unwoven Tapestry series by Morgan Shalut will be available from Water Dragon Publishing in the Dragon Gem's short fiction series Comes for the Favor of a Lady by Stephen Brewer. Also a new themed short story collection is coming out from Water Dragon Publishing. Keep an eye out for the truck stop at the center of the Galaxy. This month's story by Steven Salt takes you to the Stargazer Gift Shop. Water Dragon Publishing has a call for submissions, corporate catharsis. The Work from Home Edition, the pandemic came and the world changed. Lives have changed. Work has changed. The boundaries between reality and fantasy have become as blurred as those between life and work Corporate Catharsis. The Work from Home Edition gives you the opportunity to explore the impact of the Covid Pandemic on your personal and professional life through your fiction. For more information, see this page on their website, water dragon publishing.com/submissions/corporate-catharsis 2022.
Speaker 1 00:02:23 This month we have author and anthology curator Elise Russell. We talk about what it takes to put together graphic novels and anthologies. We also discussed the trials and tribulations of finding a market for his short story, gray Mother Mountain. Hello and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. Today we have Elise Russell, who is a new author. Hi Elise. Hi. Tell me a little bit about yourself since you're new.
Speaker 2 00:02:54 Fairly new to publishing, right? Only been doing this for a year.
Speaker 1 00:02:57 What do you normally write in general?
Speaker 2 00:03:01 Um, speculative fiction. So poor fantasy sci-fi. Weird.
Speaker 1 00:03:08 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:03:08 I very rarely am grounded in reality.
Speaker 1 00:03:11 I understand that you've done comics and a comic anthology.
Speaker 2 00:03:15 Yeah, they are not out yet, but I have in April my first graphic novella. It's a horror graphic novella called The Fell Witch, and it will be going to crowdfunding in April. That will be my first print full length comic. I do have a couple of web tunes up and there's links on my website to them.
Speaker 1 00:03:37 Can you explain to me what you mean by crowdfunding and what that means? Yeah. In the graphic novel world,
Speaker 2 00:03:45 So comics are ridiculously expensive to make because of all of the art and it takes a lot of people usually coming together to make it. So crowdfunding places like Kickstarter or Zoo is a new one. People can browse through projects and if they see when they like, they can pledge money toward it and then they would get a copy of it and whatever extras they want. Usually there's tier rewards way you can fund the comic because otherwise it would be really difficult to pay people upfront for their work, particularly the artists.
Speaker 1 00:04:23 How many people are working on your graphic novel right now?
Speaker 2 00:04:28 So my team is all women and I'm the writer. Nicole De Andrea is the editor. The artist is Danny Rivera, and our colorist and letter is Miranda Lason. We started working for a pitch for my Passion project, which I'm still looking for a home for. It's Brunhilda Brunhilda and the He Witch. She's like a 40 year old barbarian mom kicks butt. The Fell Witch will be our first big group project coming out.
Speaker 1 00:04:59 Now, I'm assuming you're going to use the fact that it's an all women group as a selling point for your
Speaker 2 00:05:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah. We particularly want to bring more female voices into the field and more diverse voices as well. And the topic of the Fell Witch, I mean it's all a giant allegory for postpartum depression, which is not something that you see in comics really. I mean, I personally haven't, and it's not something that a lot of people just talk about in general. So it goes in with mental health and all of that and just trying to bring something new and important to the graphic medium.
Speaker 1 00:05:41 And it's going to be on Kickstarter in April, right?
Speaker 2 00:05:45 Either Kickstarter or Zoom. I'm not sure yet what my publisher is gonna go with for the the platform, but yes, all of those ladies I just mentioned on my team are also going to be involved in another of my passion projects, which is a, an anthology, a hybrid anthology of Prose Illustrated prose, comics, poetry and mixed media art in one project. And it is called The Dark Side of Purity. It is all women. There's like 30 writers. And it discusses how women really feel about society's obsession with virginity and chastity from a dark speculative lens. So that's gonna be a big one and I'm very, very excited about that. The names we've got working on this, there's such talented women and we've got a Discord group and we bounce ideas around and it's just, it's gonna be really, really cool. Glad to be curating this.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 Is this your first mythology?
Speaker 2 00:06:48 One of the first two. The other one is opening subs on Valentine's Day. And that is when I'm doing with CJ Hudson, another comic writer. And it's a call for sci-fi romance and it's called Amongst the Stars. So we'll be curating that as well. So those are my first two comic, but the other one's Comic and Prose anthologies. And then I kind of posted on Twitter one day that I would love to do a prose anthology and Stephen was like, careful what you wish for. And I was like, really? Really? I'll do it. <laugh>. So he asked me to to help with the future's so bright, so, so I am already reading all of the subs that are coming in for that and I'm excited to work on that as well. I love that analogy.
Speaker 1 00:07:33 Curating is a new term that I'm not used to. I'm used to hearing
Speaker 2 00:07:38 Editing. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:07:39 Well curating is a nice term.
Speaker 2 00:07:41 I like museums and I like to think of stories as little like exhibits.
Speaker 1 00:07:46 Exhibits. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:07:48 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:49 When you're looking at stories, what are you looking for exactly? I'm assuming you want to meet up with the theme.
Speaker 2 00:07:56 Yes. It has to fit both sci-fi and romance. So it can't be like a contemporary cowboy romance or something, unless it's a cowboy romance in space, we're going to give preference to completed teams, so people who are artists and writers already paired. Um, but we will be looking also at writer only and trying to, if we get some artist only maybe if we get some good ideas that we want to to follow. But so a completed team is preferable. Staying on the theme is a must. Does the story strike us? Does it fit with the other stories? Does it, what's the overall tone? How does it make us feel? What's the art skill level like? Is it gonna, is the artist going to be able to produce something that will match with the other artists in theme? Not that they have to have the same style obviously, but it does have to have a cohesiveness.
Speaker 2 00:09:02 So there's more to it than just, Hey, I like this story, let's put it in. You have to consider does it fit with the rest? Is the quality of art up to snuff? All of that is the quality of writing up to snuff. Well, I don't wanna put a bunch of brackets on it because I wanna see what keep people come up with. So like, we'll give you the basic direction. We want sci-fi romance and you can break our hearts or make us really happy. But it's just what falls outta your brain for that topic. I wanna see it.
Speaker 1 00:09:34 What about the future? So bright, can you go in a little bit of that?
Speaker 2 00:09:38 That one's also gonna be, a lot of it is intuition and deciding what stories will fit with the theme and fit with each other and compliment each other. So first off, they have to be positive visions of the future, no apocalyptic things. The first thing I'm gonna notice is, do you have a good starting paragraph? Does it hook me from the beginning? Also, how's your spelling and grammar? Like we can fix some of that, but if there's a lot of it that's gonna be more work for the editor. Hmm. So it has to be a really, really good story if we're gonna overlook that. But yes, so as polished as possible on theme positive. And then from there it's just what do people send in? What is inspiring? What catches us? What can we read all the way through?
Speaker 1 00:10:36 Do you have a specific influence on your comic writing or graphic novel writing? And also do you have a separate influence or the same influence on your regular prose writing?
Speaker 2 00:10:52 So I am not like a lot of the other comic writers, I didn't really grow up with comics. I read a couple Scooby dos when I was a kid, but other than that I didn't, didn't read comics, right? I didn't get into graphic novels until I was a mom and I was looking for something to do while I was sitting with my baby. And I just randomly, I found a red Sonya graphic novel like Gail Simone Illustrated by Walter Giovanni. And I loved it. And I then proceeded to consume the rest of them. And I had never considered writing words for pictures before. And in fact at that point I had, apart from a school newspaper, never published anything. I had never really had the guts to like just get out there and do it. And I had been distracted by kids and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 00:11:45 So a couple years later I, I had an idea and I decided, you know what? I don't know what spurred me, but you know what, let's just do it. So I started looking around for an artist to work with and I put up a thing on Reddit and I found Danny on Reddit at the exact same in within the same hour that she found me on another website. And we both messaged each other at the same time, like, Hey, I'd love to work with you. I see what you're doing. And <laugh>. So that was like very serendipitous. Yeah. And it just kind of fell into place from there. And um, I realized that I had a lot of ideas and I wanted to try pros again. I wrote a lot of prose in poetry in college and I kind of wrote a little bit here and there throughout the year since.
Speaker 2 00:12:40 But for the most part I dropped it for a little while and then I came back to it and I was like, you know, it, it'll be, it'd be kind of cool to get back into short stories. I wrote a couple novels when I was a teenager, but those will never see the light of day anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So I just started kind of submitting some things and meeting some cool people and I met the guys at Band of Bards and I love talking to other writers and collaborating and the whole writing community is just very supportive and fun and yep, there's room for everybody's stories. It's not competitive and I love it. So that's how I got to where I'm at at this moment. And I'm still a bit of a newbie because I've only been publishing things since May of last year. So I've got a, a shorter list, but I am working my butt off and I'm writing pretty much every day to start building my platform.
Speaker 1 00:13:42 When you're writing graphic novels, it's kind of like writing a script, if I'm not mistaken in
Speaker 2 00:13:46 My correct. It is a script. Yes, it is a script. Okay. Yeah, you have to get all that stuff they tell you for pros with show, don't tell, gotta reverse it. You have to reverse it. You have to tell, you have to describe all of it so that the artist can pick up expressions and tones and think of what colors to use to convey the spirit of the story. So it's very different. There's, I personally like that there's a, a heavier focus on dialogue. Dialogue is one of my favorite things. I mean, there's pros and cons to pros as well. I like being able to have a foot in each medium and in each community because the comics community is separate from the writing community. There's some crossover, but for the most part they're two different engines.
Speaker 1 00:14:33 So you have written Gray Mother Mountain. Where did the inspiration from that come?
Speaker 2 00:14:39 Let's see, where did it come from? I have a daughter who is obsessed with Dragons obsessed, and when you read a lot of Dragon books, you start thinking about dragons more <laugh>. I'm like, what would, what kinda dragon story would I write? I just had that in the back of my mind. And then I was also thinking, you know, you don't see enough elderly women as heroes, particularly in fantasy or just anyone older than like 20 <laugh>. I'm like, how cool would it be to have a badass elderly woman ride a dragon <laugh>? So then I was just kind of messing around with that in my head and it took a little while and I'd get like thoughts about a cool story until I finally just sat down and, and wrote it out. And I didn't know what to do with it. Cuz it's a longer one, it's almost 10 K.
Speaker 2 00:15:29 And I'm like, what, where do I send this now? Because usually I write for calls, I see a call for submissions and I see the theme and that sparks an idea and that's how I do it. I don't usually just have an idea out of nowhere and just write it down. But I did for this. And so I was left not knowing what to do with it. So finally one day I just Googled, where do I publish my dragon story? And it took the words Publish and Dragon and it brought up Water Dragon. And I was like, that's a cool logo. I wonder what those guys are all about. And then I eventually heard back and he said the whole team really liked it and they wanted it. I was like, score, I can publish a dragon story. Yeah, working with them has just been awesome.
Speaker 2 00:16:13 They, this Dragon Gems program is really interesting, very unique because they do the covers for a short story. And seeing Gray mother on that cover, that dragon head is just so badass. I'm just like, gosh, that's the, I love that treatment for a short story and just very friendly to work with. It's all been very easy and welcoming. I'm on the Discord. Steven responded to my tweet about getting in with the anthology. It just was all very, very easy. It just kind of clicked and I get a cool cover with a dragon on it for my story. And then he said he's gonna print a tool.
Speaker 1 00:16:53 Do you prefer collaborations or do you usually like to work alone or do you like to work with others?
Speaker 2 00:17:01 My creative energy is, I like to popcorn ideas and bounce around. So I do like to write things on my own. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but working with an artist or working with another writer, um, I'm gonna co-write a story with a friend of mine, Lynn McCloud, and we're going to write a graphic novel together and then have the artist, so that'll, that team. And yeah, I work well with other writers. I work well with most people. Yeah. I just, I'm putting brains together and Hey, what do you think of this? And sending things over and it just, it works well for mm-hmm. <affirmative>, me personally, so I can do both, but I guess I do prefer a little collaboration at least. Yeah. So I've always wanted to be a writer. I went to college, got a degree in, in literature. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cause I just, just couldn't stop talking about stories all the time. So that's always been where my heart is with stories. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:17:55 <affirmative>. Now will we be seeing more short stories or graphic novels or both or?
Speaker 2 00:18:01 Yes. <laugh>. So I have a lot of projects planned coming up. I've got Fwi, I have Sentience that's coming out in May with Band of Bards that's a light novel. So it's kind of a, a hybrid of prose and, um, comic as well in illustrations moving throughout it. And that's gonna be with Danny Rivera. It will be gorgeous with her on it. I'm very excited for that. And then I have three secret graphic novel projects that I can't talk about yet. Okay. That are Plant four four. And then I have the Purity anthology and the sci-fi romance anthology. And I'm working on a collection of short stories centered around the theme of vengeful women. So that one's not quite done yet. It's only at like 30 K, 40 K, 40 k. But eventually I'll have to find somewhere to put that and there'll be a couple reprints in there, but not many.
Speaker 2 00:19:02 And then I, I try to go for one or two calls a month at least as well. So all that plus peer reading and editing. I'm pretty busy and I'm still trying to find a home for Brunhilda. That, that one's a big project though, so that's harder to do. But we just finished another art page for it. So having an extra page means I can pitch to more places. Okay. So Dark Course Scout, I'm coming for you. <laugh>. I think that's, that's all of my projects. I'm always writing short stories. I've got over 30 things out on sub right now waiting for responses, staring at my inbox.
Speaker 1 00:19:42 Is there any advice that you could give to somebody who's just starting out?
Speaker 2 00:19:47 Um, I mean, my biggest hurdle was getting over myself first. Like all of my fears. So just, just start doing it. Rejections are gonna come read 'em aloud in a funny accent to make yourself feel better and move on. Just do it. Get involved in the writing community, find your support network and really do your research on places before you do major works with them.
Speaker 1 00:20:14 Where can people find you and how can they contact you and do they want to Yes,
Speaker 2 00:20:19 <laugh>. Absolutely. So the easiest place to find me would be on Twitter. So it's at Elise Russell 13. I'm the Brave Little Teapot, but also my website, Elise Russell author.squarespace.com. And yeah, I I'm always open to talking to other creators and if you wanna collaborate, send me a message. I will definitely talk to you at the very least. So yeah, I'm, I I like to, to think I'm approachable. So for two of my secret graphic novel projects, they both are happening because people randomly messaged me and said, Hey, I would love to work with you on anything. Okay. And then we just start talking about ideas, like, what would you wanna work on this kind of graphic novel. Okay. And then it's happening. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So yes, I definitely, when people reach out to me like that, it is awesome. Thank
Speaker 1 00:21:15 You very
Speaker 2 00:21:15 Much. Bye everybody.
Speaker 1 00:21:31 Water Dragon Publishing has a call for submissions The future So Bright. If you could catch a glimpse of the future, what would you hope to see? High-tech advancements, newly evolved species of wildlife. For this collection, we want positive visions of the future. Show us terraces covered in gardens and solar panels, sprawling colonies under glass on Mars, and the explorers of tomorrow. Tell us what you think cities will look like in the year 2300. What it would be like to take a cruise on a spaceship, or what new organisms might evolve in the Amazon Rainforest. For more information, see this page on their website, water dragon publishing.com/submissions/future soap bright.
Speaker 1 00:22:34 Thanks to our guest, Elise Russell. Next month we will have mystery author Nancy Wood. We plan on publishing new episodes every second Wednesday of the month. Watch for new episodes around that time. Music is provided by Melody Loops. If you want to know more about small publishing in a big universe, visit our website at S p B u-podcast.com. Tweet us at S P B U dash podcast and like us on Facebook at S P B U dash podcast. This podcast was recorded and edited by yours truly, LA Jacob. This month's episode was sponsored by Paper Angel Press and its Imprint Water, dragon Publishing, and Unruly Voices. You can hear our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music, and most of your favorite podcast services. Thank you for listening and talk to you soon.
