Author Clara Ward

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to small publishing in a big universe. I am your host, Lisa Jacob. This month, guest host Vanessa McLaurin Ray interviews author Clara Ward. From our sponsors. This month, from Water Dragon Publishing. The Hencher Queen by J. Scott Coatsworth from Dragon Gems, the Job by Joshua Raimi Rank and from Paper Angel Press, the Library of everything by hunter Terrell Queen the thoracic's cycle, book three by J. Scott Coatsworth Celia finally comes into her own, but will she be enough? Celia finally has everything she always wanted. She's the hencher queen, head of the temple, and is mastering her newfound talents. Why does the world pick now to fall apart? Her once nemesis, Raven, is off riding dragons, and their mutual friend and her ex, ace, is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, a new threat menaces the heartland from the east. If she can't convince a reluctant city council to prepare for the worst, she may lose everything and everyone she's ever cared about. As Celia wields her abilities, dry wit, and sheer determination to save her city, she's joined by Raven and his new friends. Just as a dark storm threatens to sweep them all away. Will their aid help tip the scales? And will she and Raven finally find out what happened to Ike? The Hencher Queen by J. Scott Coatsworth is available this month from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, and other online booksellers. Or support your local independent bookstores by ordering it through bookshop. For more information, visit their [email protected]. [00:02:11] Speaker B: Hi. [00:02:12] Speaker C: This is Vanessa McLaren Ray, and I'm talking with Clara Ward about their science fiction book, be the Sea, which has just been released. It's March of 2024. If you're listening to this much later, we'll be talking about the story, trying to avoid spoilers, and introducing its fascinating cast of characters while discussing Clara's publication process with Atis Arts. Hi, Clara, and welcome to small publishing. [00:02:42] Speaker D: In a big universe. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Hi, Vanessa. I'm glad to be here. [00:02:46] Speaker C: So we're going to start by talking about your book. Since I've been pitching it so hard in the past 15 seconds, let's start off with the hardest question of the whole interview. What is your go to one liner? When somebody comes to you and says, what's this book about? [00:03:03] Speaker B: Be the sea is a near future voyage across the Pacific with sea creatures. [00:03:08] Speaker E: Human tech chosen, family mysteries, pulling them. [00:03:12] Speaker B: All together, and the world's best chocolate. [00:03:15] Speaker C: Okay, I'm sold. [00:03:16] Speaker D: Chocolate is the be all, end all of the universe. [00:03:19] Speaker C: Aside from chocolate, I have to say this is an entirely character driven story. I might even go so far as to say that the characters in this book are the story, their relationships, and they're learning about each other and themselves. Can you just tell us about the main character, Wend, and the choices you made for them in this story? [00:03:42] Speaker E: So Wend loves the ocean and belongs there. [00:03:47] Speaker B: And Wend is not someone who felt that sort of belonging around people so much. They've spent a lot of their life being misunderstood or not knowing how to communicate certain things. They are nonbinary and neurodivergent, as am I. And instead of writing a coming of age tale about a much younger person, this is more a story of someone. [00:04:06] Speaker E: Who is going to keep discovering things. [00:04:09] Speaker B: And inventing things and becoming things their whole life. [00:04:14] Speaker C: That's a wonderful example for all of us to keep growing and becoming. Now, you alluded to the fact that you share certain characteristics with Wend, and in some ways they're enough like you that some readers will be saying, oh, well, how much of this is you? Did you travel across the Pacific on a boat? Did you grow up in Hawaii? Do you tell stories in order to connect with people? How do you respond to that sort of thing? And how important is it for you that you have this representation for neurodivergence and non binary representation in the storyline? [00:04:48] Speaker B: I started writing when I was 13 because I could not find the books I wanted to read at my library. And I had read my way through at least the speculative fiction, science fiction and fantasy on both the kids side and the grown up side. I didn't actually know what I was looking for, but I think I had found other people in my world. They became my best friends. It was like we were magnetized towards each other who were like me. So I knew that people existed and they were not in the books. So little 13 year old me set out to write a book with, I don't know, something that I wanted in a book. I wasn't even trying to write people like me, and I just kept doing it. [00:05:22] Speaker E: I have written a novel most years. [00:05:25] Speaker B: For my entire life, and every time people look at the character and goes, well, that's you. No, it is not. Even when I was a teenager, I had this rule that no character is ever more than one third any real person that I'm drawing from, which includes me. But if I'm writing the sort of character that used to be described as quirky or geeky or a misfit or sensitive, I'm drawing from myself, I'm drawing from other people. I've encountered and I know a lot of them at this point who fit those bits, so I don't have to put all of my private stuff in. [00:05:54] Speaker E: I can borrow what I liked from. [00:05:56] Speaker B: My other friend's stories or from things that I saw. And now we have words like neurodivergent or non binary that add another level to it. Also, a lot of the people I know who were okay in the book, I'll give this much away, Wend is described as people trying to label them with ADHD when they were a kid. Well, with the term used then, and. [00:06:15] Speaker E: Their mom resists it. [00:06:16] Speaker B: So you could say that's taken from my life, except I know half a. [00:06:20] Speaker E: Dozen people who either accepted that label. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Or didn't, but had some resistance to it back in the many of those people now discover they have sensory sensitivities, or they always knew they had sensory sensitivities. They just didn't have a word for it. They hyper focus, they fidget. They have a bunch of things that might be associated with the autism spectrum. There's synesthesia, which I definitely had some of as a kid. I think that it faded away because people just kept telling you it wasn't real. There's a lot of anxiety and ptsd. [00:06:51] Speaker E: That probably goes along more with being the sort of person that has these. [00:06:55] Speaker B: Things in a society. [00:06:57] Speaker E: So you end up with this cluster of people who are very similar. [00:07:00] Speaker B: And a lot of the people I know use the word neurodivergent for that because the other words don't fit so well and are kind of a lot to explain. And for some reason, and this may be the circles I run in, a lot of people who fit that group are also non binary. So there is a set of people out there who are like the character of my story, but if you only know me, you might say, oh, is that character you? [00:07:21] Speaker C: So the character is a part of your community might be a more accurate. [00:07:25] Speaker D: Way to describe it. [00:07:27] Speaker C: One interesting choice you made, and that may tie back to your mentioning of the theme of showing that people grow. [00:07:33] Speaker D: And learn about themselves throughout their lives, not just when they're children. [00:07:37] Speaker C: The main character, and I don't think. [00:07:39] Speaker D: This is a spoiler, and several of. [00:07:41] Speaker C: The rarely important secondary characters are people. [00:07:45] Speaker D: In their 60s, which is kind of unusual for our genre. [00:07:48] Speaker C: So do you want to talk a. [00:07:49] Speaker D: Little bit about your choice and why. [00:07:52] Speaker C: You chose to go in that direction? [00:07:53] Speaker B: As the person I am now, I would like to see those characters in stories getting to do things, and I know a lot of people who are even older than that, who can still do things like scuba dive and sail and do research and science. So it was fun for me also, if I was going to write about. [00:08:10] Speaker E: The experience of being the sort of identities I was writing, it was a. [00:08:14] Speaker B: Very different experience for people of my generation. And there are some other reasons that you'll get to in the book, but there are reasons why a bunch of people are of my generation. In the book, I did try to represent other generations and how those experiences might compare and contrast, not saying anyone had it harder or easier. And that was a lot of what I was interested with this, and hopefully showing that 15 years in the future, people can still feel pretty good about themselves and whatever path they took to get there in their brain and their body and their relationships to others. [00:08:44] Speaker C: It is interesting, too, that you chose to set the story just a little bit into the future, 15 years into the future. And science fiction often leaps far into the future or tries to place dramatic science things right in the moment in, say, a thriller type of story. [00:09:01] Speaker D: So how did you settle on, I. [00:09:04] Speaker C: Think it's 1939, as your target date for all these events to begin unfolding? [00:09:09] Speaker E: 2039 came to me because I wanted. [00:09:13] Speaker B: It to be a little bit hopeful. And I'd been reading a lot of stuff about the 30 by 30 campaign, which is to have 30% of the ocean protected as marine sanctuaries by 2030. And even when I was writing this book, which was a few years ago, that was not looking super likely. And now I would say it's more a question of how badly we're going to fail at that. But I think that being discouraged doesn't help any of us much. So if we're going to hope for it, I needed a time period where I could still show actual changes. We could do show things that could happen now, that people will get and not get too far into the exponential growth curve of how bad it could be if we don't do this. Also, this is probably a good place to say that I'm giving 100% of my royalties to Conservation International, which is one of the groups really working on the 30 by 30 campaign. And I'd like to help them do that, even if we may not quite make it by 2030. [00:10:10] Speaker C: It also ties into the fact that global climate change is a major player in the story. It's almost a character. Some bad things happen. I agree. I think you have succeeded in making it, overall a hopeful story. One of our usual questions is, have. [00:10:24] Speaker D: You got a favorite scene or a. [00:10:26] Speaker C: Favorite character who kind of exemplifies that hopeful sense of things. [00:10:30] Speaker D: That wouldn't be a spoiler. [00:10:32] Speaker B: I'm not good at having favorite characters or favorite scenes. I'm really tempted to say the ocean is my favorite character. Not that it's anthropomorphized or anything, though we do have some sea creature points of views that are always filtered through a human person's mind because there is that whole anthropomorphizing issue. And then I think the trio of characters that you start the book with on the boat includes Viola, who's a kind of cynical nature photographer, and her cousin Aljean from her family in the Philippines. He's a 20 something, has a very different take on this world that we've pretty much messed up for his generation, and the truth that he grew up knowing describes himself as post problematic. Honestly, Aljean is based on a ton of young people in my actual life, some of the usually second generation from the Philippines where I live, and taught me a lot. [00:11:18] Speaker C: He's one of my favorite characters, too, and we talked about this beforehand. But there's a key element in the way the story unfolds in which the characters, some of the characters in some ways experience what in the past we've called astral projection. It's not exactly that, but it has characteristics of that. How did you come up with this idea of using this kind of thing in this kind of story? Because this is a science fiction story. It's not fantasy, but it drives the plot and it drives a lot of things the characters choose to do. So how did you come up with it, and how did you think about integrating it into the storytelling and the relationships? [00:11:55] Speaker B: For what it's worth, I will accept the label science fantasy for people who prefer that, but my history is mostly in science fiction, so it drew out of those traditions as a story. [00:12:06] Speaker E: The actual what's happening with the astral. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Projection, or dreams or whatever you want to call them, came out a lot of my kid experience. I was the kid who had flying dreams all the time. I dreamed I was animals. I dreamed I was other people. There was a very sad moment in my youth when, in a group discussion, it turned out that most people dreamed as themselves most of the time in fairly standard day to day situations. I cried, and I wasn't all that young, but I was still a kid. I felt so bad for everyone who never had a flying dream or dreamed they were something else, and I wanted to share that. I, like, read books on guided meditation to try to help my friends dream these things. So, naturally, when I wanted to write. [00:12:51] Speaker E: A book about people being the sea. [00:12:54] Speaker B: And empathizing with these creatures in the. [00:12:57] Speaker E: Sea, I think I thought of the dreams as a way to do that. [00:13:02] Speaker B: And then the mystery of trying to figure out what is really going on. Are these something more than dreams, and how is that possible? [00:13:10] Speaker C: I enjoy the parts where the characters. [00:13:12] Speaker D: Are trying to figure it out, because. [00:13:14] Speaker C: They are the kind of people who would be sitting down and saying, well, does that have something to do with math, or where's the science in this? There's something else out there. No. And arguing it over. [00:13:23] Speaker D: They're fun that way. [00:13:24] Speaker C: We've given away enough about story. We don't want to give away too much. Let's talk about the writing process, because, as you know, when you meet people who haven't written a book, they seem to have the impression that you sat down one night and you dashed it off in a weekend or maybe two, and then a bunch of publishers argued over it, and then, boom, a book happened. Let's break their fantasy. How long has this book been in the work, and what inspired this particular story? [00:13:52] Speaker B: The first notes that became this book were written down in 2019, and I had already been someone who studied climate and ocean issues a lot, but that was when I dug into the 30 by 30 campaign and became very concerned with marine sanctuaries. And originally, I thought it would have a lot more to do with marine sanctuaries. But, yeah, I started writing down notes for scenes and research stuff, and by 2020, I wrote the rough draft during Nanorimo, which I still write for every November, and then I revised a whole bunch. [00:14:21] Speaker C: Okay, so that's a roughly four year process, from writing down notes to coming out into the world, which is actually pretty quick. I would say, on average, it's a little quicker than average, but it sounds like you had something of a mission. You were inspired by the 30 by 30 project, which probably, in your own mind, created a little extra pressure to. [00:14:42] Speaker D: Get her done because we're dashing towards. [00:14:45] Speaker C: 2030 pretty darn fast. You run Nanorimo. [00:14:48] Speaker D: Are you a plotter? [00:14:50] Speaker C: Are you a panther? Are you somewhere in between? Are you one of those people that's got a board up on the wall with strings between it and little pictures? What's your process? [00:15:00] Speaker B: I think most people would count me as a plotter because I do have a bunch of stuff written down, including a general outline or timeline that shows where a possible ending is. But I know what my characters do. My characters always evolve and become more fleshed out as I write, so I'd say only about 50% of the time does the ending happen exactly the way that I thought it would. When I started writing this book, the bits were all there, but by the ending it was a bit of a shift from how I thought it would go. And that is as it should be, because the characters became themselves as the story did. [00:15:37] Speaker C: The story itself exemplifies evolution. You have one unique aspect to the story structure I would like to ask you about, because the characters do a lot of connecting through telling stories, tell stories of their previous lives, at least how they're interpreting those experiences at their current age. So it works sort of like flashbacks, but it's very different than an actual flashback. It reminds me more of the friends I have who write memoirs. So how did you settle on that kind of a structure and that way for the characters to connect with each. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Other to begin with? I'll say that my mom told those sort of stories. I told those sort of stories as a little kid in Hawaii. I think there were a lot of people around who told those sort of stories. A few adults who were significant to my life and mentored me as a teenager in Sacramento told those sort of stories. I don't know why I encounter it less with the groups of people I'm around now, but to me, for a story about ambiguity and trying to figure out who you are and what's going on and finding chosen family, I honestly don't know how people do that or connect and communicate without telling those sorts of stories. So it makes sense to me that my character, my point of view character for this story would take that approach too. You sort of have to build an understanding before you can talk about weird or ambiguous or unknown things. [00:16:59] Speaker C: Once you get a little bit into it, readers, you'll be wondering, why don't I do this? Talked earlier about how your characters aren't you, although to some extent they draw on you, but you want to have a variety of characters. You have a very diverse cast. So do you have a conscious approach to capturing the details and the sense of characters who aren't you? Do you seek out specific groups of people and talk to them? Do you rely on friends, or do you just have a big enough social circle that it kind of comes naturally to you? [00:17:31] Speaker B: I like to think of myself as an anthropologist on Mars, which is a term I will give credit to temple Grandin and Oliver Sachs for gifting to me at some point in my life. But I swear from preschool I was the kid making mental notes on what other people did because they were like aliens to me. I was what we would now call extraterrestrials. I was trying to figure out what they did by remembering the things and what reactions they got. So that's where I start with any character who's not like me. And for characters like Viola and Aljean, there are a lot of people in my life who are like them in some ways. Not any one person, as I said. But I can put together lots of bits I've really seen. Sometimes there are characters that need to be represented that I do not have as much experience for. And then I do the best I can with what I know, which is a lot easier later in life than it was when I was younger. So I'll say that's one thing for older writers. But then I do have people who read and answer questions and are very kind and helpful to me in a lot of things. And certainly with this book, even more. [00:18:34] Speaker C: So as the writing comes together, as you're getting words on the page and developing the story, and you have things to share for people to read, who do you rely on for those developmental stages? [00:18:47] Speaker B: It has really varied from one story to another. You have to find the people who are willing to do it. The nice thing about a book like this is we were actually able to pay some beta readers and sensitivity readers and fact checkers. We also had some who very kindly volunteered or took an honorarium. I have in the past, bartered editing services. [00:19:07] Speaker C: Then this is a good time to talk about where the book landed. You chose a small press to work with. So how did that journey unfold and how did you make your choice at that? [00:19:18] Speaker B: So I had, I think, five books that I shopped around in my thirty s and completely failed. Well, okay, I got some very nice rejection letters and some very bizarre rejection letters, but none of them were picked up by even small presses. And this time even better. Who was with a small press was like, well, it's not quite my thing, but stuff goes back and forth. And she was like, you know, this seems like Kat Rambo's thing. And I was like, ooh, Kat Rambo's so big, I could never talk to someone like that. But Betsy did an introduction. It turned out Kat Rambo liked this book and was very helpful and read through and gave suggestions and helped me make it a little bit better. And somewhere in that process, both Kat and Betsy had mentioned athis arts and Emily Bell as possibly a good fit. And when it came time and I sent the manuscript to Athis arts, I heard back from Emily Bell. I think it was like within two days, and she'd already read the book, or at least skimmed it enough to know an awful lot about it and wanted the book that was more amazing and mysterious to me than anything that happens in my actual speculative fiction writing. That this person got back to me that fast and wanted the book and really was just such a good fit for it. [00:20:30] Speaker C: So it all boils down to having. [00:20:32] Speaker D: Made some connections early on and then. [00:20:35] Speaker C: Not being afraid to reach out to an awesome person or for input and advice. Take that, readers. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Be brave. [00:20:42] Speaker C: How do things go from there? [00:20:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a big step. I had had people before say, oh, it's got to be 100,000 words. No one's going to take something this long. And I had a proposal by the time that I was contacting people so I could break it into two books that would have been substantially different. But I had a plan. I had options. The great thing about athis arts, in. [00:21:00] Speaker E: My opinion, is it's part of their. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Mission to represent the authentic voice of an author. And as I said, there had been some not great editorial experiences before. And part of this is society caught up. I'm sorry, you were just not there in the understand the characters that I was writing. But now there are many, many lovely small presses that will represent all sorts of diverse voices. And Emily Valle is just. It's hard to explain if you haven't seen the comments I got on some of my other writing, but one, this person just got it in ways that a lot of people didn't. So I didn't have to explain. And yes, I have gotten older, so maybe I've gotten a little better at some of it. But I didn't have to explain the bits of neurodiversity or why this character would see the world this way. There was never a question of, does this person need to have they them pronouns? No, that was never an issue. A lot of things that were presented that another editor might have just said, you can't say this, or grammar doesn't work this way. It's more like, is this how you want to use this? Is this envisioning how grammar will be in 15 years? And with portraying conversations from a naive point of view? Back in the 70s or 80s, it was like, okay, this is a sensitive subject now. How do we capture that time period in naivete? But it was asked mostly as questions. Basically, Emily wrote a whole bunch of questions on the manuscript. And then once we agreed on the answers to some of those, then she took that into account in her next editing pass as to how we'd make it be consistent through the story, which I had seen a little bit of that with a couple of short stories that I sent out to magazines before, but this was totally unexpected to me. I honestly don't know that other people have this editorial experience. I really hope they do. [00:22:42] Speaker D: It was great. [00:22:43] Speaker C: It sounds like you had a real connection there. And there's nothing like having somebody actually get your work. It's supportive editing. It's not critical editing. Oh, this isn't going to work because the one thing you and I talked about way back at Bacon last summer was your cover, because you had the COVID art by then. Would you like to gush a little bit about the COVID and what it was like working with your cover artist to develop the art and the expressiveness of it for your story? [00:23:08] Speaker B: Yes. Matthew Spencer is wonderful. People should look up his art. He also illustrated a book called Alia Terra that was then made into a coloring book, which I just think that is so cool. I had never worked with an artist before. I am such a words person. I get distracted by pictures. I have trouble with graphic novels. Yes, I do read them and I think they're wonderful. But there's so much I miss if I don't really work at it. And with book covers. Friends tried to explain book covers to me and I did not see the point of book covers. And then along comes Matthew Spencer, who has to make a book cover for this book that I wrote. That's kind of weird. He was so patient. He did sketches. He explained things. He taught me about art. He taught me that people could build up their. What did he call it? It wasn't endurance, but you can get better at processing visual things. And he had the patience to say that as a professional artist, so I just couldn't say better. And I think I have the best book cover in the world, and nothing anyone else says will dissuade me from this. [00:24:09] Speaker C: I love the COVID too. I think what he's been inspired by is the dream aspect of your story, and it speaks to your 30 x. [00:24:16] Speaker D: 30 project connection in a book cover. [00:24:19] Speaker C: I'm always amazed by what cover artists can do. [00:24:21] Speaker D: I always want to talk about that aspect. [00:24:23] Speaker C: Now you need to go out in the world and promote it. That's a daunting task for all of us. Two important questions. What are you working on now, and what kinds of things can people be looking forward to coming from you in the coming year or so? [00:24:37] Speaker B: I have already written four other stories that happen in the same universe as be the sea and I am considering writing. I have ideas for another ocean issue I want to address with some of the same characters, which might become a novella or a novelte, something longer, but not a whole nother novel. [00:24:54] Speaker E: I don't think if people want to. [00:24:56] Speaker C: Connect with you or perhaps vote on whether you need to get to work on a novella. Do you have a website? [00:25:03] Speaker B: So the best place to find me online is at clarawardauthor WordPress.com. I will be going to hopefully a whole bunch of conventions this year. One way or another, I'm going to get to Worldcon. Whether that will be in person or virtual is yet to be seen, but before then I have been accepted as an attending professional to do 6 hours of panels at Norwestcon in Seattle at the end of March. I'm very excited about that and there will be at least a small launch party that I will be hosting myself and I am going to have a launch event at capital Books on K on April 7 in Sacramento. And we didn't get to talk too much about the importance of chocolate in this book during this interview. But I want to say that anytime you see me in person doing something for this book, I will probably have some very good chocolate to share. So I hope to see you and. [00:25:53] Speaker C: That is a wonderful way to close and a fabulous incentive to seek out. [00:25:58] Speaker D: Clara Ward and talk to them about their book. Be the sea out this month, March. [00:26:03] Speaker C: Of 2024 from at this books thank you so much for sitting down with us today, Clara. It was so much fun. [00:26:10] Speaker B: Thank you Vanessa. [00:26:11] Speaker E: I appreciate it. [00:26:25] Speaker A: The library of everything by Hunter Terrell this philosophical narrative follows a group of everyday people who find themselves in a mysterious, dreamlike library of everything, where every drop, every star, every person has a book about their story detailing the whole truth of their past, present, and future. Upon discovering that the books can be altered by visitors, thus changing reality, our characters set out into the infinite library to find their own books, to change them, to repair broken pasts and secure better futures. Ultimately, they have to work out their own place as characters in this story. The Library of everything by Hunter Terrell is available this month from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smashwords and other online booksellers, or support your local independent bookstore by ordering it through Bookshop.org. Thanks again to our guest. We plan on publishing new episodes every second Wednesday of the month. Watch for new episodes around that time. To find out more about our featured products and books mentioned by our guest, please take a look at the SPBU marketplace at SPBu marketplace.com. Theme and ad music is provided by Melodyloops. If you want to know more about small publishing in a big universe, visit our website at spbu podcast.com. Send us your feedback by using the contact us link, tweet or X Us at SPBU podcast and like us on Facebook at SPBU Podcast. This podcast was recorded and edited by yours truly, L. A. Jacob executive producer is Stephen Redecki. Transcription Services provided by yours truly, Lisa 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, and Amazon on music and most of your favorite podcast services. Thank you very much for listening and. [00:28:50] Speaker D: Talk to you sooner.