I’m told that part of any good book promotional plan is for the author to do a few interviews. Interviews are weird. I’ve read and enjoyed many of them. It’s fascinating to hear in the author’s own words what inspired them or why they chose to write what they did. I’ve even interviewed a few people here and there. But it’s so strange to be the subject of an interview. It’s even stranger to go back and read what I said published somewhere. But I’ve been all in on marketing Founder’s Mercy, and interviews were part of the deal.
The first interview was with Chad at The Queer Review. Chad and I are Twitter mutuals, so I know a little about them, at least. In one of my favorite questions, Chad zeroed in on how I put together an oppressive, dystopian setting while respecting people’s gender and queerness.
The Bolvar Union is repressive but not necessarily evil, they seem very progressive with gender and sexuality. Was it important for you to make this world out of shades of grey rather than print things as very black and white?
“It was. I have to imagine a future where you can be queer or trans and it won’t matter. So that was my baseline. The colony was settled by people who didn’t bring some of today’s issues with them. So their reactions to their circumstances just wouldn’t include reverting to racism, sexism, or homophobia. Why would they, if they didn’t exist anymore? Their problem was disappearing technology and the scarcity of resources that came from that. It felt like one natural reaction would be to categorize people by something more practical, like talent and ability.”
In an interview with New In Books, the questions were a bit more general (probably from a form or list?) But I got to share one of my writing/personality quirks.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
“I like listening to music while I write. I wrote Founder’s Mercy listening to a playlist I made of songs from the Japanese boy band JO1.”
You should check these interviews out if you want to learn a bit more about what makes me tick. For the real inside story, you should also sign up for my email list. Do so, and you can download a free copy of Founder’s Mercy!
Update
I also did an interview with Queerspace Magazine, where we talked about my choice to publish with an indie publisher and the struggles of entering a crowded market as a marginalized author.
“Sure, it’s something I think about,” Lach says. “There are gonna be people who won’t like the book, who won’t even read it because the main character is queer. How can I not? Especially with all the recent resurgence in book bannings and discriminatory, anti-queer laws. I know it’s gonna happen with Founder’s Mercy, too. In fact, I’ve already seen the anonymous 1-star reviews pop up.
“But I won’t let that stop me. I want some young queer kid out there to read a book with a character that feels like them, you know? I want that reader to inhabit a world where they don’t have to worry about being queer, even if it’s only for a little while. Because that world could exist. If I can imagine it, so can others, right? If it’s possible to imagine it, it’s possible to make it happen.”