I was lucky to get an interview with Olivia Atwater, the author of Small Miracles, and one of this year’s #SPFBO8 semifinalists.

Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
I live in Montreal, Quebec—and unlike most of the other grumblers here, I love the cold and the snow! I live with my husband, the incomparable Mr Atwater, and two cats. Over the course of my life, I have been a historical re-enactor, a professional witch at a metaphysical supply store, a web developer with a specialty in information security, and a vending machine repairperson.

What was the first thought that popped into your mind when you found out you had made it to the semifinals?
Coffee. I’d had a crazy long night the evening before, and I slept unnaturally long! By the time I’d woken up around one in the afternoon, there were all these messages congratulating me, and I hadn’t even had my coffee yet! You were the first message, by the way!

Ohh, I was first, yay! I think, waking up to positive news is the best.

Olivia, why did you initially decide to take part in the SPFBO?
I enjoy the SPFBO community, and it gives me lots of opportunity to read and support new indie authors. This is my third year participating, and my second year making semi-finalist! In my first year, I entered HALF A SOUL, which has now been picked up for traditional publishing! I suspect that SPFBO probably had a hand in increasing its visibility and getting it noticed, for which I’m deeply grateful. I still write indie books, obviously, and SMALL MIRACLES is an example of that.

Aside from your SPFBO8 book getting the stamp of approval by being in the semifinals, why should I buy it?
Nonbinary angels and demons weaponize chocolate while arguing over tiny, everyday problems. Meanwhile, the author tries to figure out how much dramatic irony she can cram into one short book. The answer is: a lot. Guest appearances by the Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy, who always get their man… er… angel.

I’d love to read about the Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy, I have to say :-)

What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
My parents met by playing Dungeons & Dragons at university; my father was the Dungeon Master. I believe my parents gave me a d20 to roll before I’d even learned to walk, though my memories are obviously sketchy on the subject. Around the age of 10, I became convinced I was going to write a famous D&D novel. I eventually went into all sorts of other careers, but I never stopped writing on the side, and I’ve run so many tabletop and live action games now that it’s become a kind of profession. I think I once counted up the words on all of the live action games I’ve written and run, and it came out to more than a million words of character backgrounds, plot reference documents, and storyteller instructions.

I’m fairly sure that my heavy tabletop background is why I write relatively short novels; somewhere in the back of my brain, I’m thinking “we’ve only got one session to get this story done before someone’s scheduling conflict ends the game!”

Why did you choose to write fantasy? And why pick this particular fantasy subgenre?
I used to refuse to read anything other than fantasy. As a child, I wanted a dragon on the cover, and I despised the idea of having to immerse myself in the real world any further. I eventually branched out as an adult, digging into nonfiction (mostly for tabletop research, I’ll be honest), and then coming very late to the romance genre, which is a kind of fantasy all its own. If I think about it, I actually shared fantasy with my father and romance with my mother, so the fact that I eventually stumbled into romantic fantasy makes absolute sense.

Which other author has had the biggest influence on your writing?
I draw a lot of my understanding of satire from Terry Pratchett, and SMALL MIRACLES is an absolute homage to him, though it’s still a unique story all on its own. Reading Discworld was like a divine revelation that fantasy could be used to ask serious questions about the real world—except, you know, with more exciting things like wizards and carnivorous luggage.

Pratchett was an inherently kind man who had no patience for powerful people, and it came through so strongly in his writing—I’d say that ever since I picked up THE WEE FREE MEN, he’s been my author role model. I couldn’t help but notice that Pratchett was able to ask some very controversial questions by approaching them with humour and whimsy. If you want people to ask those hard questions with you, it can definitely help to give them a chocolate coating.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?
I enjoy logical puzzles, and writing a book is very much a puzzle for me. I spend a lot of my writing time figuring out how to say everything I want to say in the shortest space possible. In particular, I enjoy those moments when I cut an entire page of text and replace it with one or two lines that hit harder than that entire page could have done. That is a gloriously satisfying feeling, and it makes me feel like a real craftsperson.

What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
It changes, depending where you’re at in your career. I think at the beginning, one of the hardest parts was just finishing the book. As my audience expanded, the hardest thing became recognising the difference between constructive criticism and simple differences of opinion. It helped to see that one reader would say “I loved the beginning, but felt that the ending was rushed” while another reader would say “the beginning was hard to get through, but I loved the ending!” I’ve had to carefully calibrate my ability to take helpful things away from my reviews without allowing myself to be misled by, say, a grimdark fantasy reader who happened to pick up my light-hearted tale and got grumpy about the lack of grittiness.

How do I get into the semifinals? Just kidding! No seriously, might you be willing to share a tip, a scrap of wisdom, or perhaps an app, tool, or resource that you can really recommend to authors?
I always recommend that authors learn techniques for clear, communicative writing. One of the many hats I’ve worn is that of technical writer, and my experiences with technical writing made my writing inordinately better and more accessible. You might be a wonderfully atmospheric, descriptive author—but if your reader can’t tell who’s speaking at any given time, their brain has to work far harder just to follow the story, and that means their brain isn’t focussing as much on your lovely descriptions!

As a corollary to this, I am an absolute curmudgeon about using all of those helpful words which fancy writing guides tell you to omit (“that”, “which”, and so on), because I have noticed that these words greatly assist some of my neurodivergent friends while they read. I will always err on the side of inclusivity and clear communication, even if some writing guide insists that the average reader will just fill in the word themselves. The average reader might well do that—but I don’t want to leave anyone behind if I don’t have to do so.

What new projects are you working on?
I am currently very distracted by my traditional release schedule, but I do have several things in the works. In particular, I am still editing an epic steampunk fantasy novel called ECHOES OF THE IMPERIUM, which I wrote with Mr Atwater. I’m very proud of how it’s coming out; I feel like it blends the best of both our styles. The free prequel novella (nearly a novel, honestly), titled A MATTER OF EXECUTION, is already available to subscribers of his newsletter, The Atwater Adventure Column. It involves goblins, politics, aethermancers, and a particularly bombastic pineapple heist.

Anything else you would like to say before we close?
I’m particularly proud to have represented romantic fantasy in this competition for the last few years. I enjoy reading all manner of fantasy myself, but I feel like many fantasy authors and readers discount anything with even a hint of romance as “not real fantasy”, and/or come to the table with a very narrow idea of what the romance genre looks like. If I lure just a few more people into understanding that romance can add to the fantasy experience rather than overtaking it, then I’ll be content with my entry into the competition.

Congratulations on the semi-finalist spot and best of luck in the competition, Olivia.
Thanks for doing the interview!