1. Welcome to Conversations with Fairy Whisperers, Emily! We’re glad to have you as today’s guest in out space to connect the fairy tale retellings readership with the authors of the stories they love. I hear you’ve just published your first novel, congratulations! Tell us about yourself, what was your journey towards becoming an author like?

• Thank you so much for having me! Wine for Roses is my first book, a queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast set in modern-day Indiana. I wrote the first draft of this story during lockdown with a newborn. I’ve been primarily a writer of short stories for the last ten years, mostly Science Fiction and Fantasy, which have been published in various magazines. I originally thought this would be a short story as well, but it just kept growing.

0. Your mentioned that your first publications were short stories, do you prefer to write in short form or long form more?

• I naturally gravitate towards the short form. Even Wine for Roses is technically a novella. The structure of the short story has always felt easier to hold in my head, more natural to my process. I’m a discovery writer, and writing a short story can feel like biking along a familiar path through the woods. It’s going to look different every day, and I’m going to encounter different creatures, but I know the road. I also tend to underwrite and then go back and flesh scenes out, which is also naturally more conducive to the short form.

0. Do you have a favourite fairy tale? What aspects of it appeal to you personally, and why?

• Beauty and the Beast is my favorite fairytale. I imprinted on it as a child and never let go. And of course, it lends itself so well to queer interpretations, with its questions about what romance is and who gets to experience it.

0. In your opinion, what makes a retelling stand out? What do you consider the joys and challenges of writing in this specific subgenre?

• When I think of the best retellings, I immediately go to Angela Carter. She doesn’t hold back in her work, or shy away from the darker themes we see in a lot of fairy tales. The challenge of course, is in making your story unique.

0. In your opinion, what fairy tale is the most complicated to reinvent, and why?

• There’s dark motifs in all fairy tales, but Beauty and the Beast is particularly difficult because it naturally brings up themes like consent and abusive relationships. I think a lot of this is informed by the Disney version of the movie, in which the Beast character has anger issues, but every retelling is a fable about falling in love across this huge power differential. The most effective versions swap the power dynamics at the end. A great example is Jane Eyre, which is a Blackbeard/Beauty and the Beast retelling. By the end of the story, Jane has all the money, all the power, and all the knowledge, forcing Rochester to simply wait on her decisions. It’s a complete flip-flop from how they meet. I’ll leave it up to readers to decide if my retelling pulls that off!

0. From your recently published Wine for Roses, a contemporary fantasy story inspired by our favourite “Beauty and the Beast,” I was most impressed by the focus on rose gardening, something that’s not common in retellings of this tale even though the rose symbolism is so important. How did you come across the idea for your take on the fairy tale, and what can you tell us about its creative process?

• I began growing roses shortly after I wrote the first drafts of this story. I began growing roses myself, and the more I learned about roses, the more material I had for the book! The rose rosette disease, which plays such a large role in the story, is unfortunately something I’ve dealt with myself (and it’s as creepy as it sounds). My garden and my novel very much grew up together.

0. I like that description! You’re the first reteller with such an extensive knowledge of roses I’ve found in my years of reading, and I liked how you managed to make the Beast figure in your story be like a “human rose.” What do roses symbolise for you in the story or in general, and do you have a favourite varietal?

• I think roses symbolize caretaking in a broad sense, simply because they’re so much work. They’re not hard to keep alive–life wants to survive–but helping them stay healthy and bloom their best is quite labor intensive. My favorite varietal is David Austin’s Roald Dahl, which is a peach rose named for the author of James and the Giant Peach. I love an unusually colored rose, and you don’t see too many peach ones.

0. Many authors who started their careers writing retellings later abandon fairy tale retellings for other genres. Do you plan to continue writing retellings or will you move on to different ideas for your next book?

• The book I’m working on now is a sort of near-future space opera, so it’s not fairytale-coded in the same way. But I can’t seem to stop retelling this story! A lot of my short stories are also Beauty and the Beast retellings at some level, and I think I’ll always revisit that.

0. Do you ever yourself writing an original fairy tale as opposed to a retelling of one?

• I truly believe that all storytelling is in conversation with the stories that have come before. In some sense, if the storytelling is not based in tradition, then it’s no longer a fairytale. But on the other hand, all retellings are unique stories, in that only the author could have told that exact story exactly like that. I think my writing (at least within the fairytale genre) falls closer to the “in conversation” end of the spectrum.

0. If there was a Hall of Fame for retold fairy tales, which would you consider the best retold stories books and why are they worthy of inclusion in said Hall of Fame?

• I’ve already mentioned Angela Carter and Charlotte Brontë, and of course Robin McKinley is the GOAT. Tanith Lee is great if you like a little subversion.

0. Is there an author who you view as a role model for your own writing?

• I love Emily Tesh’s work. She also began writing in the fairytale-esque genre (if you’d like a unique fairytale, definitely check out SILVER IN THE WOOD!) But she’s branched out quite a bit, and I like how she writes across genres. I’d like to have that sort of breadth.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Emily! We will be keeping an eye on your future books, which we hope shall be many more in the years to come.