AMoRaR Interview – Karen Lucia

A Month of Rain and Reads Interviews6 months ago12 min readAdd comment

Welcome to A Month of Rain and Reads, a celebration of self-published and indie SFF throughout the entire month of November. To find out how you can take part and view the whole list of content, visit our introduction post.

Today, we have an interview with Karen Lucia, author of, among other works, Blackburn Station, which was one of Nils’ favourite reads last year.

Describe yourself like you would a character in one of your books.

A notoriously undescriptive author, Karen struggled to describe herself like a character in one of her books. Still, she gave it her best shot.

A midwestern mom of two small children and too many hobbies, she had no idea how she managed to keep writing while also holding down a full-time job in cybersecurity. Maybe having spent eleven years also juggling being an officer in the Army National Guard working in mass casualty response taught her a thing or two about wearing multiple hats all at the same moment. It might have also led to some of her inspiration in her writing and a strong drive toward escapism.

She’s as much of a mood writer as she is a mood reader, so her genre changed with the breeze. Science fiction, low fantasy, existential contemplations, dystopian, apocalyptic, Gaslamp — whatever felt good at the moment. She always felt silly when she joked that her writing took dark turns dark because she was a dark and broody person, but then she went ahead and wrote some of the darkest stuff her mind could come up with, because, you know, better out than in. Unfortunately, she was also a hopeless romantic, so every story also had at least a hint of a romantic subplot.

Our theme for November is A Month of Rain & Reads. Do you subscribe to the idea of curling up with a good book while the rain pours down outside, or do you prefer the cold and snow of winter? What book would you read? Would you bring tea and a blanket? What would make the moment perfect?

I love rainstorms. If I can swing it (my kids are asleep or otherwise occupied), I will always sit on our porch when a good midwestern summer downpour comes rolling through. If it’s any indicator, I had a porch built for rainstorm viewing. If I’m feeling inspired, I might write. If I’m in the middle of a good book, I might read. Or I’ll just chill with some tea and watch the rain. It is especially good when there is a ton of lightning.

What else do you want our readers to know about you?

I’m authentically grateful to anybody who picks up one of my books. I write for my enjoyment and wellbeing, but it is an added bonus when a reader finds my work enjoyable.

Why did you decide to self-publish, and what has been your biggest success so far?

I wrote a book, and I wanted it published and out in the world. I did start looking for agents, thinking the traditional route was the only route, and then found self-publishing through that process. I never had any thoughts about being discovered. I just wanted a spot to put my mental energy. I never wanted writing to be a job, because then I think I would lose my passion for it. It is so fun being able to explore creatively without artificial pressure placed on that exploration. As far as my biggest success so far… Probably selling out at my first book fair. I didn’t go in lightly stocked either.

What is your favourite thing about being an indie author?

I love the freedom. I can publish what I want, when I want. Since I don’t write to market and really just do it because I love it, I love being able to just do whatever it is I want at the moment. I also love the indie community.

We’ve seen your books in the SFINCS novella competition two years running, but you also write novels. What do the different formats represent to you?

I enjoy the focused aspect of novellas. You can world build beautifully in them, but a little more can be left to the imagination. I started writing novellas because I just needed a reset after having kids and being over drawn from life events. I published my most recent novel, Landbringer right before having my second kid and my mental capacity for sprawling stories took a back seat.

Novellas allow me to quickly explore an idea and work through whatever the trigger of the novella was. Blackburn came to me while I was attending a Suicide Intervention Officer course. Funeral Singer followed the death of one of my Soldiers and my own feelings of doubt, burn out, and figuring out how to move forward in my life in a healthier way. And then we have A Second Life Worth Living… I think you can look around the world today and see what I was navigating there.

Full length novels are great for developing these in depth worlds and having really complex social systems that my characters have to work their way through. It just gives more space for more complexity and play.

What themes are important to you, and how are they reflected in your writing? What about tropes?

I never write with tropes in mind. You can dig them out in post but they aren’t a forethought for me. But if you ever saw the behind the scenes of my writing process, you may not think there is much forethought in anything I do writing wise. In terms of themes, I recently had somebody else point out that I seem to have a lot of grief in my writing. I hadn’t noticed it until it was pointed out, but it make sense. In so many ways, writing is a means of coping.

What are you working on next? Can you tease us?

Sometimes I like to write fanfic for my own work. Saying it another way, sequels. My Gaslamp fantasy, Landbringer, was always meant to be a standalone, but it is just so hard to write a whole world then leave it behind. So, I wrote a follow-on that follows the lives of random people following the events of Landbringer. This was all a distraction from the epic I have been trying to write. And while working on this one, I distracted myself with writing my dark little novella, A Second Life Worth Living.

For a little teaser, here is the start of one of the stories from my sequel that was never meant to be:

– Alyse –

The Edge

Alyse leaned over the edge of the world, staring into the abyss and spat. The glob dropped between her swinging feet, drifting down toward the cloudline in a shifting orb. It wasn’t long before she lost sight of the mass against the reds and yellows of the sun-washed clouds below and their toxic embrace.

Marco had been so proud to be picked for the Persephone heist. That stupid kid. She didn’t even know if he had made the landing. She didn’t know if he had made it into the airship to die at Enforcer hands, or if he had gone the way of so many other vagabond divers, and been lost to the cloudline. It didn’t really matter, one way or the other. Everybody who had been picked for that dive had died. She had seen a couple of the olders hauled off by the Enforcers, but they didn’t look long for the world either. An entire gang wiped from the world like they never existed. Even their digs had been taken over, and the most promising kids picked up by rival gangs. The less impressive members being discarded like so much trash. She hadn’t waited around to find out which category she fell into.

Leaning forward, Alyse rested her elbows on her knees. She wasn’t afraid of falling. She never had been. If she fell now, what would she lose?

She hadn’t stuck around for the divvying up of assets after news of the Persephone made landfall. The gangs were carrion birds. She could make her own way.

She let herself continue to tilt forward, wondering if Marco had been afraid to jump. She leaned until she was on the edge of tipping into the abyss herself. She didn’t have a guide line. There was no airship below. If she fell, that would be it for her. What a stupid way to die.

She sat back, grabbing the rusted railings meant to keep people back from the crumbling edge of Isolde’s Point, and pulled herself back to the relative safety of the landmass.

She had come to watch. That cursed airship listed, tipping, sinking below the red and gold waves of the cloudline just off the edge of Vale. Gone.

Kicking the ground, she wandered past canoodling couples on the lawn, far from the true excitement of the edge. The parks board had apparently deemed the lawns safe. Their standards must have been pretty lax to allow anybody on Isolde’s Point. She shouldn’t have been surprised. It was, after all, named after a dead woman. Safety didn’t mean much on the Point, where the ground was known to crumble away with no warning. One second there, the next, gone to the abyss.

What a dumb way to die.

And back to round out the interview with a few quick questions. What’s your favourite…

…book, in recent times?

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

…game, in recent times?

If we are talking about video games, I dig Cyberpunk 2077. I can waste so much time just driving around at high speeds doing nothing then go on a rampage to close out the day.

If we are talking table tops, I’m currently in the middle of a Heart: The City Beneath campaign. There’s more than a little bit of body horror in this system.

…writing advice?

Just get something on the page. Make it pretty later.

…advice for someone who wants to publish their own book?

Know what you really want out of it. I went the self-publishing route because I just wanted to get my stories out there, and of course I love when people read and enjoy my books, but my goal was never to get big. I just needed an outlet for all the mental energy and a clearly defined finish line to provide a signal for when to move on to the next work. If you want to get big, be ready to put in the effort. If you just want to write and publish as a hobby, maybe a little side hustle, and you are not able to put in all the time to market, then maintain that expectation and don’t beat yourself up if you have zero sale months. It happens.

…source of inspiration?

I keep my creativity going even while in writing ruts with my tabletop games. Having to think through situations with other people in a world of somebody else’s design is a super helpful way to get inspired when I’m flagging a bit.

…way to clear your mind when everything gets a bit much?

I doodle a lot. Lots of doodling. Sometimes painting. Painting when I have really given up on doing anything else that day and just want something calming.

Do you have any last words? Any shoutouts to authors who have supported you or whose books have inspired you?

A huge shout out to the indie author community and to all the indie readers out there! Thank you all for being amazing!

Karen Lucia

Karen is a Minneapolis author. The long Minnesota winters taught her the value of a good story. Growing up on authors like Piers Anthony and Ursula K LeGuin she developed an interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy that has shaped her writing today. Throughout her life, Karen has had a small handful of adventures that help her craft the stories she writes, ranging from her time abroad, to becoming a mother, or her years spent as an Army Officer, working on a mass casualty response force, and her time in cybersecurity. Always on the hunt for strong female leads, Karen decided to write some of her own leading to the Warriors of Helsvern series. THE GOLDEN VALIA is her debut novel and the first book in the Warriors of Helsvern.