AMoRaR Interview: Stephanie Caye

A Month of Rain and Reads Interviews3 months ago10 min read

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 Stephanie Caye, author of the Gravity’s Daughter series.

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? What book would you read? Would you bring tea and a blanket? What would make the moment perfect?

Yes! I’d skip the tea in favour of hot cocoa—Mexican style with chili powder and cinnamon, please—and nestle into my favourite chair with a book. Rainy fall days are best for experimenting, playing roulette with my ever-growing TBR list of indie fantasy and horror books.

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

I’d been querying books to agents and publishers on and off since I was sixteen years old. The idea of self-publishing always held a nebulous intrigue. It drove me nuts that musicians seemed to be praised for putting out their own stuff without an agent/label etc, all gritty and DIY, but authors who self-published were automatically “not good enough to get a real publishing deal.” What?!

It took a lot of years to get past the internalized shame of being cringe, of putting myself out there and asking for attention, but as my 40th birthday loomed in, I was finally inspired to take matters into my own hands.

Honestly, my biggest success is each and every time someone buys, shares or reviews one of my books. When people I don’t even know are willing to give their attention to my words, when they enjoy the story that spiraled out of my head, it means the world to me. Every. Single. Time.

Your urban fantasy series, Gravity’s Daughter, features a lot of Fae! How do you represent the Fae and Faerie courts in your books?

My representation of Fae and the Faerie Court is pretty non-traditional. I made up a bulk of the Fae lore in my books. Sometimes I do crib traditional creatures and terms from existing folklore, but I usually put my own spin on them.

For example, my MC Jude’s Faerie power is the ability to alter her personal gravity, to walk up walls or make herself lighter or heavier as she needs. For a while, I was trying to find a traditional type of Fae to classify her as, but at some point I just said, “Who cares?” She is what she is and I don’t have to define her or any of the characters according to ideas that already exist.

If this non-trad approach turns some readers off, I get it. It doesn’t always hit the usual tropes. There’s no Seelie vs Unseelie, no Summer Fae or Winter Fae, no brooding, sexy Faerie kings or princes claiming human women as fated mates, and Faeries can definitely lie in my world. Luckily, I think those other tropes have been covered way better than I could by other authors!

What you will find in the Gravity’s Daughter books is a long-standing cold war between human and Faerie, a consistent magic system that branches off from the expected, new and (I hope) unique magic powers embodied in grounded, diverse characters, and a lot of action, humour and snark.

The Flaws of Gravity is set within Canada, which seems to be a rare urban fantasy setting. What’s it like writing a real world location? Did you have to do much research?

When I started writing Flaws, it was actually set in New York City, because that was the generic “Big City” of books and film. Eventually, I moved it to Chicago because I’m from the Midwest and I had a little more experience there, but it never quite fit. The setting always felt like an afterthought, like a painted cardboard cutout that was standing in for something else.

Finally, a few years after I’d moved to Montreal, I was still toiling away on this book and I was struck by this frankly obvious-in-hindsight revelation: “Steph, what if, and hear me out here, but what if you set your book in this city that you adore, where you literally live?”

Mind blown. Setting cemented. The rest is history.

I didn’t want to just base the setting on the places I already knew, though—I wanted to get out and learn new parts of Montreal, see different neighbourhoods. So, my research started with and continues to involve taking public transit all over the city to wander and explore. (This approach has also turned out to be a great remedy for feeling like an outsider in my adopted city!)

With regards to Canada being a rare setting for urban fantasy, it’s actually not! There are other indie UF series like The Valkyrie Bestiary by Kim McDougall (which takes place in a future, more dystopian Montreal), The Four of Witches by Krista Walsh (set in Ottawa) and The Jezebel Files by Deborah Wilde (set in Vancouver) that I’ve really enjoyed, and I know that’s only the tip of the iceberg. (If you have other Canadian indie urban fantasy to recommend, please hit me up at stephaniecaye@stephaniecaye.com!)

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

A theme I hit a lot is the idea of belonging to more than one world, of “othering” and being “othered.” The necessity for acceptance and empathy. It’s odd as a theme for books that are mostly violence, swearing and sarcasm, I know, but there it is.

Fen is clearly not a fae creature masquerading as a cat. Not at all. Why would you think that?

The most obvious instance in my writing is that my MC Jude is literally half-Faerie and half-human, and she’s caught between those warring worlds. But she’s also an anglophone Canadian transplant to francophone Quebec, so even just in the human world, she’s straddling two disparate cultures.

Other characters are looked down on by peers for being not human enough or not Faerie enough. They’re trying to grow out of internalized xenophobia, grappling with divided loyalties, reconciling their place between blood family and found/chosen family. They’re struggling with being in-between, never quite “enough,” never slotting into an easy category.

The importance of diversity, multiculturalism and bridging communities has been important to me for a long time. Immigrating to another country, specifically to a province where I had to learn a new language to participate in daily life, has only increased my empathy and respect for anyone juggling the responsibilities of multiple worlds, whatever they are.

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

I’m working slowly on Books 4 and 5 of the Gravity’s Daughter series. The first three books formed a loose trilogy, story-wise, and the next two are sort of their own duology (same characters, new problems!) Book 4 is mostly finished but Book 5 is just a handful of vibes and semi-related scenes at the moment.

I also dip occasionally into a standalone urban fantasy story set in Austin. It’s a whole different magical system that’s a little more absurd and wacky than Gravity’s Daughter. There’s movie references, bickering siblings, a fluffy, cat-like creature, secret government conspiracies—the works! I’m incredibly excited about it, but—maddeningly—the inspiration comes in fits and starts so it’s not finished yet.

And a few quick questions. What’s your favourite…

Sylvie promises she’s not a demon dressed up as a cat.

…book, in recent times?

I can’t stop thinking about The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. At heart, it’s a simple, novella-length fairy tale, but the prose is so intricate and full of wordplay that I often had to read sentences multiple times. No, not had to—wanted to. Every word feels so carefully chosen that I want to savour all the clever, playful turns of phrase and soak them in. I wish I could write like this. Honestly, I wish I could even think like this.

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

It’s hard work and from what I’ve both seen and experienced, it rarely pays off in a huge financial windfall. BUT it can be a lot of fun. So, research, ask questions before you start, seek out a writing community, hire a professional editor, find beta readers who aren’t family/friends. Critiques are painful and scary but sometimes they bridge a plot hole or kick off an idea that brings everything together. I’m a fastidious self-editor, but my books would never have been as good as they are without my developmental editor or the help of my honest-to-a-fault beta readers.

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

Beading. I took an atelier (workshop) on Indigenous beading last year at a local museum, and I fell hard for the art. Focusing on the finicky details of counting beads and stitches and knots, on sketching bad patterns, on something that I’m physically creating with my hands, takes me wonderfully out of my head.

Book-wise, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a bit like a meditation for me. Her writing on the baffling intricacies and sheer audacity of nature quiets my mind in the nicest way. Sometimes I pull it out and read an essay when my head’s buzzing with too much garbage and it really helps.

Stephanie Caye

Stephanie Caye grew up in Michigan wanting to be a famed, reclusive novelist. Then she moved to Austin, Texas, got a job in tech, started volunteering with shelter cats and dropped both “famed” and “reclusive” from her childhood dream. Now she lives in Montreal, still working in tech, still volunteering with cats, still writing, and harbouring a deep love of both chilaquiles and poutine. A former recipient of a University of Michigan Hopwood award for writing, she published her first urban fantasy novel, The Flaws of Gravity, in 2022 and followed it up with two more books in the Gravity’s Daughter series…so far.