Today’s interview with my fellow contributing authors on the romantic fantasy anthology First Love is with Kathryn St John. Greek mythology is her forte, and her short story in this anthology deals with… Well, I’ll let her tell you more.

What drew you to the First Love anthology?

The cover. It was lovely. The moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to be in that anthology. I didn’t care what the genre was.

Give us a little tease for your short story for First Love.

Whilst on a summer visit with his grandparents, a young man meets a strange young woman in a nearby forest. Over the course of the season, their feelings blossom into love, but there’s an obstacle looming in the distance that threatens to separate them. Is their love doomed from the start, or will they manage to find a way around their difficulties and remain together?

Do you prefer your romantic fiction to end happily-ever-after, happy-for-now, tragically, or does it depend on the story?

It really depends on the story. Generally, I like my romances to have a Happy Ever After where it’s all butterflies and rainbows, and I feel warm and squishy on the inside. I get giggly and grin like an idiot and all’s right with the world. However, there are those stories that demand tragedy. I know the tragic ending is the only kind of ending they can really have. If either one of them lives, it’ll cause more problems and they won’t be happy. But if one or both of them die, while heartbreaking, it’s for the best. I probably won’t read that book again though.

What fantasy elements (if any) do you use in your First Love story?

A Season’s Time touches on Greek mythology. Leaf, the protagonist’s love interest, is a hamadryad, which is a special kind of dryad. Dryads are nature spirits bound to trees. In Leaf’s case, her life is entwined with an old fig tree.

What major theme(s) are you exploring in this story?

Love, obviously. A love that can bridge the gap between worlds. Not that Leaf is an alien or comes from another dimension or anything, but she doesn’t come from the mortal world that Bastian comes from. Her life is completely different. I also touch upon the need to compromise. If you love someone, you have to respect them enough to let some things go. You can’t demand they give up everything for you to fulfill your needs. That’s what I believe anyway.

What inspired your story?

When I was a child, I read…something…perhaps a fairy tale…of a man who finds a water spirit of some sort in a pond in the woods. He somehow gets her away from her pool (I think by tricking her, but it’s been decades, so I can’t be sure) and makes her his wife. Eventually, she goes home, leaving him heartbroken. I’ve always loved that story, but it’s already been done, so I searched for another kind of magical creature. A long and convoluted time later, I chanced upon dryads. I was finishing the second book in my Greek mythology series, so my creative brain was still steeped in that content. The idea of a dryad in love with a mortal intrigued me, so I ran with it.

What other Dragon Soul Press anthologies have you contributed to?

The only other one I’ve contributed too (and so far the only other one completed) is All Dark Places. I wrote that under my horror pen name – Anna Sinjin.

What romantic fiction do you like?

I like Regency romances, such as what Georgette Heyer wrote, where the book is all about the storyline and the dialogue. There’s no sex, no touching really, and probably a single kiss at the end along with marriage or the expectation that they will get married because they’re engaged. I also like some of Nora Roberts older romance books. They have a lot of steamy scenes, but I don’t care so much about those. My favourites are the ones that have magic involved and are trilogies. The trilogies give a lot of time and opportunity to really build the characters and their relationships, etc.

Is romance something you would normally write? If so, what attracts you to the genre? If not, what challenges did you encounter in the writing process?

Not so much, though I have written a fantasy with romance in it, and I always put romantic/lustful feelings in my work. I feel uncomfortable writing sex scenes and that seems to be what everyone wants in a romance – tons of sex. If a scene calls for it, I’ll step up to the plate, but the anxiety over what people think and how they take it (especially when my parents read it!) is so stressful. Writing clean romance is supremely difficult as well but for different reasons. I feel I need to write witty and charismatic dialogue, and I’m not a witty or charismatic person. A Season’s Time took me an entire month to write because I wanted the dialogue to take the place of sex. It was a tortuous experience trying to make them interesting people.

What do you prefer writing? Short stories? Novels? Novellas? Poetry?

I enjoy writing most things. I haven’t written poetry in over a decade, but I’ll have to brush up on my skills later this year if I want to hit another certain DSP anthology. Mainly, I write novels and short stories. Short stories are fun because they’re like writing exercises for me. I get to challenge myself at something new, or get a little idea out there in a short amount of time. Novels take a ton of work, but I really enjoy hashing everything out and being able to take the time to really build the story and the characters.

What is your favourite work that you have written so far?

My first book, Night’s Treasure. It took years to write. I wanted to find the perfect situations, the perfect gods, the perfect everything. It was the first time I tried to weave a story among stories already told. It’s so easy to change myths to suit your needs. So easy to change relationships and such. I wanted to write a story that could be woven into the myths, and I didn’t want to use only the main gods – the Olympians and other favorites. I wanted to explore the lesser known gods such as Icelus or Achlys.

What is your current work-in-progress?

I have a short story in the works as well as a novel. No title for the short story yet, but it’s an underwater thing. No mermaids. The book is still being outlined, and I may have to put it on hold if I can’t finish it before summer. It’s a retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid. Don’t expect Disney-esque.

What other writing plans do you have for the future?

I have lots of future plans. And I have the book covers for most of those plans already. They have a name for this – Cover Addict. Hello, my name is Kathryn St. John, and I’m a cover addict. At the end of last year, I planned out four books I wanted to publish in 2019. Then I mapped out the anthologies I would also submit to. There are 4-5. That fifth one is due in 2019 but won’t be published until 2020. Currently, I’ve covered the first anthology on my list – First Love – and am in the process of writing a short story for the second. If my story is accepted, I’ll announce the anthology. If not, nobody needs to know my failure and despair. However, as to the books, I’m supremely behind schedule. But that’s because my editing career is expanding and sucking up all my down time. If I can’t get any other books finished and published, I’m going to get my final Daughter of Nyx book done as well as the anthologies I’m striving for.

You can read more works from Kathryn St John here.

To pick up a copy of First Love either in paperback or on Kindle, click here (in the UK) and here (in the US).