Tag Archives: Edeline Wrigh

First Love Author Interviews – All of them

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First-Love-KindleOver the last few days, I’ve been running interviews on this blog with all my fellow First Love authors, discussing their contributions to the eponymous romantic fantasy anthology from Dragon Soul Press.

My short story is entitled Papercut, and it concerns a lonely teenage boy living with his ultra-strict Jehovah’s Witness mother. One night a mysterious girl made entirely of paper appears in his dreams, taking him on a mysterious and magical journey that I won’t spoil here.

Whether you fancy reading about the dreamscapes of the religiously oppressed, or love stories involving forest nymphs, mages, selkies, Native American mythology, or, as one of my fellow writers pitched her story to me, “Bridget Jones meets Morgana Le Fay”, this is a must for those who like their romance with a fantastical twist.

For ease of reference, here are links to all of the afore-mentioned interviews (including a separate interview with yours truly):

Meg Boepple interview

Story: Message in a Bottle.

Story tease from the interview: “Boy meets girl on the beach. It’s instant attraction… but he’s already promised to wed the daughter of his king even though he’s never met the future bride… Meanwhile, the pretty girl looks at this handsome dude with a ring on his finger and assumes she’d never be in his league even if he were available… and just to add a twist, he’s pretty sure she’s a siren out to break his heart and destroy his life.”

Sofi Laporte interview

Story: Chestnut Woman

Story tease from the interview: “Imagine falling in love at first sight in a really mundane place: the crowded, stuffy metro. What would you do? My heroine, shy, introverted Pamela, can’t muster up the courage to make the first move. At home she runs into her superbly aggravating, gossiping neighbour, Mrs Schmid. Who is not at all what she appears to be. Mrs Schmid gives her three roasted chestnuts that will change Pamela’s life forever. Is she going to have a second chance with the mysterious, smiling stranger in the subway?”

Kathryn St John interview

Story: A Season’s Time

Story tease from the interview: “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?”

Zoey Xolton interview

Story: Once in a Blue Moon

Story tease from the interview: “My story Once in a Blue Moon is about a girl called Faith. She is an orphan on the cusp of womanhood who comes face to face with her death, and salvation in the space of a single night, when she discovers vampyres not only exist, but rule over their small, Victorian harbour town!”

Melinda Kucsera interview

Story: Caught in a Glance

Story tease from the interview: “Ours was a friendship for the ages–an abused mage just trying to raise his younger brother and a gray-clad enigma who hides beneath a cloak and veil. (That’s me, Shade, your narrator for this interview.) We didn’t know it but the day Sarn and I met, we took the first step toward a perilous friendship that would unleash a demon and earn the ire of an angel. From the mines under Mount Eredren to the Gray Between life and death, follow the twisted paths friendship takes. Only one will survive when adoration turns to obsession. But not even death can sever some bonds.”

AR Johnston interview

Story: Twin Flames

Story tease from the interview: “Dragons, young love, and curses that need to be broken. Will fate tear them apart or will love be enough to keep them together?”

AM Cummins interview

Story: Savage

Story tease from the interview: “My story is a dramatic recreation of a family legend that was told to me by my grandfather. He was proud of his Native American heritage.”

Edeline Wrigh interview

Story: Of Seals and Storms

Story tease from the interview: “When a storm threatens the lives of several local fishermen, Elizabeth’s best friend – a selkie and the girl she’s in love with – comes up with a plan to save them. But there’s one little caveat: she has to return to the ocean for the rest of eternity. Assuming they can find the skin her father hid from her before he drowns, of course. Of Seals and Storms is a love story about hard decisions, sacrifices, and trusting fate.”

DS Durden interview

Story: Lonely Oni

Story tease from the interview: “An exiled woman in a futuristic city finds hope and love where she never expected.”

AD Carter interview

Story: A Forbidden Union

Story tease from the interview: “The story is about a young prince name Zander who sees a woman and instantly falls in love with her, but her fate is sealed. Now Zander must make a decision that could very well change the course of history for his kingdom as well as himself.”

Galina Trefil interview

Story: The Rusalka of the Murashka

Story tease from the interview: “The murder of an innocent spawns a seductive creature which stalks a Ukrainian village for centuries.”

Simon Dillon interview

Story: Papercut

Story tease: See earlier in this article.

First Love is out now, as a paperback or e-book, here (in the UK) or here (in the US).

First Love Author Interview: Edeline Wrigh

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Continuing this series of interviews with my fellow contributing authors on the romantic fantasy anthology First Love, here’s Edeline Wrigh, whose short story Of Seals and Storms delves into Celtic myth and selkies.

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

When a storm threatens the lives of several local fishermen, Elizabeth’s best friend – a selkie and the girl she’s in love with – comes up with a plan to save them. But there’s one little caveat: she has to return to the ocean for the rest of eternity. Assuming they can find the skin her father hid from her before he drowns, of course. Of Seals and Storms is a love story about hard decisions, sacrifices, and trusting fate.

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

It depends on the story, but also my mood. I read (and write) all of them.

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

Selkies! That’s the most obvious/explicit one, but there’s also some anthropomorphizing of the natural world and allusions to at least one Celtic deity.

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

Choices and identity.

To what extent are your characters based on you or people you know?

They aren’t. Not at all. Of course past experiences influenced it because they always do to some extent, but no one’s intentionally based on anyone.

Do you know your ending when you write, or do you start and see where the story or characters take you?

It depends on the project. Different ones develop differently. Sometimes I start with the ending and none of the lead up, sometimes I start with a vague idea, sometimes I start with a random middle scene. For Of Seals and Storms I think I knew what the ending was about 20% of the way through it.

What is the worst thing about being a writer?

Balancing writing with other life obligations.

To what extent (if at all) do you agree with the statement “write what you know”?

I agree with it, but find it’s often misinterpreted. As a fantasy writer, of course I’m not intimately familiar with unicorns or what-have-you, but the themes I’m writing about are always ones I “know” – loss, love, cruelty, solidarity, faith, etc. Also, there are moments in fiction that can parallel things we intimately know and we can pull on our experiences for those things. If the job our character is applying for is a wizard’s apprentice, many of us are still familiar with the anxiety surrounding interviewing for a job even if we were interviewing for an office gig.

Also, honestly, with the internet it’s really easy to research a subject and can draw on other people’s experiences too.

Are you promiscuous or monogamous with your genre of choice?

I’m devoted to fantasy and fantasy subgenres, but I don’t have a particular subgenre I’m “monogamous” with.

What is your current work-in-progress?

The first in a lesbian harem paranormal romance series – The Witch and the Werewolf. It comes out on March 21 and is available for preorder now.

What advice would you give someone who tells you they want to be a writer?

Just write.

It’s simple and it can be hard at first, but really… just write. Stop prewriting and get words on paper. Finish your drafts even if you hate them; it’s a hard habit to form and it’s important if you ever want to “get anywhere.” If you feel your project sucks, finish it and then write something else, and share it with someone who will be kind but also honest in the meantime. But also don’t get caught up on making your first project “perfect.” It won’t be. Neither will your fifth or your twentieth, and that doesn’t actually matter. Your readers largely won’t care and they’d rather have something to read. Promise.

To follow Edeline Wrigh, visit edelinewrites.com and check out her writing 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).