For me latest Author Spotlight, I’m joined by the wonderful Essie Sloane. We talked about the conversation that gave them the confidence to start publishing, writing in sprints, being inspired by song lyrics, and her love of queer history.

Take it away Essie…

First things first, please introduce yourself!
Hi, I’m Essie Sloane. I’m a bisexual demi-girl living in Kentucky. I’m an avid reader and have been since the ripe old age of two years old. (Early start due to a severe speech impediment I’ve since gotten over, but it came with speech therapy and having to learn what sounds each letter made.) I started writing at an incredibly young age and actually have a copy of a short story I wrote in fourth grade sitting in my closet as a prized possession. 

I started writing MM romance in 2022 with my first book released in June of 2023. (Technically, I started in 2021, but abandoned the project for awhile. A conversation with another author at GRL 2022 made me decide to finally take the leap.) Being a published author has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I’m glad I’m finally chasing after it.

Tell us a little bit about your writing style.
I tend to write chronologically. As much as I’d love to be able to jump around and write scenes as they come in my head, my brain hates connecting the pieces later and will just refuse to go back to fill those spots in. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work. 

I’m a plantser when it comes to plotting. I write out a general idea of where I want the story to go, though this year I’m attempting actual outlines. And then, somewhere in the book, my characters go off the rails and the outline is thrown out and I’m just along for the ride, tying up loose ends that they left hanging in the editing process. 

Describe your books in only three words.
Contemporary, Low Angst, Fun?

What are you working on right now?
I am currently working on book two of my Hard to Love series, Hard to Pretend. This is Seb’s story and features fake dating and the ever blurring lines between real and pretend. I’ve had parts of this story sitting in a discord server waiting to be written since 2021, and I’m so excited for all of my readers to meet Seb and Chris. I hope they love them as much as I do. 

And luckily, this one will be a little lower angst than Hard to Forgive was! 

I have a few other projects that I’m working on as well – each outlined and waiting their turn. Unfortunately, several of them are secrets so I can’t talk much about them currently. 

Out of all your books, which one are you most proud of?
That’s like asking me to choose between my children, but I think, currently, it would be Snowdrop. It was my first time doing a shared world collaboration, and I loved working out the logistics. I loved chatting with other authors and borrowing their characters to make the world a little more woven together. Also Billy and Noel are just really important to me. I even bought a Santa holding a Pride Flag ornament for my tree in 2023 to represent them. 

What or who (or both) has influenced you most as a writer?
I’ve been influenced by a lot of authors. Ann M Martin from the Baby-Sitters Club was my first great influence, and it shows a lot if you ever somehow came across the ancient stories handwritten in notebooks that I have lying around from my childhood. SE Hinton was another one, and I think she was the first one that made me realize that I related more to male characters than female characters. Sarah Dessen influenced my writing a lot as well, and it’s because of her that all of my books take place in one universe, mostly in the town of King’s Bay, South Carolina. 

I also have to give a shout out to Ariella Zoelle as an author with a lot of influence on me as a writer. I don’t think I would have made the leap had we not spent a few hours chatting by the fire at GRL 2022. 

I also find a lot of inspiration in song lyrics. I have an entire story based around a single line of a Fall Out Boy song that I plan to write one day. My debut novel was inspired by an old song by this band Stars that I’ve loved since the mid-2000s. I find inspiration in a lot of very random things.

What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve been writing and telling stories for as long as I can remember. I remember when I first set out to start writing MM romance in 2021, I was just struck by an idea for a series. I wrote out some plans for it and wrote about 5k before it petered out. I was too busy with other things in my life. 

Then my life changed. I got a divorce and I found myself single for the first time in thirteen years. I realized that there were things that I wanted to do, and one of them was potentially chase that old dream. I revisited the outlines and while I still wanted to write those stories, they weren’t the ones in my head. Instead, I started on the book that became Introducing Mr. Right (Now). 

I didn’t know if it’d ever see the light of day or if I’d even finish the story until that conversation with Ariella though. I decided what did I have to lose? It felt amazing the day I hit publish, and I still get that same thrill now – four books in.

What’s your writing process like? Do you have a typical “writing day”?
I wish I had a typical writing day. Unfortunately, my life still gets a little chaotic between my day job and my kid. 

My writing process is a little simpler. I write in sprints, because I have a deeply competitive side, even against myself. I tend to write in 30 minute bursts, though I will go longer than that when the flow really gets started. The sprint just seems to jump start the muse. And when it doesn’t? Well I’ve at least gotten another thousand words added to the total. 

The hardest part of the process is always the first few chapters of a project though. Getting to know my new characters is a process and it usually takes a few starts for each POV before I feel like I’ve found their voices. 

What comes first for you – the plot or the characters?
Sometimes it’s the character; sometimes it’s the plot.I’ve got an entire Discord channel filled with plot bunnies and ideas that I’ve had over the past few years. Sometimes, they come with characters attached and other times, they just sit there, waiting for something to grow out of them or for a character to form in my head that could fit them.

What’s a book that you wish you’d written?
Oh god, there are so many books I wish I could say I was talented enough to write. Willow Dixon’s Never Have I Ever series. Briar Prescott’s And Then You and Until You. Basically anything Isla Olsen has ever written, because her wit is just amazing. Marie Sinclair’s A Kind of Forever series (which features my all time favorite couple). Sophia Soames’ London Love series. Hostile by Nicole Dykes. 

The list is just too long. I’m leaving off a ton of others that I wish I could say I wrote, just because they were that amazing and left that kind of impact on me. 

If you could only write one trope for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Judging solely on what I’ve noticed popping up in too many of my stories, I’m going to have to go with the one night stand that turns into forever. I’m writing my fifth book right now, and it’s in three of them. I blame The Spill Canvas and a song lyric that’s stuck with me since college, because as I said, I get a lot of inspiration from song lyrics. 

It’s also such a versatile trope and it’s a lot of fun to write.

What would be your three desert island books?
Nothing Like Forever by Marie Sinclair, The Outsiders by SE Hinton, and an omnibus collection of either The Hunger Games or All For the Game series. Does such an omnibus exist? No, but if I’m on a desert island for some reason, I’m bending the rules of reality and making them exist purely for the hypothetical.

If one of your books could be made into a movie/TV series, which would you choose and who would you cast?
For a TV series, the Hard to Love series. While it hasn’t been finished yet, I would love to see the found family dynamic between Jonas, Seb, Matt, Holden, and Eli play out. They’re one of my favorite groups I’ve written so far and I feel like they’d have the most stories and shenanigans to really milk a TV show. 

For casting, I’m not entirely sure. I know Eli would probably be Michael Vlamis, even if he is a little too old for the character technically. He just has the exact curl pattern – especially in season one Roswell New Mexico – that I imagine when I close my eyes and think of Eli Mercer. 

What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Do you have a secret passion or hobby that we don’t know about?
I spend a lot of time on the computer or doing crafts. I spend a lot of time playing on Photoshop. I like to read and study queer history. I love watching queer history documentaries. I tend to binge watch the same shows on repeat, because they just make me happy. As for a secret passion, it’s not really a secret. I spend a lot of time on forum based roleplay – which is basically a collaborative writing thing with a bunch of friends. I’ve had to have them tell me to sign off discord to write more than once.

Finally, what’s your favourite dinosaur?
Spinosaurus. It has a very special place in my heart, thanks to a song that my daughter was obsessed with when she was younger. Requested it every night before bed and I can’t think about a spinosaurus without both singing it in my head and smiling at the memories.

Essie Sloane currently lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her daughter, cat, and ancient black lab. She’s a life long reader and has dreamed of being a writer since she was a child. When they’re not reading, they enjoy doing small craft projects – crocheting and diamond painting, mainly. She also enjoys listening to music, studying queer history, and playing on her computer. You can reach out to them on Facebook or Instagram. They love to chat!

For more information on Essie and their work you can visit her website, sign up for her newsletter, and follow her on Instagram and Facebook. You can also join their Facebook Reader Group for the latest news and updates.