Today’s interview is with Lea Falls, the author of Goddess of Limbo, which released just last month! If you’re looking for more ensemble-cast adult fantasy to read, let us point you in that direction. In the meantime, though, we have this very fun interview for you to read!
And, while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Lea on twitter!
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you first get into writing?
I’ve always loved storytelling! I started with improv shows and performances first, but when I turned eleven, I got this oldies CD set, full of songs from the 1950s. I loved it so much, I decided to write a screenplay based on the songs. Only problem, I’m German and didn’t speak English yet, so I ended up writing a fantasy script about a princess who’d been swapped out at birth and grew up among a peasant family instead of fitting it to the lyrics. I was very proud of it and used way too many exclamation marks!!!!
What are your favourite genres to read and write, and are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?
I love reading pretty much all genres, so I don’t want to tie myself to a niche in writing either. That being said, I gravitate toward writing fantasy, sci-fi, and horror-dystopia. I love writing about big stakes, high emotions, and finding hope in dire situations. One of the books I’m currently working on is a contemporary story though. I’m not super interested in writing romance without other subgenres attached because I don’t trust myself to stick with a lighthearted tone and HEA.
A trope I definitely don’t want to write is the reluctant-apathetic protagonist. They appear so often in books, most readers must enjoy them/are okay with them, but that trope makes me smack my head against the page. Give me characters that jump head first into adventure, disaster, love, all of it, and I’ll be happy.
How do you get inspiration for your books and what’s your writing process? At what point do you let other people read your drafts and who are they?
Inspiration finds me in a lot of different ways, but often with a song I’m listening to on repeat. The first thing in my head is usually a relationship between two characters and the rest of the story builds from there.
My debut came to me in a peculiar way – through a Dungeons and Dragons game my wife ran. I felt creatively and personally stuck at that time and hadn’t written in years, but I got super attached to my character and her love interest, and started writing “fanfiction” about them. I was still a baby queer and it was my first lesbian story. My wife and I created a canon outside of the actual game and kept expanding the world. In the end, Goddess of Limbo became the story about those two characters’ parents. The two will still appear in the series, but minorly so. I might add an extra epilogue to the last book where they’re dating, just for old times’ sake.
As to the second half – I read everything I write to my wife the day of. She’s the perfect person to read first drafts to because she gets as excited as me, and helps me keep the joy and motivation alive. I do a full edit and second draft before I look for beta readers. My debut’s first draft looked absolutely nothing like the final book, and while beta feedback was essential, I’m glad I gave myself the chance to fully rework it first.
Which three authors would you say influenced your writing the most?
Growing up, it was the author that shall not be named. It’s painful now, but those books taught me how much stories can change lives. A good story becomes part of you. It shapes who you are. I love that.
Another author that meant a lot to me growing up was Victor Hugo. I passionately loved Les Misérables, which gave me my first taste of truly epic storytelling. I’m more of a fast-paced writer, but his slow, luscious descriptions of his worlds impacted how I write.
Lastly, Rebecca S. Buck’s Fragile Wings was the first truly sapphic story I read and it opened so many doors for me. For the first time, I saw my queer identity reflected in a story, which was incredibly healing and empowering. I had a similar reaction to Seanan McGuire’s Into the Drowning Deep a few years later but with neurodivergence. It’s amazing what representation can do.
And for something that is also very important to us & what we put a lot of emphasis on when blogging. What does ownvoices LGBT representation mean to you?
Representation changes lives because humanity understands itself through storytelling. Our brains are wired for stories, we learn through stories, we expand our horizons and empathy through stories. Without representation, we compress humanity into less than it is, have a mirror with only a few of us reflected. If we don’t see ourselves reflected, we might not recognize ourselves at all.
I didn’t realize I was gay until I turned 24, and at that point, I’d already been married to a woman. That sounds like a joke, but my wife transitioned during our marriage and I had quite the opposite reaction to most women in that position. It pushed me out of compulsive heteronormativity and taught me what attraction actually feels like. But it shouldn’t be like that. Even after I realized I was gay, I was so confused because I wasn’t “a butch”. I loved dresses and hyper-feminine looks. A single femme character in any of the books I had read would have solved it! To be fair, I did read about a femme lesbian vampire once, but she was evil, so I couldn’t relate to her. I had so much ridiculous internalized homophobia when I first understood myself that could have been prevented with proper representation. And it liberates straight cis people too! The more variety you see in the world, the less alone you’re going to feel. Queer liberation allows everyone to exist more freely as themselves.
Ownvoices is both important and tricky in my opinion. Yes, we absolutely need ownvoices stories, but it does put an unhealthy pressure on authors to fully disclose their identities, which I don’t feel comfortable with. We’re always evolving too. I’ve reflected a lot on gender lately and how colonialism shaped our view of it. I’m sure it’ll impact my work in the future, but I don’t feel comfortable seeking out any labels in that regard. I think, in the end, the quality of the representation matters more than whether or not it’s ownvoices. Both my wife and I have read rep that made us feel truly seen despite the author not being ownvoices of that specific group. That being said, it’s still important to criticize harmful trends, like straight female authors appropriating gay male stories for a straight female audience.
What’s one piece of advice you would like to give your younger self?
There is nothing wrong with you.
Summarise your most recent/next book in up to 5 words and a meme.
Divine oppression. Epic uprising. Queer.
If (when!) your books were to be made into movies, who would you like to direct them?
He doesn’t direct TV shows or fantasy, but I love Baz Luhrmann’s creative vision. I think the goddess of limbo Alames would approve of him. Alternatively, I’d love for a yet-to-be-discovered queer BIPOC director to take on the project. That would be wonderful!
If you could have dinner with one member of the LGBT community, dead or alive, who would it be?
Do potentially unborn people count? I’d love to have dinner with the first Black trans woman president of the U.S. and ask her so many questions. How did she get there? What can we do now to create that possibility for her? How can we open people’s hearts and defeat fascism? What does she want from us?
If that’s not an option, I’d like a date dinner with Barbara Stanwyck and just dissolve into a fumbling gay puddle at her smolder.
Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?
I love that question! I thought about it a lot and while the obvious choice would be the skilled military captain Subira, I’m choosing the prisoner Artyom. He’s lethal, smart, and forward-thinking. He’s also one of the sweetest father figures in the book. I think he’d take good care of me, which is necessary because my survival skills are non-existent.
Is there a famous franchise or simply a movie/TV show you’d like to be able to write for?
I’m hesitant about TV screenwriting because I am not the best with team projects. I enjoy the solitary work of writing. But if I got the chance to write a Simpsons episode in which Lisa realizes she’s been bisexual all along, I’d take it!
Do you have any secret non canon ships in your books you wish people would write fics for?
That’s such a fun question and the thought of fanfics is a dream! Also, yes. Please give me some Zazil/Ally fics. Zazil is a magical engineer and makes a lot of dirty jokes about how Princess Alexandra (Ally) is requesting an audit for “romantic” purposes. When she actually meets her, she gets adorably embarrassed and the two have a flirtatious bi disaster moment. They both already have partners and it wouldn’t make sense for them to get together, but dang, I ship it!
Rec us some great LGBT books you’ve read recently!
This isn’t exactly an insider tip, but I just read This is How You Lose the Time War, and it’s probably my favorite book of all time. I love it so much. I also read The Cybernetic Tea Shop recently which was fantastic!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lea Falls is a writer, actor, and passionate lover of stories. Equally drawn to page and stage, she’s written plays, screenplays, poetry, short stories, and two novels, and has acted in numerous short films, plays, and improv shows. She earned her BFA in Acting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and attended the Yale Writers Workshop. After a brief call and response with Londontown, she now lives in NYC with her wife, two cats, and a sliver of skyline that never fails to inspire her. There, she spends her days murmuring lines over a keyboard or a script. She’s recently learned the meaning of “free time” and has since acquired a taste for annihilating virtual aliens with her wife, steering her coffee robot through D&D battles, and getting hopelessly lost in cities.
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