Author Interview: Kelly Farmer

We’re super excited today to feature Kelly Farmer on the blog! Kelly is a big sapphic romance author, so if you’ve not checked out her books before now, here’s your sign. Especially for you fans of hockey romances! And she’s just released a novella through the Happily Ever After Collective (sapphic supervillain, mistaken identity, what’s not to love!), so sign up to their patreon to read that! In the meantime, though, give this interview a little read!

As ever, you can, of course, also follow Kelly on twitter.

Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? How old were you when you wrote your first story?

I’ve always wanted to create worlds, tell stories and entertain people. When I was a kid, I wrote stories about kittens and unicorns. And then in middle school and junior high, my three-level shelf became an apartment building for my Barbies. That’s where allll the drama happened! And yes, I was writing, too. Hysterically bad, angsty teen romances. I still have all of them and read them once in a while for a good laugh.

I sat down to write a romance novel as an adult in my early twenties. It was a very, very long male/female love triangle historical romance that taught me, well, that I have a contemporary author voice. It was the first manuscript I ever finished…and then revised…and revised…That book still holds a special place in my heart.

What are your favourite genres to read and write, and are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?

I read romance widely. It doesn’t matter what pairing or heat level. Just gimme that HEA! I also really enjoy nonfiction on LGBTQ+ topics, biographies, and self-help books. I am mad for self-help books.

Everything I write has a romance in it in some way, shape or form. So even if it’s more women’s fiction-y or speculative fiction, there are still people making googly eyes at each other. I’ve learned never to say never to something I wouldn’t write. Although I write to bring joy to people’s lives, so you can expect to feel good at the end.

When you close your eyes and imagine an apple, what do you see? An actual apple, a sketch of one, a blackness? Do you think that impacts your writing process?

I saw a nice, shiny red apple. That checks out, since I’m incredibly visual. It’s one of the best/worst parts of being a writer—trying to describe the vision in my head exactly as it is. In my mind, there’s a soundtrack, and sweeping aerial views, and specific clothes and settings, and snappy dialogue, and I type “Stuff and things happened.” That’s what revisions are for! Layer, layer, layer.

When you’re building your world, what do you focus on? How do you try to make it come to life?

This piggybacks onto my previous answer. Writing feels like I’m along for the ride and am there to report on what’s happening. Setting is important so these nice characters aren’t standing in whitespace. Making sure people are doing things like sitting, walking around, being more than just talking heads. My background is in theater and acting, which is a great resource to pull from. You have to create the world that transports the audience through setting, tone, clothing, props, action, dialogue…everything! Also those pesky emotions. Having the reader feel what your characters are feeling is very cool.

It’s fun to inhabit someone else for a while and experience the world through a different lens. One of my favorite things is describing something how that particular character would describe it. Something like meeting a big dog could elicit any number of reactions, depending on lived experience. (I would of course coo lovingly while petting the adorable doggie.)

What projects are you currently working on? Can you share any details yet?

I’m so excited to have a Mistaken Identity novella in the Happily Ever After Collective this month! Secret Spark is a Sapphic romance between cute and bubbly Sadie, who thinks her hot new neighbor Joan is a superhero. After all, superheroes are just a part of life in Vector City. What she doesn’t know is that Joan is actually Spark, a notorious super villain. She’s hot in more ways than one (she shoots fire, as one does). Joan has been trying to get out of villainy and go legit, and, well, doesn’t actually deny Sadie’s assumption. Sadie is the nice girl she’s been dreaming of. But when Sadie discovers the truth, she realizes she’s fallen for the bad girl again. Oh no!

I’m also thrilled to have It’s a Fabulous Life coming out in October with Alcove Press. It’s a Sapphic It’s a Wonderful Life retelling (yay!). Bailey George has to put her plans on hold—again—to help with her small town’s winter festival. With the help of angelic drag queens (yaasss!), she reconnects with her high school crush, Maria. There are also cute rescue dogs and tons of references to Christmas movies, TV specials and songs. It’s a very queer, Hallmark Channel-esque holiday romance.

Three songs you would put in your book’s soundtrack?

I listened to a lot of Tegan and Sara while writing Secret Spark (probably because I was watching High School, the TV show based on their autobiography). So it’d definitely be a Tegan and Sara medley.

What would be your dream project?

My time travel series is the series of my heart. It’s called The Sense Series, with the first book being A Sense of Time. It follows a psychic with a secret global government time travel agency. It’s speculative fiction with a central romance and has lots of queer rep and diverse characters. It’s a ridiculous amount of fun. I love it deeply and hope it finds the perfect publishing home this year! ***Manifesting***

Which of your characters would you most want to fight a zombie apocalypse with?

Joan Malone (aka Spark). She shoots fire and doesn’t take anyone’s crap!

You can collaborate on anything with anyone in the LGBT community: who would it be and why?

If Brandi Carlile would like to do the soundtrack for any and all film adaptations of my books, that would be pretty okay. 😉

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hi! I’m Kelly (she/her). I’ve been writing romance novels since junior high. In those days, they featured high school quarterbacks named Brad who drove Corvettes and gals with names like Desireé because my name is rather plain. Since then, my stories have ranged from historical and contemporary male/female romances to light women’s fiction to LGBTQ+ romance, with a time travel series thrown into the mix. One theme remains the same: everyone deserves to have a happy ending.

When not writing, I like being outside in nature, quoting from Eighties movies, listening to all kinds of music, and petting every dog who crosses my path. All of these show up in my books. Being a dork at heart, I watch a lot of documentaries to satisfy my hunger for random bits of information. I live in the Chicago area and swear every winter is my last one here. (Alas, I’m still here.)

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