We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chloe Spencer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chloe below.

Chloe, appreciate you joining us today. Have you signed with an agent or manager? Why or why not?

I do have an agent, Lane Clarke with Ultra Literary, who is awesome! But for a long time, I was un-agented, and having to work on things independently. Learning how to read contracts and negotiate rights was exhausting on my own, and given that I’ve only worked with indie presses, I wanted to break into larger markets–so in short, getting an agent was always an important goal for me!

It was VERY tricky for me to find an agent, though. A lot of agents in the industry tend to work in only a handful of genres, but I want to write contemporary rom-coms/dramas AND horror, for MULTIPLE age groups (YA and adult.) An agent may tend to cater to both YA and adult audiences, but they will be strict about their genres. The kind of horror that I write is also particularly disgusting, and not everyone has the stomach for it. Something that I frequently ran into was agents who said that they wanted horror, but no gore or blood–which, it’s very difficult to write a horror novel without blood, so those individuals seemed very inexperienced with the genre, and NOT people that I’d want to submit to.

But Lane shares my sentiment of not wanting to be bored and experiment and broaden horizons as a creative, which was awesome. She didn’t want to put me in boxes; she simply wanted to get my work out in the world. During our first phone call, she mentioned that she was excited to work with me because I was willing to experiment with things and push myself. She also admired the way that I wrote characters and dialogue; demonstrating appreciation for my craft in ways that other agents didn’t. It was a no brainer for me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I was a little kid, I remember poring through stacks of newspapers on Sunday morning and being so excited to see all of the stories compiled in one place. One afternoon, I decided to assemble a newspaper of my own. I started off strong enough, writing short sentences, before my hand ached from using the crayon and I filled in the rest of it with scribbles. I ended up wasting a lot of printer paper, and when I proudly presented my work to my parents, they were (understandably) upset. I explained to them what I was trying to do, and Dad introduced me to the family computer and showed me how to use Microsoft Word. From that point forward, I taught myself how to type, and took to writing stories.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I thought that being an author was a very ill-thought out goal, so I opted to study journalism instead. After graduating from the University of Oregon with my BA, I interned at Kotaku, and later served as a writer for GameLuster. A couple of years passed, and I was a little tired with working on stories about the real world, and I instead turned my attention to fiction and writing films. That’s how I ended up at SCAD. For two years and some months, I spent time working on my craft, learning how to pitch stories, and developing new ideas. While at SCAD, I started working on my debut YA sapphic sci-fi horror novel (now Goldie-nominated, thank you very much) Monstersona. I’ve been very fortunate in that the last few years, I’ve suffered from writer’s block very minimally. After finishing the first draft of Monstersona in 2020, I went on to write 8 more novellas and novels.

What I’m most proud of is being able to write stories that resonate with people who haven’t felt represented or seen. A lot of my work centers on people with PTSD who are learning to navigate their trauma, and it means the world to me when a reader tells me that their work helped them through a difficult time, or convinced them to get help.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I absolutely wish I had learned about plot structure tools such as Save the Cat way, WAY earlier in my career. While not the only valid way to structure a story, Save the Cat is a foundational text for many writers for good reason.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

This is such an excellent question, and while I would normally say things like “Follow your favorites on social media and repost their work,” there’s been evidence to suggest that social media doesn’t actually matter for numbers as much as you’d think! For writers, our work circulates thanks to the involvement of bookstores and libraries.

If you don’t have money to purchase an author’s book, you can suggest it to your local library. Chances are that they’ll be able to get the book, and that can get more eyes on it!

Indie authors such as myself also struggle to be stocked in bookstores when compared to our big-5 counterparts. If you go to your local bookstore and try to preorder the book from there, that helps us out a lot, and demonstrates that the community has an interest in us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.chloespenceronline.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyitschloespencer/?hl=en
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chloespencerdev
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@heyitschloespencer