We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cynthia St. Aubin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cynthia , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you’ve thought about whether to sign with an agent or manager?
I consider myself incredibly lucky to have the help of Christine, my extremely talented and dedicated literary agent. In the years B.C. (before Christine) I had sent several queries to potential agents each week and received many rejection letters of varying tone but similar content in return. I even stuck some of the nicest ones to my fridge. During this process, I had begun to self-publish a novella series about a psychologist who gets roped into giving therapy to paranormal creatures with mental health issues, and while it didn’t allow me to quit my day job, it did help me make some connections to other amazing authors. One of these authors had an online Facebook release party and oddly enough, this is where I met my agent. After two hours of being my typical, spazzy self, she sent me a direct message saying that she had really enjoyed chatting with me, and that if ever wrote a full-length novel, she’d love to help me with representation.
As it happened, I already had. While she loved the manuscript I sent her, she explained that funny paranormal romance was currently on a downward trend and might not be our best shot at getting my foot in the publishing door, which would be her primary directive if I agreed to sign with her. I both appreciated her honesty and her industry expertise, but for me, the deciding factor was her answer when I asked her why she wanted to sign me if I didn’t have anything she could sell currently. “Because I’m in this for the long haul, and in the long haul, I know you will.” Eventually, I did, but for the years between, Christine never stopped fighting to bring me opportunities and to put my work out there. She is the reason I get to do what I love and keep my cats in kibble and I can’t imagine this journey without her.
Cynthia , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
As is also the case for many of the writers I know personally, my path to the page was paved by the voices of the authors I loved before I found my own. My mother could scarcely keep me in books, especially on summer break when I would engage in covert all-night reading binges. Before long, I wanted in on the alchemy and went about figuring out how to transform words into worlds. Though I filled composition books with stories and obsessively collected ideas and scraps of conversation like a magpie, I didn’t really set my cap at writing a novel until after grad school, when I found myself languishing in a corporate cubicle. Lacking a window, writing became my lunch break escape. It took me three years to finish my first manuscript, then several more to land an agent, followed by another two before I signed my first contract with a publisher. I’ve signed several more since, and now write a paranormal romance series, Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery, for Oliver-Heber books, and have my first contemporary romance series, The Kane Heirs, coming out with Harlequin Desire in May 2022.
Though the characters I write and the stories they tell me are wildly different, each of them has deepened my understanding of what it means to be human. This always what I aim to share through my work. How lovely, frustrating, hilariously confusing, and heart-breakingly beautiful it is to spend a season on this planet.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
It took me a total of 12 years from deciding to get serious about writing a book to the point where my writing income was sufficiently stable to leave a full-time day job. Many times during that journey, self-doubt ate my lunch, discouragement kicked me down the stairs, and fear pointed and laughed while I tried to get my wind back. Always, it’s the readers who give me the strength and motivation to get back up again after these knock-downs. People who, like me, needed a window, or even a door and send me wonderful notes telling me I made them laugh for the first time after a terrible loss. Or that a character helped them find beauty in pain they’d felt. To me, this is the real magic. Knowing that you can connect with another human on levels that unite us all.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
When I say that the emails, DMs, comments, and assorted social media posts from readers are the thing that’s kept me going, I mean it with absolutely sincerity. To write a book usually takes me months and during that time, I will agonize over every element and inevitably decide it’s a flaming heap of trash and never should have seen the light of day (usually at about 2/3 of the way in). And yet, one simple note from someone who enjoyed the what I’ve created makes every single second worth it. If you loved a book, a song, a poem, a pot, a podcast, let its creator know. Even if it’s a one-word review, it matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cynthiastaubin.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cynthiastaubin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cynthia.st.aubin
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CynthiaStAubin
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cynthiastaubin BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/cynthia-st-aubin Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Cynthia-St.-Aubin/e/B00IEESRNG
Image Credits
Jason Coviello