We recently connected with E. J. Wenstrom and have shared our conversation below.

E. J., thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

My love for writing fiction is a revelation that came to me slowly. I went through most of my life thinking I was not so creative. I knew I loved books and language, and thought that perhaps copyediting was a good path for me. My senior year I was required to take an internship and ended up in the only spot I could secure–a writing gig with a city lifestyle magazine. Luckily for me, the managing editor who ran the internship program was also a former high school counselor, and very patient. He coached me into tapping into a more creative mindset to write in a style that suited features, and I’ve been addicted to writing ever since–features articles, interviews, blogs, whatever.

Even so, I didn’t start writing fiction for some years more. I was working at a marketing agency and in our open office space, our team was constantly sharing news headlines and kicking around ideas. NASA had just done something interesting and I was spouting off about outer space–boy do I wish I could remember what–and my colleague said, “That sounds like a novel, you should write it.” And it occurred to me she might be right. That didn’t end up being my first novel, but the idea stuck. Now, I can’t imagine a life without it.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I write award-winning dark speculative fiction for teens and adults. I’d describe my stories as tropey and high-action, but with some twists along the way. My characters tend to be deeply flawed–antiheroes, not your classic white knight hero. Readers say my writing style feels immediate, emotionally heightened, and layered. I’m also very proud to write neurodiversity into my characters based on my personal expereinces with ADHD.

My first series, the Chronicles of the Third Realm War, is a set of adventure quests inspired by Greek mythology. Starting with MUD, it follows a golem who desperately wants a soul so he an become human and stop an ages-long chain of violence he’s been thrust into the middle of. But, along the way he makes some serious erros in judgement. A recurring theme throughout the series is an exploration of what happens when good intentions lead to bad choices, and the cost to set things right again. It’s a complete series, you can read it start to final conclusion — three novels and a prequel novella, which you can get for free when you join my newsletter at ejwenstrom.com.

I’ve also released a standalone young adult dystopian novel, DEPARTURES. In this novel, a teen girl who is scheduled to die in a perfectly optimized, perfectly scheduled future society. Except, of course, something goes wrong. The Directorate tries to hunt her down and correct the error, but she escapes into an outside world she had no idea existed. Meanwhile, her sister is still inside and has a sense something went wrong, but doesn’t know what. The story follows both sisters as they peel away the secrets of what the Directorate is really up to.

The hardest thing about writing is choosing what to write next. I’ve got two novels in different stages of development at the moment, one following a set of unapologetically ambitious and ruthless witches willing to do anything to get out of a blood oath they made as teens, and the other is the start of a set of feminist space opera fairy tale adaptations — think Snow White meets Star Trek! I love when stories and characters get messy.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Being a creative brings balance to my life. I still work full time and am also passionate about my career, but early in my career before I started writing, I had a feeling of … “Is this it?” Something was missing, and too much of my identity hinged on how my work life was going at that moment–perhaps it’s a symptom of growing up in DC. But once I started writing, I felt so much more enriched and fulfilled. I think everyone should have a creative outlet, whether you want to showcase your work to the world professionally or not, we’re just wired for it, and having a creative outlet helps us be our best selves in all aspects of our lives.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

It’s hard to call it a story because I don’t think it’s got an end–building a social media following is something authors do throughout their full careers, and having an ongoing growth mindset towards it is to your benefit. That said, social media strategy has been part of my professional life in communications from my very early days in the industry, in addition to my author career. I vividly remember the early days of Twitter, when even us then-young Millennials were not sure how it could be relevant to building a brand yet. I repped for my marketing agency at a workshop about Twitter for business, and came back and started putting it to work immediately. Likewise, these days I’ve started having some real fun with TikTok for my author platform, and now that’s translating over to help me advise clients at work. I find such joy in the way my experiences pass value back and forth between my author life and professional life.

I think the most important thing with social media is to focus on being consistent over giving in to the pressure to be everywhere at once all the time – be open to trying new things, but don’t feel like you have to stick around on a network that just doesn’t click for you. Also, focus on building relationships with readers rather than posting a stream of sales pitches for your latest release. It’s a lot more effective and so much more enjoyable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ejwenstrom.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ejwenstrom
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EJWenstrom
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ejwenstrom
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ejwenstrom
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ejwenstrom Newsletter: https://www.getrevue.co/profile/ejwenstrom Troped Out Podcast: https://typoproductions.com/troped-out