Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lena Gibson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Lena, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

I came up with the idea for my latest book, Racing Towards Destiny: A Sports Romance, from several ideas converging.
My book is told in dual point of view, and each person had a separate inspiration for their plot line and character arc.

Anna had a terrible day and left everything behind to move to Spain to pursue her dream as a writer. To make ends meet, she takes a job as an umbrella girl on the MotoGP racing circuit. I had a terrible boss and sometimes wished to leave everything and just go, to start over. Because I have a wonderful husband and family, my daydreams revolved around leaving work for lunch one Friday and just not coming back.

I am also a passionate MotoGP fan. Because of my autism, I can be hyper-focused on the races, the teams, and all the stats associated with them. Writing a fictional story inspired by my favorite racers was fun. My favorite racers are brothers, Marc and Alex Marquez. When I wrote my story a couple of years ago, I was thinking about how difficult it would be for Alex, the younger brother, to always be in his brother’s shadow, as Marc was an 8-time World Champion. This thinking led me to create Isaac’s character, who, through the course of my story, learns to advocate for himself and find his own way, rather than continuing in his brother’s shadow.

Since the story was published, the Marquez brothers, for the first time in their careers, fought head-to-head for the championship, making my story feel like prophecy.

The story’s autism rep. is related to my own. Anna and I share many of the same challenges and superpowers from being on the spectrum.

Lena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Bio:
Award-winning author Lena Gibson is a storyteller as an elementary school teacher and keeper of the family lore. As someone with autism, she often creates characters that reflect this experience.

A voracious reader from childhood onward, Lena seeks wonderful books in which to escape. She loves interesting characters and fast-paced, emotional narratives, leading her to write genre-defying stories in multiple categories. While her books are disaster romance, time slip, dystopian adventure, and sports romance, all are about love, resilience, and hope.

When Lena isn’t writing, she reads, practices karate, and drinks a ton of tea. She resides in New Westminster, Canada with her family and their fuzzy overlord, Ash, the fluffiest of gray cats.

Learn more at https://lenagibsonauthor.ca

As background, I started writing stories in fourth grade. My teacher insisted we write at least five sentences every day in class about something real in our lives. I didn’t like to talk about my difficult home life, nor did I have enough to say to write every day. Even though we were supposed to stick to the truth, I wrote about my adventures on my horse, Butterscotch. It went on well for months, until my teacher mentioned something to my mom about my horse and my adventures. My Butterscotch stories were banned from then on, and my journal became extremely boring and unsatisfying.

I didn’t start writing again until my mid-20s, when I started writing as a summer project for something to do when I wasn’t teaching. At first, I only wrote during school vacations. When my kids got old enough that I wasn’t constantly entertaining them, and I took back time for myself, I started writing more often and attending workshops and conferences to improve my writing.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My journey to being a published author wasn’t smooth. I spent twenty years writing my first book, and by the time I finished it, it was already full of tired tropes. I had the summer breaks to work on it, but I seldom found much time during the school year. For years, I was content that way, as writing was just for my own enjoyment. When I had my own children, writing became even more difficult, but I didn’t give up.

In 2017, I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in several years, and she asked about my writing. I hadn’t done anything for some time, so I decided to dust things off and take stock. I decided to finish my old project first, just so I could say I had written a book. I also started attending a local writing conference each fall and carving out time to write more regularly.

In 2019, I finished the long-overdue portal fantasy and learned about the next steps, using that story as a practice book. I learned how to edit, revise, write a query letter and synopsis, and how to pitch my work. During this time, I also kept taking workshops and learning more about writing, and most importantly, I moved on to new projects.

In the spring of 2020, about the same time the pandemic hit, I started querying my stories. While I had several requests for full or partial manuscripts, no literary agents jumped at my fairytale. So, I kept writing and querying. The same thing happened for the next few books. My writing became better, and I found people to work with and became part of a couple of regular critique partnerships. In all, I sent out over 700 query letters over the next three years, querying continuously. During this time, I received “No” or No Response to everything. I didn’t let that stop me. I was determined to publish my books.

During this time, I was also diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. I chose to embrace this diagnosis as my superpower and continue to write, hoping others might find my story inspiring.

In the spring of 2022, when I had just sent my first batch of queries out for my fifth book, a friend suggested I try a small publisher instead. They knew someone published by Black Rose Writing, and suggested I try there. I submitted, and within a few weeks, I received a request for the full manuscript. As that had happened several times previously with agents, I didn’t get too excited. I sent it in, expecting to wait several months before hearing anything. To my surprise, within a week, I had a contract offer in my inbox. This, “Yes,” became my first published book, The Edge of Life: Love and Survival During the Apocalypse, published in April 2023. Since then, I have been able to publish a new book every four to six months with Black Rose Writing.

If I had been deterred by rejection, I wouldn’t now have seven published books, one in pre-order, and contracts for three more completed books being released in 2026 and 2027.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I have been a voracious reader as far back as I have read chapter books. My second-grade teacher handed me Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I’ve never looked back. I typically read close to 200 books a year. For many years, this was mainly fantasy, and now mainly romance. I started writing when I ran out of reading material I was interested in. I didn’t like that most fantasy stories centered around men. Where were the Chosen women? Where were the young orphaned girls who were the rightful rulers? Or the secret sorcerers?

From the beginning, I wrote stories like those I wished I could find to read. Even now, my writing is difficult to label and is about writing what I want. Most are mixed genres or hard to define. My mission is to be creative and write the stories within me. My stories are about love, resilience, and hope, packaged in apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic romance, dystopian adventures/coming of age, time slip women’s fiction, and motorcycle racing romance/women’s fiction.

My goal was to be a published author, and with each new book published, I am driven to write yet another. I want my stories in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lenagibsonauthor.ca/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lena.gibson15/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Buffy15
• Other: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23077657.Lena_Gibson

  BlueSky Social: https://bsky.app/profile/lenagibson.bsky.social

  Substack: https://substack.com/@lenagibson1?

  Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lena-Gibson/author/B0C15P545L?ref