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

M. O., appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

As a kid I thought often about being a published author. I had a strong desire to write my own book and in middle school I sat down with a couple ideas to write into full-length novels. I usually got a few chapters in but it was hard to continue past that point and I didn’t know what I was doing.
Writing came and went from that time on, sometimes with new ideas, sometimes with the same ideas/characters as before. I never stopped writing, but I was pursuing other things (namely a degree in music) so my writing remained for myself.
I started reading more for my own enjoyment after I had my second child. Having a passive, quiet activity at the end of the day was enjoyable, and that experience was new — I’d always liked stories, but sitting down to read a book felt like a chore up until that point. For fun, after I read a book I really enjoyed, I wrote a series of short stories that were all told about the same group of neighborhood kids, but from different perspectives and different stages in their lives. It was experimental but fun to write and reminded me that I have some skill in the area. I thought about trying to get them published but they fell to the wayside.
During my third pregnancy, I was gifted a popular book by a family member. The book ended up being something I didn’t enjoy, and I never finished it. That said, ithelped me realize that writing and publishing my own novel was entirely doable. I took the next nine months or so to write my first, full-length novel. There were times the writing came fast and easy, and other times I didn’t touch it for a month or two because I was trying to figure out how to get where I wanted it to be. I learned an incredible amount during the writing of that novel. Soon after I began writing other novels and novellas, as well as short stories and poetry I hoped to get published. I began my social media presence for my writing to help me firm up my goal of making my writing work professionally, if you will. I’ve been doing what I can in both my writing and self-promotion since!
I’m happy to say that the third novel I wrote, a paranormal horror that takes place during a family’s lake vacation, is receiving reader feedback so that I can begin querying literary agents with it starting in March of 2025.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a writer who focuses primarily on the horror genre, with some blend into the dark fantasy realm. I currently have short stories out for submissions to various literary magazines, including one about tapping trees for maple syrup and another about an infernal circus.
Most of my horror is largely paranormal — I like it when the threats are from monsters or beings that lie beyond reason or beyond what we feel should exist within the “proper” confines of our world. I also tend to write with some ambiguity.
A lot of my inspiration comes from having grown up largely in New England. Ghost stories are basically a-dime-a-dozen out here. In high school, we even had to write our own horror/scary movies for our English classes based on local lore!
That said, I’m also a native Midwesterner and I attribute a lot of my adult life to the Midwest where I attended college, got married, bought my first house with my husband and began our family. There is a fascinating amount of folklore and cryptid/monster-lore in the Midwest, and so I like to try and incorporate some of those elements to my stories, as well.
Something else that colors the way that I write is the fact that I didn’t start reading horror literature until I began to write it. That might seem backward, and for a lot of authors, it is. My introduction to horror was through film, and I love a scary movie! When I began writing horror, it was in part because I wanted to see if I could, and also because I wanted to write a story that felt more satisfying than a lot of the recent horror movies I had watched. I play video games and horror games are included in that, and I also love manga and anime. The dark fantasy/horror bent themes in the anime I love definitely inspire some of my ideas and my plot arcs.
Of course, in addition to all of that, I also write poetry. Most of my poetry focuses on my life and not on horror, and I’m proud to say that my poem, Being, was published on Unleash Lit on February 6, 2025!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I believe that, like many creatives, the most rewarding aspect is when someone reads what I’ve written and finds something that resonates with them.
I write the stories that I want to write, partially because they’re the stories I want to read. When I give that story to someone else, though, and they read it and have a positive reaction to it, it’s a different kind of satisfaction. It’s less about having an external validation and more about knowing that what I wrote made someone else experience something that they didn’t experience or wouldn’t have experienced before reading a bunch of words I fit together on a page. There’s a magic to it!

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

You can expect a mixed bag of reactions when you tell someone you’re writing a novel you hope to get published. For the most part, I’ve had really supportive responses. Some have been more engaged than others, but I’d say on the whole people have had nothing but good will towards my efforts.
I have found, though, that people’s reactions shift a bit when they hear I’m writing horror. There still seems to be this stigma around the genre and this erroneous idea that people who enjoy or create horror do so for some perverse reason. I think a lot of times, when you stop to talk genuinely with someone who enjoys horror, you’ll find it’s because they have some struggles they face or have faced, and there’s a comfort in scary stories because it allows them to feel in charge of a situation. There are plenty of others who have voiced why they create horror art more eloquently, so I won’t try too hard to reinvent their words here.
I’ve also been surprised when people seem confused that I’ve “abandoned” or discarded things I’ve written. Sometimes you work on something for a while just for it to not be the right time or the right story or whatever else. When that happens, I move on. Sometimes you just have something that isn’t working right and you know deep down that if you try to fit it into whatever mold you want it to fit, it will no longer be what you wanted it to be. There are times when that change is a positive one, but when you know it will lessen the work in some way, you just have to move on and do something else. That seems to throw some people for a loop, especially when they haven’t spent a lot of time creating and curating themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mostewartauthor.com/
• Instagram: @mostewartwrites (https://www.instagram.com/mostewartwrites?igsh=amk2bjhqdHN0NGVw&utm_source=qr)

Image Credits

Melissa Stewart