We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maggie Eliot a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Maggie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

The beginning of my writing career wasn’t in fiction. I started off as an actor in sketch comedy. I gained incredible writing experience from my time with The Second City and once I left there, went on to write plays. That work employed both my sketch writing skills and my BFA in Theatre.

When I decided to cross over to novel writing, I didn’t come in as a total green horn. But the medium is very different than writing for the theatre. Instead of ten page scenes, I’m now writing books of ninety thousand words. And there’s an entire worldbuilding component that isn’t required when writing for a performing art.

The best resource in learning craft, for me, has been other people. I joined the Greater Detroit Romance Writers, which helped me build a huge support network of peers. And then I joined a couple of critique groups and started meeting regularly with a critique partner. The growth and experience I gained from sharing my work and getting feedback was immeasurable. It’s a little intimidating at first to send out samples, but you’re rewarded with all the collective knowledge in the group.

My biggest growth obstacle is I’m terrible at reading craft books. There are so many great books about every aspect of writing and every time I try to read one, I read the same page about ten times and then give up. I just can’t make myself focus on it.

Above all, learning craft takes time and practice. So I’ve dedicated myself to a daily writing schedule. I set lots of goals–both achievable and stretch–for myself. And I make sure to have peers for critique, support, and accountability.

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?

I am a contemporary romance self-published author. I got a BFA in acting and performed, wrote, and improvised theatre for 25 years before shifting to write fiction. I published two novels and a novelette in 2024 and am on pace to publish two more novels in 2025.

I most proud of how many skills I’ve built along the way in order to publish. I format my own books, work with artists to create the covers, handle copyright, create and manage my website, write blurbs, make books available for purchase and do all marketing. None of these were skills I had going into this career. My main platform for marketing is TikTok (booktok), but I also use Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. While I do try to get to at least two in person author events per year, I focus most of my marketing in the digital space.

As I am a former comedian who writes predominantly romcom books, I leaned into that for my brand. Most of my author marketing has the tagline “romcom with extra com”. My performer background also comes in handy when I’m invited to guest on podcasts and panels. So often readers are just as interested in the author as they are the books, so being able to be approachable, funny, and authentic can go a long way.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My author career is the first time in my life that I’ve been really into goal setting and actually achieving the goals I’ve set.

Having been an artist for the first third of my adult working years, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to save for retirement. So, after fifteen years of full-time day jobbing, I’ve been writing in my off time and working hard to build up enough of a back list to supplement retirement and maybe even get ahead.

If I really stretch the goal, I want to be able to write full time even before retirement age, but I’m aware of what a leap that is and will have to be more established before considering such a step.

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

The most rewarding part of being an artist is seeing something that started as a dream or idea become something tangible. This was the case when I was writing scenes and characters for myself, continued on as a playwright–watching people embody characters in stories I made up–and holding books that I wrote and published.

It’s an incredible feeling to take some of the constantly swirling stories from my brain and make something, hopefully something that will last when I’m long gone.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.maggieeliot.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authormaggieeliot
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089903027340
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maggieeliotauthor
  Bluesky: @maggieeliot.bsky.social