We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rose J. Fairchild a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rose J., appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.

My first novel, “A Shiver of Rainbow and Shadow,” initially came to me as an image of a pale, dainty fairy staring at her outstretched hands as streams of color poured through her fingers to pool upon the ground. I explored what that meant and met my main character, Aura. This sweet, gentle Fae Female is banished from her childhood home by her mother for the destruction her unique power caused. What does Aura’s power do? It exposes true colors, both literally and figuratively.

Aura changes things–even her fellow Fae–without meaning to. Because of her mother’s consistent admonishments and rejections over this, Aura flees, unable to accept her powers and the fact that she is lovable and possesses a tremendous gift.

While on the run, Aura finds herself caught between two lovers. Both appear morally gray initially, but one is sweet and sultry, and the other is dominant and decadent. She also meets a collection of characters along the way who teach Aura about herself and the world around her as she faces difficulties with feeling out of control in her own body, a lack of understanding of what love looks and feels like, fear for her loved ones, and an inability to see her uniqueness as beautiful.

My favorite part of writing this novel was how frequently people commented that they could relate to Aura and what she felt. Much of what people related to tied into Aura’s lack of belonging. Due to the lack of acceptance from her mother, Aura desperately craved acceptance and love but didn’t know how to find or accept it. She didn’t feel worthy of it.

Other items addressed in my story that I received comments about were my ability to portray abuse and the many faces it can take. My books are dark and heavy. Each has a list of trigger warnings in the book overview on Amazon and at the beginning of each book. Despite the darkness, I thread hope and the persistent fight for truth and love throughout it all.

My stories are my personal trauma history wrapped up in fantastical characters and an otherworldly setting. It has been my therapy, so readers seeing themselves and finding hope through the story–seeing Aura fight and find herself and knowing they can do it too–brings me tremendous joy. I hope my readers always feel seen and valued in my books. My stories are not for everyone, but I hope the ones who need them will always find them and that they find themselves within the pages.

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.

As a child, my world was often noise, chaos, pain, and hard work. My escapes were reading, drawing, writing, my pets, and the nearby forests and fields whenever I could squeeze in time to enjoy them. I bring all these things into my stories: the traumas, the beauty of nature and a good animal sidekick, and the realization that family isn’t always blood.

Found family is a strong theme throughout my stories because many people who have supported me over the years have not been blood family, yet they live within my heart as family nonetheless.

The first time I believed I could do something with my writing was when my seventh-grade English teacher read a short story I’d written and pulled me aside to encourage me to continue it and then try to get it published. She believed in me, and it helped me see a bit of magic within myself that I’d been unable to see my entire life.

I didn’t take writing seriously until 2011 though. At that point, I began my first novel. That novel remains unpublished, but I’ve since realized my first published novel, “A Shiver of Rainbow and Shadow” is a retelling of that story. It has evolved and become more streamlined since that first incarnation, but the core issues of the story are the same.

Since then, I’ve completed a total of five novels (two of which I’ve now published) and two novellas, one of which was a collaborative effort with a fellow indie author named T.L. Brown, whose stories I love, and who I have tremendous respect for as an author. The collaboration, known as “Faerie Fire & Demon Desire: A Darkly Delicious Correspondence,” has been published and is live on Amazon. The other novella is in the sit-and-marinate process now, where I’ll let it percolate for a while before I begin editing.

I’d like to focus on the collaboration for a minute. “Faerie Fire & Demon Desire” was a surprise and one of the biggest blessings of my life and author career. We authors are very protective of our worlds and characters, so the fact that an author I respected and admired–whose stories I had devoured–wanted to co-create with me and merge our story worlds took my breath away. We played off of each other, writing our own characters but also crafting bits and characters from each other’s worlds, and there is nothing more deeply intimate to an author’s creative process than that.

Our stories, worlds, and creations are forever linked, and to say this story has burrowed its way into my heart would be an understatement. I completely trusted T. L. Brown with my character and the story. What we made with her half-demon character, Sebastian St. Michel, from her “Door to Door” and “Bellerose Witchline” series and my Rose Evangeline from book two of my “Taste of Faerie” series will forever own my heart. I am deeply honored and humbled to have created this story with her.

“Faerie Fire & Demon Desire” also has darkness, deep emotions, hope, love, and sacrifice, carrying through the messages I try to thread through all my books. I enjoyed breathing them further into existence with author Brown and her character Sebastian, whom I love despite his darkness.

I think what sets my stories apart is the fact that I focus on dualities. Nothing is ever completely black or white. There are shades of gray and flashes of color, and occasionally, those things all bleed into each other to create something impossibly horrifying or beautiful. I share darkness paired with hope and sensuality, hoping to create characters and a world that mirrors ours, while making it approachable through the lens of fantasy.

I want my readers to feel seen and validated, and I want them to know their life is in their hands. If they wait for someone to save them, they might wait forever. But if they embrace themselves and all the strange beauty that comes with it, they can create the world they’ve been wishing for all along.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to unlearn is that traditional publishing is the only valid way to get a good book published. I have read many phenomenal indie books (self-published or published through an independent publishing house) that have changed my entire perspective since joining the writing community on Instagram. I have found that I almost always prefer indie books to traditionally published stories now. This is because traditionally published books are typically written with the same ‘formula’ and must be palatable for the masses. Indie books are often bolder and have more freedom within the story, the format, and the blending of genres.

I feel that’s a reason so many indie authors are not traditionally published. Their books bend and blend genres, making them difficult to place. They also contain subject matters or go places traditionally published books have a tougher time achieving in an attempt to make them more marketable. Traditional publishing is also subject to market trends, whereas indie authors write for themselves and their intended audience, which doesn’t always coincide with what the market dictates. As I’ve been told for a long time, “Write the story you’d like to read.”

Not to mention, forging your path because you believe in yourself and your story without a large publishing house and an agent backing you is the same level of bravery as the protagonists of our stories must find. It is hard work and nail-bitingly terrifying, but also rewarding.

I have had agent interest in some of my stories. Still, it was never the right fit, whether because it was too dark, combined too many genres, or because it wasn’t the right time for my book to appear in the marketplace. After many years and rejections, I decided to self-publish my first book because, after sharing my story chapter by chapter on Patreon, I found it resonated strongly with my readers, and their excitement over it was contagious.

I’d waited for outside validation from the traditional publishing world long enough; it was time to believe in myself and share my stories. I could say I wish I’d done it sooner, but truthfully, “A Shiver of Rainbow and Shadow” was meant to be my first published novel. I also released book two, “A Swirl of Smoke and Stars,” and my complementary collaborative novella with author T.L. Brown, “Faerie Fire & Demon Desire: A Darkly Delicious Correspondence,” this year. It was the right time to believe in myself and share my stories, and I’ve found beautiful validation within the indie writing community along the way.

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

In my opinion, the most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the connections I’ve built. My fellow indie authors have been so incredibly kind and supportive, helping with edits, re-writes, marketing strategies, sharing short stories of multiple authors in anthologies they painstakingly craft, sharing posts and reviews on social media, reading and leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, helping each other hone parts of our craft where we need a little help or wish to expand, and more.

There are also, of course, the readers, many of whom are part of the indie author community and who would never have found my stories without the help of that same amazing, selfless group of brilliant authors.

I have met some brilliant artists on my creative journey, one of whom (Stephanie G. Bonnett) read “A Shiver of Rainbow and Shadow” and crafted stunning character art of a minor character she fell in love with. The character is named Arvan, and his story solidifies in a future novella that is currently unreleased. Not only was I surprised to open Instagram and find Stephanie’s painting of Arvan, but the level of care and investment of time into bringing my character to life so beautifully touched my heart.

Finally, there are, of course, my collaborations. Whether it be in an anthology–which I’m blessed to have been part of several times through Fae Corps Publishing, Malarkey’s ImaginOmnibus from Sulk Media, and Deranged Minds edited by author Ray Bush–or the collaboration of a lifetime I was honored to write with author T.L. Brown, these connections are beautiful, and life-changing. I am so grateful for each connection I forge and look forward to future connections with readers, artists, and other authors.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rosejfairchild.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosejfairchild
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rose.fairchild.96
• Twitter: https://x.com/rosejfairchild
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rosejfairchild

Image Credits

Character painting of Arvan created and shared with permission from artist Stephanie G. Bonnett.