We recently connected with Steve Westenra and have shared our conversation below.

Steve, appreciate you joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Working independently in a creative industry is its own beast.

I think there’s this very pristine quality that we attribute to artistic industries, whether that’s visual art, film and television, or literature. We don’t like to tarnish this thing called art by acknowIedging that the same seedy practices and moral bankruptcy endemic to capitalist enterprises infringes upon artistic output. I certainly had an idealized notion of what publishing was when I was new to querying agents and submitting to publishers. This was, of course, startlingly naive on the surface, but the truth is that publishing flourishes through the deliberate cultivation of these false attitudes. For anyone doubting this fact, I recommend reading up on the Penguin Random House (PRH) trial last year, or listening to the Print Run podcast by Erik Hane and Laura Zats, or Sunyi Dean and Scott Drakeford’s Publishing Rodeo.

I’ve written elsewhere about my long road to publication, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much. But suffice to say, my years engaging with traditional publishing were an education in how real and tactile systemic oppression is even in industries we like to assume would be the bastion of difference and alternative ways of thinking. As it stands, traditional publishing is, by and large, a hostile environment if you’re marginalized, if you want to create new and genre-bending works, and especially if you want to do both. That’s not to say that nothing original slips through, but for the most part, the system is more interested in smoothing out the challenging elements in a work than it is in probing unusual and sometimes uncomfortable ideas, themes, and perspectives. This is not universal–established writers who’ve been successful have a much better shot seeing their most creative visions make it onto bookshelves–but it is something anyone thinking about getting into publishing should be aware of. There are definitely publishing heroes among editors, presses, and agents–people who aren’t afraid to go against the grain or push for greater diversity in terms of the stories publishing champions–but it’s hard to be that person/press. You see depressingly little of that.

There’s a lot of pressure to conform, whether that means soft pressure exerted in subtle ways (and often through means that make the fact that it *is* pressure invisible to those doing the pressuring), and through more direct ones (“please write X type of book,” etc). I experienced what I’d call a combination of both during an interaction with one particular literary agency. Someone had requested a full MS (the whole book) from me. It was a rejection, with the note that the book was too similar to one they already represented (completely fair). They followed up with question about whether I had any other MSS in my stable, and I pitched them several, all in a variety of different genres and even styles. The one constant was that they were all queer. The agent politely responded that the MSS were still too similar. Without them needing to explicitly state it, their rejection was premised upon the fact that they could only represent one queer book at a time. This might not have been something they *wanted* to be true, but if an agent is saying this, it’s often because publishers (particularly the Big 5) will only take on a limited number of queer books at a time. I’ve heard similar stories from traditionally published friends–rejections from publishers on the basis that they can only release one Asian, Black, or other marginalized work within a given time frame. I’ve also received so many rejections on the basis of the neurodivergence of my protagonists: “this is ready/great/someone else with snap this up in an instant, but the protagonist is too [insert characteristic that derives from their neurodivergence] for me.” On the one hand, of course you don’t want to be represented by someone like that, *Of course* you want an agent who falls in love with your main character, but the harsh reality of publishing as a marginalized person is that the chances of an agent falling in love with your work or protagonist when most agents are straight white cis women, is much smaller. If publishing is indeed a business, then increasingly I’m of the opinion that an agent needn’t “fall in love” with your work: they need to sell it. A good agent (and this is a shockingly uncommon opinion) ought to recognize the potential in new and innovative ideas and perspectives and be capable of championing that (or, at the very least, shouldn’t be afraid of challenging the system). Challenging an entire apparatus premised upon systemic inequalities (racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, etc) is daunting, no question about it. Does that mean we therefore shouldn’t challenge it? I’ve seen a lot of lip service paid to this and not much legitimate action.

After years of being told my work was ready, but that an agent couldn’t represent me or a publisher take me on, it became clear to me that I needed to take a chance and say yes to myself: yes, I know I can write (and I’m lucky to have the validation that supports that), yes, my ideas are important, and yes, I want to see my work published while those ideas are still innovative.

With that lengthy preamble out of the way, my work is probably very different from what you’d find in traditional publishing. I’m a fantasy and horror author, but my work bends and combines genres ways that fly in the face of what traditional marketing has tended to focus on. My queer horror comedy, The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle, and my political epic fantasy, The Wings of Ashtaroth, both combine elements of the literary with their respective genres. I’m pretty much allergic to beat sheets or prescriptive writing formulas. My work also tends to be long–it’s what I’m most comfortable with and what I’m the most skilled at–and traditional publishing doesn’t tend to like long debuts.

Even the queer elements in my books tend to be different than what traditional publishing is looking for. There’s an interest within publishing in focusing on certain types and styles of queer stories and anything outside that prescribed mold tends not to be picked up or is flattened through the editorial process. As a largely straight, white, cis, able-bodied, and neurotypical industry (like most of them), there’s a strong emphasis on rendering queer art relatable to straight people (and the same is true of other marginalities). Sometimes this comes from a good place, but it tends to restrict what it’s acceptable for queer and marginalized writers to write about and experiement with. I’m not interested in being told what I’m allowed to write about, especially when it comes to my own experiences of marginality. I think that kind of willingness to be different, to think outside the box, and to speak honestly about marginality, is extremely valuable, not only because it’s more likely to be relatable to other marginalized people, but because through writing what you earnestly want to write you’re helping (hopefully!) to expand what it’s possible for marginalized people to dream about writing. It doesn’t have to be about following a trend; you can be the one setting a new trend. Again and again writers of all stripes are cautioned against being too ambitious (you’re not the next Steinbeck, King, Butler, Atwood, etc). Maybe we’re not, but no one will be if everyone assumes the best they can do is churn out another Save-the-[copy]Cat-informed slog.

I’m interested in creating work that at least attempts to expand the idea of what queer people can do and how we can express ourselves and engage with the world meaningfully.

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

So, I’m a self-published author of fantasy and horror, an academic expert on monsters and social Othering, as well as a reviewer for Before We Go Blog.

In terms of my fiction writing, this is something that’s always been what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. A big reason that I chose the self-publishing route over continuing to try to break into traditional publishing was that I can’t extricate my sense of self, of my purpose in life, from writing. Creating stories and characters is critical to my well-being and sense of self-worth and I wasn’t willing anymore to tie that to what felt like an extremely arbitrary process. I was tired of seeking someone else’s position to do the thing I’m strongest at.

What excites me as a creative person is the exploration of new ideas and concepts, playing with conventions in unconventional ways, and crafting stories that linger in readers’ minds and which have an affective impact (books that make you feel things!).

I probably sound incredibly dry in this interview, but what you’ll find in my work is a lot of humour around dark topics, in order to explore those topics and themes better. This is most obvious in my queer horror comedy, The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle (about a cryptid-investigating YouTuber who gets lured to an isolated island by a fan-turned-stalker and who comes face-to-face with the monsters he swears aren’t real). TETK is full of queer camp motifs and references, but it’s also very much a book about serious topics like abuse, grief, and religious trauma. One of the difficulties I had placing it is that it straddles the line between so many genres, but I think that straddling (or boundary pushing) is exactly what makes my work stand out.

As not only a writer, but as a human being, I have to believe that readers want new stories, that they’re tired of seeing the same plots, structures, and characters recycled again and again. I do think this is what we’re seeing play out through increasing audience critique of endless reboots, tie-ins, and franchise entries. Audiences are hungry for something fresh and innovative that challenges them to engage meaningfully with what they’re reading (or watching). By that I don’t mean that being part of an audience for something should feel like work (I hope my books don’t read that way!), but that you can’t just start scrolling through Twitter or Instagram and come back to a movie knowing exactly what you missed, etc. I like to believe that the reason we do increasingly see this happening is not a result of the audiences themselves not wanting to get sucked into a story or not wanting to be made to think and feel, but that studios and publishers are rather training audiences to approach our media this way by producing works that lack a beating heart, so to speak. If it doesn’t seem like the author, editors, or producers care about what they made, then why should I care as the audience? It becomes just noise to put on in the background.

One of the aspects of my work that I get comments on most is that it has both strong character voice and authorial voice or style. I’d recommend checking out my writing if you’re looking for work that feels specific, that focuses on deep characterization, and which probes the uncomfortable edges of identity (whether that means queer identities and the status of the outsider, or human identity and psychology).

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

There are so many aspects of creative work that reward you. As I’ve said, I consider my identity inextricably bound to my creativity. In a big way, whether you’re a private or public artist, whether you’re a trained professional or a total newcomer, art of all kinds has the power to change the way you think, feel, and relate to others. Through art, we have the power to cultivate empathy, to engage meaningfully with our inner sense of self, and to establish connections to the world (and people) outside of our selves.

I’d love to be able to say I’m someone who needs no external validation when it comes to what I create, but I’m not that person. For me, what’s most rewarding has been seeing how my work has impacted others, even if only as simple entertainment. The most wonderful compliments I’ve received have been ones that related to the emotional impact my work has had on another person, or someone saying they could see themselves in particular character or scenario. Fiction, at its most beautiful, has the capacity to place the audience in conversation with themselves and their experiences, as well as to deepen their sense of what another’s perspective or experiences might be. When we read (and write) we’re constantly expanding ourselves and reconfiguring the ways in which we relate to our context.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think anyone can be creative (and I’d even go a step further and say everyone *is* creative and that we simply don’t tend to view certain forms of expression as creative).

One aspect of what I do that I think even I struggle to understand and articulate, is the tension between art for art’s sake and art as labour. In a capitalist system it’s important to recognize that art *is* labour, in order not to devalue it, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also involve a sense of a higher calling (or whatever nebulous phrase we want to insert in its place). My art is work for which I deserve payment, but it’s also something invaluable that for me goes beyond being a product. This language is challenging when you start talking about the publishing industry, because on the one hand you need to emphasize the business side of things in order both to be taken seriously and to sell your work, but on the other hand, I think the reduction of art to something that can be churned out as though it were part of a production or assembly line has led to many of the issues we’re seeing now (it’s an attitude that would take little issue replacing human artistry with AI plagiarism, for instance).

So, art is often a product in the sense that it’s something we produce and that necessitates and deserves remuneration, but it ought never to be reduced to a brand or turned into something we take for granted.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://stevewestenra.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevehughwestenra/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552863464112&paipv=0&eav=Afbb2a8j83m9wugdVvdhIP-ksSsaeOhHB_Dea3eWagskgSIuUXDQvL-gGAJ6qNeYWQ4&_rdr
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveWestenra

Image Credits
All images were created by the author in Canva. The cover for The Wings of Ashtaroth was designed and created by author Ava Reid.