Welcome to our Writers Wednesday Spotlight! Each week we will be highlighting a different geeky writer we think you might like to check out. For this week’s spotlight, we are excited to introduce you to Lucy Blue!
Her most recent book “Guinevere’s Revenge” was released May 7, 2018, just this week!
You can purchase it here: Guinevere’s Revenge.
About Lucy Blue
(in her own words)
“I’ve been a writer since I was seven years old when I conceived my very first short fiction piece, a suspenseful tale of terror and triumph about a puppy stuck at the top of a very tall sliding board because he’s afraid to slide down. As I recall, this plotline came to me as I was sitting at the top of a very tall sliding board with a long line of other second graders behind me yelling, “Are you gonna slide or what?” As an artist, I’ve always responded well to pressure.
Since the puppy (who made it, by the way, for anyone who’s worried), I’ve written and released ten and a half full-length novels and many, many short stories, published with two big publishers (Berkeley-Penguin and Pocket Books-Simon & Schuster), a couple of small indie publishers, and all by my itty bitty self. With my sister, Alexandra Christian, I wrote, edited, and published for Little Red Hen Romance, a micro-press for the kind of romances we wanted to read. I’m bringing that same sensibility and an abiding love for weird, pulp, gothic, and adventure tales of all kinds to Falstaff Crush. Don’t y’all wanna come play?
I have an M.A. in English from Winthrop University, and I’ve taught English composition at Winthrop and at York Technical College. I was the fiction editor of Winthrop’s literary magazine my senior year as an undergraduate, and I have been doing freelance editing off and on for the past three years for small presses and self-published authors.
I’m a graduate of the SC Governor’s School for the Arts as well as Winthrop, so if we went to school together, by all means drop me a note at and say hi. I’m married to game designer and artist Justin Glanville.”
5 Questions with . . . Lucy
- When did you first realize you were interested in becoming an author? What drives you to write?
I was always all about making stuff up. I used to drive my baby sister and cousins insane micro-managing “pretend-like” games. “Now you say this, and I’m going to say this, and then this is going to happen.” I wrote fan fiction before I had a clue that was what you called it. In junior high, I had whole big notebooks full of the most ungodly Mary Sue stuff you can imagine that I shared with my best friend.I didn’t really think of writing as something I would do for a living until eleventh grade. I had a really tough time mental-health-wise the year before, and actually flunked tenth grade because I was out so much. Luckily, when I went back the next year, I had a truly amazing English teacher, Kay McSpadden (who incidentally is also an amazing fiction writer and essayist. She has a column now in the Charlotte Observer.) who not only got me engrossed in British literature but also got me kickstarted as a writer. She’s the one who pushed me to apply for the SC Governor’s School for the Arts in creative writing, and helped me with editing on the short stories for my application. Once I spent the summer there, I was hooked for life. I flirted outrageously with acting for a while, but I always came back to writing.
I don’t really need to be driven to write any more. I’ve been doing it so long, I seriously doubt I could ever quit. I’m still motivated by the same stuff that has always inspired me—other people’s writing and the need to get the stories out of my head. In recent years I’ve also gotten a lot of energy and inspiration from talking about writing with other writers. It’s easier to keep that momentum going when you’re surrounded by other people doing the same thing.
- How would you describe your style or genre of writing to a potential fan?
These days I’m writing in two distinct genre categories. I’ve previously published a lot in medieval paranormal romance. Right now, I’m writing for a new romance line from Falstaff Books called Falstaff Crush. Our tagline is “Love is the greatest adventure”. Unlike most romance that focuses tight on the love and sexy aspect of the story, we’re doing genre stories that also have a relationship plot. So I’m having a grand time writing mystery, gothic horror, action adventure, science fiction, and fantasy with a romantic plotline. I also write literary horror, leaning more toward the paranormal/Southern gothic side than hardcore realism. I’ve done some short stories in that, and I’ve been working on a full-length novel that I’m hoping to finish this summer. - What are you currently working on? What are you working on next?
I actually have a book out this week from Falstaff Crush, a screwball comedy/murder mystery romp set in the 1920s called “Guinevere’s Revenge”. I keep telling people it’s “Downton Abbey” meets “It Happened One Night”, and I absolutely love it. I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun writing anything in my life. I actually started that book as a way to lighten up and distract myself from my big literary horror project, a southern gothic about a ruined plantation that is so much more than haunted. I’ve recently started a new medieval paranormal romance about a sorceress whose knightly boyfriend has a demon living in his head. - What existing book do you wish you had written and why?
I’m sure I’m not the first writer to answer this way, but I would dearly love to have written the Harry Potter books. They are such pure and deep works of imagination. I wouldn’t change a single detail. For me, that’s really saying something. I’m a notorious nitpicker when it comes to books. I think J.K. Rowling hits on the perfect balance between character and situation in those books, between world-building and life-evolving. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of re-reading them. - What is one piece of advice you would give to a budding writer?
Write as much and as often as you possibly can. Nobody starts out supporting themselves with their writing. Everybody’s got to maintain a life while they write, whether that’s working a day job or maintaining a marriage or keeping a kid alive. Make writing at least an equal priority with all other forms of work, and carve out as much time as you possibly can to practice it. Just don’t give up. Don’t be shy about showing your work, don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t get the reaction you want, and don’t stop writing.