Hello, book queens, kings and non-binary royalty!
Today I bring you an interview with the amazing M. Hollis!
I know I haven't posted anything on this blog since Monday, but I'm so excited for you all to read this interview. M. Hollis was kind enough to answer a few questions. And without further ado, here is the interview.
1. Self-promo! Introduce yourself to everyone who might not know you or your work.
I’m a Brazilian lesbian writer who likes to tell happy and hopeful stories for women who love other women! You can find my fantasy and paranormal short stories in the anthologies Queerly Loving 2 and Into the Mystic Vol. 3. I also have two self-published short stories, a Rapunzel retelling called Ripped Pages and a fun chick-lit called A Night at the Mall.
And I run a blog that promotes sapphic literature called Bibliosapphic where I try to recommend and talk about as many books as I can to help readers find their next read.
2. Was there any piece of media that helped you realize your sexuality?
Actually, yes. If it wasn’t for books and other media it’d have taken me even longer to find my love for other women. One of the first F/F books I read was Far From You by Tess Sharpe. I remember reading that book was very cathartic and it was the first time I read a sex scene between two girls and I was so amazed that people actually could write that in books!
And then there was Carmilla, the web series. I actually learned to write in English by working on Carmilla/Laura fanfics and these were my first F/F stories where I could explore myself too and my identity. It was nice to see in Laura Hollis such a relatable heroine who is a lesbian and I’m always going to be grateful that this web series helped me out so much.
3. How do your personal experiences and your surroundings affect your work?
Honestly, everything I write is inspired by my real experiences both with my solitude growing up in a place where I didn’t know many LGBTQAP+ people and how I relate to women. I always tend to write stories where friendship is very important to my characters and complicated relationships with families that aren’t exactly very understanding of your beliefs. Sometimes, it can be hard to put so much of who you are and your reality into the paper because not everyone lived what you lived and they may judge the way you perceive the world, but there is always someone who needs that story and I try to focus on that.
4. What book/author made you want to write your own stories?
I always wanted to tell my own stories since I was very young so there wasn’t an author who inspired me at first. The internet wasn’t as big when I was growing up so the way I found to read more books was to go around my relatives’ houses and ask them for some books to read. Being a quiet and lonely kid, I would just read literally everything I could get my hands on.
But in these last years since I’ve started reading more diverse books I’ve definitely found many books that inspired me by GL Tomas, Siera Maley, and Brigitte Bautista. They do such an amazing work and I can only hope someday my books will be worth it enough of being close to what they write.
5. Do you have any habits when you’re writing?
Besides needing music playing at all times, not much else! I tend to multitask and always have to stop to either check social media or answer conversations at the same time I write. I know some authors need to be 100% focused but I can get distracted easily and need to go back and forth. But some days I get very involved in the story and even forget to eat (you should not do that, btw!).
6. Are there any stories you’re currently working on? If so, any hints on what to expect?
Yes, many! I can’t tell you about all of them just yet. But I’m working on edits on my first YA novel about a secret society that exists in a boarding school. It’s my most ambitious project about a group of girls figuring out a mystery that involves how their lives are intertwined and demons whispering on the walls. Hopefully, I can finish soon!
There is also my new novella WIP about two girls who are competing in a program similar to The Voice, but an LGBTQAP+ version of that. One of them is a rock girl and the other is a pop princess so they don’t see things eye to eye when they have to battle together.
And my next novella that is coming out at the beginning of 2019 from NineStar Press, My Fake Canadian Wife. As the title says, it’s the story of a Brazilian girl and a Canadian girl who get involved in a fake dating situation to try to keep the main character in the country.
7. Every author puts a bit of themselves in their characters. Which of your own characters do you see yourself more in?
I see a lot of myself in Lily from The Paths We Choose. We are both grumpy and moody girls who care deeply about our friends and have a strong personality. I’m working on a new edition of these novellas so I can bring her back to readers. But I also relate to how Valentina from Ripped Pages found herself in the books she reads. When you grow up very lonely and feeling isolated from the other kids, sometimes the words on a page are the only help you can get.
8. I feel like this is a question that everyone eventually asks but which Hogwarts house would your main characters be sorted into?
I have all of my characters sorted into Hogwarts houses because I take this very seriously! Haha I won’t list all of them but from my most recent stories:
Asha (The Warrior and the Dragon) - Gryffindor
June (The Warrior and the Dragon) - Ravenclaw
Grace (A Night at the Mall) - Hufflepuff
Sol (A Night at the Mall) - Ravenclaw
Val (Ripped Pages) - Ravenclaw
Agnes (Ripped Pages) - Gryffindor
Bel (The Hunt) - Hufflepuff
Alex (The Hunt) - Ravenclaw
Dora (My Fake Canadian Wife) – Hufflepuff
Abby (My Fake Canadian Wife) – Ravenclaw
As you can see, I’m really into Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff pairings. But the girls in my boarding school novel will be Slytherin/Ravenclaw and I think that’s a really interesting pairing because of how much tension they have between themselves.
9. Is there any genre you’d like to write about/write more about? (i.e. fantasy, paranormal, sci-fi, etc)
I want to try to write more paranormal next! I love contemporary but mixing that with paranormal is a genre that really interests me. I like stories that are happening right now in our world where we can believe that there is some magic around us.
10. What are your favorite books featuring queer characters?
Curved Horizon by Taylor Brooke
When Women Were Warriors by Catherine M. Wilson
Don’t Tell My Mother by Brigitte Bautista
Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust
Colorblind by Siera Maley
Complementary and Acute by Ella Lyons
Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
11. Are there any tropes you’d like to see more of in queer books?
I want to see more tropes you usually find in super cheesy romcoms! Like our dogs met in the park and made us fall in love. Falling for your kids’ teacher. Online dating that is so common for us and yet there is so little of it in sapphic literature. I absolutely love romantic comedies and I want to read all the queer books in this genre.
12. Following the previous question, is there any specific thing you’d like to see more normalized in queer books?
What we need is definitely more intersectionality by authors of color, disabled writers, etc. There are many queer books coming out lately, it’s true, but so many of these aren’t exactly relatable to everyone. I want to see questioning characters and characters who change labels many times before they find what fits them best. I think many of us go through this and I have yet to see it done more often in books.
I think what I would love to read more about are books about the loneliness of growing up in an environment where almost no one is LGBTQIAP+ but that isn’t exactly tragic. Queer books tend to fall either in the “everyone is okay with you being gay!” or “tragic coming out with violence and death”. When I read YA books set in the U.S. there is always some GSA group or people know everything about LGBTQIAP+ identities. The first time I ever even heard of the whole acronym was in university so it was all around just a very lonely experience of not understanding why I couldn’t always feel connected to my friends.
And the intersections of religious kids dealing with how to navigate sexuality and spirituality would also be something I’d love to read more about. As someone who left the Catholic church because I couldn’t find peace between my sexuality and my religion, I want to see more people who go through that. I was never forced into my religion, I loved it with all my heart so it was quite a lot of work to live with these doubts. I want to read both about the people who kept their beliefs and the ones who had to leave them.
13. As a closeted lesbian woman, what obstacles did you find in promoting your work?
I think I always end up kinda scared to promote my work in fear that someone from my real life will find me. Not because I’m ashamed or because people would hate me for it, but because I feel like my stories are so personal and I like to have something just for myself. Talking to other authors I’ve come to realize that not all of them have a big and close-knit family where everyone knows everything about each other. My family keeps asking me what’s my pen name and what do I write and it always makes me freak out because I know that the day they find out my work they won’t ever stop talking about it or leaving me alone. I have to hide the books I receive at home and it’s always a bit stressful. In the beginning, my close friends who know about my sexuality wanted to share my stories to help me out but I told them I prefer to be safe than to end up being outed without having control of that.
So I can’t really post many pictures of my books or go in close details about my life sometimes just to be sure I can keep my identity safe. I hope I can be more open about myself in the near future because I’d love to do that but I always have to think first: is it worth it to be as open as I can about my life or will this make my mental health worse? I’m always putting my health and safety first.
14. Do you have any advice for queer aspiring authors, especially closeted ones?
Find a community of authors to support you through the good, the bad and the worse. Do not go alone on your publishing journey! I always try to communicate with other authors and I have made some of my best friends in the online community who are incredibly supportive and help me through everything. You’ll see how so many new doors will open when you have a good communication with other people in this world.
When you are just starting is hard to know the rules of the game and where to even start. So my advice is always that authors should find other authors working on similar things so they can talk about their fears and problems they go through. You’ll see you are not alone in anything and that we can all help each other reach our goals if we know we have someone there going through the same thing.
I want to thank M. Hollis for taking the time to answer my questions! It was the first time I got the chance to interview an author and I feel so honored.
I recommend you check out her novellas because she's an amazing person.
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