We chat with author Alexandra Rowland about Running Close To The Wind, which is a queer pirate adventure, think Our Flag Means Death meets Six of Crows!
Hi, Alexandra! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! Thanks for having me on The Nerd Daily! I’m Alexandra Rowland (they/them), the author of 8+ fantasy books, such as A Taste of Gold and Iron, Some by Virtue Fall, and the imminently-forthcoming pirate comedy, Running Close to the Wind! My books often feature a plethora of queer characters and address themes like oppressive capitalism, living with mental illness, what we owe each other, the power of stories, the honest real-life difficulties involved in one imperfect human being having a relationship of any kind with another imperfect human being, and the importance of community.
Additionally, all of my fantasy books are set in the same world, so sharp-eyed readers of my previous works might able to spot quite a few fun Easter eggs of little references to familiar names, places, and events across the different books/series – and even more of them in my new book, RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND!
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I started writing when I was about 7 years old, but I didn’t really know that that was what I was doing. If you had asked me then, I would have told you that I hated writing (by which I would have meant school essays). It wasn’t until I was about 11 that I consciously decided that I wanted to be a fantasy author when I grew up. I self-published a book when I was 22, and had my traditional publishing debut six years later with A Conspiracy of Truths. Writing can be really hard and emotionally challenging sometimes, but it’s still the best job in the world.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Oh gosh. Frog and Toad, I think???
- The one that made you want to become an author: Don’t recall, I don’t think there was any one specific book.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Well, currently it’s the next one I’m working on! 😉 But in general terms… Either Going Postal by Terry Pratchett or an anthology of KJ Parker’s short stories called Academic Exercises. Oooh, or maybe—oh wait, you only asked for one. This is oppression, you know.
Your latest novel, Running Close to the Wind, is out June 11th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Hijinks on the high seas.
What can readers expect?
Until recently, Avra Helvaci has been a field agent for the intelligence agency of Araşt, the richest country in the world, but he’s just quit his dayjob to pursue his poetry career… and because he’s accidentally stolen the most valuable secret in the world and he’s very worried that he’s going to get assassinated about it. He meets up with his on-again-off-again partner, Captain Teveri of The Running Sun, and together they devise a plot to decode the secret, sell it to the highest bidder, and abscond with the cash.
I cannot emphasize enough that Avra Helvaci is an absolute gremlin. He is the most annoying person in the world, and that’s intentional. You will either love him or want to kill him, and if it’s the latter then not to worry, there are many other people in the book who share that sentiment with you. The book’s got wall-to-wall jokes, an epic cake competition, a plot-relevant game of jump-rope, and some very big and angry things to say about topics around resistance against institutional powers (both in terms of governments and organized religions) whose priority is to maintain their hegemony, the amount of bravery and selflessness it takes to do the right thing, and what you should do if you get pulled over by the boat cops.
Where did the inspiration for Running Close to the Wind come from?
For me, most books don’t have just one single source of inspiration.
Part of it came from a conversation I once had with my friend and former podcast cohost, Jennifer Mace, after I said the sentence, “I think it’d be fun to write an OT3, maybe about PIRATES.”
Part of it was from the fact that I grew up on a sailboat until the age of 10, sailing around the Bahamas.
Part of it was struggling to write it as a gritty drama, watching Our Flag Means Death, realizing that the book actually wanted to be a comedy, and immediately feeling something click into place.
Part of it was thinking about comedy as I was writing. I feel like it’s easy to devalue comedy and write it off as trite and useless and unimportant, but the best comedy comes from a place of righteous anger. Just because a book is funny doesn’t mean it’s not saying something important—Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are the perfect example of this: He was angry about corporate greed, about the atrocities of war, about corruption, about bodily autonomy… I could go on.
Besides that, I don’t know if you have noticed, but the world really fucking sucks right now. There don’t seem to be many opportunities to laugh these days. I think we as a society have a tendency to view humor as dismissive or trivializing of the seriousness of a situation, rather than looking for ways that comedy can be an incredibly useful tool against the people doing wrong. Laugh at your representatives, folks. Mock them in the streets. It’s important enrichment for them.
And! It’s important enrichment for you. I believe that the most sacred part of my job as an author is to build a space of rest and shelter and healing—I want to give people that gift; I want to welcome them in; I want to give them something to laugh about, because we need that. Now more than ever, we need it, because the people in power who want marginalized people to stay marginalized don’t want you to be laughing. They want you to be exhausted and disheartened and worn-out and apathetic, because then you won’t have the energy to fight back when they pull some new and exciting form of bullshit. Laughter keeps you human in the face of those who would dehumanize you; it is a candle of joy to hold back the dark. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll keep saying it, because I think it is crucially important for all of us to remember: No matter what injustices are wrought upon us, as long as you can laugh, there’s still a part of you that’s free.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I wrote the last third of the book (about 50,000 words) in seven days—I love the ending of this book. I love the passionate speech that the breathtakingly hot monk Brother Julian makes about his relationship to his faith. I loved the description of Teveri’s black-and-silver coat and what it means to them. I really loved writing the cake competition.
Avra IS legitimately the most annoying person in the world, but he was also incredible fun to write. Every time I faced a scene that might be a bit dull but necessary, I asked myself, “What fresh nonsense is Avra up to in the background? What is he doing, and how can he make a nuisance of himself?” That added element of absolute chaos was incredibly fun to play with.
And yes, I know I keep saying he’s very annoying, but that’s intentional because here’s the thing—so am I. So are you. So are all of us. Each and every one of us has, at times, been the most irritating person in the world, and that does not mean we don’t deserve to be loved. The thing I have realized is that the more I can grow to love and accept the annoying parts within myself, the more I seem able to extend that love and acceptance and patience to the annoying people I am surrounded by. So yes, Avra is very annoying, but the point is that he gets to be wholly, gloriously, unrestrainedly himself and yet still has a place within his community and still has people who love him fiercely even when they are turning themselves inside out with exasperation at his weird little antics.
That’s real love right there. Not that wishywashy you-only-deserve-love-and-belonging-when-you’re-perfect-at-all-times shit that we’re all brainwashed with. Fuck that.
What are some of the key lessons you’ve learned as a writer since your debut?
- You can’t please everybody. Sometimes people will read your books and say existentially perplexing things like “This doesn’t have any worldbuilding in it” even though it definitely does, lots of it, and you will have to sit there in silence going, “What does this mean… What are they saying… It doesn’t have any worldbuilding info-dumps in it—maybe that’s what they meant? That has to be it, right? But what if—” and you will just have to practice radical acceptance of the fact that human beings are not a monolith and not everybody will Get what you’re trying to do (and in fact sometimes they will somehow conclude that you are doing the exact opposite) and that’s okay.
- Success is an illusion. Failure is also an illusion. Nobody really knows whether a book is going to be a runaway hit or a total flop. Give the illusions a polite mild nod, and then regardless of what flavor of illusion you just got… write another book. No matter what happens, that’s your next move on the chessboard of the publishing industry. Write another book. Got a rejection? Ah well, that’s too bad, but I was going to be writing another book anyway. Got a new book deal? Neat, that’s nice, but I was going to be writing another book anyway.
- Set healthy boundaries, protect your energy, and advocate for yourself. This will make a lot of people very mad, and that’s going to suck VERY MUCH. But them being mad that you value yourself is their problem, not yours. (Please note: This takes practice to do properly. You can’t do this overnight. Don’t expect yourself to be able to, because that way lies madness. Even I’m still wrestling with this one. It’s okay if it takes time—give yourself the gift of trusting the process.)
- There’s no such thing as wasted work. I have on multiple occasions now thrown out a draft over a hundred thousand words long and started from scratch. Yes, of course I would prefer to have written the book the right way the first time, but c’est la vie. It wasn’t a waste of time, because I still learned something and got practice while I figured out what I was doing.
- Write whatever you want. They literally can’t stop you. Well, unless you let them. Are you going to let them?
What’s next for you?
Great things! Earlier this year, I published a novella sequel to A Taste of Gold and Iron called Tadek and the Princess. It is about everyone’s favorite side character, familial love, loyalty that lasts beyond death, and grief and healing and belonging. It made me cry 500 times when I was writing it.
I’m also nearly finished with the next book in my Seven Gods series, Yield Under Great Persuasion, which will be out later in the year. It is a romantasy about a prickly tea shop owner named Tam and his childhood nemesis, Lord Lyford, who he is definitely not in love with. It’s also about the ferociously difficult and unpleasant experience of realizing that you need to do that personal growth you’ve been avoiding, the harrowing slog through the mud to do so, the terrifying fact that apologizing alone isn’t enough actually fix a situation, and the struggle to let yourself be vulnerable enough to accept love and care from someone who isn’t going to stop giving a shit about you no matter what. Also there’s a pantheon of busybody gods and goddesses who refuse to keep their noses out of Tam’s life, an epic quest into the mountains to capture the legendary Ram of the Highlands, and several vegetable-related dick jokes. If that sounds like a good time to you, there’s a big sneak peek (of, uhhh, the entire manuscript so far) available on my Patreon. If you’re more of a wait-and-read-it-all-at-once sort, I’d recommend joining my official Discord server or signing up for my newsletter to get notified about new releases—both are linked on the front page of my website!
But of course the very next thing for me is the publication of Running Close to the Wind, which is getting 100% of my attention in the next coming weeks! Please preorder it, yell about it on social media, and tell your friends!
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Honestly, I’m rereading Tolkien at the moment because it’s been about twenty years since I read The Lord of the Rings, and I forgot how funny he is! Comedy is carrying these first chapters on its back! Why don’t we remember the fact that the arguable father of the genre had such a wry sense of humor?
For fiction, I’ve also recently read Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell, and A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and All the Hidden Paths by Foz Meadows – loved all of them SO MUCH! They’re really amazing options if you’re looking for romantic fantasy and scifi.
For nonfiction, When I Say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel J Smith was…. maybe life-changing? It’s about assertiveness therapy and it rewired my brain about some stuff. (Fair warning that it was first published in 1975, so there’s a scattering of things that have not aged very well, but the core lesson is one that I think a lot of us desperately need more practice with.)
Whew! What a bunch of great questions! Thanks again for having me on The Nerd Daily!
