We chat with debut author Amy Avery about The Longest Autumn, which is a spellbinding debut fantasy about a human who gets trapped with the god of Autumn, who brings with him life-threatening danger and a forbidden romance.
Hi, Amy! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I am a graphic designer at my day job, with a love of swapping hobbies every few years. My current obsession is spraying and painting book edges, but in the past I’ve also been an amateur mixologist, a jewelry-maker, and a cosplayer. I’m very much a homebody who loves nothing more than curling up on the couch with my cat and my husband as we both read, or we also love to watch baking shows.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
My parents started reading to me at a very young age, so I’ve always loved books. I’ve also been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. I did make some early attempts at writing plays and coercing my little brother to perform them for my parents. When I was around eight, my grandmother let me use her old typewriter, and that’s when I decided I really wanted to be a writer.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I think the first one I read myself might have been The Monster at the End of This Book, the Little Golden Book featuring Grover from Sesame Street. I still have a copy on my bookshelf.
- The one that made you want to become an author: I hope it’s not cheating to include a series, but I was obsessed with all of L.J. Smith’s books at a teen. She’s most well-known for The Vampire Diaries, but I first read her trilogy Dark Visions. They were my first young adult books, and so intensely dramatic that I was captivated. While I’d been writing as a hobby forever, those books made me want to share my stories with the wider world and connect with readers in the same way.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: This answer will always belong to Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice, the first book in the Farseer Trilogy and her wider Realm of the Elderlings series. I’m still embarrassingly invested in those characters, even two decades after I first read about them.
Your debut novel, The Longest Autumn, is out January 16th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Atmospheric, poignant, intimate, haunting, aching.
What can readers expect?
A book that explores obsession and ambition, what it means to want something your entire life only to have it fall apart. The book also features complicated, messy relationships between friends and lovers. It’s set in a second-world setting featuring a polyamorous, pansexual, and generally sex-positive society. More than anything else, it’s a book about loss of all kinds, and how people deal with that.
Where did the inspiration for The Longest Autumn come from?
One time I complained about a drought of book ideas to a fellow writer friend, and they challenged me to come up with something entirely new and high-concept within the next couple of days. I looked through old notes and random idea scribbles, finding one about the seasons personified. I wondered what would happen if their routine was disrupted, and the rest unspooled from there.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
There’s a prominent character in the book named Sidriel. In an early draft, he was thrown in on a whim as a minor side character for one plot point. But he just commanded attention when he was on the page, and his personality was just so compelling that he grew into a major character. He’s sly and mysterious and manipulative, but also has some deeper layers to him that were so fun to explore.
What a stunning cover! Can you tell us a bit about the process and seeing the final version?
The process went very quickly! The cover is by Jonathan Bush. I saw some early sketches and loved them, then before I knew it the final version was ready. There were a few touches added after the initial concepts, like Tirne’s heirloom necklace and a bracelet that also has sentimental meaning in the book.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
It was a bit of a rollercoaster, but I think that’s common. I always wanted to be an author or artist, but like many creatives, I was encouraged to pursue a more stable career when I graduated high school. I compromised with graphic design and continued writing as a hobby, but never finished a full novel.
Then in 2006, I participated in my first National Novel Writing Month. That book was atrocious, but I completed it. I did NaNoWriMo every year from 2006 through 2020, completing the challenge fourteen of the fifteen times. My 2015 novel was far from my first, but it was the one I decided to try publishing. It went through a few years of rewrites before unsuccessfully querying.
I worked on other projects between the two, but the next novel I queried was The Longest Autumn. It got me an agent, but the book went through a hefty rewrite before going on submission and eventually getting picked up by Flatiron Books.
With it being the new year, have you set any resolutions or goals for 2024?
I’d like to spend a little more time balancing my various work tasks with self-care. I’m the stereotypical writer who hyperfocuses on a project and sometimes can neglect myself (or housework). So this year, I want to be more conscientious of that.
What’s next for you?
I’ve got some irons in the fire that I can’t really talk about at the moment, but if all goes well, you’ll be seeing more from me soon!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
A favorite read from this year is The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw, a fantasy horror novella about a vicious mermaid and a plague doctor who stumble across a creepy village and unravel its secrets. It comes with a content warning for some body horror, but it’s incredibly haunting and the prose is stunning.
If readers are looking for something of the romantic fairy tale variety, I very much enjoyed getting to read Unbound by Christy Healy, which releases on the same day as The Longest Autumn. It’s a genderbent, lovers-to-enemies Beauty and the Beast retelling full of Irish folklore, and the banter is top-notch.
