We chat with author Blair Fell about Disco Witches of Fire Island, which is follows a coven of queer witches on 1980s Fire Island in this gay fantasy romance about finding magic, love, and family in the face of tragedy.
Hi, Blair! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Well, I’ve been a writer of sorts since I was twenty-nine but didn’t start writing novels until I was about 50, so a late starter. I’ve written plays, and a little television, including one, award-winning, episode of Queer As Folk, but otherwise I just wrote for their website at Showtime, then later I wrote for a show on Public Television which was a lot more fun. I’m also a sign language interpreter. Now that I’m writing novels, I need something else that pays the bills. Haha. (But seriously. The arts are not kind to the artists in America). I love both my careers, but my writing is central. Oh, I’m also single again after 13.5 years, and am totally great friends with both my recent ex’s – one of whom lives with me now.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve always loved stories, but at first in just watching TV and movies. I was always obsessed and would spend hours everyday playing make believe with myself or toy figures. I never knew this was related to writing though. At first I wanted to be an actor, and did some of that for a while. But after I got a decent gig on a TV pilot and realized how much time an actor on TV has to spend sitting around, I bailed. Also it really wasn’t for me. I noticed I loved writing when I was writing in my journal one day and described everything around me in great detail. The act of it relaxed me and gave me such a buzz when I landed on words that got to something deeper. I still didn’t imagine I’d be a writer. Truly my goal was to have a writer as a lover, since my first best friend (whom I had a crush on) was a writer. But then after something pretty tragic happened in my life when I was 29, I took this last minute trip into China, and something sort of other worldly happened to me, and for a period of about six months I became very brave and decided rather than waiting for a writer-lover, I’d become a writer myself. I still didn’t think I’d be a novelist. That was way too much for me to conceive. So I started writing plays, depending on all my years as an actor. That went really well at first, and I got some good notice which really went to my head. Then I did a bunch of other writing as well. I sort of can write almost anything up to a point. Whether or not I like the sort of writing is another thing. Anyway, after I bailed on TV, since I was unwilling to do the grunt work to move up, I moved back to NYC, and wasn’t sure what I would do next. I didn’t want to work with actors anymore or really anyone. I love the solitary nature of writing. I found myself sketching out tiny little stories based on photos I took on the subway. From there I joined an MFA program at City College and a writing group and word-by-word (As Anne Lamott would say) I wrote my first novel, and then, during COVID, I was at a point I wanted to know if I was wasting my time writing novels. So wanting to see if it was crap or not, I showed it to my friend’s agent (not knowing he was an amazing agent) and he called me a week and half later and asked to speak with me. He gave me some notes, and I rewrote over two months, then he went out with it and it sold at auction to Emily Bestler Books which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster. That was The Sign For Home, which went on to be an Indie Next and Indie’s Introduce book, as well as being long-listed for the Center For Fiction First Book award.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: I think it was Shane, sort of a kid coming of age with his cowboy hero book.
- The one that made you want to become an author: None made me want to be an author, but Salinger and Rilke’s Letters To A Young Poet, both made me love writing.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: UGH! I refuse to pick one. Call Me By Your Name, Franny and Zooey, The Grapes of Wrath, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and both my own, The Sign For Home and Disco Witches of Fire Island and my third, The Two Wills (which is going out to publisher as we speak).
Your latest novel, Disco Witches of Fire Island, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
The title is four words, so that’s not fair – except the title mostly describes it, if you added “Cute guy finds love with (the help of) witches.” FUCK! Okay, let me really try this. “Retro Magical Queer Summer Love”
What can readers expect?
A funny-heartfelt, ode to community, summer love, found family, as well as a call to action in battling the Great Darkness of our current country – via a lesson from the past. It’s about getting beyond heartbreak, and finding love again, and friends, and getting passed self-destruction, so that you can find your true place in the world. Plus disco, witches, cute boys (and girls) and dancing.
Where did the inspiration for Disco Witches of Fire Island come from?
When I first decided to become a writer in the early 1990s I moved to Fire Island Pines (sight unseen) and found a job as a bartender, and a room in the attic of these three older gay men. They were these quirky throw backs to the 1970s, dressing in elaborate costumes, cooking drugs on the stove, gossiping like nobody’s business, regaling me of tales of gay life before the plague, playing old disco on the living room speakers 24/7. Two of them were so funny, and really a trip, and later I conceived of them as witches and worked on an earlier piece with that idea. Later, when I was in the middle of writing my first novel, I wanted to start something else that seemed more akin to my former play writing days. I remembered the idea I had about that summer I spent on Fire Island and came up with the idea. When I started writing I realized there was a lot of things I wanted to say about that dark period in gay history, when falling in love was so hard because you didn’t know if the man you liked might infect you with the virus, or die from it. My first partner, like the main character experiences in the novel, dies at a very young age, and what do you do when that happens? It hard to get beyond and trust in love again. I wanted to write about that, and capture this period for younger people to learn about. What’s surprising is how much the piece speaks to this moment in our country. The AIDS Crisis was at time when our government was doing nothing to save our lives. In fact the government and the country wanted us dead, and sat and watched. It was up to the queer community to take action, and we did. I was a member of ACT UP starting in 1989 when they did all these amazing actions that really made an impact, and changed the course of the pandemic and treatment. The book is also about that, the move from being a victim to taking action.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love all the main witches, Howie, Lenny, Dory, and Saint D’Norman. All are loosely based on real people I’ve known and respected. I loved writing characters that are far wiser than I will ever be, and channelling that quirky, funny but smart character. I also loved writing Ronnie, who can be an ass at the beginning but he’s hot and thinks he knows how to be a successful gay. I love to give advice … even if it’s utterly wrong.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
I suppose the biggest challenge was writing the main character who is based on me, but not me, but me. Really a tough one to find. Also I always struggle with length. I write WAY too much content. There was an entirely additional POV in the book – that of Elena, one of the main character’s best friends, who is struggling with substance use issues. She’s also HIV positive and discovering she’s bisexual. It was about a third of the book. When needing to cut the novel down, all her POV chapters were gone. That was a challenge. The other challenge was deciding how much magic to include or not include. At one point the magic was more centered, at another it was almost completely gone, but I think I found a way to make the magic there, but rooted in something real and plausible. Even the witches doubt sometimes. I think that’s life, when something magical or coincidental happens you’re mind kind of does that thing of disbelief, “How is this possible? Maybe it didn’t really happen.”
What’s next for you?
My third novel, a pansexual Elizabethan romance, is going off to market. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile I’m starting a fourth, which I’m struggling with, mostly because I don’t know if it’s the one I want to write at this moment. It’s set in a related world to my first book, and I’m still not sure if that’s where I want to spend the next 2-3 years of my life. I ain’t a spring chicken anymore. But I also know not always to trust my doubts. In the middle of The Sign For Home I was convinced it wasn’t the right book I should be writing, and I was horribly wrong about that. The characters in this fourth book certainly want it written. They actually won’t shut up when I sit down to write. It’s me. It’s fear.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up this year?
So many! I want to read more of Sally Rooney and Gabrielle Zevin. I also want to see what all the hullaballoo is about concerning James by Percival Everrett. But also I want to read some good fun gay romances.
