We chat with debut author Erin Cotter about By Any Other Name, which follows a down-on-his-luck actor and an English lord who reluctantly team up to solve the murder of Christopher Marlowe in this Shakespearean-era young adult romp.
Hi, Erin! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hey y’all! I’m a young adult author based in Austin, Texas. When I’m not writing (or reading!) I like to send time with my pets, foster animals in need, and explore the great hill country to the west of my city.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I can’t really remember when I first starting loving stories. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve retelling scenes from my favorite stories with toys. In middle school and high school, me and my friends would tear through 2-3 books a week and it wasn’t long before I starting text role-playing on forums in my favorite fandoms. I would spend hours doing this, literally hours. (Shoutout to Neopets forums!) Eventually I wanted to write my own stories and that’s how I got here many years later.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
I actually hated reading until like, fifth grade. I remember being forced to listen to or read all these sad books about kids doing sad real-world things that didn’t connect with me. I also remember literally hiding under a table when it was reading time in the hopes no one would find me. K.A Applegate’s Animorphs series were the first books I remember devoring, along with Tamora’s Pierce’s Tortall books and Brian Jaques’ Redwall series.
The Twilight Saga came out when I was in high school and that was the first time I had seriously thought that writing was something I could do.
Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegal is the book I keep thinking about right now. It’s a reimagining of the romance and history between King Philip II of France and Richard the Lionhearted. It’s so well researched, yet also very playful with the history at the same time. Everyone should go read it!
I know this wasn’t exactly a lightening round, but I couldn’t help myself! There’s so many stories I’ve loved and have shaped me as a writer and a person.
Your debut novel, By Any Other Name, is out October 10th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Romantic, suspenseful, funny, intense, and genre-bending.
What can readers expect?
Come for the mystery and stay for the romance! By Any Other Name has warring queens, pirates, betrayal, cameos from the Bard himself, the big messy feelings that come with first love, and, despite the body count, a happy ending. There’s a big plot twist I’m especially excited for readers to discover!
Where did the inspiration for By Any Other Name come from?
Two things inspired By Any Other Name. One was the 90s movie Shakespeare in Love. I watched the movie as an impressionable English major, and it was the first time I realized that these old, difficult plays were considered popular culture during their time period and could be seen by all Londoners, from commoners to the queen.
I loved how the movie imagined the lives of real people and how they might’ve lived in 1500s England. What I didn’t love, as someone thinking about the movie in the 2010s, was how there were no queer characters, no people of color, and even the female love interest’s story arc seemed lacking. I wondered what revisiting Shakespeare’s London with more diverse characters would be like and how it would be different.
I also love a good unsolved mystery, and the playwright Christopher Marlowe’s shadowy murder in a pub has always interested me. His unsolved murder was the historical event I choose to build the story around.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I absolutely loved doing the research for this book and pulling in real people and historical events whenever I could. To be honest, I’m surprised my publisher let me get away with all of the references and details I managed to sneak in!
Gráinne Ní Mháille, the famous Irish pirate queen, was one character I loved writing. Once I learned that Gráinne and Queen Elizabeth I really did meet the summer of 1593, I knew I had to include Gráinne in the book. She’s the only character whose lines and scenes barely changed from draft to draft.
This is your debut novel! Can you tell us what the road to becoming a published author was like for you?
By Any Other Name is YA historical, but when I first started to write, I wrote contemporary young adult novels. I didn’t find my writer niche until I decided to fuse together my curiosity and love for the past with the voice-y character-driven stories I loved in contemporary fiction.
By Any Other Name was already rattling around in my head back in 2016 but I didn’t finish it until 2021 because 1. I didn’t have the writing chops to pull it off yet and 2. I was afraid to write a queer book without being publicly out as a queer author. By Any Other Name went out on submission twice and the second time I had given up on it being published. I was so shocked when my editor wanted to buy it! I got the news the day before I was disappearing into the wilderness to officiate my best friend’s wedding. She’s the friend I had been reading books with since middle school so getting this news on the eve of her wedding was very emotional for me.
The journey to be a published author so far has been deeply vulnerable, overwhelming, and joyous. I’ll never take have this dream coming true for granted.
What’s next for you?
I don’t think I’m at liberty yet to say much about what’s next for me, but let’s just say I’m very much hoping sampling macarons could be considered a future research expense!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Oh, so many! Here’s a few favorites I’ve read this year in no particular order.
- Brittney N. Morris’s That Self-Same Metal (YA historical)
- Krystal Marquis’s The Davenports (YA historical)
- Nita Tyndall’s Nothing Sung and Nothing Spoken (YA historical)
- Martha Water’s Regency Vows series (Adult historical)
- Natasha Siegal’s Solomon’s Crown (Adult historical)
- A.S. Byatt’s Possession: A Romance (Adult historical-ish)
