Every Friday, we meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Want to be featured? Email us: online@britishfantasysociety.org
Name:
Katie Bruce (she/her)
Which region are you based in?
Yorkshire
If you write, which genre:
Fantasy
If you don’t write, what do you do?
I’m also a Virtual Assistant to authors, podcasters and creatives.
Are you drawn to any specific SFFH sub-genres?
I mostly live in the fantasy space but do occasionally venture out into horror and science fiction. Within fantasy, give me epic, give me cosy, give me spicy, give me romance!
Your influences
Tell us about the book/film/thing that got you into SFFH: What was it? How old were you? What impact did it have on you?
If we’re going way back to the start, it’s got to be Labyrinth. It was an escape into a magical world with fantastical friends, adorable worms, goblins with hilarious insults, a beautiful ballroom, and the overall message that I was the one with the power. Sarah doesn’t ask for her brother back at the end, she tells Jareth to give him back. She doesn’t beg, she doesn’t give in to his begging, she simply claims her own power for herself. Which is such an incredibly important message, for girls especially, that I think we’re only now beginning to see told again in stories.
As for what got me into fantasy reading, I was a young teenager, camping in the holidays, and I found a second-hand bookstore that sold books ridiculously cheap, but then also bought them back for half the price! Perfect for a book worm stuck in a caravan for weeks on end.
I remember scouring the shelves (having already gone through their entire Point Horror stock, my obsession at the time) and spotting a book with a beautiful yellow, orange and purple sunset, dragons flying in the background, and a scantily clad woman with a sword kneeling in the foreground (no I don’t know how it took me so long to figure out I was queer, but even back then I had a thing for women with swords). I bought it and that was it, I was hooked! Fantasy all the way!
The book was The Fire Dragon by Katharine Kerr (and I still have it, that one did not get sold back to the shop) and as any Kerr fans will know, that is not the first book in the Deverry Cycle. It’s book 11, and whilst I do not recommend diving into a series at book 11, it did the job.
I hunted down the rest of the series and my little fantasy-loving heart was won, going on to discover Robin McKinley, Robin Hobb, Carol Berg and so many more!
How does that early influence show up for you (in life/writing/agenting/publishing/editing/reading) now?
“You have no power over me” is in every single thing I write! Not the actual line, but the message. Women finding and seizing their own power. It’s in everything. (No we’re not going to discuss the fact that my last book had a shadow-daddy character with goblin king vibes. Shush.)
And women with swords. Women with swords definitely pop up in my stories quite frequently. The book that’s currently on submission has the main character turn into a swashbuckling pirate and I love her.
Where do you draw your creative inspiration from?
Everywhere and everything. Books, films, plants in my garden, things I bake, song lyrics, you name it. I have an ideas document full of little things that snagged in my brain, seeds of stories to come. They’re not much by themselves, just a line or two of a concept, but whenever it comes time to start a new project I go through the document and it’s always amazing how many of them fit together into something bigger and more fantastical.
Who do you look to as a genre hero? Why?
So many!
Carol Berg—I found Transformation in a leaflet for an SFF book club in the TV Times (how millennial of me), was instantly in love and re-read it every year for at least a decade. She’s the one who inspired me to begin writing my own stuff (after years of playing around in fanfic—and no I’m not telling you where the Labyrinth fanfic is; no one needs that in their life).
Intisar Khanani, who writes ‘mighty girls in diverse worlds’ and that is something I strive for with my own work.
AK Faulkner for putting realistic depictions of PTSD in their books and showing that being traumatised doesn’t stop you being a hero.
(Pictured: Katie’s heroes)
Your Work
You’re stuck in an elevator for 60 seconds with that hero, and they want you to describe your work. Give us the pitch.
Queer women with swords taking power for themselves. Also found family, lots of found family.
The current book is a dark Neverland tale with all of the above and some added spice in the form of a younger, hotter and devastatingly competent Captain Hook and *redacted*. Let’s just say the MC swings both ways. Violently. With an axe.
What are you working on right now?
I’ve just finished the Neverland tale and that is out on submission so now I have to decide what to do next. I am being tempted towards queer vampires causing chaos on the North York Moors, but who knows what’ll jump out when I open that ideas document…
Thinking about all the stories/work you’ve done, what sticks out most in your mind? Why?
Right now it’s the one I’ve just written because it’s a standalone with series potential and wow is that sequel calling to me! I need someone to buy this book so that I can write that one!
But everything I’ve ever written has a piece of my heart in it, from the fanfic that taught me so much about writing by playing in other people’s sandboxes, the first original story I wrote, the book that gripped me enough that I gave querying a chance, to the one that got me my amazing agent. They’re all very much a part of me and I can’t wait to see what comes next!
Where and when do you create/are you at your most creative?
I usually write on a morning, when my brain has the most focus. That’s when the typing part happens, but so much of writing happens when I’m doing tasks that don’t require thinking and the stories are just percolating away at the back of my mind, figuring out where the plot is going, who the characters are. When I stopped being able to walk to work and suddenly lost five hours of thinking time a week, it really made an impact, so it’s been a challenge to find ways to bring that creative thinking time back in within the boundaries of limited spoons for physical activities.
(Photo by Maja Vujic on Unsplash)
What’s the best advice you’ve received about creativity?
“The best writing advice is the one that works for you”—which I got from RJ Barker, who got it from someone else. I found writing sprints massively increased my output; 25 minutes writing, 5 minute break, repeat a few times and I can get 1,500 words in a couple of hours.
On the other hand, ‘write everyday’ would send me into burnout unbelievably quickly and just doesn’t work for me when something as simple as a change in the weather can send me into a PoTS flare up and make writing impossible. But giving myself that time off to rest and recover inevitably rewards me with a burst of creativity after. Taking a break, refilling the well, is not only okay, it’s essential for me.
And that’s what the ‘best advice’ comes down to: finding out what works for you.
What’s your writing soundtrack?
Oh I don’t write to music! I need silence to write as the ADHD refuses to filter out noise. But I do sometimes have songs that get me into the right vibe for a certain book and I’ll listen to them before writing.
The Quick-Fire Round
Sci-fi, fantasy or horror?
Fantasy
Quiet or loud?
Quiet
Dark or light?
Light (right now. Maybe. Probably not)
Strict lines or genre blend?
Genre blend, definitely
Awards or bestseller?
Ha! Let’s start with getting published first.
Fiction or non-fiction?
Fiction
Poetry or prose?
Prose
Plotter or pantser?
Pantser. The ADHD sees plotting as an extra draft and absolutely does not have the patience for that!
Reading or listening?
Reading
Notebook or computer?
Computer
Favourite SFFH book of all time?
Transformation by Carol Berg (if only because I decided my favourites when I was 18 and that’s it forever, how do you even choose favourites when there’s so many good books coming out all the time now???)
Last book you read?
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle
Any SFFH author on auto-buy?
AK Faulkner, Intisar Khanani, Carol Berg, RJ Barker, Kit Power, Eliza Chan, Dan Hanks…
Favourite podcast?
Impossible to choose one! Writeopolis, Fantasy Book Swap, Breaking The Glass Slipper, The Tiny Bookcase, Hell Or High Rollers and of course, our very own BFS Long Story Short.
The Home Stretch
What’s the best thing about being part of the SFFH community?
That feeling of ‘home’.
It took me a long, long time to find my people and when I discovered the SFFH community (and the BFS in particular) there they were. I say all the time that going to FantasyCon feels like going home. I don’t have to mask, I don’t have to pretend, I can be me and that is wonderful.
Time to plug your stuff! Where can we find you and your work? What have you got coming up? Consider this your advertising space.
For my writing, I don’t currently have anything published but my wonderful agent Laura Bennett has me out on submission with the dark Neverland story, so crossing all fingers there!
For the Virtual Assistant work you can find me at authorassist.co.uk where I do all the things that come with being a writer that are not the writing.
I’m also the in-person events organiser for the BFS in Yorkshire and you can find out all about the upcoming events through my Bluesky and Instagram.
And if you have any particular desire to listen to me waffle on, you can catch me as a guest on Writeopolis, Breaking The Glass Slipper and Fantasy Book Swap (yes they were all my favourites before I was a guest).