Loren Rhoads
Loren Rhoads is the author of five novels, including a space opera trilogy and a paranormal romance duet about a succubus who falls in love with an angel. She's also the author of a nonfiction travel guide to cemeteries, as well as a cemetery memoir called Wish You Were Here. Her most recent book is a collection of horror/dark fantasy/science fiction short stories called Unsafe Words.
Twitter: @MorbidLoren
Instagram: @MorbidLoren
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
When my space opera trilogy was published in 2015, I spoke to a local science fiction book club. After the meeting was over, one of the members took me aside to offer some notes for when I revised the first novel in the series. He didn't understand that since the book (and its sequels) had already been published by a traditional New York publisher, the text was set in stone. Unless I eventually get the rights back, there won't ever be a revised second edition. I thanked him for the time he'd spent thinking about how to improve my book, but it was a really uncomfortable conversation.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Up until recently, I used to have it all the time! Even though I've been published by three New York publishers, including Scribner and an imprint of Hachette, I felt like I'd gotten my book contracts through luck rather than skill. I didn't feel like I could really claim to be an expert as a writer, since I see the outlines of how much I still don't know.
Things changed after I did the promotional tour for 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die. Even though I had been visiting and writing about cemeteries for 20 years at that point, I finally started to feel like I might be an expert about them. I began to appreciate my knowledge. I'm not infallible and I still have a lot to learn, but I know more about the subject than most people. I finally allowed myself to feel proud of that.
Accepting myself as a cemetery expert has allowed me to believe that I know quite a lot about writing and publishing now, too. Of course, there are still mistakes to make and a lot to learn, but I can take pride in how far I've come.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
I'm taking a class in November about how to be a tour guide. That's something I always thought might be fun to do.
Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?
I collect a bunch of things, but my favorites are stereopticon cards. After the invention of photography, a stereopticon was a handheld device that allowed you to look at a pair of photos on a piece of cardboard. You held the stereoviewer up before your eyes and the photos would appear to be three-dimensional. It was like an early Viewmaster. The cards had photos of all kinds of things: natural wonders, foreign cities, parades, disasters, palaces, museums. Just about anything you can name. I collect mostly cemetery images. I think I've been gathering them for 25 years.
What’s the difference (at least for you!) between being a writer and an author? How do you shift gears between the two?
Being a writer is the fun part of the job. I love the play involved in stringing words together, the sense of wonder as I discover what comes next, the sheer magic of creating people and their worlds out of nothing. Writing is the creative part of being an author.
Being an author, for me, is the business side of the job. It's doing the interviews, reading my work in public, tracking down publicity opportunities, reaching out to reviewers, doing all the social media advertising of my books. There's a lot of calculation involved: how long will this opportunity take, how many readers will it reach. It can be fun, but it feels more like work.
I try to write in the earlier part of the day, when I have more energy. All the business stuff I do in the early afternoon and after dinner. It's good to have separate times for separate things. I feel like they use different parts of my brain.
