Today we are thrilled to share our latest author interview! For this episode, Fable and the Verbivore spoke with writer Kelsie Engen. Kelsie has self-published several standalone short stories as well as contributed to the JL Anthology short story collections. She also self-published two novels (Fog & Mist and Fire & Frost) within her YA twisted fairy tale fantasy series the Canens Chronicles, with another novel currently in development and more planned.

Bethany and I greatly enjoyed the re-imagined fairy tale elements within the world that Kelsie built for this series, along with the subtle allusions to the greater story world that setup new places and ideas to explore in the future. We’re looking forward to the release of the next chapter in this delightful tale!

In this interview, Kelsie discusses her writing journey, the freedom to change direction that comes with self-publishing, the challenges of creating a series project of this magnitude, paying attention to logistics that keep a world realistic and believable, and managing ongoing story threads for future novels.

We talked with Kelsie for nearly an hour and it was a significant challenge to cut this conversation down to the length of our typical episodes. If you want to hear the full conversation, you can find it on our Patreon page. For just $5 a month you can support this podcast and get full author interviews each month.

We would also highly recommend checking out Kelsie’s #storybible posts on her Instagram account (@kelsieengen) that describe the process she’s undertaking to manage the story threads for her fantasy series as she develops and writes the 3rd instalment with her unique take on the tale of Aladdin.

We hope you enjoy listening to this week’s episode! Keep reading, and writing, and putting yourself out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

First off, Fable mispronounces Kelsie’s last name in this episode. We apologize for that and for any confusion it may cause. Names matter and it’s important to us that we note this mistakes. Engen is said with a soft “ng” sound, like the “ng” in “hang”, making it sound a bit like ang-in when said correctly.

The short story that Kelsie mentions which further explores Queen Blanche’s origin is titled “The Queen’s Orchard” within the Just-US League anthologyThe Magic Within.

Details on Kelsie’s journey as she’s developing and writing book 3 of The Canens Chronicles can be found on her instagram account under @kelsieengen.

Books Mentioned:

Fog and Mist (Canens Chronicles Book 1) by Kelsie Engen

Fire and Frost (Canens Chronicles Book 2) by Kelsie Engen

The Magic Within: A Spellbinging Anthology (JL Anthology) by Heather Hayden, Allie May, Rachel Sandell, Matthew Dewar, J.L. Bernard, Renée Harvey, Shannon Yukumi, Kristy Perkins, Kelsie Engen

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)