We are incredibly excited to share our second author interview! For this episode, Fable and the Verbivore spoke with writer and podcaster Maile Silva. Maile is currently querying a grade school level book, while also working on a follow-up novel that will further explore this world. She discusses with us some of the challenges she has faced while querying this first book, and gives a taste of the themes and inspiration for her work. After hearing the premise, Bethany and I are captivated and can’t wait to be able to pick up a copy of this book once it’s released into the world!

Maile also co-hosts the delightful podcast The Stories Between Us which showcases entertaining and informative conversations with her husband, writer Shawn Smucker, focused on creating, publishing, and the ups and downs of the writing life. Their conversations have us laughing and crying, often in quick succession!

We talked with Maile for well over an hour and it was a significant challenge to cut this conversation down to something roughly the same length as our typical episode. 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.

In this episode, we talk with Maile about when she first knew she was a writer, how she juggles prioritizing writing while also being present for her family, the daunting task of editing her first book, and her experience sending out query letters to agents. We hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did in making it, and that you will check out Maile Silva and The Stories Between Us.

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The references that Maile makes to closed door and open door writing is from Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Maile and The Verbivore also reference On Writing when they talk about the large number of rejections that Stephen King received and the spike on his wall where he put his rejection letters. We highly recommend this resource for writers and creatives alike.

Books mentioned:

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

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