S.E. Reid, Lunar Impact 2023 Winner!

The author talks Talebones and shares encouraging words of wisdom.

The Lunar Impact 2023 Winner badge presented to S.E. Reid.

I’m honored today to publish an interview with

S.E. Reid

(Sally), who was voted the 2023 Lunar Impact award winner by a group of her Substack peers. Sally received a $25 monetary award and a lifetime paid subscription to the Lunar Awards. She was gracious enough to give us the scoop on her publication journey and shared insights about growing as an author on this platform.

When Sally is not publishing short stories or serials, you can generally find her on Notes being specifically awesome. Thanks for joining us!

Congratulations on your win! Talebones has been wonderfully received on Substack. Other than your stellar writing, are there other strategies that you believe have helped increase visibility, engagement and readership growth?

Thank you so much, Brian! It’s such an honor to win this and answer these great questions for the Lunar Awards readership!

As we all know, strategy on Substack can be an impossible topic to talk about, and that’s because there are SO MANY ways to “succeed” on this platform. I’ll keep it short, though: strategy begins with knowing exactly what you want out of writing here. Someone who wants to gain as many paid subs as possible is going to have a completely different approach than someone who just wants to post stories and have fun.

Personally, what I want out of Substack is to build a dedicated readership that loves what I do. That’s it. In my view, it’s audience dedication that cultivates longevity as a writer, not focusing on numbers. Deep, not wide. And so, my tactics have all centered around being as consistent as possible, focusing on quality in my work, and setting clear expectations so that my readers know what to look for, from me. I only focus on what I can control, and I don’t let my stats sway me. Patience and a positive attitude help, too!

For my particular goals, these relationship-building efforts are working, and I’m very grateful.

Can you tell us about your journey toward publishing speculative fiction on Substack?

Let’s see, well... like a lot of people, I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was very little. I’ve written my whole life, but have always struggled with the motivation to finish anything. My computer hard drives over the years are strewn with a graveyard of unfinished projects!

In 2018, I finally finished a short story called The Book, prompted by the deadline for submission to a small online publisher called Mysterion, and my story was accepted. After that acceptance, I was fully bitten by the publication bug, but I still struggled with the motivation to finish anything, and submissions quickly felt exhausting. I did complete a sophomore effort, called A Thing Must Be Loved, and shopped it around to several publishers. No takers. I shelved it, figured it would never be seen again.

I basically gave up on being published as a fiction writer around 2021. I didn’t think I had the stamina for submissions, and I felt too undisciplined to finish anything. While I quietly poked at fiction projects in the shadows (because I couldn’t help it), I decided to focus on nonfiction, instead, and try out this platform I had heard about from a friend. It was called Substack.

Flash forward to early this year. Notes is launched. I have around 200 subscribers to my nonfiction newsletter, The Wildroot Parables, but had zero designs to publish any fiction. That is, until—on Notes—I interacted with fiction writers here on a larger scale for the first time. I read articles about the state of traditional publishing, about the potential effectiveness of online serialization. It had honestly never occurred to me to publish online before, but I thought, I mean…why not? This stuff is just sitting on my computer, anyway.

I launched Talebones in late May of this year—purposefully keeping my nonfiction and fiction audiences as separate as possible, so they could grow on their own merits—and my first official tale was my rejected story, A Thing Must Be Loved. Readers really seemed to resonate with my strange little story that so many publishers had said “no” to, and that felt amazing. I haven’t looked back.

I would become just another grotesque prop in their adventure, another quest to solve, another body to be tallied. Maybe I would get one more jumpscare out of startling them when they reached into my pockets, my death-throes just another moment to make the audience gasp in alarm.
~ A Thing Must Be Loved by S.E. Reid

A Thing Must Be Loved is out from the paywall for a limited time as a holiday bonus from Sally to her faithful readers.

Speculative covers a broad range of science fiction and fantasy. What is the genre’s appeal for you, and have you considered other genres?

Not to be overly deep about this, but speculative fiction feels like home to me, because in so many ways it’s a very sacred genre. Speculative fiction is a direct descendent of the earliest traditions of storytelling. Since the dawn of time, people have sat around the hearth and played with the concept of reality, talked about ghosts and monsters and strange places. Speculative fiction is the genre of myth and legend and parable and folktale, and I think we learn from each other best when we tell stories that walk that line between mysterious and mundane.

I’ll never say never, but I find it difficult to imagine writing in any other genre.

Much of your fiction plays a part in a larger narrative centered around a place called Ferris Island. Can you tell us about the inception and evolution of this magical location?

For most of my writing life, I wrote fantasy, and I always came up with elaborate locations to set my stories in. I was a major world-building geek. (In some ways, I still am.) I made up languages and histories and maps. For about eight years I worked on creating a haunted island in an alternate-history version of Europe, but honestly…it was not a convincing place, and it did not feel real. It certainly was not inspiring enough to take me out of worldbuilding and into actual storytelling. It was a pet project, nothing more. But not a waste of time. (Craft rarely is.)

A handful of years ago, I started to imagine what it would be like if, instead, I moved my island idea here, to my homeland of Washington State. I would have to do away with a LOT of the worldbuilding I had done. The island would have to be smaller in size and scale, and it would need to realistically fit in with the pre-existing infrastructure and history of this place I call home. But the more I played with it, the more it worked. Some of the characters and concepts fit in, wholesale. Others were recycled into different forms. And the real-world limitations were more infinitely inspiring than the complex world I had built, before.

What’s best of all: I started actually writing stories in it. And I love that people are reading them.

Your novella Goldgreen is a successful speculative serial set on Ferris Island. What’s unique about the story or characters that you think resonated with a wider audience?

I know this might sound like a cop-out, but I’m honestly the worst judge of whether my stories resonate or not, and how!

Here’s what I know: my goal with the story was to create characters and a scenario that people would feel part of, would care about. I’m a firm believer that a story set in an unfamiliar place or time period—in this case, the 1960s on a haunted island—can still resonate with readers if the characters feel as real as possible. If they have goals, dreams, and strong motivations. So, I set out to make interesting characters that people would feel for, weep with, and celebrate. If I did that, I did my job!

When it comes to telling a great speculative story, what are a few core elements you think are required? Or, what do you think is often stated, but not necessarily true about writing a speculative story?

I believe that speculative fiction writers have the deepest imperative, out of any other genres, to be empathetic, curious, and unafraid. We have a whole palette of paint at our disposal. We’re often working with magic and technology and mysteries beyond human comprehension…and the only way to make those things feel real, grounded, and interesting is for us to understand and be empathetic to all kinds of humanity.

I know I could get some flak for this, but I think a lot of speculative fiction writers get too easily caught up with the flashy parts of the genre. Because let’s be honest: speculative fiction is fun! You get to play with reality! It’s like being a kid in a candy store!

But speculative fiction needs to be a good story, first. And a good story needs a curious, aware, unafraid, empathetic author if it’s going to live beyond the page and connect with its readers.

Talestack News is a section of Talebones where you share news and updates sent in by the Substack fiction community. What was the impetus for this undertaking?

It all happened in one afternoon on Notes. Jimmy Doom had just announced his 1,000th daily story, and a handful of other fiction-related news was flying by on my feed, and it just seemed like no one was finding and hyping each other up. (To be fair; the Notes algorithm was still in its infancy, so finding each other was pretty tough, anyway.)

That day, before I could talk myself out of it, I decided to start a twice-monthly bulletin where folks can submit their fiction news and know that it’s going to get seen. From the jump it was a huge hit! The stated goal of Talestack is to share the news and updates of fiction writers on Substack with a wider audience, and while I don’t always get to read every piece I include, I love knowing that someone’s work and milestones are going to get a boost. There’s no feeling quite like seeing the stats when people click the links to explore their peers’ work. It’s the best, and one of my favorite things about writing, here.

You offer freelance services as a proofreader, copywriter, and developmental editor. In particular, what should a good working relationship look like between an author and developmental editor?

I know it’s a cliche, but it’s a good one: communication is key, even in professional relationships. When looking for an editor, a solid partnership is vital, and you should feel as comfortable as possible with the person you’re entrusting your work to.

It’s an editor’s job to listen well to your hopes, goals, and concerns, to discuss a plan (and a price) that you can both agree on, and to keep you apprised of the process. Excessive harshness is not a good quality in an editor, but someone who gives you firm critique and pushback is really important, and it’s in your best interest to hear them out. Believe me, I know how hard it can be to take critique as an author. But your work needs a keen eye if it’s going to be as compelling as possible!

Just like hiring any professional, at the end of the day, you should feel comfortable with the person you’re giving your story to. If at any point that feeling of comfort stops, look elsewhere!

Can you share a few words of parting wisdom about writing or the writing life?

Don’t give up.

I’m serious.

I’m not sitting here making buckets of money from my writing. Not even close. Every month is a struggle when the bills come due, and I know a lot of you can relate.

But if you’re like me, and writing is something you are simply unable to stop doing, then keep writing. Please. It’s important.

When I all but gave up in 2021, if you told me I would be writing for the most gracious, incredible audience on Substack within a few years, I wouldn’t have believed you. But these things happen. You just can’t stop.

So don’t stop. Ask questions of the writers you admire. Don’t discount your dreams. Keep every idea, just in case. Look for opportunities, but don’t despair when they don’t seem obvious. Things have a way of working out if you put one foot in front of the other and keep your eyes—and heart—open.

Keep going. Keep writing. Don’t give up.

Many thanks to Sally for her interview and contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community on Substack. You can find her publishing fantastic tales over on Talebones: