Conversation with Keira Reynolds

Keira Reynolds (she/her) writes short stories. Mostly fantasy. Mostly. A former software developer, she recently achieved a BA in Arts and Humanities, with specialisms in Creative Writing and Classical Studies from The Open University. She and her wife Julie live in County Kerry, Ireland, from whence they escape to warmer, drier places at every opportunity. She has had stories (and one poem) published in various magazines and anthologies and is Assistant Fantasy Editor at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores. She occasionally posts random thoughts on her blog at keirareynolds.com

Keira is the author of “If They Get Their Way” from Radon Issue 8.

Q: Your Radon poem is a personal response to the Cass Report. For those unaware, what is the report and its implications?

The Cass Report—I believe its official title is The Cass Review—was allegedly supposed to be an independent review into the provision of care to trans children and young people in the UK. In practice, it has become a weapon used by those whose goal is to deny care to, and to deny the valid existence of, trans children and adults, not only in the UK but in the US, here in Ireland, and elsewhere. Amnesty International and the British Medical Association are among those who have spoken out against this. For anyone who wants to know more, Erin Reed has done good work—as ever—covering this issue. Just google ‘Erin Reed Cass Review’.

Q: What brought you from writing code into short stories?

Well, I wrote both for a while—I started writing stories while I was still working as a software developer. Writing code can be a very creative experience. You start with nothing but your knowledge of the problem and of software development, and you create a solution to someone’s problem out of that. It can be very fulfilling. But I ended up spending more time on support and maintenance than on creating solutions. And of course, it didn’t help that the people whose problems I was solving were, a lot of the time, corporations, and their problem was how to screw more money out of working-class people. So, I started studying Arts and Humanities, with specializations in Classical Studies and Creative Writing with The Open University. My first short stories—at least, my first as an adult (I’d written one or two as a child)—were originally written as assignments for that course, and I fell in love with the format.

Q: Tell us about your role as Assistant Fantasy Editor at Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores (CRES)?

I submitted one or two of my stories to CRES, and while reading their submission guidelines noticed that they were looking for volunteer first readers. I thought it would be a good way to get some experience of what it’s like to be on the other side of the submission process, and I get to read a lot of stories for free. (On the downside, I have to read the bad along with the good.) Anyway, after I’d been doing that for about a year, they must have liked what I was doing, because they asked me to be assistant fantasy editor. It’s still a voluntary, unpaid position. I read stories, comment on them, and make recommendations based on my own opinion and the comments left by first readers. I also sometimes write the rejection emails. Having been on the other side of receiving those, and knowing how disheartening they can be, that’s probably the most difficult part of the job.

Q: What entrances you about short forms of writing (short stories and poetry) rather than longer forms?

I wrote some poetry when I was younger—all of it now lost, unfortunately—but for some reason I just stopped. I hadn’t written any poetry for a very long time. And I hadn’t written any short stories since I was a child. I think the way I was taught about short stories at school made writing them sound very difficult—which it can be—and somehow very joyless, which it certainly is not.

When I started the course with The Open University, I thought I wanted to write a novel. I was a bit taken aback to find out that I was going to have to write short stories for the assignments. But I discovered that I loved writing them. I guess the big attraction for me is being able to have something finished in a day, or a couple of days, rather than in months or years—at least in first draft. I often spend much longer editing and rewriting. I still have ambitions to write something longer. Being a very methodical—some might say compulsive—person, rather than jumping straight from short stories to novels, I’m currently working on a novelette, and the plan is to go novelette, novella, novel.

Q: What do you enjoy exploring in your writing website’s blog?

I’m really bad about updating my blog. The idea was to talk about the experience of writing and trying to get published, but many weeks can go by without me feeling I have anything interesting to say. I am in awe of people who somehow manage to do weekly blog posts or newsletters and still manage not to be boring. I don’t know how they do it.

Q: What was your experience obtaining a Creative Writing degree during the pandemic?

The Open University is primarily focused on distance learning anyway, so it didn’t really make a huge difference. There were some face-to-face classes in the first year, before the pandemic, and I did miss those. It was great to get to meet the tutor and fellow students in person, and I missed that during the pandemic.

However, I moved at the start of the pandemic from Dublin to County Kerry, and it would have been very difficult for me to attend face-to-face classes from here, anyway. I was lucky. Both my work and my studies could be done remotely, so I was able to continue working and studying through the pandemic. I also got married during the pandemic, and had to have a very small wedding, with many friends and family who I would have loved to be there unable to attend.

Q: Do you find that your travels enhance or inspire your writing when back home?

I had traveled very little until I met my wife, Julie, about nine years ago. The only place outside of Ireland and the UK I’d ever been was Brittany. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to travel quite frequently since then, mostly to the Canary Islands and to various places around the Mediterranean. I am especially in love with the Greek islands.

I’m not sure that has influenced my writing very much yet. My writing so far has been mostly inspired by Irish mythology and folklore, and the settings have been very much influenced by the Irish landscape—or perhaps I should say, by what I imagine the Irish landscape to have been like, before deforestation. But my story “Gargoyle” has a Mediterranean setting, “The Thirst” is set in Rome—or a fantasy version of Rome—and my story “Quercus” was inspired by a tour of a cork oak plantation in Portugal, although it’s not set there—most of the action of ‘Quercus’ happens in space, in orbit around an asteroid. I studied classical mythology as part of my degree, and I’ve been reading Greek mythology and modern retellings like Madeline Miller’s ‘Circe’, so its possible those influences might start showing up more in stories yet to be written.

Q: Do you still believe that a writer keeping their readers in mind is good advice?

Yes, but mostly during the editing stages. I’m not a great believer in fixed, absolute rules. Everyone has to figure out what works for them, but generally I think the advice ‘write drunk, edit sober’ holds good—not literally drunk, that’s bad for your liver, but freely, letting it all come out, silencing the inner critic, until the first draft is done. Then you have to sober up and put on your editor’s hat and start murdering your darlings. That’s when you need to keep your readers in mind.

Q: What results have you uncovered in your investigation to determine if your writings held any previously unseen patterns that you as a writer often fall into?

Ah ha! You’ve been reading my blog! I’m glad someone has! Nothing terribly exciting, I’m afraid. There’s a trend for me to mix action and setting, or action and world-building, right from the first sentence, which I think is probably a good thing. But there’s a lot of variation. Sometimes I start with description, sometimes action, sometimes dialogue, and sometimes, as I said above, I manage to squeeze more than one element into the first sentence.

Q: Where are you currently amid the many ups and downs of trying to get published?

I’m currently heavily focused on getting my novelette finished and haven’t been submitting many stories as that’s been absorbing all my time and energy. There are fewer markets for novelettes than for short stories. I’ll submit it to the few markets that do exist, and then, if I don’t manage to get it accepted, I might think about self-publishing it. And having my poem published in Radon Journal—my first ever published poem!—has reawakened my interest in trying to write more poetry.

I submitted a query about a collection of my stories to an agent some time ago, and they were interested enough to ask to see the full collection, so I’m waiting to hear back from them. Any writers reading this who’ve submitted to agents know how long and frustrating those waits can be. My story “The Thirst,” about vampires in a fantasy world inspired by ancient Rome, has been accepted for adaptation as a podcast episode by “Tales to Terrify.” I don’t have a date for that yet. I’m waiting very eagerly, as this will be the first time any of my work has been published in audio format. I still have several unpublished short stories that I need to start submitting again. And then it will be time to get to work on that novella! I’m also studying proofreading with The Publishing Training Centre, with a view to hanging out my slate as a freelance proofreader.