The Writer Story | featuring Author Laura J. Mayo
A conversation with Cosy Fantasy author, Laura J. Mayo, and Writerly ToDos
Hello and Welcome to the Writer Story!
Today we have a wonderful interview with Debut Fantasy author, Laura J. Mayo, followed by Writerly To Dos to help you inspire to continue writing.
The moment I saw the book cover for Laura’s fantasy debut, How to Summon a Fairy Godmother, it caught my eye immediately. It’s a Cinderella reimagining, from the POV of one of the step sisters. Me being a fan of classic fairy tales, I was immediately intrigued.
Here’s a quote from the Publisher’s Weekly review for the book.
Mayo explores themes of self-image and self-worth, toxic femininity, false narratives, and the different paths to happily ever after. Her characters are flawed, fractious, and unreliable, but Theo’s quest to seize control of her destiny and break free of her mother allows her to grow into a sympathetic heroine. With touches of humor and romance to keep things lively, this complex retelling delights.
Okay Let’s Meet Laura…
But before we start The Writer Story conversation with Laura, here’s her official bio.
In addition to being a two-time winner of her town's annual pie contest, Laura is also a fantasy writer. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, their two kids, a dog named Birch, and two ball pythons named Smoky and Yara. Her other interests and hobbies include reading, sewing, cooking, baking, admiring her air plants, and getting figuratively lost in deep, dark woods.
Welcome Laura to The Writer Story, so excited to have you and congratulations for your debut release, How to Summon a Fairy Godmother, a laugh out loud fairy tale. Can you please tell us a bit about the book?
Thank you so much for having me!
How to Summon a Fairy Godmother tells the story of what happens after Cinderella’s Happily Ever After. The story starts a year and a half after the fated ball and follows the Balfours, Cinderella’s stepfamily, who have been shunned by society. Lady Theodosia Balfour, the younger stepsister, has a marriage proposal from a duke. Which would be great if he wasn’t older than most family heirlooms, have the manners of a farm animal at feeding time, and wants to use her as a brood mare.
Her only way out is to try to summon the famed fairy godmother using her stepsister’s hidden instructions. Surprisingly, it works. Unlike all of her stepsister’s stories however, the fairy does not show up waving a magic wand or singing whimsical songs. Cecily of the Ash Fairies is gorgeous, cunning, and much more interested in smoking her pipe than she is helping humans in a bind.
But the fairy agrees to help under the condition that first Theo prove she can be a good person by completing three tasks. As Theo works on her tasks, she finds kinship with the magical creatures she’s helping and starts to wonder if a life among her human peers is really what she wants.
As I understand this is a reimagining of the classic fairy tale of Cinderella, making one of the step-sisters as the protagonist. It sounds fantastic. How did you get this idea?
I came up with the idea a few different ways. First, I never quite trusted the Cinderella story. I’m not sure exactly why, but I just always felt like we were getting only one side of the story from someone who proclaimed herself the Best Person in the World after suffering under the worst sisters to ever exist. And that seems a little biased to me. Also, I always wondered about the stepsisters. What would it be like to be known by everyone as the “ugly” stepsisters. They don’t have names, they don’t have any other features. Just awful and ugly. And I wondered why. What makes someone that way? They lost a parent too, yet everyone only feels sorry for Cinderella. Plus, in every version of the Cinderella story, the stepmother isn’t winning any parenting awards. She is rarely shown as being kind to her own children. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that no one can be that black and white. Cinderella can’t be perfect in every way, and the stepsisters can’t be evil to the core. I wanted to see if I could come up with back stories that would make sense for who they are proclaimed to be.Combine all that with fairy lore and you have How to Summon a Fairy Godmother.
Do you have any tips for writers who want to write fairy tale reimagining? How to turn something over the head and keep it interesting enough to attract readers?
For me, I love taking fairy tales and thinking about the side characters. What did the story look like from their point of view? Are there holes in their stories? For example, take Little Red Riding Hood. At the end, the hunter comes and chops up the wolf. But how did he know how to get there? Why was he wandering into an elderly woman’s house with an ax? Yes, he was also a woodsman, but in any other situation he would have probably left his ax outside, no? Was it because he knew there was a wolf inside? If yes, why would he know that? And did he know there were two people inside the wolf or was that a surprise? Did the wolf take off the grandmother’s pajamas after he ate Little Red, or was he still wearing them around the house for a while? If he was in the pajamas still, did the hunter also mistake the wolf for a grandma? Obviously, some of these questions are ridiculous, but when you start to do it, a story starts to come out. Think of something that doesn’t make sense in the original tale (easy to do with some fairy tales) and then try to explain it. Or, conversely, if you can’t make it make sense, tell us what really happened.
This is also just a very fun writing exercise! I could do it all day!
The title of your book is just awesome. Is there a story behind it? How did you decide on this title?
Thanks! I had a hard time coming up with the title. For the longest time, the book was just called “Theo.” Early in the story, Theo (the MC) is snooping through Beatrice’s (Cinderella) old room. She finds directions for how to summon a fairy and uses it to get a hold of Beatrice’s fairy godmother as a last-ditch effort to not get married. Since that sets off the bulk of the story, I thought that might be a fun title!
Our readers love the Writer Origin stories. Would you share yours? How did you start writing? And then find an agent and book deal?
My journey is anything but a straight line!
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember—even before I could actually write. I would narrate stories to my mom who would write them down for me and then I would add the pictures. And I just never stopped. It was always a dream of mine to be a published author. However, I only ever wrote as a hobby and never thought it could be something I would do professionally.
I have my children to thank for pushing me to try to get this book published.They were at an age where they started noticing what I was doing and asking me about my writing. They also asked if I was "going to get my book published” but I explained how difficult it was to do and how that probably wasn’t in the cards for me. But at the same time, what was I teaching my kids with that attitude? If something is hard then don’t bother?So for myself and for them, I decided I would seriously query it. That’s it... just query it. If I got an agent, great, onto the next step. But even if it didn’t work out, at least I showed my kids that it is ok to try something and fail.
Starting in February of 2023 I queried. And queried. And queried. When it was all said and done I had queried over 100 agents and gotten 5 full requests. But no offers. By the fall, I was finished with being rejected. I had done what I set out to do, which was query the book to the best of my ability, and was ready to walk away with my head held high.
In the midst of querying agents, I came across an article about Orbit starting their new digital first imprint, Orbit Works. They were taking unagented submissions. Popular advice is to not query publishers until you have finished querying agents, but this was a brand new inbox with a brand new imprint so I took my shot.In June of 2023 I submitted HTSAFG to them.
After a few months, the acquisitions editor at Orbit Works made an offer. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy that offer letter made me. I will forever remember where I was and what I was doing when it came through.
But rejection wasn’t done with me yet! I reached out to one more agent with my offer and got turned down again. I felt pretty defeated on the agent front, so ended up signing the deal unagented.
I do have an agent now. My editor put me in contact with Bethany Weaver of Weaver Literary Agency and I signed with her. She’s absolutely wonderful!
So yea, I did pretty much everything backwards! But at this point, I don’t think I would change how it went. I’m so thankful every day.
Do you have a writing and editing process? And any other writing quirks?
I don’t know if I have a process for writing, necessarily. I have yet to figure out if my loose outlines count as plotting or if it is slightly more organized pantsing. But I am a tried-and-true edit as I go writer. I don’t have first drafts, second drafts, etc. It all lives in one place. However, an editing quirk would be that I don’t ever delete anything. I always have two documents going: the MS itself, and then a doc I call “draft pieces.” If I cut anything, it is copy/pasted into the draft document. I think this helps me kill my darlings a lot easier because I didn’t actually kill them. I just put them in a cozy retirement home.
Do you have some advice for writers starting out on their publishing journey?
What I’ve learned from all my rejections is that there are so many reasons for them. A rejection does not mean your writing is bad or unpublishable. Again, I had over 100 agents tell me no. And they probably had over 100 different reasons for rejecting the book.
Querying stinks. It is awful and can drag you down if you let it. Know going in that you will get far more “nos” than “yesses.” Figure out beforehand how you are going to cope. Some people buy themselves a nice treat for every five rejections. Some others make it a priority to get at least 100 rejections before they can give up. My coping strategy was talking to and commiserating with other querying authors who knew exactly what I was going through.
And do your research. Learn about publishing scams, vanity presses and how to spot them both. Cross reference publishers and agents with Writer Beware. People who want you to pay them to publish your book will tell you everything you want to hear so that you give them thousands of dollars. But if you learn how the publishing industry actually works, you can avoid situations like that.
What is next for you? Are you working on a sequel? Or something new? Anything you could tell us?
Sequel! Not sure how much I can say, so I won’t say much of anything, unfortunately.
Finally, where can we find you online?
I am pretty much everywhere @thatlaurajmayo but instagram is the most up to date. I’m not very good at social media, but you can follow me for book news and the occasional picture of my reptiles and dog.
Don’t forget to check out Laura’s book How to summon a Fairy Godmother. It must a definite pick for anyone into fairy tales and cosy fantasy stories.
Writerly To Dos :
To Read :
Author and Agent Jenna Satterthwaite has a wonderful post on how agents submit books, their strategy and more. Check out this post here. It’s a great read for anyone who is in the process of getting agent or wondering how agents submit books to editors and imprints/purblishers.
To Watch :
I am currently watching Emily in Paris on Netflix for a bit of relaxing. I wanted to see something low emotional investment and cosy. So if you need something to binge during your writing downtime, to fill your creative well, and just to relax and welcome the fall, I think it’s a great watch.
To Listen :
I listened to this Ted Talk podcast the other day, How to find laughter anywhere, and it made me smile and made me think why I must take things so seriously in life. It’s a short 8 min podcast and highly recommended.
To Write :
Consider this your permission to write whatever you want. Understand that no one can tell you what to write, how to write, when to write. I know sometimes as authors we feel the pressure to satisfy others and force ourselves to write things we don’t particularly want to. But do whatever your creative pen takes you.
That’s all for today.
Thanks for reading The Writer Story. You can find me on social media - Twitter/X - @authoranima or Instagram - @authoranima
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Until next week,
~Toodle-oo~