Darkness and Blight Author Interview

Defying Expectations and Dragon Pedicures

Darkness and Blight follows a shaman as she claws for survival in a collapsing world of carrion ghouls, fractured tribes, and cruel magic, where every act of endurance blurs the line between humanity and despair. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

My goal as a writer is to subvert expectations, a role I may sometimes take too much to heart, occasionally progressing even to the sentence level. Like many readers of fantasy I grew tired of the medieval European settings, omnipotent gods, brave knights and damsels in distress. Lydarc may be in almost constant distress, but she’s no damsel, not by a long bow shot, mister!

I also wanted to set the story in my own backyard, the forests of the Siletz Valley where I hunt and explore. The Valley of the Giants, a real old growth preserve, formed the idea for the blastforms. Valsetz, at the end of the book, is a real abandoned town in this rugged coastal forest.

But from there reality takes a severe hit. I always wanted to incorporate shamanism in a story. The spirit journey, spirit animals, and psychoactive-aided divination are all a very real part of that ethos. What seems like a crazy dream to us is the natural state in a shamanic worldview. Who's to say that our reality is the most correct version?

Lydarc’s voice is so distinct. How did you develop her perspective without softening the harshness of her world?

To me, Lydarc epitomizes the human experience. Through the endless pain and struggle all she really desires is someone who cares about her, a home and maybe a tiny measure of peace in the end. It’s no grand victory, Life is not guaranteed to be easy or even rewarding. It just is. Deal with it.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Strength through adversity and over time. The incredible—and sometimes neglected—value of found family. The evolution of romantic love into something even truer. The deep-seated desire for dragons everywhere to just make it to their pedicures on time.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?

Originally, I intended for Darkness and Blight to be a standalone novel. How can anyone write fifteen sequels? Then a thought kept nagging at me: what if Achus, the head witch from hell, actually survived and followed Lydarc and her companions back to the human realm? The second book—the working title is “The Drunken Corpse”—is currently writing itself and should be available in early 2026.

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