This week I had the opportunity to interview Erin Hylands, a young author who writes multiple genres including historical fiction and fantasy. Check out her blog at: https://twofriendsonepen.wixsite.com/twofriendsonepen
1. How long have you been writing?
I have been writing for eleven years, since I was six. However, I truly started being consistent in January of 2023.
2. What made you want to become an author?
I can’t exactly say when I knew I wanted to be an author. I’ve glanced through school memories over the years, and I noticed in third grade that was the first time I wrote that I wanted to be an author. I am now a high school graduate starting college in the fall.
3. Your debut novel was With Eyes of Blue. Will there be a sequel?
Yes, there will be a sequel—and a prequel. The sequel is The Queen of Sheba. The prequel title has not been released yet.
4. Tell us a bit about your newest releases.
I have two new releases: Mary, Queen of Scots: A Shakespearean-Style Play and Fairy Tales Made Modern Volume 1. The play is about the tragic life of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the collection is a retelling of four fairy tales: the Snow Queen, Snow White, Cinderella, and the Little Mermaid.
5. What inspired you to write these two new books?
I was inspired to write the play last semester when I learned about Mary’s tragic story in history class. I thought it would make a good play because of how tragic her story was. I have some ideas for future ideas in this series.
Now, the fairy tale collection has been in the works since I was fourteen. What inspired those stories was NaNoWriMo, and I wanted to write a fairy tale novel. Of course, I struggled to write 50,000 words on one fairy tale, so I broke it up into a list of ten fairy tales for a collection, where each would be 5000 words. Due to personal circumstances, I stopped Nano and didn’t pick up the project for another three years, when I reread them and realized that they might make a good fairy tale retellings collection. There will be two more volumes at least in this series.
6. What is your passion behind these stories?
I am passionate about writing my books for the glory of God!
7. What are some challenges you faced as you wrote these stories?
I was challenged for the play because, of course, Shakespeare had a unique style that I had to do a lot of research to imitate.
For the fairy tale collection, I was challenged in keeping my writing style my own, as somehow my style changed in each story because I had different main characters in each short story.
8. Did you have to do research for these books? What did that process look like?
Yes! For my play, I had to do a lot of research on Mary’s life. I kept a doc full of the info I learned. One thing I had to research was what weddings looked like in those days, and the wedding scene I wrote is one of my favorites!
9. What was your favourite aspect of writing these stories?
My favorite aspect was and always has been getting the story that has been unfolding in my mind down on paper!
10. What is one important thing you’ve learned from your writing journey?
I’ve learned that I can do it, that I can write, that my dream of being an author isn’t so unrealistic like I had always thought.
11. Where can readers buy your books?
My books are available on Lulu and Amazon. You can also find me on Goodreads.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, Erin! All the best in your writing journey!
