Author Spotlight: Vampire Fiction Author Eule Grey
Eule (she/they) is a Sculpture artist, disability activist, and disabled author of queer, sparkly books.
She lives in northern England, adores cake and writes LGBTQI books with the characters she’s been seeking since childhood: disabled, neurodivergent characters with a cupcake fetish.
Author Links:
Website: eulegreyauthor.carrd.co
Does being a disability activist impact your writing and the kind of stories you tell? If so, in what ways?
If We Were Stars is a YA fantasy novella that asks the question, ‘what would it take for the world to understand autism better?’ But obviously I had to come up with an interesting plot or nobody would buy the book.
Some readers find this mixture of real life issues and fantasy challenging; others seem to love it.
The books I love writing the most are ones I’m driven to write because of my everyday experiences of injustice and inequality.
Do you find your work intersecting with queerness and neurodiversity, through characters, themes, or both? Which of your works would you particularly highlight for readers looking for queer and/or neurodiverse characters/themes?
My ND brain offers differences in style, plot, and arc from NT books.
The Kitten and Blonde books feature ND characters such as a vampire with a personality disorder and an autistic witch. The stories are set in Yorkshire, UK, and are light-hearted and romantic.
Readers seeking sapphic books with beer might enjoy this series.
My Easter lesfic book, due March 31, features an ND lesbian who leaves prison determined to stay away from relationships… what could go wrong, lol.
You’ve said that your work often focuses on themes of community, equality, sexuality, and freedom, which feel like they fit together really well – what types of community do you depict in your work, and what would your ideal community look like (if you have a vision of one)?
Several books are set in a world where a wall separates countries (Bite Club and When the Glow Lights the Woods). Characters don’t know who lives on the other side of the wall, and some of the lands are at war.
I enjoy constructing cultures and communities who yearn to meet despite the rules of separation. I don’t have an ideal community in mind, but I value voice above all.
My book, We, Kraken, is about a group of young people who get to speak about their experiences during war and construct a new world.
Tell us about a character you’ve written that really got under your skin.
The character of Jacinta, the vampire from Let the Bite One In. She has a painful past and is a complex character. I researched for her by interviewing my friend, who shares some of Jacinta’s mental battles.
How have readers responded to your work and can you share a few of your favourite comments/reviews that you’ve received?
Here’s one of my fav reviews from ‘If We Were Stars.’
“This is short but absolutely charming. JK Rowling would hate it, because neurodiversity and gender-fluidity are at the heart of the story. Kurt, the narrator, is autistic, and tells of his struggles to make sense of the world and cope with the assaults on his senses, thoughts and identity.
He is supported when he finds a partner, Beast, also neurodivergent, but different; autistic people are in no way all the same, one of the book’s crucial messages. They make another friend, at a distance, but lose touch.
They manage to navigate the perils of adolescence, find ways in which their very atypicality makes them special, find their own people. But just as they embark on the adventure of university life, still and always together, a crisis erupts, and only they can resolve it.
The sensitivity with which the issues and challenges are presented makes this book worth reading alone. The grumpy, angry character, who is forced to reassess his understanding of what makes human beings worthwhile is a subtle exploration of some of those challenges, while the switch of narrator in the final few chapters brings heart and humour as well as tension.
This is not a LGBTQI book that ticks off the components; it’s a book in which people are just various, difficult but always capable of learning. Perhaps that is one element that makes it a fantasy? I see little of that learning and caring in the world of April 2024. This is a book to give one hope, however.”
What can people look out for from you – anything coming soon?
An Easter Lesfic romance, The Break of Dawn, due March 31;
A Lesfic romance summer story due May, The Lost Selkie,
And a YA story about daydreaming, due September, The Heart of a Skyscraper.
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