Author Spotlight: Z. R. Coffin

Liz Ramos, under the supervision of Carrot Cake the cat, jazzes up our Witchy Wednesday and sits down with former classmate and newly published YA Fantasy author Z. R. Coffin…

Greetings witches! This week, I got the chance to reunite with two former classmates and catch up – Z. and his wife, Emily. The three of us grew up together and despite it being 13 years for us since we have all been together, it was like we were able to pick up where we left off – something I feel like if you aren’t from a small town, can be hard to relate to. This past March, Z.’s first book Fallen Light was released into the world – and I am SO EXCITED for the next one to come out because OH MY GODDESS, THE CLIFFHANGER ENDING!!! I am not always one for a fantasy read, but this is one I am excited to pick up again and re-read soon. Keep your eyes peeled for a possible future book review!

L: What inspired you to start writing, and when did you start?

Z: I started writing when I was a kid, mainly short stories. I was mainly inspired by Lord of the Rings and Star Wars after my father introduced those to me. I started writing my own things from then on.

L: What do you want readers to know about you as an author?

Z: I’m just a fantasy fan: I’m a big nerd. I am on forums and platforms talking about random characters or various books and series – like who could beat Superman, that kind of thing. I like talking about fantasy and sharing my work with people. I had a young fan come up to me at one of my signings and he was asking me questions about my book – we probably talked for about 20-30minutes. He had brought his brother with him and his brother was asking me things about the book and the cover – and he was answering things about my book faster than I could! That was pretty cool.

L: What was your gateway into the fantasy genre?

Z: Lord of the Rings, for sure.

L: What are your favorite sub-genres of fantasy?

Z: Epic fantasy, high fantasy, I do like some lit-RPG depending on what it is, and I’ve recently gotten into grim/dark fantasy. I like some realism in my fantasy; If someone’s dead. I want them to stay dead. I don’t like it when there’s a big, emotional moment, and then two books later there’s some big ex-machina event because then I am like “well now I don’t care, so why did this even happen”. Conversely, I also don’t like it when people fridge a character. Fridging typically happens with female characters – they kill off this female character very early on and then try to give the main male character some kind of motivation based off of that. That also really annoys me because there’s just no emotional underpinning to keep me invested.

L: If you didn’t write fantasy, what other genre do you think you would write?

Z: Probably horror: My first short stories were horror. I was really big into Stephen King when I was younger, and I still do read some of his books from time to time, just not as much as I used to.

L: Because you wrote short stories in the past, would you ever release a short story collection or anthology series?

Z: I thought about doing that for Fallen Light. I was inspired to do that from Tolkien’s Silmarillion and to do a lot of prequel work for the series,  because none of what I currently have is long enough to make a stand-alone book. I am thinking of starting with events thousands of years prior to and leading all the way up to the beginning of the events in Fallen Light.

L: Who are authors (traditional or indie) that have inspired you or helped you on your journey?

Z: Tolkien, obviously; Christopher Paolini of the Eragon series; Sherrilyn Kenyon of the Chronicles of Nick series – I actually almost didn’t read her book because I thought it was going to be cheesy but then it ended up being really good! Rick Riordan with the Percy Jackson series; Michael Scott with the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series; I’ve read all of those multiple times.

L: If you could meet any author (dead or alive), who would it be and what is the one thing you would ask them?

Z: Brandon Sanderson “Brandy-Sandy” – I want to know more about his inspiration for writing: What got him into it. I know from his podcast he loves his writing intrinsically and I want to dig a little deeper and know what created that passion for him.

L: What is on your TBR, and what are you currently reading?

Z: I am currently reading Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, which is more of a grim/dark book. It is like The Witcher meets Interview with a Vampire. Of all the books I have read recently, this is the one I’ve been most interested in. I’m listening to it because I don’t have a heck of a lot of time to sit down and read a physical book. I’m halfway done with it and I just started it two days ago, so I am tearing through it. On my TBR is obviously the follow ups for the Jay Kristoff books, and I have a couple of the Joe Abercrombie books, and one by John Gwynne – one with a white cover and a dragon on it, and the title escapes me.

L: What did you find most challenging about the writing process?

Z: One of the hardest things about writing is having to get rid of things. There’s a saying in writing called “Kill your Darlings” and I had to do that a lot. Even though I really liked particular scenes, they just didn’t really make sense to be where they were, even if I thought they were super cool. So I kept all of those scenes in a separate folder that I’ve named “Darlings that I’ve Killed” so that I can always refer back to them. Maybe I can find a use for them, even if not in the Fallen Light series, I can use them as inspiration for something else. It’s really about trying to get over my own ego and realizing that maybe these scenes don’t belong, even if I really want them to.

L: What are one or two things that truly surprised you on your writing journey?

Z: When I was writing, I was surprised at how the characters take on a life of their own. When I was writing mainly short stories, I didn’t really understand what other authors meant by that, but now having written my own novel, it’s surprising. Like, when I’m trying to write a scene out, I am trying to avoid “author voice” – like, I know I want the character to do this specific thing, but based on how I wrote the character and how they’ve been acting, they wouldn’t do it the way I want them to. So it takes my plans and chucks them into the garbage. Now I have to ask the character “what do you want to do?” and it just kind of evolves that way. It’s a good surprise, but definitely a surprise nonetheless. It is really interesting how these characters in my noggin have these own lives and characteristics. Another thing that was surprising was the difficulty of publishing, both in traditional and indie routes. I did try to traditionally publish and met with a couple of agents for feedback and pretty much got nothing back but positive feedback. One agent even said she had nothing for me and I was like “ok, awesome, I guess.” But then I was querying agents and hearing nothing back and that’s frustrating. So then I went to indie publishing just trying to work with different bookstores and sellers, and found that with some of them, the percentages they wanted from my sales were going to be too high and take any sort of profits away. I understand they are a business and need to make money as well – it just taught me that sometimes you can’t work with some of them because it would just be too detrimental to me. Trying to thread those challenges to find the right fit can be very challenging and very time consuming.

A special thank you to Z. for sitting down with me this weekend and for putting this wonderful book out into the world! If you like books involving magic, guardians of artifacts, secrets, betrayal, and combat, give this one a chance. You can find it on Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Amazon sites, or if you are local to Central New York, see if you can connect with Z. at a local event. Happy reading, witches!

Elizabeth Ramos is a magic practitioner who specializes in nature focused, healing, protective, and ancestral magics. She is a Reiki Master-Teacher and lives with her husband and their several Feline Leukemia Positive kitties in Upstate New York.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.