Bree Moore has been writing fantasy since the fourth grade. She lives in Ogden, is wife to an amazing husband, and the mother of four children. She writes fantasy novels between doling out cheerios and folding laundry. Her most recent book is Woven.
In real-life, Bree works as a birth doula, attending women in pregnancy and labor, which is huge inspiration for her writing. Bree loves shopping for groceries like other women like shopping for shoes (no, seriously), movies that make her cry, and Celtic music. She likes both her chocolate and her novels dark.
- Do you have an ‘elevator pitch’ for Woven, to summarize it for our audience members who maybe haven’t read it before? It’s a retelling of the Arthurian legend, and it’s got a lot of really neat twists and a female cast. I focus heavily on a mostly female characters because they get a little neglected sometimes when we’re talking about King Arthur and the Round Table.
- I don’t recognize the characters of Sir Gereck or Winna ? did you make those up? Winna is made up because Sir Gereck needed a wife. Gereck is technically listed as one of those as a knight of the Round Table. I based him off of like some other stories from other knights.
- In my Arthurian legends studies I covered very little of the Lady of the Lake, Nimue. I didn’t realize she took physical form and wasn’t always in the lake! What were your sources on that? When I was writing woven I was really intrigued by how many different characters seem to have so many different names. And I really wanted to find a way to kind of include that in woven. Just the fact that these are all like the same people, but they have different aspects of themselves. I watched the BBC show “Merlin” a bunch of times as one main source!
- Tell me a little about your journey writing “Woven.” Where did the idea come from?And do you have a long-standing Arthurian legend obsession, or were the legends just necessary to the idea? A little bit, yeah. I think the first book I read in Arthurian legend was probably the Merlin series by TS White. Then in college actually had the opportunity to go on study abroad to Great Britain and did a tour of former sites potentially associated with the legends. Then my mom and I used to take turns trying to inspire each other with Arthurian legends, and she challenged me to write something on The Lady of Shalott. Probably one of the biggest reasons Elaina takes such a huge role is because the story started with her and I was halfway through the book before I realized that Guinevere needed a stronger part in the book.
- You’re self-published, right? I am kind hybrid published in a way. I work with an indie publisher, and there’s some things that I do like other self published authors do. So I hired my own editor, I hire my own cover artists, and then I send it off to my publisher and they work with Ingram to distribute my books. So my book is treated like a traditionally published book, but I have a lot of say in my deadlines and what everything looks like and a lot of control over the final product and I really love that. But I’m like any author that isn’t huge: I do the bulk of the marketing.
- What advice might you have for other self-published authors out there: what’s the most effective marketing strategy you’ve used to date? (Or perhaps the top three?) Well the very first one, and I only say this because I am not actually there yet, but it’s what everyone tells me: write the next book. I’ve tried focusing on promoting Woven by itself, with mixed results, and it’s kind of discouraging to not have something for, for readers to go to next. So I think I’d rather build up a backlist a little bit.
- What are you working on now? I’m working on a ton of things right now. I am a super busy mom, but I refuse to let go of my writing. I’m working on the sequel to Woven, it’s called Bound and it comes out September 1. And then I just had a short story accepted to an anthology. I have two other anthologies that I’m working on, and one comes out in December. Then I’ve started an urban fantasy trilogy that I hope will be released next year.
- Who are some of your favorite authors/books that you would consider to be your inspirations? Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorites.
- Anything I haven’t asked you that you want to make sure you communicate to our audience? Summer is the best time to read. So I think everyone should read in the summer and find a new book!
