Self-Published Fantasy Month is a month-long celebration highlighting the best of what the self-published fantasy community has to offer. We’re a bunch of bloggers, authors, and podcasters hoping other reviewers, bloggers, podcasters, bookstagrammers, and vloggers will join us as we spotlight fantastic indie authors and their incredible works.
⭒ Meet the Team ⭒
Krista is a stay-at-home mom of 2 rambunctious little boys. When she’s not chasing after the kids or trying to straighten out the chaos (spoiler alert: it’s always chaos), she enjoys reading, writing and cross stitch.
She was first introduced to the self publishing community through AuthorTube, and absolutely loved it! After learning how important reviews are to all authors, especially those that are self published, she started reviewing the books that she read on Goodreads. She enjoyed it so much, she started her own bookish blog.
Krista was drawn to Fantasy stories even from a young age. So it seems only natural that she would find her niche within the Self Published Fantasy community. Over the years she has formed many close friendships in the community, and continues to enjoy making new friends to this day.
“The thing I love most about the indie book community is how tight knit everyone is. I could be like, “Hey author, your book was freakin’ awesome!” and they’d totally @ back like, “Hey thanks! Wanna hear about book 2?” That’s pretty cool!”
Rowena Andrews spent her childhood searching for Dragons and talking to animals and started turning that into words when she was bored in class. She wrote her first book at fourteen and while it lives forever in the bottom of the sock drawer, the encouragement from her English Teacher meant the writing bug took hold and never went away.
Rowena has a BSc in Geography and a PG Diploma in Coastal and Maritime Societies and Cultures. She moved to Scotland for University, fell in love with the place and never left, and now lives and works on the east Fife coast.
When she’s not writing or reading, she’s hoarding dice and playing Dungeons & Dragons, and submitting to the whims of a demanding cat and dog duo.
Why Self-Publishing is important to me.
It would be worrying if it wasn’t as I’m taking the leap myself in a couple of months. But, glib answer aside, I love the opportunity that self-publishing offers for voices and stories that might not otherwise get a look in, because there isn’t such an onus on ‘writing to market’ and that creates such wonderful variety. Almost all my favourite books from the last couple of years have been self-published, and I don’t see that changing any time soon because the books that are coming out are just going from strength to strength. On top of that the community that has built up around self-publishing is absolutely amazing and so welcoming.
Maria Blackrane is from upstate NY, where she works in social services during the day and in her spare time, blasts goth, metal, and darkwave music, loves foreign shows and movies, is a horse rider, wine witch, sushi gobbler, sometimes-yoga enthusiast, and collects dead things.
Her favorite genres to read and write are horror, dark fantasy, and grimdark. Her first novel, girl power dark fantasy Blood, Fire, and Death is currently in the editing and polishing stage. She also has a bunch of short stories floating around searching for homes.
Readerly: @maria_blackrane
Mike is a fantasy fanatic who decided after running out of people IRL to force to listen to his fantasy hot takes as he slowly alienated himself from the general population to take the only logical next step: start spewing fantasy hot takes on the internet! Armed with absolutely no knowledge of plot elements, character development, or sentence structure and with a tenuous grasp of the English language, he is well equipped to attempt to flip the book review game upside down in his continuing quest to read 52 fantasy books in 52 week, creating 52 podcasts documenting the experience!
I’m Justine – web developer, candlemaker, book blogger. I have an insatiable hunger for stories that will transport me to other worlds, all from the comfort of my living room. In my scant free time, I enjoy building things of questionable robustness, dabbling in photography, and gaming while fueled by copious amounts of strong coffee. Always on the hunt for those hidden gems.
As someone who discovered their love of reading later in life, I honestly had no idea where to even start. What began as lurking on Twitter led to the discovery of the wonderful (and sometimes strange) Book Twitter community, where I’ve had the pleasure of meeting tons of incredible people, both readers and authors alike. It was there, on that one fateful day, I was introduced to the mysterious world of self-publishing, and the book that sparked it all…Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan. Connecting with indie authors on social media led me down paths into their immersive worlds, introduced me to some of my favorite literary characters, and told me stories I’ll carry with me for years to come.
