Welcome to Five Questions With — a series where I talk with writers, publishers, agents, and other industry professionals about my favourite topic — writing! This week, I’m talking with Melanie Mayer about accidentally becoming a romance writer, balancing humor with horror, and what happens when you write a gargoyle love story so spicy you have to hide it from your elderly aunts.
You describe yourself as someone who “accidentally became a romance writer.” Can you tell the story of the accidental crossover and what surprised you most about stepping into this genre?
In 2022, I started participating in various writing contests and my very first assignment was to write a rom-com. Okay, I love comedy, I’ve read romance, maybe I can pull it off? It placed second for that round, which was the first inkling I might be on to something. I’ve written a lot of other genres since (horror, crime caper, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy), but somehow I keep ending up back at romance and romantic comedies. My first published novella? Romance. My first contest win? Rom-com. I can’t escape, so I might as well embrace it.
Your upcoming horror story “Wade vs. Roe” sounds both darkly funny and deeply political. What draws you to stories that mix humor with heavier themes, and how do you navigate that balance as a writer?
Humor is survival (especially these days). It might be dark humor, but it helps us through. You do have to be careful with the balance, and make sure it doesn’t come in so heavy with the comedy that you’ve taken away the impact. Using humor is like adding spices to food – you need the right amount, the right blend, to keep one thing from overpowering every other part, to keep the integrity of the dish itself. But I couldn’t get by without my warped sense of humor.
You’re not just a writer—you co-run a small press (Sloth & Envy) from another state, attend cons, sell zines, and keep an impressive events calendar. What’s something people don’t realize about the behind-the-scenes work of indie publishing and promoting at events?
Whew, the behind-the-scenes is a LOT of work! It’s pretty much a full-time effort. I’m a night owl, so my poor business partner wakes up to 5-20 Discord messages every morning. And I make him do a lot of the business related paperwork, since his degree is in business and he runs a warehousing business full-time.
We aren’t marketing types, so a big challenge has been “How do we convince people to buy our books and zines?” Our social media is mostly just us being our usual goofy selves. We’d much rather engage with people and have fun than market ourselves as a product 24/7. Maybe it will pay off in the long run, or maybe people will decide we aren’t serious. But for something that’s this much work, we still want it to be fun – for us, for our writers and readers. Our whole brand is ‘quirky’.
Your background is in counseling psychology, not creative writing. How has that shaped your voice or storytelling style?
I think my background helps me understand people, and use that to shape characters. But it also hampers me to a degree, because the way I know people would tend to behave is not always what people want in a character. I’ve had feedback where they’ve commented on a character’s behavior being unbelievable, and I’ll think “If you only knew, people totally do this!”
Will you please tell me more about the Gargoyle romance because I have to admit, I yelled YES when I read about that.
Here I am back at how I accidentally became a romance writer! Some members of my writing group had a little tradition on contest results day where we’d pass time by reading a few passages of the most unhinged Kindle Unlimited stories we could find. I got hooked on the idea that I could write an unhinged story for them and that’s how the gargoyle romance came into being.
It was intended to be a short story of about 5-7k words and ended up as a 36k word novella. Once I started writing, the whole plot revealed itself to me. My story takes place in the Scottish Highlands, at the manor of a reclusive modern-day noble. The main character, Lauren, arrives to do specialized restoration of the statues adorning the walls, and ends up in the middle of a battle between two ancient magic-wielding entities.
Because it’s spicy, I did use a pen name (Mallory Glass), mostly to keep my elderly aunts from buying a copy. I don’t want to be responsible for mass heart failure within the family!
Bonus question: Have you ever taken a picture of a weird bird?
Do penguins count? I did get the chance to do a behind-the-scenes penguin feeding at an aquarium in 2010 and have loads of penguin pics. I love all the weird birds. The goofier, the better! (Ed. Note. Why yes they do! Penguins rock.)
Stone Heart can be found here
More information about Sloth and Envy Press can be found here
Finnian Burnett 