About

I am a graduate student studying English literature in the mountains somewhere, and I write novels (and occasionally short stories). I’m currently anticipating the publication of my sophomore novel, a 700-something page revenge tragedy. It’s a dark academia adaptation of an allegedly-cursed play, which itself was an adaptation of an even older ghost story, and it’s the female rage epic you’ve been dreaming of.

My approach to writing is scaffolded upon generosity to the reader, both as a monetary and creative consumer. I often call myself the “big book defender,” and that doesn’t come from a hatred of editing. I think that the magic of books–the stuff that makes people bibliophiles in the first place–is a lot of times something that you can only create in a certain number of pages. A book is not meant to be economized so that the reader can get from point A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible; a book is a living, breathing organism. To truly enchant someone, you must write a book that the reader can sink into like a long bath. The beauty of a big book is that it becomes a part of the reader’s life for a time. Because of this, its characters often feel as real and familiar as people in the reader’s life. An artificially shortened book may briefly amuse, but with just a little more space, it can become a piece of work someone remembers for the rest of their life. I know I as a reader prefer the latter. Often, I find myself reading books from before the social media era (~2015ish) for this reason.

I think that in this era of isolation, of shrinkflation, of algorithmically-induced attention deficit disorders, of surveillance, it is my duty as a writer to provide the reader with the following:

1. More bang for their buck. Pay $25 ONCE and get more story. No serialization just to wring their wallet out.
2. Characters that are given enough space to become real and comforting to the reader.
3. Properly drawn out tension that actually makes the reader feel something other than the dopamine rush of immediate gratification.
4. A private space, between two covers, wherein they may explore the complexities of life without judgment. This means not writing things that seem to be sageing the reader to remove presumed impurities.

One of the critiques that I received from agents on my first novel was that I had overedited it and removed something special from it. I love Seymour, but I tend to agree. As I’ve become a more experienced writer, my stories have lengthened. They’ve also grown more complex and, frankly, better in other ways. I take this to mean that this lengthening is not a sign of atrophying skills, but of developing ones. This is not very suited to the current publishing landscape, which gives strong preference to brevity, but I stand by my work and resist the pressure to condescend to readers as if they are collectively attention deficit.

My experience teaching has also shown me that often, if you give people a challenge, they will rise to it. I think this is true of media as well. Maybe if so many things were not produced with underlying condescension to the audience, people would know they were being taken seriously, and they’d be more engaged.

So you don’t know how to edit, huh?

I’m a great editor and I love taking scissors and chop chop chopping my stuff up. I actually study what I consider to be relatively poorly edited novels in the 900-1100 page range for my doctoral research, so I’m aware of what a lack of editing actually looks like. However, nowadays “this needed an editor” tends to be thrown at any book that isn’t giving the reader stimulating electric shocks with every page turned. There’s a difference between the things I research, which will do 300 page detours from the main plot, where all tension completely disappears, and a book that’s just big because it’s ambitious. I despise seeing writing advice that tells unpublished writers they have to cut down on a novel just because it’s 100k+. “You have to edit this down!!1″ Without reading it, I’m not so sure they do. High word count is not an innate marker of poor quality–ultimately, it comes down to reader experience. 200k of thrills, emotion, and meaning is better than 70k completely sterilized of all of that.

Where can I find your social media?

On the contact page. Just FYI though, I am very protective over my attention span and don’t use it much, and besides don’t have time. I’d recommend following and forgetting after turning notifs on. I’ll make a post when something happens. I also have a newsletter that I’d recommend signing up for.

Who is your agent?

Could be you! If you’re interested in working with me please email lnloch13@gmail.com. Special preference given to cranky anti-AI luddites.

Where can I learn more about the orca whales in Saving Seymour?

You can learn more about the Southern Resident killer whales here. It’s not too hard to find a kayak tour where you can hopefully get out on the water with them like Ivan and Winston in the book. I highly recommend trying it. When I did I got to see a rare “superpod” made up of multiple different pods of orcas. The calves were playing around in the kelp and the whales’ fins are absolutely gigantic. You cannot tell when you’re in a theme park because captive orcas usually get dorsal collapse, but the dorsal fin is literally like 6 feet tall. Being next to that in a flimsy plastic kayak is like looking God in the eye.

Worth mentioning these whales are also endangered. You can “adopt” a whale of your choice to help fund research and conservation efforts.

Did you do that?

Yep. My whale is Costeau (L-113).

Favorite author?

Donna Tartt. I also really like Flannery O’Connor, Jane Austen, and Jean M. Auel.

What are you working on right now?

I’ve started work on novel #3, and I’m in the process of dissertating.

I have another question.

Cool. Please use the contact form on the “contact” page. Happy to talk with you :^)