Interview with Author Lauren P. Burka

Describe yourself in three words.

Serial comma fetishist

What are three facts about you?

I knit my own socks.
I love discovering rock song covers.
I used to ride horses competitively as a teen.

What is your favorite book from childhood?

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. It's about children who create what I would now call a role-playing game in an overgrown backyard. They are having so much fun, even the school bullies join in and become their friends. And they help solve a murder.

When you read, which authors are your go-to authors?

My favorite author is probably Tanith Lee. I still haven't read everything she wrote. I've been re-reading Iain M. Banks's books with my "how did he do that?" eyes on; he's a master of structure and plot twists. CJ Cherry's books struck me as queer before I knew what queer meant. I "grew up" reading Michael Moorcock Fritz Leiber, and many other fantasy books that were originally serialized in magazines. It was, therefore, news to me that books needed to have overarching plots and that protagonists shouldn't just be pulled from scene to scene by circumstances outside of their control.

What book has made the biggest impact on your life?

I was a horse-crazy girl in grade school and read every book the school had on horses. When I had consumed the entire horse shelf, I found a book that had a horse on the cover on the next shelf over. It was Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher. It was not a horse book. It was science fiction with a side-order of fantasy. My horizons expanded.

Do you have any book related tattoos?

I got the cover of my first book inked on my left arm.

What is your favorite TV show or movie?

As someone who saw Star Wars when it first came out in theaters, I've been entranced by Andor. One of the themes of that show is that fascism contains the seeds of its own destruction. That's something that gives me hope that I need right now. I also appreciate that the hero isn't a special person. He doesn't have magic powers. He doesn't discover that he's the son of a sorcerer. He's not even terribly likable at first. But he's the hero the rebellion needs. That series stands out for the strong female characters who are so well-written and acted that they overshadow Cassian Andor at times.

What subject could you talk about all day?

How fiber is produced, spun, dyed, woven (or knitted) for clothes in a pre-industrial society. It's a backbreaking, smelly, messy job, nothing like ordering fast fashion online at all. The amount of work a society puts into making clothing is almost as great as the work put into growing food. I once wrote about an aristocratic character sent to work on a flax plantation as a punishment.

What is your dream vacation destination?

One of my made-up worlds, only with a hot tub.

What do you do for fun when you aren’t writing?

I conquer the galaxy (in 4x strategy games) and knit.

Are there any causes you support or which are important to you?

There's a lot going on in the world, and I can't go to protests because of health problems. I decided a bit over a year ago that writing queer stories with happy endings was a form of resistance, and one that I pursue diligently at a rate of 1,000 or 1,500 words per day, every day. It's not sufficient, but if I can make someone smile, the world is a tiny bit better. Locally, I support the Greater Boston Food Bank whenever I can.

How did you discover writing as a possible career?

I didn't discover writing. It hounds me out of bed at night so that I have to get up and go to the computer room and write stuff down. I'd be writing books even if no one ever read them. They get cranky if they aren't read, though. With the help of some more experienced friends, I've been evolving into an indie author.

How did you choose your pen name?

I made a decision in 1992 to publish under my own name. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. On the other hand, I never forget who I am or have to worry about accidentally posting to social media under the wrong account. Recently I noticed that there is another Lauren Burka out there. I bet she has to answer some interesting questions at parties.

Where do you find inspiration for your stories?

In my dreams. Quite literally, when my health declined such that I didn't get a good night's sleep for a few years, I didn't write anything. But the seeds are little gaps in books I read, especially older heroic fantasy epics. You often see a pair of male heroes who are devoted to each other but keep having doomed relationships with women. Did you read that scene where Moonglum is sitting by the fire fuming while Elric takes the woman of the week back to his tent and think, "Jealous much?" You'd like my books. There were also fantasy books (and I'm not naming them; they're best forgotten) where characters lost their magic when they had sex. That makes no sense to me. Surely physical love is inherently magical?

What is the weirdest fact you've found when researching for a book?

The extensive use of urine in laundry and industrial processes before we invented less smelly chemicals that cause cancer. On the other hand, I'm less likely to research a fact I need for a book and more likely to encounter an interesting fact and think, "Can I write a book that has this?"

What trope is your favorite to write?

I keep trying to write tropes but end up subverting them instead. I have a soft spot for very old stories. There has always been a naive young man or woman in a castle where they were allowed to open every door save for one.

My novella The Memorial Garden: An Interplanetary Bisexual Romance was originally written in response to a call for submissions for gothic romance flavored stories. I started with Beauty and the Beast and asked questions. How did Beauty end up locked in the castle? What if Beauty was a man? What makes someone a beast? Can the Beast be turned back into a human? Can the Beast be forgiven for behaving in a beastly fashion?

And then there is enemies to lovers. Why are the main characters enemies? Romeo and Juliet came from different feuding families, but I find personal tension more interesting. I want to give the characters reasons to really hate each other so that overcoming the hate feels like an emotional explosion.

What is your favorite thing about being an author?

Writing is free entertainment (It's publishing that costs money).

What is your writing process?

I am a pantser. I usually start with an idea, often a tidbit left over from the last book I wrote. Once I have a character in mind, I start asking them questions. Who are their friends? What's their main obstacle to being happy? What do they remember of their childhood, and how does that shape what they're doing in the story's present?

Then I throw the story forward and run to catch it before it hits the ground. The hardest part for me is coming up with a plot. Apparently, you have to have one in a book. Usually, I rummage in the back of the closet, dig one up, and dust it off.

What time of day are you most creative?

I used to get the bulk of my writing--especially the spicy parts--done between midnight and 2am. It was easier to write spicy scenes if I was too tired and loopy to censor myself. Then I'd wake up and fix the typos. Now I'm far more comfortable with writing spice, so I'm not restricted to a certain time of day/night. Then my neighborhood experienced years of construction starting at 7am six days per week, and my schedule shifted earlier.

What is your ideal writing environment?

My own command module (computer room in my house). Cat optional.

As an author, what challenges do you face?

1) How do I write better?
2) How do I get people to read my books?
3) Cover art costs how much?

What is your least favorite part of being an author?

Writing around nonsensical, ever-changing censorship regimes inflicted by payment processors who don't read books. It blows my mind that checking a box that says my books have adult content will guarantee that no one will ever see them. I can't put most of my books on Patreon because the site requires enthusiastic consent. That wipes out most romance plots right there, because misunderstandings and interpersonal friction is so baked into the genre.

If there was one thing you could change about the writing/publishing industry, what would it be?

That's a toughie, but upon consideration, I'd launch Amazon towards the outer planets.

What advice would you give aspiring authors?

Every author has a certain number of bad books in them. Get those out as fast as possible. Put them away for five years, then take them out and laugh at them. Whatever you do, do not put them on Kindle Unlimited. And keep at least three backups in different places.

What is something you’d like to write, but haven’t yet?

I struggle to write female main characters. Some of this is that main characters have to suffer for the plot, and female suffering feels too personal. I have an easier time making the main character male and creating female secondary characters who are competent, mature and can be examples of strength and compassion. Someday, I will write female main characters who are competent and mature and suffer for the plot. That said, I can write female characters if I make them queer enough, set up a world where they don't have to act out gendered expectations or have tragic backstories.

Which parts of yourself are reflected in your characters?

This is the flip side of the last question. As a person who identifies as bigender, writing is the main way that I explore the half of myself that doesn't match my body. My characters are often shown learning what masculinity means in their cultures and how they may or may not fit the expectations. I wrote a contemporary romance novel a year ago where the main character is a woman in her thirties who fantasizes about being a frat boy.

Which of your characters have special meaning to you?

Every character is the most special when I'm writing them. I spend hours deciding what they like and dislike, their education level so I know what words they use, whether they get along with their family or not, what makes them happy and what they avoid. Then when I'm done with a book, I let the characters retire, except for a minor appearance in the next book, to further a new plot and so the readers can see them moving on with their lives and being happy after the tough job of being a main character.

How do you come up with character names?

When I was an undergraduate, I studied ancient Greek and Latin, following high school Spanish classes. These studies turned out not to be useful for getting and keeping a job, but knowing how languages are put together makes it easy to assemble a set of sounds that fit the world I'm creating. One of the first things I do when starting a new book is noodle around making up names until I have a list. How long are character names? Do the characters have nicknames? Do different social classes have different sorts of names? A friend of mine offered, with the best intentions, offered to use Chat-GPT to help me come up with that name list, and I refused. Thinking up those names is how I engage my brain with the story.

In one series of books, I named the characters after plants, animals and gemstones. It worked, but I started to run out of obvious names and was left with ones like "Treacher's big breasted boobie."

What kind of readers enjoy your books?

My ideal readers are people who read fantasy novels with two male main characters and 100% think those characters are having sex when the authors aren't looking.

What is something you love to hear from your readers?

I love to hear that I made them look up a word, and they fell down a rabbit hole and didn't come up for days.

A long, long time ago when I was writing stories and posting them on USENET (this was social media before social media existed), I read a post from someone who had been stuck at work babysitting a computer process. He called his partner and told her he'd be home late. He read one of my stories, then called his partner again and said, "I'm coming home right now."

Where can readers find you online?

My web site, http://www.laurenpburka.com, will tell you where you can find everything.

Also, check out https://www.patreon.com/LaurenPBurka

And the new site: TheoReads (https://www.theoreads.com/author/laurenpburka/view).

Do you have any current ARCs or free downloads readers might be interested in?

You can read my M/M fantasy novel Wishbone for free at https://www.theoreads.com/story/cf723440-4f5a-4301-b573-e2c6e07acd4c/view

What is your latest/upcoming release?

You can find The Memorial Garden: An Interplanetary Bisexual Romance for preorder at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GH18H1KQ, Feb 1).

It will be on Kindle Unlimited for 90 days, after which time it will go "wide" (be available everywhere).

When it is, you'll be able find links at https://www.laurenpburka.com/the-memorial-garden/

Closing Thoughts...

My books are high spice with lots of kink, dubcon and occasional noncon, about characters trying to be good people while navigating bad relationships. The endings are always happy, but the middles are not.

Steam Level

Scorching