Interview with Author D. H. Torkavian
This interview happened October 5 of 2021 on On the Wings for Writers Discord Server. D. H. Torkavain says in her bio. D. H. Torkavian was born in the dead of winter under the auspicious sign of the quarter moon. Most of her family was woefully unprepared for the baby bundle of transgender realness. Her mummum was the only one who understood her growing up. At a young age Mummum thought her the finer points of being a proper Norwegian house wife and witchcraft. All of this was done in secret. Her childhood was split between New Jersey and California as her mummum fell ill.
When Mummum died, D.H. Torkavian was devastated. At the age of 12, D.H. Torkavian began writing to cope with the loss, despite not being able to read or write. Despite this hurdle, D.H. Torkavian pressed on and was eventually published in her high school newspaper and literary magazine. In college she was a top editor and contributor for her college literary magazine, Rewrites.
D.H. Torkavian has also been a contributor for The Press of Atlantic City, Heaven Sent Gaming, and The Geek Initiative.
D.H. Torkavian currently holds court in coffee shops in the Pacific North West. She is often found drinking hot chocolate and hoping for rain.
We were lucky enough to have Devin H. Torkavian’s novel Fairywing as the book club pick for On the Wings for Writers September Honey Badger Book Club pick. This interview took place after our book club meeting.
Devin
Hi
Shirley
We'll give everybody a while to show up. And I'll probably start about five after. Thank you so much for coming.
Devin
Thank you so much for having me. This is like my second author event ever so.
Shirley
Oh, congratulations. Thank you. We got to be second. Any reason to celebrate I'll take it.
Devin
Right.
Shirley
Okay, well, um, it's 5:05 here in Texas. We'll get started. And so welcome to our author, q&a. Please, everyone except for me and Devin, please mute your mic. We're going to do this like we have in the past where I will go through and ask if anybody has a question. You can also write a question in the chat. If you don't want to be called on for anything, just let me know in the chat, and we'll just skip you. We're here with DH Torkavian.
Devin
Torkavian
Shirley
Okay.
Devin
It's wild. I'm sorry.
Shirley
No, that's okay. It's beautiful. The author of Fairywing our The Honey Badger book club September pick you were our second book club book. Thank you for joining us today and for learning discord.
Devin
Yeah.
Shirley
Let's see. Make sure I've got everything. Okay, so anybody has questions about how we're going to do this? Okay, so my first question, Devin, is how do you celebrate publishing your debut novel? What did you do to celebrate this milestone because it is an amazing milestone to publish your book?
Devin
Um, well. Oh, no. What did I do? I'm so sorry. Hang on. Okay, cool. I thought I did something I didn't I don't sorry. Well, funnily enough, I got an apartment to celebrate getting publishing my book.
Shirley
Wow.
Devin
Yeah. My sister and I, we had we have been van people since either 2012 or 2013.
Shirley
Very cool.
Devin
Yeah. It was really cool until it wasn't cool.
Shirley
Yeah. The Wi-Fi situation and more.
Devin
yeah, a lot of things.
Shirley
Yeah. Yeah, I love watching people who? redecorate like an RV or a van to go do the traveling, moving. I love watching that.
Devin
Yeah. What they don't tell you about that. Is that like, it's impossible to do if you already live in the van.
Shirley
Yeah.
Devin
And also, like, it's impossible to keep that nice.
Shirley
Yeah, it's a tiny space. And when you have a lot of stuff. Trying to move it around, I can understand that. So what was your publishing experience like? Because we have a lot of readers who aren’t published yet. And some that have and, of course, we're always wanting to learn new things and how other people did things.
Devin
Right. Well, I'm self-published. It was very much a lot of from the seat of my pants. I luckily made friends with many people who have already self-published, so they gave me a lot of good tips. And I made it a lot harder for myself than I needed to because I'm a Capricorn and I had never done it before. But yeah, so it was like a sort of frustrating, but also, now that I know how to do it. It's like didn't need to be frustrating at all.
Shirley
Does anybody have questions for Devin about self publishing, you would like their experience? I think we have a couple coming.
Devin
Cool.
Shirley
So B, asked. What would be the one thing you would pass on to a new author?
Devin
For self publishing or just self publishing?
Shirley
Self Publishing
Devin
Oh, honestly, make friends with people who've done it before.
Shirley
So Network,
Devin
Network, make friends with people who've done it before? Because nine times out of 10 Even if you have like the dumbest question, they will answer it.
Shirley
Yeah, it is a lovely community; I have found that the writing community is so amazing and willing to help each other out and not compete. Yeah, unlike other communities, where it's like, no, I will not help you. There's only you know, x space. And it's like, no, there're tons of space.
Devin
There're tons of space. And like, I have experienced some of the no there's x space, but if that happens, just stop talking to that person.
Shirley
Yeah. D asks, what part of the process do you overcomplicate? Did you overcomplicate the most? From another Capricorn?
Devin
Publishing's the process like literally, I didn't realize all I had to do was turn my formatted document into a PDF loaded in and hit publish. Like that's the entire publishing process with KDP.
Devin
Make a cover and all that stuff and fill out the form, but it's like, no more difficult than making like a Tinder profile.
Shirley
H asks, Are you advertising anywhere and what has worked best for you?
Devin
Um,alot of word of mouth has worked best for me. I do. A lot of also, I do the key writer things that are on Twitter; I do. That's most of my advertising right there. I have no money for advertising. And all of my writer friends tell me I should have at least four or five books under my belt. Before I pay money for advertising,
Shirley
That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.
Devin
Apparently, like if you just have one. It's like you're wasting your money. Because basically, what you're paying for is for them to come to your new book, and then go, oh, this person has this, this and this book. I should check out this, this and this book as well.
Shirley
Yeah, H says, because there's nowhere for them to go. Right. Yeah. I hadn't heard that. I have no budget for advertising myself. I've been doing community and word of mouth. And social media advertising, basically. But it's been working.
Devin
Oh, um, Canva is your best friend for advertising.
Shirley
Yes, we are all Canva addicts. We're talking about having an intervention thing. Yeah. Because we have one member that spent nearly their eight hours in Canva. We were like, you may need an intervention
Devin
I'm about there.
Shirley
Yeah. H was saying it occurs to me I should do a low-cost advertising workshop, H, that we put that on the list.
Devin
I will go to that workshop.
Shirley
Please. Oh, please. Please do that. That would be outstanding.
Devin
Yeah.
Shirley
Okay, so um, my next question is, do you think being a member of the queer community impacted your publishing experience?
Devin
Um, yes and no. No, because it's kind of been the experience that I've gotten, as I've heard from my friends who are not in the queer community. But also yes, because, like I write about, specifically trans people. And if you've looked up other trans book, mostly you're going to find porn. Hmm. And so my niche is too, too much of a niche, if that makes sense.
Shirley
Okay, yeah. Because as we're slowly growing, getting more diverse books. You're still a small percentage of that diversity. Yeah.
Devin
Yeah.
Shirley
So you're a trailblazer?
Devin
I hope so.
Shirley
Does anybody else have questions about being part of the queer community? And being an author? And what that's like in the queer community author realm, because I know some of us are writing queer friendly books. Because we're in a safe space. You know, a lot of us are part of the queer community.
Devin
Alrighty.
Shirley
D asked. Do you have any advice on how to deal with the bulk of queer books being erotica, when your book doesn't fall into that scope?
Devin
Um, you just have to power through it. Like a lot of a lot of queer characters, and like queer friendly, like fantasy because I mostly write fantasy and like horror comes from people who are allies and not the queer people themselves, you know what I mean? So we just have to, like, really just get out there and just push through it and get our books out.
Shirley
So just keep pushing books out with, I mean, representation.
Devin
Yeah, like, like, I mean, like, like, not like a paper mill or something. But like, just you have, we just have to like, keep on truckin until we get traction.
Shirley
Now, you never know when, when the most interest is going to hit a genre.
Devin
Right.
Shirley
Oh, D got another question. But it seems with the culture being so attuned to representation right now, it should prime us for that traction hit soon. Hope so.
Devin
I hope so. But like, a lot of it is like conditional representation. Like I think we still have not to be like a huge downer, but I think we still have quite a way to go.
Shirley
Oh, yeah. Always.
Devin
Like, if you like, if you look at like, okay, so people want representation, but they want like, if they want trans people, they want them to be like pretty trans people like Oliver and Coxes of the world and like; you know what I mean? Like, like, that's one reason I made my character Drucilla purposefully, not very feminine.
Shirley
Interesting,
Devin
Because like,not a lot of the trans people I've met in the real world are hyper feminized Barbie dolls. And I kind of feel like that's a weird thing that people are trying to, well, mostly the patriarchy is trying to push on us.
Shirley
Yeah, that we'll accept it as long as it fits this ideal that we want.
Devin
Yeah, it's kind of like as long as, as long as the trans person in question is f*** and disposable, and it's good. Which definitely needs to change.
Shirley
Yeah, I can see that. Um, so my next question is. What inspired Fairywing? Where did you get the inspiration for this book with the fairy tales and everything?
Devin
Um, well, a lot of different places. I had. I started writing Fairywing when I was in my early 20s. I think I was 22 When I first started writing. Um, and I had I was having really horrible High School nightmares. Um, so I kind of like I had this one really wild High School nightmare that was more interesting than scary or disturbing. or traumatic? And I was like, well, that's really interesting. I'm going to write about that. And I've always been an enormous fan of like, Grimms fairy tale. And like, you know, Disney and stuff like that. But like, as I got older, I got more into like, the actual like hardcore Grimm Fairy Tales.
Shirley
not the pretty myth.
Devin
Yeah, the like cutting off your feet to fit into a bloody slipper kind of thing. Yeah. And I was really into things like Edgar Allan Poe, and like, Vincent Price and, you know, just like the good old dark shit. And so that definitely influenced Fairywing a lot.
Shirley
Very cool. Anybody else have questions about what inspiration you, what things that the book might have inspired for you? Or where you thought the inspiration came from? I know D and I were talking. As we were reading the book, and she mentioned it made her think of a video game and Once Upon a Time, the TV show.
Devin
Yeah, it was so weird. I wrote the first manuscript when I was like, 22. I like fully wrote it. Then Once Upon a Time came out, and I was like, Oh, this is too similar. And then I sort of dropped it for like five years. And like, that's why it's taking me so long to like, actually publish it.
Shirley
Yeah. Oh, the video game was Life is Strange. and Once Upon a Time and Twilight.
Devin
Wow.
Shirley
That's what she was like. This is when I say, You know, it reminds me of
Devin
That's kind of cool. Yeah, I’ll take that.
Shirley
Okay, so um, how do we do a better job at representing the trans community in our writing? I ask this question is because I'm writing an urban fantasy mystery noir series. And I want to populate the world with very diverse characters, not just that they look that they're interesting races, but also interesting sexualities. And so I want to do a better job representing the trans community, and what do you what if?
What would you like to see in books that have trans characters? What would you like to see us do?
Devin
brutal honesty,
Shirley
brutal honesty,
Devin
Brutal honesty. And I mean, it sounds a little wild, but like, there's been like this wild narrative. I mean, how trans people have been represented is how you can see like, you could track it. It's like a weird narrative and how it shifts, like a lot, is just not accurate. To like actual trans life, you know what I mean? And, like, I'm also seeking trans people and have like, talking to them and like, figuring out what their experiences are, and like, letting them be your beta readers.
Shirley
So get sensitivity readers, definitely.
Devin
I mean, kind of sensitivity readers, but also antisensitivity readers, if that makes sense. Yeah, that's not the word I'm looking for, though. It's like,
Shirley
People are going to give you the actual truth of life
Devin
Yeah, like, like, I kind of I would like to see more of which I tried to write in Fairywing that way. I would like to see more of like, the dark, not the dark underbelly, but like the gritty realism of what it is to be a trans person in America.
Shirley
Does anybody have questions about things they would like to know about reading trans books or representing trans characters in their work? I know D I think has trans in her fantasy book. But it's a fantasy world that she develops, and so it's a little easier. They don't have to go through as much because they're part of a clan that understands. Yeah, a third sex or things like that.
Shirley
Okay, D says I do, but it's a fictional cultural context, but what are some things you've done in writing that rub you the wrong way? Like, what would you advise against doing with a trans character?
Devin
Um, well, I mean, the obvious thing is like disposable love interest. Like, that's always gross and yucky. Um, but like, having more than one trans character in a story is kind of interesting thing. Because, like, if you have more than one, you can show different aspects of trans visibility, if that makes any sense. Like, that's a good thing. Um, like, I have just like a lot of it's; I don't know, a lot of just the misinformation spreading and the disposability of trans lives is kind of icky.
Shirley
Yeah.
Devin
Also, the weird myth that all trans women are like, fragile, little non confrontational beings. Like, oh, God, no. No. Also like, yeah. Also, having like unlikable trans characters is a good thing. Like, not if it's like, if you're going to have more than one F trans character, I would say have more than one trans character, and have at least one of them be unlikable.
Devin
Like, oh, maybe they're the villain. Maybe they're just like a frenemy. Maybe they have, like, an icky personality. Like, maybe they're just like, not a great person, like. Like, I feel like there's like when you show when they show in media, trans people have to be put on this weird pedestal. Or they have to be like a disposable fuck toy. And there's kind of no, there's no like authenticity in either of those things. And I feel like sometimes people are afraid to be like, this is a trans character who's also god awful. Like gut bucket nasty.
Shirley
So just make them like you would write any other character, just they are trans. But they may be unlikable. They may be likable, they may be morally, their compass might be off.
Devin
Yeah, like maybe, like, maybe there's like a side character who's trans, and they're pretty rad. And then there's like, another trans person and there, however, and then there's like, another trans person, and they're just the worst. Like, it's okay to write trans characters that are terrible.
Shirley
Okay, that's all good.
Thank you for being here with us and talking about your novel Fairywing.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
You can find D. H. Torkavian and her novel here
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dtorkavian/
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