Shards of Ember follows three sisters whose struggles with leadership, dangerous divine magic, and an unexpected alliance become the key to saving their frontier settlement from an approaching orc invasion. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

My inspiration comes from the greatest source of all, my children! Fortunately for me, I have three daughters! Little people full of wonder, spunk, and enthusiasm that remind me there’s still magic left in this world.

As for the story, I used their names as a focal point. For example, Sophia means wisdom. I then enhanced their conflict with a healthy dose of my own life journey. So, in a way, it’s a story of all of us.

Of course, I poured a good chunk of my imagination into it, stories inspired by the forests of Northern Idaho. While the godstones themselves came from a simulation game I played. This game had a really cool asset that looked like a shattered stone. With that asset, I kind of developed a whole deep lore on fragmented gods—solely for my own enjoyment of said game—which I’ve been able to transport here into Gods Adrift quite effectively.

But, most of all, it was just my daughters reminding me of the magic of youth.

Sophia’s relationship with the Magi Stone has strong parallels to addiction, temptation, and manipulation. Were those themes intentional from the beginning, or did they emerge as you developed her storyline?​

One THOUSAND percent intentional from the beginning. This is heavily inspired by my own struggles with alcoholism. Something I have admitted to in other interviews. For many years, I let it control me and, especially after my time in the military, I found myself going down a VERY dark path. I have managed to stray from that path, and I am getting better every day. But the struggle … the journey of sobriety is one that DESERVES to be told. Whether it’s in a fantasy form like I did here or in the raw truth of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I fully believe in the power of therapy through words.

Elgion feels unusually grounded because of the attention paid to patrols, supplies, animals, food, and the everyday work of frontier survival. What kind of research went into creating that practical side of the settlement?​

Oh man, I had pages and pages of notes on various research projects. I dove into articles about realistic Medieval grain yields, total flour needed to feed a population, realistic travel distances on horseback, ancient seafaring, and SO much more. I swear I spent hours pouring over obscure texts just so I could drop a line or two that would make the world feel real. Make a knowledgeable person say, “Hey that’s actually quite reasonable.”

You see, it’s always been a pet peeve of mine. Who says a fantasy world can’t have a realistic backdrop? I mean, what better way to help you escape than making you truly believe? What better way than convincing the reader that they could, in fact, live in this magical world?

Bella’s encounter with the saurians expands the conflict beyond a straightforward humans-versus-orcs story. What interested you about introducing another culture with its own reasons to distrust the settlers?​

My wife is half Comanche, a Native American tribe of the American Midwest. From that, I knew I would need to tell some fragment of that proud history. I mean, it’s a story about frontiers; that’s just begging to have a native inspired group within it, right?

I also wanted to make them into this sort of grounded but wise force in the world, because to me, that’s what the Native tribes of America are. Their proud and simple lifestyle is something we should all aspire to.

So came the Saurians, who like their real-life counterparts, could teach us ALL a few lessons on how to move through this beautiful world of ours.

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