Exploring Boundaries and Unveiling Love Stories: An Interview with Lindsey Pogue

Discover the World of Genre-Bending Fiction and Post-Apocalyptic Romances

Join us as we delve into Lindsey Pogue's captivating literary journey, where history, fantasy, and love intertwine. From dystopian worlds to historical fairy tale retellings, Lindsey's words transport readers to unforgettable realms.

Lindsey Pogue is a genre-bending fiction author, best known for her soul-stirring, post-apocalyptic survival series, Savage North Chronicles, and her historically infused fairy tale retellings, Ruined Lands.

As an avid romance reader with a master’s in history and culture, her adventures cross genres and push boundaries, weaving together facts, fantasy, and timeless love stories of epic proportions.

She lives in Northern California with her husband and rescue cats, Beast and little girl, Blue.

You’re organizing a party. Which two authors, dead or alive, do you invite?

Jane Austen and Adrienne Young

What do you read when you’re working on a book? And what kind of reading do you avoid while writing?

What I read for pleasure depends on whether I’m in the researching phase of my current novel. I do research for all of my stories, because they are based in history and/or they are about surviving situations I want to learn about in depth.

What books and authors have impacted your writing career?

Jane Austen’s stories inspired me to write about love and all the complications in between. Stephanie Meyer is an author who reinvigorated my passion for reading. I guess I owe the early stages of my creativity and desire to read and write to them.

What kind of reader were you as a child?

Being dyslexic, I was one of those kids who counted the paragraphs as we read aloud in class so that I knew which part I would have to read out loud, and practiced it first. I was terrified of reading. Yet, when I was alone, I used to pretend I was a teacher and make my sister listen to me read stories. I guess you could say I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with reading. I’m currently in the obsessed phase.

What do you plan to read next?

Oooh, this is a difficult question to answer, since I have an extensive To-Be-Read list I continue to add books to. I’ve just started Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood, which I’m super excited about. And I just finished Spells For Forgetting by Adrienne Young, which I easily fell in love with. Apparently I’m on a magical realism / fantastical literary kick.

If you could make any side character from any of your books into a main character, who would it be? 

Tobias aka Toby from Dust and Shadow. I enjoyed writing him as a snarky, street-wise kid, then jumping forward a bit by the end of the follow-up story, Earth and Ember, when he’s a young man. I'd love to see how that smart mouth "beggar" child turned out as a man, and explore life for him.

Do you have any characters you dislike?

This is a tricky question because the more horrible the character, the more fun they are to write. I have favorite "villains" (which I use loosely), as well as bad guys that didn’t leave much of an impression. For instance, Draven in City of Ruin was only on-page a little bit, and Doyle from Dust and Shadow was a very corrupt "stock" cowboy, characters for which I had no real feelings about one way or the other. I wrote them for a very specific purpose—to die. That being said, Marshal Cunningham (Dust and Shadow) was horrible in so many ways, but also so well developed and with many layers, I couldn’t help but hate and love him, feeling a twinge of understanding and sorrow for the way things panned out for him.

Where did your inspiration to write your books come from? What influenced you before or during your writing process?

It's hard to say what influences me because I think the answer is so general: all the things. I am a people watcher, which gives me inspiration and triggers ideas. In fact, I have way too many ideas floating around. I love watching movies and shows and reading books, all of which gets absorbed in some way. I think the easier question to answer is what has influenced each of the stories I've written. I would have a reason for writing each of them, what got me excited about the project, and so on.

What made you want to pursue writing?

I've been writing since I was a little girl. I wrote my first book about birds, which I "read for the class" in Third Grade. But it wasn't until high school, when I was struggling with my mental health and living situation, that I turned to writing an actual manuscript to escape. The story I wrote was a much darker version of Whatever It Takes, the first published story in my Saratoga Falls series (written as my alter ego, Scarlet St. James). While that wasn't the first book I ever published, the moment it went live across retailers was the most surreal "writing moment" for me—a part of my past and labor of love actually saw the light of day.

What drew you to the dystopian genre?

I prefer to create worlds where characters can’t fall back on technology around every corner to communicate and save themselves. I also enjoy writing stories that are both fantastical and relatable, stories that push characters out of their comfort zones and pit them against the world, instead of each other. That’s why I love weather-ravaged worlds where enemies have to put their differences aside and work together to survive. And with dystopian worlds, I can take my love of history and twist it however I please to create something new and yet recognizable too.

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