QSR: Author Interview With Claudie Arseneault

The first author interview of the summer! How exciting!



Q. Tell us a little about your books and yourself!

A. I’m a fantasy writer, with the very occasional dip into science fiction. I’m also both asexual and aromantic, and that’s reflected in my writing—in the characters, but also in how I gravitate towards non-romantic relationships as the center of my stories. I love large casts of characters with little romance, longer novels with intertwined storylines, and domestic, “smaller scale” scenes that sprinkle more adventure-y narratives. Dinner scenes and banter before ass-kicking is my jam, what can I say?

Q. What made you write the stories you did? What do they mean to you?

A. That really depends on the story, but more and more, I write stories that let me explore my own identities and their many, many shapes and forms. A lot of writing Baker Thief was me exploring the possibility I was aromantic and validating my own relationships, even though Claude’s aromanticism isn’t exactly like mine? A lot of my storytelling has become “pour pieces of yourself, add favourite tropes, mix in with puns, banter, and queerness for the perfect recipe!”

(Editing Laina: Perfect recipe, huh? *waggles eyebrows* Get it, recipe, because Baker Thief... I'll show myself out.)

Q. What are some of your favourite things to read in queer books?

A. Queer friendships between people who share an identity and support each other. And that’s so rare! I wish we had more of it, so that we could explore the different ways queer IDs are lived. So that is definitely way up in my list of favourites, though I’ll say, I love the friendships even if they don’t share an identity.

Otherwise, I would say… any queer people in super tropy stories? Like superheroes, chosen ones, etc.! All these cool things we never got to be, reclaimed and turned into amazing, fun stories.

Q. Did you go to summer camp as a kid? Got any good stories?

A. Huh, I know I went to a couple of weeks of summer camps every year, though never the whole 2-3 months because mom was a teacher and was also home during summer. I don’t really have fun stories, though I do have clear memories of monitors trying to bring us out camping, of downpour starting, and of having to row back to the cabins under that heavy rain while my sister’s lips had gone blue from cold and wetness. A great time!!

The same sister also almost got a commotion falling off a horse. Oh, and there was that time a vet came to check on a cow and it involved putting on a long rubber glove, shoving his hand up the poor animal’s ass, then essentially shoving the poop out of it one movement at a time. That definitely was noteworthy!

Q. Tell us one of your favourite experiences with someone who’s read your book.

A. I have an amazing alpha reader who gets really into the details, and I think my favourite thing was how as she read the early drafts of Baker Thief, she kept commenting “the light of my life” next to every character. Claire – the light of her life. Koyani? Definitely the light of her life. Zita? The most light of all of her lives, haha. There’s something special to watching readers fall in love with your characters one at a time.

Q. What are some themes, tropes, or just things in general you would love to see in queer books in the future?

A. Did I mention platonic relationships yet? That’s going to be the whole interview. Me, holding a *platonic relationships are amazing* sign. I would love to see more of them—siblings, friends, mentors… all of them!

I would also love to see more narratives about shifting identities within a label, coming from authors who have that identity (#ownvoices, basically). I feel like while people often say that gender or orientations are fluid, the discussions seem to focus mostly on changing umbrella labels entirely? Like, say, going from asexual spectrum to bisexual? But I feel like even within the asexual spectrum, we can experience quite a bit of fluidity, and that can be tied to other factors like romantic attraction, current libido and sex drive, changes in touch averseness or sex-repulsion, if there’s any. These are all separate things, but to me at least they deeply impact one another and can be hard to distinguish. That’s not something I’ve seen a lot of in fiction, and I often feel like these shifts cause us a lot of anguish and questioning, because we expect more rigidity than life gives us, if that makes sense? So, that.

Q. What’s your favourite recent queer read? What queer book are you looking forward to? 

A. *writes a 3,000 words essay*
More seriously, though, here are … a few:
Machineries of the Empire, Yoon Ha Lee
Stake Sauce, RoAnna Sylver
(coming) New Worlds, Lyssa Chiavari
Tone of Voice, Kaia Sonderby
Among the Glimmering Flowers, Lynn
Green Toes, Avery … something
Cinnamon Blade … Shira
(coming) Not Your Back-Up, CB Lee

(Editing Laina: That's Avery Flinders and Shira Glassman, Scouts, in case you'd like to see those out.)

Q. What’s something you always want to say in interviews but no one ever asks?

A. I’d love to talk more about the changes that happened during the edits of my novels, how they evolve through time, etc. I tend to get a lot of question about what the process is like, but in general terms? In my opinion, that fails to capture the concrete ways in which edits can overhaul and change a story, or even just a single character. I added a whole-ass character to Viral Airwaves in the second-to-last edits, one who completely changes the way everything gets pieced together (Lieutenant Lungvist, if you’re curious) and never get to talk about this stuff.

Another is just, silly questions. Almost meme-ish, out of context things like I actually got in the Queer Summer Reading chat last year about Branwen and dresses! Questions about the characters in modern world, or even in alternate universes or other fictional universes… those are fun (people sometimes do this with Harry Potter houses, but we should really be asking about ATLA nations 😉.)

Q. Favourite song to listen to in the summer?

A. I don’t tend to really change music according to season, but summer is good for rolling down car windows and blasting music while singing loudly (except in town where it’s a bother to others; I’m not that person). I will listen to either Mumford and Sons on loop, or to Québec singers like Daniel Bélanger, Karkwa, Dumas, Fred Fortin, and a bunch of others. If I know the lyrics, I’ll sing, no matter how bad (apparently that means horribly bad).

Q. Favourite food to cook over a campfire?

A. MARSHMALLOWS. I like my classics, what can I say? And I absolutely love to cook them. Or burn them. I eat either, but my partner only takes golden crisp with melting insides, so I also have the challenge of cooking those delicious marshmallows to perfection.

Q. Where would you want to go on a road trip and what would you want to do along the way?

A. I would go down to the US deserts I think, to do some of the trails there and discover something completely different than snowy Quebec City! I would 100% do geocaching every bit of the way, so that I could have found caches all across the US. Geocaching is treasure hunting for plastic boxes or other concealed containers that locals hid away based on the GPS coordinates they provide. It’s super cool, especially to discover new spots as a tourist.

Editing Laina: We include a couple of alternative questions in case someone isn't comfortable with one of the ones we ask, and I just had to include Claudie's answer to this one, because it's hilarious.

Q. Are you more of a camper or a glamper?

A. LOL just so you know, I had to google glamper to know wtf it was.

Bio: Squids, bread, and hot air balloon have little in common... except how much nerdy squeeing they can draw out of Claudie. Excitable and passionate, Claudie writes quirky science-fiction and fantasy that lets the best tropes shine through, haters be damned, and her love for sprawling casts invariably turns her novels into multi-storylined wonders.

As an aromantic and asexual writer, she gives full breadth to stories that centre platonic relationships and is well-known for her database of aro and ace characters. Claudie is also a founding member of The Kraken Collective, a group of indie writers who love queer SFF, and she is devoted to its promotion. Find Claudie on Twitter @ClH2OArs, on her website, or on Patreon.

Thank you so much for joining us, Claudie!! This was such an interesting interview!

And this won't be the last we see of Claudie around here! (And the fact that I just made Claudie sound like a supervillain is totally a coincidence.) She'll be joining us again in August for a very exciting giveaway, and we will be chatting with her on Twitter on August 11th. Check out our full schedule here and be sure to come back for those!

And thanks for reading, Scouts!

Peace and cookies,
Laina