Interview with E.K. Reisinger, Author of “The Ache of Water”

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The following is an interview with E.K. Reisinger, author of the short story “The Ache of Water,” which appears in Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy (available now on Amazon in digital and paperback).

1) What inspired you to write your Neon Druid story, “The Ache of Water”?

“The Ache of Water” began as a writing exercise – I just sat down to freewrite a very short story using a new character I’m developing in the universe of the novel I’m currently querying, The Fire Sister. Anders will appear in the second and subsequent books. I knew a little about him already, so I used the boundaries of the submission requirements (urban setting, etc.) to explore the rest of him.

2) What’s something that always seems to pop up in the stories you write?

I’m a romance fan, both in writing and reading, so love stories creep in no matter what I write. More broadly, I’m drawn to the emotional connections – the how/why/who/whats – of relationships, whether platonic or romantic. The raw grief flooding Anders’ in “The Ache of Water” became the entry point to start writing the piece.

3) Which book/story has had the biggest influence on your writing?

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte. Cliché, yes, but reading it as a young teen changed my life. The Bronte home on the moors one of the first places I visited once I arrived in the UK as a student. And, despite my love of romance, I don’t think of it as a romance; there’s no true happy ending and there’s a lot of brutality along the way. But the book weaves together everything I’ve come to expect in a book I love: passion and emotional reality, a supernatural sense/fate/spirit/meaning and the use of place as a character or metaphor. Daphne Du Maurier. It was my favourite book when I was eleven. Every time I see or hear that opening line, I get chills. After all this time.

4) Excluding your Neon Druid story, what piece of writing are you most proud of, and why?

I’ve been a freelance writer for a very long time, so this is difficult. And I’m relatively new to fiction publishing, having just started in earnest a few months ago. Of my work portfolio, I’m particularly proud of the editorial work I did over the past two years with the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University.

5) What do you do when you’re NOT writing?

When not reading or writing, I’m typically outside or in my kitchen. I’m a winter lover, so I’m usually found on skis or rolling around in the snow. In the warmer months, I’m hiking, biking, swimming, floating in a lake somewhere or attempting to garden (more often I’m just romping around my wooded yard with my kids watching weeds grow). I’m also a certified open water scuba diver and hope to dive more in the coming years. Inside, I enjoy baking, making pasta, throwing dinner parties and trying new recipes for anything from Indian chutney to chicken hotdish.

6) What writing project(s) are you currently working on?

I’m currently querying a romantic fantasy novel, The Fire Sister; writing three additional novels (one is book two in The Fire Sister series, the other two are standalone fantasy romances). I also have several short stories on submission with various publications. I hope to be able to share news soon on my website: www.ekreisinger.com

Thanks, E.K.!

WFrom chronicling an Alaskan cruise to researching the manuscripts of the Medieval Egyptian desert, writer E.K. Reisinger explores a love of culture and history in her twenty-year career as a journalist, writer and editor. She’s also held managerial positions at Greenspring Media Group, Thomson Reuters and, most recently, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University. HMML holds the world’s largest collection of resources for the study of manuscript cultures. Now, Reisinger writes fantasy and romance from her office in rural Minnesota. Among other accolades, Reisinger is a former news reporting and writing fellow with The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. She is also a general member of the Romance Writers of America. See more about her at www.ekreisinger.com or on Twitter: @ekreisinger.