Four Fantastic Authors

A fluffy golden dog greets the newcomers as everyone takes their seats in a cozy circle in 2nd Hand Books on the Downtown Mall. There are books lining every visible inch of the walls, which is the perfect place to introduce the new anthology that everyone is here to learn about.

The Shenandoah Fantastic: Mystic Whispers from the Valleys Vails is an anthology of 24 fantastical short stories, all rooted in the geography of the Shenandoah Valley. James Blakey, the anthology’s publisher, served as the host for the Festival of the Book event on March 20. Three panelists, Catherine Simpson, K.G. Gardner, and Kent Peterson, talked about their contributions to the anthology and their individual writing processes. 

Simpson was the coeditor of the anthology with Blakey and had previously worked with him as coeditor on the Charlottesville Fantastic. “We had a lot of fun doing it and wanted to expand it with the Shenandoah Valley,” said Simpson.

“How much did the regions play a role in the stories?” someone in the audience asked. “A lot of our strongest submissions were grounded in the area,” Simpson said. It was easy to tell when someone had changed the location to fit their story rather than the other way around, she added.  

“Does it limit your audience?” another attendee asked.  “Well, we’ve sold one in England and one in France,” Blakey said, and the audience laughed. “It’s a small area, but we do really well,” Blakey said. 

Peterson, like Simpson and Blakey, also contributed to the Charlottesville Fantastic with a story called “Midnight on Rio Road.” “It’s a horror story,” Blakey said. 

“Yes, it’s about driving home from work on Rio Road,” Peterson quipped, and the audience laughed.

Each author had a different story about their writing journey. Thirty years ago, Peterson met a man in an online cooperative fiction writing group. They wrote two books together, but left them sitting, without doing anything with them. Years passed, and Peterson heard that he had died, so he went back and reread the stories they had written. “I thought, this is pretty good. Which you don’t usually say about something you wrote 30 years ago,” Peterson said. 

He started handing the books out at libraries and schools. This led him to give talks at schools about the story. “I am thinking long term,” Peterson said, “These kids are going to be paying me for the rest of my life.” The crowd laughed. 

Gardner was a journalist for 25 years before she started writing fiction. “Did you have trouble developing your own voice?” a crowd member asked. Gardner said it was slightly difficult “because I was living in the non-fiction world 8-10 hours a day.” She had always loved writing, she said, and before she could read or write, she would ask her mom to write things down for her. “You learn to meet deadlines as a journalist,” Gardner said. You think more creatively with fiction writing, whereas journalism is cut and direct, she explained.  

Each of these authors has a new project on the books. Peterson has been working on a new novel for the last 10 years and has begun preparing it for publication. Gardner has been working on her short story for the new Richmond Fantastic, set to come out in October. She and Simpson are also working on Meet Virginia: A Romance Anthology. Blakey is currently working on an action-adventure novella, featuring a Zeppelin going to Africa. 

As the event came to a close, everyone began making their way slowly out of the little bookstore, stopping to talk with the panelists and the host. These writers all have different stories but have ended up in the same place, as successful published authors. Peterson offered some final advice for new writers: “You never know until you take your shot, so go ahead and try it.”