A MerMay Conversation With Jason June

Interviewing Jason June (he/ him) for our blog has been one of the highlights of Caitlyn’s May (and that’s saying something because her May has been jam-packed with activities that involve cute dogs)! Check out our conversation below!! 



VQ: Can you talk to me about your passion for writing? Where do you think it comes from?

Jason June: My passion for writing definitely comes from the worlds that grabbed hold of my attention as a kid and wouldn’t let go. My gateway was the Animorphs series, then continued with Redwall, Dinotopia, Goosebumps. I couldn’t get enough. I know someday I wanted to create characters and worlds that would provide such a sense of escape and excitement that those books did for me. 


VQ: What was the inspiration for Out of the Blue? 


Jason June: Out of the Blue was inspired first and foremost by my love of merpeople. From the moment I saw Ariel singing in the waves as a little kid, I knew my dream was to someday become a merperson. I’m still working on that, but in the meantime I’m happy to create stories about them. OOTB in particular came to life when I started to ruminate on the idea of being in love with a place. I’ve found so many of us have a particular city or regions mind when we think of home, and our love for that area is as strong as our love for the most cherished people in our lives. Crest, our protagonist, is a merperson who loves the ocean. Along the way, they have to come to terms with falling in love with a human and facing the conundrum of how to choose between their love for a person or a place when they literally can’t choose both. 


VQ: What can you tell us is next? Any new stories to be on the lookout for? 


Jason June: I’m currently working on my adult romance debut (that so far has not sold to a publisher, but fingers crossed!). It’s a love story between Santa and Krampus with what I’m calling “cozy murder.”  It’s got the typical zaniness and flamboyance you can find in my published JJ novels, and I’m hoping someone will snatch it up once it’s ready for submission. 



All of Jason’s answers were beyond amazing, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for that new book. Cozy murder is 100% our vibe! Thank you, Jason June, for your time and responses!! To learn more about Jason June and his work, check out his website or follow him on Instagram.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A MerMay Conversation With Morgan Dante

Image
 The final day of MerMay has arrived- and we hope you had as much fun as we did! We’re going to keep on reading merfolk books all summer long- of course, with an emphasis on those with LGBTQ+ themes. But to close out the May festivities, we have our final interview- a conversation with Morgan Dante (they/ them) about their book Providence Girls . This book is a sapphic Lovecraftian horror-romance, so… basically everything both Caitlyn and Remy adore. VQ: Why do you think we collectively keep coming back to the Lovecraftian stories? Morgan: Lovecraft generally was good at creating atmospheric works; he very much entrenched many of his works in a bleary New England setting that I personally enjoy. More than that, I think his works, such as “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, offer enough fascinating mythological details while also making an imaginative reader curious: What is it like thinking of the ocean as a place where, far below, there are ancient cities with beings we cannot truly fat...
Read more

“Satan is Our Only Hope:” Jennifer’s Body and Making Women's Sexuality A True Monster

The week of Halloween has finally arrived! But since our definition of the Halloween Season starts September first, (when the weather drops below 65 degrees and a leaf somewhere gets just the slightest tinge of not-green), Remy and I got together a few weeks ago to rewatch the 2009 movie Jennifer’s Body for more reasons than just the wonderful soundtrack. One of those reasons is because it is a masterpiece cobbled together with themes such as sexuality, feminine rage, and friendships that develop into lust.  In case you happened to somehow miss the movie that is quickly becoming a cult classic, allow me to recap (spoilers abound, proceed with caution):  To begin, Diablo Cody, the amazing human being who also brought us Juno and, most recently, Lisa Frankenstein, wrote this raunchy, gory rollercoaster ride that shaped some of my formative years. The movie opens with our leading lady Needy already in isolation, living life in some sort of institutionalized setting. This deligh...
Read more

A MerMay Conversation with Rose Santoriello

Image
  The final week of MerMay is upon us, which means the MerMay LGBTQ+ Readathon is almost over! (Though, let’s be honest, there are a lot of books on that list and we’ll be reading them all summer long.) We wanted to finish this event with a splash, so this week, we’re bringing you a series of short interviews with the authors of merfolk books with LGBTQ+ representation.  For our first interview, we talked to Rose Santoriello (they/ them), author of Haunt Me, Baby as well as other queer monster romance books. VQ: The monster romance genre seems to be growing in popularity. How would you describe it to audiences unfamiliar with it? Rose: Monster Romance kind of has two subcategories—scary and cozy. The scary monster romances often feel like a Romantasy, just with a very non-human love interest. The other size is much more cozy! And reads a lot like contemporary, but with cute monsters.  VQ: How does your own queerness influence the types of relationships you highlight in...
Read more