Why Fairy Tales Still Matter 📖✨ Emma C. Fox on Stories, Tolkien & Writing Historical Fantasy

The BEST stories don't just entertain us... they remind us of what's TRUE.

In this episode of A LITERAL JOURNEY, award-winning author Emma C. Fox shares how an old copy of The Hobbit, a vivid dream, and a lifelong love of history and fairy tales have shaped her journey as an author.

From the enchanted forests of medieval Germany, to the vast and varied landscapes of Siberia, Emma C. Fox talks about why fairy tales endure, how historical fantasy can reveal timeless truth, and why themes like sacrificial love, hope, and redemption continue to inspire us.

Whether you're a reader, writer, parent, teacher, or someone searching for truth and beauty in an often chaotic world, I hope this episode encourages you to open a book (or pick up a pen) and embark on your own literal journey.

"I do think that the fairy tales and folklore of cultures around the world often so beautifully get at the triumph of light over darkness, of truth over lies." -Emma C. Fox

About EMMA C. FOX:

Emma Fox grew up in and around the legend-drenched city of Savannah, Georgia, where she fell in love with history and fantasy side by side. She now calls "The Magic City" of Birmingham, Alabama home. When she's not tutoring writing, tending to her three children, or dreaming up new novels and poems, you'll likely find her working in the garden among her roses and herbs.

Emma is the author of the award-winning YA fantasy novels THE ARROW AND THE CROWN (2019) and THE CARVER AND THE QUEEN (2023). Her latest historical fantasy novel, HEART OF STONE, a standalone sequel to THE CARVER AND THE QUEEN, releases August 2026 from Owl's Nest Publishers. Emma is also a contributor to several anthologies, including THE LOST TALES OF SIR GALAHAD (Rabbit Room Press, 2022) and I'VE GOT A BAD CASE OF POETRY (Bandersnatch Books, 2025).

Keep up with Emma's author news & events through her inspiring and encouraging monthly newsletter on Substack, "Hiraeth House."

💚 PRE-ORDER "Heart of Stone" here: https://www.owlsnestpublishers.com/store/p65/Heart_of_Stone.html#/

👑 BUY "The Carver and the Queen" here: https://www.owlsnestpublishers.com/store/p43/The_Carver_and_the_Queen.html#/

📚 ORDER other books by Emma C. Fox here: https://amzn.to/4v43D9N

🌐 Visit Emma C. Fox's website: https://emmafoxauthor.com/

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My name is Seth Adam Smith. I’m a husband, father, and author who believes in the power of stories to inspire people forward.

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Transcript

Emma C. Fox 0:00

I do think that the fairy tales and folklore of cultures around the world often so beautifully get at the triumph of light over darkness, of truth over lies, in a beautiful way and in so many different facets. So I just want to keep exploring that in my own stories. I love the way that historical fantasy can uh showcase the wonder and beauty of our real world.

Seth Adam Smith 0:58

And today's interviewee is Emma C. Fox. Emma C. Fox grew up in and around the legend-drenched city of Savannah, Georgia, where she fell in love with history and fantasy side by side. She now calls the magic city of Birmingham, Alabama home. When she's not tutoring, writing, oh when she's not tutoring, writing, tending to her three children or dreaming up new fantasy novels, you'll likely find her working in the garden among her roses and herbs. And I'm so jealous because plants grow very well out in uh out in that area, not so much in the desert of Utah. So I'm very jealous that you're able to have a functioning garden. Mine's always on the brink of death. Um, Emma is the award-winning author of YA fantasy novels, The Arrow and the Crown, and The Carver and the Queen, and a contributor to The Lost Tales of Sir Galahad and several other works. Emma, thank you so much for agreeing to be on the show. It is an honor.

Emma C. Fox 1:57

Thank you so much for having me.

Seth Adam Smith 1:59

Well, give our listeners, our viewers, uh a bit of background on yourself. What's your story and what got you into storytelling?

Emma C. Fox 2:10

So I did grow up surrounded by stories. Um, Savannah, Georgia was a wonderful place to grow up. Uh, it was founded in the early 1700s. Um, and so there's lots of history there. It's also known as the most haunted city in the south. There are ghost tours every night downtown, um, lots of legends around the city. Um, and I grew up in a home where both my parents read um to me and my siblings regularly, um, loved to travel, uh, took us all over the place. And I was a voracious reader, especially of fairy tales and folklore. I just devoured everything I could find in the library. There wasn't a lot at that time um when I was growing up that was specifically considered um young adult, but I read fairy tales from all over the world. And then over in the adult section, as much fantasy as I could get my hands on. So those are two of my loves. But um, I also love history. My master's degree is in art history. I love learning the stories behind um famous and not so famous artworks throughout time and how they were connected to their places. So kind of blending that that love of research and history with a love of fantastical worlds uh was how I got my start in storytelling.

Seth Adam Smith 3:29

I love that. I love that. I love I love ghost stories. I love history in general, but ghost stories when they're kind of mixed with history, there's something that happened, you kind of have to unravel the mystery. I don't like a I don't like a scary story for the sake of a scary story. I like a scary story with a mystery attached to it, and there is a ton. You're right, it's it's just drenched in history down in the south. I love that. Um every um journey has something like a an inciting incident, like a moment that feels like a call to action or adventure. Was there a moment um in your life or maybe a story or an author that really pulled you into the world of of storytelling?

Emma C. Fox 4:15

Yes, there was absolutely an inciting incident. Okay when I was seven, my family had just moved to Savannah and my dad was setting up the bookshelf, and I found this book called The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Um, and that moment is just engraved in my mind. There's like this aura of light around the book. It was like the old 1970s version of The Hobbit, you know, where um it was Tolkien's end design on the cover, yellowed pages, but like in my memory, that moment is just like, oh because that was my that was my first like real fantasy beyond um just picture books. And I devoured the Hobbit. I read it again and again and again, and of course, right after the Hobbit, it was The Lord of the Rings. So really big, thick books for an eight-year-old to be reading, but I loved being transported to uh another world completely.

Seth Adam Smith 5:11

That's funny because I remember I I grew up uh first 10 years of my life, I was in Alaska. Um, and I remember watching the the cartoon, The Hobbit, the 1970s version, the really bizarre one, you know, but it's endearing now because I don't know, you nostalgic. But I remember watching that, I had no idea. I was so dumb. I had no idea it was a book until I think I was in high school. I was like, wait, what? This this was based out of this crazy cartoon was based on a book, and you know, then they released the Lord of the Rings movies, and it just it it's it's incredible the world that was constructed by by Tolkien, and also the one that really got me into uh stories with C. S. Lewis was just those those worlds that just pull you right. It's like going into the wardrobe in a sense, you go into something and you absolutely.

Emma C. Fox 6:07

I I read my my sister had a copy of the Chronicles of Narnia, but I read her copies so many times that they started falling apart. Um, so my mom just got her another set and gave me the old tattered ones, which I still have.

Seth Adam Smith 6:21

That's awesome. Well, um, I I sort of loosely structure these these interviews around the the idea of the hero's journey, which is Joseph Campbell, that everyone is on some some sort of a journey, and it it kind of shows this circular emotion of a of a journey where you're you're called from home and you go out and you meet friends and allies and you go through this abyss, this really trying time, and you come back home with uh a story of your own. And um, and for writers, I've noticed that they intentionally or unintentionally they're following that that journey as they write their own story. And the call to action is there's there's a story that just grips them that they feel like they are called to write, to create and and to put out into the world. And the process of writing that story and publishing it, coming home with a published story is a difficult journey. What was the story that that called to you personally to to create?

Emma C. Fox 7:22

Well, I've been I wrote a lot as a kid. Like I started writing when I was four. Um, I didn't even know how to spell words. Apparently, I would follow my mom around the house and be like, ask her to spell out one word at a time, one letter at a time. You know, how do you spell boat? B-O-A-T. Okay, got it. Um so so as a kid, I was writing all the time. Um, but then you know, I got in high school, I got busy, I was in college and grad school, I became a parent. Um, I was a music teacher for many years. So that love of writing had kind of was tucked away a bit. Um I was doing more academic writing. Uh 2014, um, I had a crazy dream that became the inspiration for my first novel, The Arrow in the Crown. Um, none of my other books have started with dreams, but that one did. Um, and it was the story that I just had to get down and writing. Um, I was at a time when uh I was needing to set aside my career as a music teacher um because I had two kids and one on the way. And uh my oldest has special needs. We had just decided to homeschool him. So I really needed something more flexible. Um, and it was time to rediscover that love of writing. And um, that dream just opened up a gateway um into something that was so wonderful. So I guess that was my inciting incident.

Seth Adam Smith 8:48

Oh, a dream. A dream is an amazing, exciting incident. I had a dream about uh my first novel that it didn't sell very well at all. It was a total failure, but um it I I'm not gonna get into it, but it's because of doing that, it opened up so many other doors for me. I so you you've already piqued my interest. Um, I I don't want to, I don't want to ask if it's too personal, but you know, what was what was the dream and what was the what's the story of the arrow and the crown?

Emma C. Fox 9:18

Uh sure, that the dream was pretty simple. There was um, I was in a dark forest. I came upon a clearing uh with a thatch roof cottage. Uh, there was a man sitting in front of the cottage holding a wounded fawn in his arms and bandaging it, um, bandaging the fawn's leg. And behind this man was this dark shadow, like this impenetrable darkness. Um, and his eyes were the saddest eyes I'd ever seen. So in the dream, I started asking him questions, like trying to figure out what was going on. How did he get here? What's his story? And when I woke up, that image just stayed with me. And I kept asking questions. Um, so that led into the story of the arrow and the crown. It is loosely inspired by um the fairy tale of beauty and the beast. So I say it has echoes of that, although um, in many ways it it has some quite different twist as well. It's set in medieval Germany. Um, and I had recently traveled through southern Germany um with my husband. And so it's based that is based on a lot of very real places. Um, it kind of feels like if uh if C.S. Lewis sat down with the brothers Grimm and they came up with a story together.

Seth Adam Smith 10:35

I like that.

Emma C. Fox 10:36

Yeah. Um, it's set in what's basically 10th century southern Germany, which of course wasn't Germany at the time. Um, it was Schwabia. Um and in the story, there's a a young girl, Anna, who lives at the edge of an enchanted forest. Um, her parents, she has no memory of them, they disappeared into that forest and were never heard of again. Um, and in the for forest lurks this beast who has taken the lives of peasants and knights and the king's son. He has um been pretty quiet for the last seven years, but things are ramping up again. Um, when Anna's home is attacked by the beast and uh he drives her horse into the forest. She loves this horse. She's taken care of it since it was a cult. So she braves her fears to go in after the beast and confront him. But what she finds in the forest challenges everything she thought she knew about the beast and about herself.

Seth Adam Smith 11:36

Wow. Wow. I mean, again, it's it's speaking to me already just because uh it starts with a dream and then you said C. S. Lewis sitting down with the brothers Grimm. I like the fairy tale aspect of the story that I had written. C. S. Lewis was just a major inspiration to that. And I think I think the process of writing that book prepared me more than anything to become a foster parent, um, which is way more valuable to me than if the book sold or not. And um was just really grateful for that. I was grateful for kind of that C. S. Lewis in uh something that's much more meaningful than you know, just an entertaining story. There's a little bit more depth to it. Did you feel like as you were writing your story, you were either intentionally putting some meaning into it, or that meaning was being revealed to you as you were writing, because this was a a dream you had had. I assume there was some interplay between you know what you're adding to it, but also what you're learning from it.

Emma C. Fox 12:43

Um, I mean, when I write, it often feels more like a discovery. Um I I don't like books that start off like trying to like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you this message, readers. I'm gonna shove it down your throat. Um it's more so far, all my stories have started with um with characters and um maybe an initial fairy tale inspiration, a story that I love that I want to go deeper. I I want to explore it deeper and probe it. Um and I I do literally like ask my characters questions, like, why are you doing this? And who are you? And um often I'll have I'll have some sense of where the story's going. I do like to plot. Um, I like to, I like the hero's journey a lot. Um, and try to map that out loosely when I write, but so much of it does feel like I'm discovering new things along the way and characters will come in that I didn't expect, which is always so fun.

Seth Adam Smith 13:44

Um, the the book, your the book that's yours that caught my attention was The Carver and the Queen. And there's two reasons for it. One is that um, as we discussed before the interview started, um, several of we had this kind of the same author friends, and they were posting um one of your latest books coming out, and then I was looking at all your other books, and I saw it what looked like Russian folk art. Like I had recognized that I I had spent maybe a year and a half in Russia, and I I just love Russian culture and history and um Russian people, even though they're very grumpy, I do really like them. And so I was instantly drawn in to The Carver and the Queen, and then your your other book that's coming out. But uh tell our readers about The Carver and the Queen. What was the inspiration behind that book? And then what's sort of the idea of the story?

Emma C. Fox 14:42

Yeah, great. Um, so I told you how as a kid I would read stories from all over the world. Um, and one of my favorite books, it's really hard to find in America, um, but it's Pavel Bajov's stories. Um, the Malachite Box. Um, it's a collection of folk tales that he rewrote that he had heard as a boy growing up in a small Siberian mining community. Um, they're in the Ural Mountains, kind of that south far southwest corner of Siberia. Um, I love these tales. And when I was first uh trying to get Arrow in the Crown published, one thing that I was hearing from agents is that um this setting felt a little bit more familiar. Um, it was a little harder to try to find a place for it in the market, um, even though I think I've got some good twists in it that are unique. Um, you know, it's medieval Germany. There are plenty of fairy tale retellings that are that kind of feel a bit um like that. But nobody was retelling Siberian folklore. Uh so I I wanted to, I wanted to be that person. I loved these stories. I wanted to bring them to a wider audience, um, and I wanted to give them to explore them more with a novel's depth. So the Carver and the Queen is the first in a proposed trilogy. Um, got a three-book contract with my publisher that is based on Russian and then, of course, specifically the Siberian folk tales um of Bajov. So Carver and the Queen is combining several of those folk tales and then giving my own spin on it. Um, it's a story of Peter and Lena. They are serfs living in 1815, Russia. Uh, they both long to be carvers of malachite, which is this beautiful green stone um that is found in the Ural Mountains. And uh their idea is that if they can craft the most beautiful Malachite vase that anyone has ever seen, uh, they can earn the 400 rubles uh that it will cost for them to be able to buy their freedom. Their plants fall to pieces. Um, and so Peter makes a deal with the Malachite queen who rules this fantastical underworld beneath the mountains. He ends up trapped in her kingdom. And it's up to Lena to try to find a way and a possible way to break into the mountains and rescue him before he's lost for eternity in this kingdom of stone.

Seth Adam Smith 17:27

So, did you have to do a lot of uh research or or did this really just stem from what you had already known and understood and appreciated about some of the folk talk folk tales you had already read?

Emma C. Fox 17:40

Lots of research. Um thankfully I love research. Um, but I write I write historical fantasy. Um, and so although I'm weaving in these elements of of folklore and magic that are drawn from that place, um, I really want my stories to feel like they're rooted in in an actual place and time. And I want the details to be as accurate as I can. So I want to know what kind of fish are living in the pond there and exactly what kind of clothes the characters are wearing, how those clothes were made, what they would or would not be eating. Um, potatoes weren't really being grown in Russia in the in 1815. That didn't really come about until the 1840s.

Seth Adam Smith 18:24

Wow.

Emma C. Fox 18:24

Um so, like some things that you might think of as like part of their diet or um culinary culture weren't there yet. Um so yes, I tried to do my research as thoroughly as I could, um, although I have not had the pleasure of of traveling to this corner of the Urals myself. Um, I have I've tried to read both uh works from that time period, um, from travelers, surf narratives, the few surf narratives that have survived, um, and then also from modern day travelers. And they're they're wonderful things like TripAdvisor.

Seth Adam Smith 19:04

So the diet was probably what beets and cabbage, I would assume. I mean, that was that's what I remember.

Emma C. Fox 19:10

Yeah, sure. Like a uh drinking glass, um and and lots of kasha. The buckwheat porridge uh was a staple.

Seth Adam Smith 19:19

Buckwheat was more I've got I've got um we call it Gretchka. It's that's what it's called. Buckwheat. It was Gretchka Kasha porridge, but I've got it upstairs. Oh great, you too. You do it. That's so weird. I mean, um, you know, there's not a lot of people in America who share a love of of Russia.

Emma C. Fox 19:36

Well, part of my the fun part of my research was like trying to make these recipes for my for my family, like figure out different ways to cook kasha. And um, there's a a Russian grocery store, it's like five hours away from me. Um but I bought a bunch of stuff and tried to chat with my very, very poor Russian um with the family that ran ran it, and um, yeah, got a lot of good stuff and tried to make it at home.

Seth Adam Smith 20:06

Oh, that's commitment. I mean, there's a in some ways, there's a reason why we don't have Russian fast food restaurants everywhere. I mean, the food's a little bland, but there's I borsche. I mean, there is I'm I love a good borsche on a on a rainy day with the sour cream and stuff. I mean, I remember that, and the the Russian babushkas who would give you when you when they do let you in, Russians are very much like coconuts and Americans are like peaches. Americans act really soft and sweet a lot of the times, but there's something hard inside that they're hiding, and and Russians act very hard on the outside, really, really stony. But once they let you in, they will not let you go. They love you, and so once you get in, they're so kind and so gregarious, um, and they'll feed you endlessly, and even if the food's not particularly good, but um, but I do love a good uh good borsche. That's commitment for you to be cooking food and learning it and serving it to your family. That's a lot of commitment. Oh, it's so fun too. Uh and it's a three-book deal, is it? Right. Is it um is that are they all connected or are they just in the same world? How does that work?

Emma C. Fox 21:17

Uh it traces this family across three generations. Um, so the first book is set in 1815. It I say three generations, but loosely. Um, the second book, Heart of Stone, is set in 1840. And the next book is going to be set in 1860. Uh, so I get to explore slightly different time periods. Um they're all like drawing on that same folk similar folklore. Um, but they they travel different places too. So the Carver and the Queen is set just right there on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains. Heart of Stone, the next book. Uh, my characters travel westward to St. Petersburg. Um And then the third book, they will travel eastward across Siberia um to Lake Baikal. So I mean Russia is a vast country, as you know. Um and I wanted to get a little bit of the scope of that uh within this trilogy.

Seth Adam Smith 22:14

Yeah, I lived in Vladivostok um in a couple of cities around. So it's like the furthest uh east you could go, kind of close to Alaska. And um, and they would all say, like, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here, you should be over in Moscow or St. Petersburg. That's where all the kids go. And but I loved I loved the wilderness um of Russia, where it was I I did go to Moscow for a little bit, but that's kind of they consider that whole area. Anything anything, anything east of the is it east of the Ural Mountains? East of the Urals, Siberia, basically. Um, so like when Stalin would send his prisoners, he'd send them out to Siberia. And so it was always the sense was always that this is where the rejects go over in Siberia. That's what they would all say. That they're like, this is where all the prisoners, this is where all the losers go. All the best people, they say, go over west. I never felt that way, but that's how they would communicate it. And but I so I love it. I love that you're talking about Siberia, a place that I I really fell in love with. That's wonderful.

Emma C. Fox 23:17

And of course, I mean, Siberia itself is so vast, and there's so many different like cultural groups within Siberia.

Seth Adam Smith 23:24

Um, so there's so much more to explore, and I feel like I I'm just scratching a little bit of the surface, but the way that I was introduced to you was basically one of our author friends had had posted Heart of Stone, the cover reveal for Heart of Stone. Um, and and you had already talked a little bit about that, but what was the idea that was driving that story?

Emma C. Fox 23:45

Heart of Stone is pulling on an additional three, kind of four of Bajov's tales. Um, it also has some Anastasia vibes, um, even though it's set obviously like 1840. This is long before the Russian Revolution. Um, but I wanted to take my characters to St. Petersburg. Um, and Bajov has a story where um there's a character who does that. Um, so this is this is not the actual cover, this is an early mock-up, but it gives you a little bit of the idea. Um Heart of Stone once again is told in dual perspective, a guy and girl. Um, and Heart of Stone, the main female character, Lilia, uh, is struggling to provide for her family after her father's death. She meets an old beggar woman who promises to um teach her the secrets of the mountain. Um, and she ends up going to that same underground kingdom. So, this area of Siberia that I'm writing about has this tremendously wonderful folklore um because it is like a place that they've been mining for years and the mountains are very much a part of their life. Um, they have this whole story of this Malachite queen and her family who rule this underground realm. Um, so I was pulling on that again. But in this this story, um, Lilia, the main character, she gets all wrapped up um in the lives of these immortals and their plot to take over the Tsar's throne. And she's whisked away to Petersburg um because she realizes that if she doesn't comply, um, they're gonna kill everyone she loves. Her best friend Dimitri isn't about to just let Lilia destroy herself um because she is being she's being eaten away from the inside by this dark magic. Um, so he travels on an impossible wintry journey um to try to rescue her all the way to Petersburg. And um yeah, so that's a I'd say the thought it's a story of persevering love, like a love that just won't give up.

Seth Adam Smith 26:02

What message or themes sort of keep cropping up for you um at the heart of your stories? What what themes keep repeating um you keep rediscovering as you're writing?

Emma C. Fox 26:16

All the stories I've written um have to do with with sacrificial love, um a love that will give of itself um to the bitter end. But usually I I kind of don't exactly know like what you were saying, like that that core meaning of the story. It kind of does reveal itself as it goes along. Um, Arrow in the Crown is a lot about um the lies that we are told and the lies that we tell ourselves and the truth that sets us free. Um, because both of my main characters um are believing what turn out to be a lot of lies about themselves that have shaped who they have become. Um, Carver and the Queen, um, that feels personal because um Peter, especially the the main guy character, he is an artist. And like every artist and every author that I know, um, he has these beautiful visions that he longs to make into reality. And yet, like his carvings can never approach the vision that he has. Like he always feels subpar, um, like he's never enough. Um it is a story of well, uh it's a story of homecoming, um of being loved for who you are and realizing that nobody's perfect and you don't have to be. Um you don't have to be perfect to be loved or to to love. And then Heart of Stone. Um it kind of in some ways it felt also like a double beauty in the beast story, um, because my main guy character, Dimitri, he wanted to be a stone carver and follow. Um, he's the son of Peter and Lena. That's not too big of a spoiler. Um he wanted to follow in his parents' footsteps, but a childhood accident um left his hands crushed and mangled. Um, he cannot carve the Malachite uh like he longs to do. So he's trying to find his place in the world. Um and then Lilia is trapped um within the plots of these uh immortals and is becoming someone she doesn't want to be. Um she's becoming a monster from the inside out, and they both need each other. Um they both they both need to again learn the truth that will will set them free and to being willing to give them themselves even to to death.

Seth Adam Smith 28:49

One of the things I've really enjoyed about talking to authors is that as they go on this literal journey to create a book, they come away with something. Um it it teaches them something about life, or just a new appreciation for things, or maybe a a deeper understanding of creating art. Just there's something, there's a lesson that they that they bring home. Um what is uh what is something meaningful that this writer's journey, this literal journey has has brought to you in your own life?

Emma C. Fox 29:23

It has helped me pay closer attention to the world around me, um, to see that everyone has a story, um, to want to have more patience um and kindness to listen to others' stories, to find the stories in my own life, um, and then to encourage others who are embarking on the journey of storytelling. So I teach a lot of workshops for tween and teen writers um through my local library. And I do I speak to Girl Scout groups and home school co-ops and all. Um, when I was growing up, I did not know a single author. Um, I felt like authors were just, I don't know, on a separate plane. They lived in another world. Um so it's pretty wonderful um to get to be a friend to these young writers, um, for them to see that authors are real people um who struggle too, you know, the books that we see on the library shelves, that's not how the book started out. Um, there were many, many drafts and many tears that led to that point. Um, so I love being able to give young writers some of the tools that I wish I would have had um when I was growing up and writing stories. And then also hopefully just the courage to keep at it, um, the inspiration that you you can do this. Like authors are not superhumans, they're real people. Um, you just have to have a lot of stick toitiveness, um, but you'll get there.

Seth Adam Smith 31:02

Yeah, and that's was going to be my follow-up question is what what advice would you give to aspiring authors who are struggling to get their own stories either written or published? Because so many people that I, you know, that are following this show are authors who are trying to either write their story or get it published. So, what would you say to those who are in the thick of it right now?

Emma C. Fox 31:28

Keep learning about your craft. Um, I've been really encouraged by going to uh writers' conferences over the years. Um, I'm a member of the SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Um, also a wonderful group of authors called the Habit Membership. It's uh led by Jonathan Rogers and is kind of adjacent to the Rabbit Room group out of Nashville. Um, so it is very helpful to get to know other authors. Like I said, I didn't know anybody when I was starting out, even as an adult. Um, so finding a community of other authors who are in the same trenches is very helpful. Um, sticking with it. And then Disney doesn't always have the best life advice, but one thing that they got really right and frozen too was when Ana says to do the next right thing. Um, I think about that a lot when I'm writing, just like, what's the next right thing? What's the next step? Um, you can't make everything happen. Like you can't just make a fairy godmother agent magically appear and want to sign your book. Um, but you can take the next steps in developing your craft um and keeping at it uh with those story ideas. And so many of my author friends, you know, they will tell you like it took about 10 years on average. If I I know many, many authors now. And it seems like most of them, it has been about a 10-year average before they really kind of got settled into their their writing space, I guess you could say, um, where they were, I guess, quote unquote, making it. Um, although that that varies so much from person to person.

Seth Adam Smith 33:13

I've never felt happier or more fulfilled than when I started connecting with authors to do this, because I was like, for years I thought how the way my mind works, I was just it was just me. But then now I'm talking to other authors and I'm like, oh, you you do that too? You're you're writing scenes in the middle of the car, like you're in your doing voices for characters and kind of figuring out dialogue and stuff, and they're like, Yeah, that's isn't that normal? And I'm like, I never felt like that was normal. So that's I that is great, like finding a community. My wife and I went on our honeymoon, we went to um the UK, and we're both we're both nerds, we're both history nerds, and one of the places we stopped was um oh, the Eagle and Child, yes, um, where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and their other friends they would meet and talk about stories and just think about the brain trust about what that did to create such great stories. So, yeah, I I fundamentally like finding your people, finding a community of people to talk to and work out good stories is critical. So I named this podcast a literal journey because I've seen how a person's entire life, their entire literal journey can change for for better or for worse, based upon whatever story they believe about themselves. And my goal is to help people believe in good stories, uh, to find a story that inspires them to move forward. Uh, and to that end, I mean, it sounds like you've read a lot of of great stories in your study of history and folklore. But what is a story? It could be fiction, nonfiction, personal, or otherwise, but but what is a story that inspires you to move forward?

Emma C. Fox 35:02

Um, well, Tolkien talks about how the Bible is the the great true myth. Um, I'm a Christian, and like I do like that story is found fundamental to me of a creator who loved his creation so much that he didn't abandon it to the curse of of sin, but gave his life to ransom um his creation and make it beautiful again. Um, and then just echoing that, I I do think that um the fairy tales and folklore of cultures around the world um often so beautifully get at uh the triumph of light over darkness, of truth over lies, um in a beautiful way and in so many different facets. So I just want to keep exploring that in my own stories. Um, I love the way that historical fantasy can uh showcase the the wonder and beauty of of our real world. Um I have been, like I said, very much inspired by by Tolkien and Lewis. Um Robin McKinley is a wonderful um author who's written um many fairy tale retellings and other fantasies. She's won the Newberry uh for a couple of her works, and uh she continues to inspire me too with just the the lush richness and depth of her writing.

Seth Adam Smith 36:26

I love that. I I love that. I I I think you know, as soon as I saw Caroline Le Laglu, uh Summer Rachel Short, there's a couple of the authors that follow you. I'm like, oh I know, I I kind of I got I got a sense of like what this is gonna be, this interview. I love I love it when authors are open about their faith. Um, because it adds just this other layer of of meaning, of inspirational meaning to a story. And I don't know, I'm I'm very appreciative of that. I'm very, very appreciative of that. And I'm and I'm grateful that you have been open about that. Um where can people find you and support your work and and and learn more about what you're doing? Keep up to date.

Emma C. Fox 37:09

Sure. Um, I'm active on Instagram. You can find me at Emma Foxbooks, uh, less active on Facebook, but uh you can find me there too at Emma Fox Author. Um I have a website, Emma Foxauthor.com, and a substack where I write a monthly newsletter. It's called Hereath House. Hereith is a Welsh word for a longing for home. Um, and in that letter, you'll not only be able to keep up with uh what's happening, um, what author events, places that you can hear or find me, uh, what's happening with my books, but also I just try to write them as letters of encouragement to you wherever you are along your journey. Um, just a moment of beauty and encouragement in your day. Uh, you can also find me on my publishers website. I'm with a small press called Alzness Publishers that specializes in books for middle grade and teen readers. So look me up there at Alsness Publishers.com.