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CTP (S3EOctSpecial10) Two Girls, A Living Flame, And A Vanishing Class

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics • Season 3

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CTP (S3EOctSpecial10) Two Girls, A Living Flame, And A Vanishing Class
[BOOKS / AUTHORS Weeks - Week 2 sub-episode 3 (Wed. 20251022)]
We sit down with Edward Willett to explore Fireboy, a middle grade fantasy where a missing class and a living flame push two friends into a high-stakes search. We dig into craft, setting choices that age well, and the realities of publishing when costs keep climbing.
• Fireboy’s hook and elemental mystery
• Two girls leading the search for classmates
• Using fictional towns to avoid dated details
• Balancing realism with fantasy for immersion
• Why place can help but also distract
• Writing across middle grade, YA, and adult
• The economics of small presses and rising costs
• Debunking the get-rich-quick author myth
• Sustainable podcasting and creative cadence
• Where to find Edward’s books, press, and podcast ShadowPawPress.com

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Institutionalist Politics Podcast, aka C T P. I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. C T P is your no must, no fuss, just me, you, and occasional guest type podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show. Hello everyone. Welcome to Books, Authors, Weeks. October of 2025. I had Health Weeks in February 2025. I had a Music Weeks, three of those in the month of March 2025. So here we are, October. I have a lot of fellow authors. I had the chance to have discussions with, though. Books, authors, weeks, October 25. Without further ado, let's head into a discussion with a fellow author. Welcome to Institutionalist Politics Podcast, aka C T P. I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D. C T P is your no must, no fuss, just me, you, and occasional guest type pot. Really appreciate you tuning in. Let's get on with the show. Welcome to the show, Edward Willett. How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm great. How are you? Well, except for that I was just saying I broke my ankle, so that's not so great, but that was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and we got our sound issues worked out a little behind the scenes there for people. We had some sound issues, but hey, we're okay now.

SPEAKER_00:

Fortunately, your vast staff of uh producers was able to solve that problem.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, my back in the sound room, you know. Yeah, yeah. I I believe me, I wish I had a staff. I wish I had the income to afford a staff. Let me put it that way. At any rate, all right, Edward Willett. Where were you born? Where were you raised? Where are you now? How much time did you spend in prison for what? I was actually he's he's laughing for the benefit of the transcript. That's a joke, people. He's laughing. He got the joke. Go on, Ed.

SPEAKER_00:

I was actually born in uh Silver City, New Mexico, uh not far from the border down there. Uh, but I didn't, we were actually living in a little town called Baird, but I don't remember it very well at all, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

You grin and baird it, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, exactly. My dad was a preacher there, so we moved to Texas after that. And I started school in a little town called, well, we lived in Lubbock first. I took kindergarten there, and we went to a little town called Tulio, which is about 50 miles south of Amarillo, where my dad was teaching and working with the church there. And I started school there, but when I was seven years old, my dad got offered a job up here in Saskatchewan, in Canada, at Western Christian College, which was then in Weyburn. And uh he brought us up here in 1967, and I've been in Saskatchewan ever since. But I live now in Regina, which is the capital city.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. And for those behind the scenes, yes, second week in a row, a or second show in a row, I should say. These may air on a Tuesday and a Thursday. Second show in a row, a Mickey Mickelson client who's up in Canucostan land. So yeah, back-to-back Canucostanians.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm a dual citizen, so I'm both an American and a Canadian. So there you go. Two for the price of one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, like the search commercial, right? Two, two, two minutes in one, right? I'm glad I you my silliness led to actual something of value. So at any rate, uh on the notes, holding it up for behind the scenes video, people could see the Fireboy cover there. It says, though, I can't wait for readers to meet Sam, the narrator and main character in Fireboy, says Woolett. She was so much fun to write. I hope readers enjoy getting to know her and accompanying her on the adventures as much as I did. Elsewhere, it also says a lot about where did I see that? About it's about two young girls, or is it three young girls?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh two young girls are trying to figure out what happened to their classmates. So they're the main characters.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah. There's there was a recent movie about kids disappearing.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, I know. I I saw that. I haven't watched it, but Warriors, it's called. And I saw that. And I did I did say, oh, that's there's a certain similarity there, but not really.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I no, we're gonna say they stole it from you. But at anyway, uh, consider me dumb. Well, not dumb, but confused. The title is fire boy, but it's about two girls. Is this a trans allegory or what's going on with the title?

SPEAKER_00:

The premise is that when it it actually starts with uh I knew I knew things were getting weird when I saw my best friend's face in the campfire. I didn't realize how weird until the campfire followed me home. That's the opening of Fireboy. Because what has happened is that they're her she's going into grade eight, she's 13 years old. Her grade seven science class disappeared the previous year very mysteriously. They were on a field trip and she was had food poisoning and didn't go. And their bus was found with nobody in it except for one girl who was unconscious in the back under a bunch of camping equipment, and the teacher who was the driver, all the kids just disappeared, nobody has a clue what happened to them. So, you know, that's kind of freaked her out.

SPEAKER_01:

And her best friend Lorenzo needed to start with spoiler alert, right?

SPEAKER_00:

That's not a spoiler. You find all that out in like the first couple of paragraphs. Oh and Lorenzo, who is her best friend, is the one whose face shows up in the fire, and then he shows up again down by her house, and he is he's now a boy mate out of fire, fireboy. And he she has to track down the girl who was unconscious in the back, not somebody she knows very well, Meg, and then the two of them join forces to try to figure out what happened to their classmates.

SPEAKER_01:

And okay, another thing comes to mind based on the title, Fireboy, right? No relation, correlation, no similarity to Firestarter.

SPEAKER_00:

No, none whatsoever. It's actually the backstory is uh well, Fireboy, it's an elemental thing, is what's going on. So you've got the kids are being turned into elementals, water, earth, fire, and uh wind.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, all right. I fear we're giving too many spoilers now. It's still not that much of a spoiler, but that's a little bit you still need to buy and read the book to figure out how all that's happening and why all that's happening. I I joked at two Kanuckistanians in a row here. I had JM Shaw on. I'm assuming these shows will air back to back. I had JM Shaw, who's also a Mickey Mickleston client, also uh living up in the Calgary, Alberta area. And she mentioned BC, British Columbia. Like people in the South are like, what? Where? Who are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00:

But I went to University in Arkansas, so I know all about explaining Canada to people in the South.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I'm in Detroit. You know, it's Windsor, Ontario, Canada. I can literally throw a stone and hit somebody in the head over there with it. So uh, so I I well understand, but yeah, as you know, yeah, in the South, you kind of gotta explain it. Where was I going with that? JM Shaw. She writes fantasy, though. Sometimes if you like in a book, I'm placing it in Detroit, and people might get distracted by it. Oh, did he get that right about Detroit? Did he get right? Yeah, or did something about Detroit change since he wrote the book? Or it can be distracting, though a fantasy allows her in a way to get the moral of her story across, if I could talk. It just always happens. I hit recording the brain and the mouth don't want to cooperate. But on the other hand, who oh, a dragon that might be distracting to some and miss the point of the story. Uh wait what is the setting, the the location of your story?

SPEAKER_00:

It's set in the foothills of Alberta, actually. Not it would be close to Calgary, probably, but in a fictional town, an entirely fictional town. Uh, and in fact, the first version of it it was set in Montana because I was looking for a U.S. publisher, but then I ended up uh publishing it through my publishing company, Shadow Pot Press. And I decided, well, now that I'm very much a Canadian publisher, I would set it in Canada. And uh so that but it's in a fictional town, so it doesn't really matter except that it's in the foothills of the mountains.

SPEAKER_01:

It could be the foothills of the Appalachians in the States, so it could have been set there, yes. Yeah, I mean, uh ignore the country, just take in the setting now. The foothills of mountains in France or Germany. So this canon should sell anywhere, yes?

SPEAKER_00:

I think when it was set in the Montana, I referenced Helena at one point. But then uh, once it was set in in Alberta, I think I referenced Calgary.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, you it would get confusing if you're oh Canada and you're mentioning Mount St. Helens.

SPEAKER_00:

I had to I had to check a few things there to make sure that I made everything, make the transition over to the new setting. But it doesn't change the story when iota.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And that's the of the point here. The important most books, the moral of the story isn't generally, usually unless otherwise tied to the location, and that's why like JM Shaw writes fantasy locations. It doesn't exist anywhere, really. And that's my point. Like I'm wearing the Book of Kennedy shirt, takes place technically, she's in the Detroit suburbs. Well, nothing to do with Detroit, the moral of the story. Perfectly fine for Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Althor, or Saskatchewan, or France, or England, or Germany, or Spain, or Italy. Same true with your story, yes?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely. The story is what matters in this case. I mean, I have written stories that are very specifically set in places, and it can cause problems. I have a whole YA series called The Shards of Excalibur, which takes place largely in real places, and but it came out it's over, it's about 10 years old now, and it's looking dated because some of the places I reference. In fact, we were driving to Saskatoon yesterday. There's a place in a little town called Chamberlain called Bennett's Gas, and I have a scene set in Bennett's Gas in the second book in the series. It's not there anymore. Bennett's Gas is closed. It's not there anymore. They take the bus, the Saskatchewan government transportation bus. Well, that's been privatized and it doesn't exist anymore. So things get dated really quickly if you're really specific.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. The whole other reason maybe we should all switch to fantasy. It won't go away because it never existed.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, but it is fun, and this book is set in our world. It's just fantasy is real. I really do enjoy that sort of combining aspects of our world with the fantastical elements. That that is that is fun to do. And you think of things like the the uh Jim Butcher's James Butcher's stories, the Dresden Files, which are all set very much in a very real Chicago. And that is a lot of the fun. If you know Chicago is as he blows up various parts of the city.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and or also it's it can be an escape. Well, I if I'm from Detroit, I don't want to read a book about placed in Detroit. I want to read about Chicago or Saskatoon or wherever to get my head out of my locality, yes?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, that's certainly one of the functions I've always found in reading is to explore new places. So yeah, whether they're real or imagined.

SPEAKER_01:

Travel. Like I'm on disability now. Uh I haven't been out of the state of Michigan since 2006 when I last visited Vegas. So the only way I travel is vicariously through books or movies now.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, now that I've got the broken ankle and I've been stuck in this condo for most of the last six weeks, I'm feeling feeling very much the same way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. All right, all right. You mentioned it a couple times, so gotta go there now. What did you do? How did you break it?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's funny because I was a nice change for the uh the doctors uh because it's not a sports injury, it's a choral injury. I was rehearsing with the uh University of Regina Chamber singers for a uh who I sang with in the late 90s and early 2000s, not as a student, I'm older than that, but as a uh community member. And they had a 50th anniversary concert, and we just finished the final concert. And if you know choral risers, they're like three steps up. I was on the second step, and then they had uh some plastic footstools that people have been standing on because we had too many people for the risers, and I stepped down onto one of those stools and it went and I went down and broke my arm.

SPEAKER_01:

Ah, well, I'm glad.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the concert, but they did dedicate it to me, so there was that. Oh I made an impression going, it's funny.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm glad I asked, I'm glad you cleared it up. Coral as in oh, we're singing, not chloral as in we're diving underwater.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh no, no. I'm about as far from that kind of coral as you can get living in Saskatchewan.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you could have been on a trip, but at any rate, you mentioned another book. We're talking about Fireboy by Edward Woolett. Are there books between Fireboy and the one you mentioned from 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I mean I'm I'm the author of if you count nonfiction as well. I'm the author of well over 60 books of one sort or another for readers of all ages.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you may have the record. I interviewed someone before that had 40, and I thought that was quite a few, but a lot of them are very small, like educational books.

SPEAKER_00:

They're not very big, but they are books and about 20 novels. So, yes, there's been a lot of books. Oh boy. The Shards of Excalibur. I guess, yeah. I uh my main publisher for years has been Daw Books in New York. So I have about 12 novels with him. Now they were sold and my re editor retired, so I've kind of lost my connection there. But yeah, I write uh adult science fiction and adult fantasy, and as well as young adult, and this is middle grade, I guess, the age of the character. And I had I've just finished a new adult novel, and I have a publisher interested in it, so I'm hoping that that might come out in the next year or so.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm glad you cleared that up. Some of them are smaller, and then 20 are actual fictional novels. And it's like my my The Book of Kennedy and another one. I I don't even have a cover or anything for a short story, A Lasting Legacy. This came out in August, that came out in September, and people might think, Whoa, that's pretty quick. Boy, you obviously threw those. No, no, they were both in the works for a while. Uh and they're both novelettes. Unlike my terror strikes that is 286 pages long, these are both, you know, in the hundred area, so it doesn't take as long to write, and more importantly, a smaller book, less cost. Yeah. Because I mean, the cost of everything, you know, after the Biden administration, the Biden inflation years, which caused a worldwide inflation, double-digit stagflation. I I know my disability budget is it wreaked havoc. My cost of living adjustments nowhere near kept up with the cost of the inflation of things. So people have less disposable income. It's going to take time for wages to go up more than the rate of inflation over the next four years, for people to get their disposable income levels back to afford books. So are you conscious of that at this point in time?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm very conscious because I run a traditional publishing company. So I'm like Fireboy, I was published through it, but I publish a lot of other authors, and I am a traditional publisher, which means I do have a hybrid side of things where sometimes authors will put the money in to help for the costs. But my main publishing Shadow Power Press is traditional, which means I bear all the costs up front.

SPEAKER_01:

And you've seen those costs go up. I have.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, even it's it's it's been a big very noticeable, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, even if you're just if for self-publishers going up and uploading through Amazon, the cost of the print side of the books is I've seen almost virtually doubled. So the either you raise the price of the book or you accept less of a royalty profit margin. For your side of it, it's your book publishing company profit side of it. Have you seen a pinch?

SPEAKER_00:

Profit and book publishing really doesn't go together. It's a labor of love, and I don't know how much more love I have left, but I'm glad you said that.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. I have a book, How to Write a Book and Get It Published, right? And in there I say, if your thought is this is a get rich quick scheme, boy, forget about it. Don't even that you're that's the wrong motivation. Now, if you're lucky, like a JK Rawl, who she wasn't really lucky, she knew people in the industry and whatnot, and they heavily promoted. So her becoming a multimillionaire is not a surprise.

SPEAKER_00:

But if you think, oh, I'm gonna be the next JK and be a millionaire, I hope that's it's worth remembering how many times she was rejected before Harry Potter got published. He was writing, you know, she was a poor single mom writing in coffee shops, and then Harry Potter took off. So that it can happen, but that's not the way to bet.

SPEAKER_01:

That's exactly my point. I hope for people to take, I hope for myself eventually to take off like that, but no, I'm not a millionaire, people, and neither is Edward.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I often say I remember years ago, because I'm I'm primarily a writer, a freelance writer. I've been a freelance writer since 1993. And I remember before I I quit my last real job and became a freelancer, reading somewhere that uh the deaf this was back in the 80s, probably the definition of a freelance writer was a man with a typewriter and a working wife. And my best, my best career move was marrying an engineer.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh something, uh a general notion, and oh, oh, oh, I like like the you're Mr. Mom, if for those who remember that movie, right? It's it's I had a friend who was that way, Fred. You know, they he got laid off, and but she had such a good job, they up and moved to Atlanta, and he just worked odd little part-time jobs, and she was the major breadwinner. There's nothing wrong in that if that's the case of somebody indeed, to your joke about freelancer, a working wife.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's you know, I I would have made a living as a freelancer, but I would have taken more jobs that I wasn't particularly interested in taking, and I would not have made the living to which I've become accustomed. I think that would be the other way to say that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Uh, I'm gonna go ahead and start to wrap it up. I call it today's Twitter attention span. The shorter, generally, the better, leave them wanting more so that they can go and find more. And indeed, where can they find more? You have a website?

SPEAKER_00:

I have everything you could ask. I the website is uh edwardwillet.com, is my main website. So it's my name, two T's on Willet. The publishing company is ShadowpawPress.com. And then on the social meet on the social medias, I'm on X at eWillet and Instagram at Edward Willet Author and Facebook at Edward.willet because I missed the memo about having the same handle on author.

SPEAKER_01:

And you you have a dot com as a post to Jennifer the other day. I if I'm recalling right, has a dot CA. Uh, you haven't become fully Kanuckian because you don't have a dot CA.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, but my publisher was Taw Books, and the, you know, I was I was a U.S. published author and primarily still am. So the dot com. I never even thought, I don't even know if CA was available when I got mine. It's I've had that website for a long, long time. Oh, yes, and I should also mention my podcast, which is The World Shapers, and that's at the WorldShapers.com and uh also on Twitter at the World Shapers and Facebook at the you're not allowed, you're a competition now though. I don't do it as often as you, though. I'm like every two weeks, so it fills up pretty quick.

SPEAKER_01:

I I always I I have a book called Podcasting Quick Start Guide, right? And I start off slow, build, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, if I don't want to build it, I'm happy at every two weeks.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay. I'm only Saturday monologues and generally a Wednesday guest, but I've been interviewing so many guests of late. I'm doing Tuesday, Thursday drops. So you can always grow and it looks good, but if you contract, then people, oh, he lost his audience. Why is he doing less? So it's all going more is okay. Going less, it becomes a problem.

SPEAKER_00:

It could pick up, but you know, I've been doing it for six years now. I'm only up to episode 200, so it's not a it's not cranking them out like some people do, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and also the way I do mine is uh I'm up to like 250 monologues, and my guest appearances during the week I call specials, monthly, weekly specials. So they don't even I could cheat if I wanted and call number all of them. I'd oh I'm up to 750. I'm not here to play those games, though. Obviously, neither are you, you're comfortable with what you're doing, and I'm glad I'm comfortable with what and how I'm doing it too. Likewise, I'm sure we'd love to go viral like a Joe Rogan, but you know sounds like a lot of pressure. That's true too, right? If you're you're a JK Rowling or a Joe Rogan, then yeah, there's a whole all right. Yeah, I don't want those pressures either. I'd like to sell more and have more listeners to my show, but yes, I don't want a million because then right, it's a problem. It's a it's it's new problem. Mo money, mo problems.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. Some happy medium in there would be good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yes. I'm I'm with you on that. All right. Well, thank you. I I've gone off the rails now here, but thank you, Edward Willett, for coming on. I appreciate it. All right, take care, God bless. Thank you. Bye. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in for Christitutionalist politics show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you. Available anywhere books are sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind: over time, the fancy high production items will come. But for now, for starters, it's just you as a very appreciated listener by me, all substance, no fluff, just straight to key discussion points, a show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian U.S. constitutional client. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care. God bless. There will be several different books, authors, several different authors, books, authors, weeks for October of 2025. And remember, you can check out my books at josephmleonard.us slash. And again, Joseph M. Leonard, it's French, it's French, it's not Lennard, it's Leonardo. And I have to put the middle initial in there because there is a Joseph Leonard, who is also a Christian author out of South Carolina. So I have to make that distinction. And going in line with books, author's weeks, I joke as yes on other shows. I am not he, he is not me, and neither of us will be confused for Shakespeare. And frankly, most writers out there are not going to be confused for Shakespeare. They're not trying to be. But hey, it's a new millennia, people. Right? This is the here and now. It isn't Shakespearean Renaissance area. If you're looking for Shakespeare, reread Shakespeare. Take care. God bless. Love you all. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist Politics Podcast and share episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in for Christitutionalist Politics Show. If you haven't already, please check out my primary internationally available book, Terror Strikes, coming soon to a city near you. Available anywhere books are sold. If you have locally run bookstores still near you, they can order it for you. And let me remind, over time, the fancy high production items will come. But for now, for starters, it's just you as a very appreciated listener by me, all substituents, no flaw, just straight to key discussion point, a show that looks at a variety of topics, mostly politics, through a Christian U.S. constitutional fund. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Take care. God bless.

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