Sean Esson’s childhood, filled with saving the world in epic video games and long days with friends establishing reasons they could use all their different toys at the same time, fueled his overactive imagination and built an unabashed love for telling stories, making it clear that being a writer was the only thing he wanted to do. He’s been chasing the dream ever since.

He currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

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Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

Oh man, it was not easy hahaha it took me … hmmm lemme think … The Flour Girl is the fifth title I actually stuck with for a period of time (past brainstorming list) I can remember, and it took four years to get to. Titles are so hard, but really, at it’s core, The Flour Girl is a crime fiction/murder mystery, and so I wanted to workshop a lot of titles that fit in that vein. The three words with an action verb was one I worked at but I never came upon anything that felt great … or even good haha. “Dead, Lost, and Dying” was definitely a low point in the brainstorming process lol. Like, what does that even mean? But there were some that would have been good but not great, like the first title was “Resurrection” and was the working title. And it fits the novel pretty well but isn’t punchy enough and also doesn’t really help convey the genre. Mysteries generally have the title that works as a double reference/entendre and so I finally worked in that direction and landed on The Flour Girl! Which felt good and fits that mold, because Amelia is a baker, so “flour,” but also, it evokes a feeling of innocence and tragedy because it sounds like “Flower Girl,” so that juxtaposition was really strong. It felt right and had strong ties to the novel and a good reception so that was when I finally felt settled on it!

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

It felt amazing! The cover process is always fun, because despite being creative, it is only with writing, so my brain just does not work at all in a visual medium like cover art. So, seeing what the artist comes up with is always one of my favorite parts, even though I know that I am probably a terrible commission/client haha. I give, like, no up-front guidance because my brain just doesn’t work like that. So, seeing what they envision from just telling them about the story and characters is always super exciting. And this cover is INCREDIBLE. There really isn’t anything else like it, and the layers as they worked on it and explained it to me was so fun and I think it just pops off the shelf. I could not be more pleased with it. And holding the book in my hands was such a surreal feeling. Like, to turn it, see Atmosphere Press on the spine, and know that this was believed in by Atmo and put out into the world was just … I mean that’s the dream, right? So, I definitely spent a few days just grabbing it and flipping the pages and reminding myself it was there hahaha.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

So, I don’t know exactly who or what made me want to write, but I’ve always wanted to do it since I was about twelve years old. Ten-year-old me wanted to be a marine biologist, cause sharks are awesome, and eleven-year-old me wanted to be a lawyer, because I don’t know why haha. But I loved telling stories and playing make believe, and I’ve always been a bit of a yapper (as you might be able to tell from these interview answers hahahaha) so it ended up being the perfect goal for me. That said, I can tell where a lot of my influences came from, which is always fun to look back on and think about.

When I was younger, my favorite author was T. A. Barron and his Lost Years of Merlin and Great Tree of Avalon series. As I got older, I started to move away from high fantasy and more toward mysteries and urban fantasy. My singular biggest influence, if I had to narrow it down, is Jim Butcher as an author holistically, and “The Dresden Files” as the most formative of his works. I could probably do five pages on the influence of Jim Butcher on me, but I think anyone who enjoys them and reads my book will see it and hopefully find it fulfilling the same part of their reading lives and comforts. And if you enjoyed The Flour Girl, please read The Dresden Files, they are the best of the best. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall is a favorite book of mine, and influenced me to have more fun and try to think outside the box as often as I could with all my stories (though never quite to the levels of that novel haha I love it).

But I also was influenced from a young age in other mediums. I’ve played video games since I can remember, maybe when I was five playing the Super NES and Super Mario World, so I had the Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda influences, etc. My favorite game of all time is Persona 3, which I first played in 2008 as a high-schooler, and that definitely had a large, noticeable influence on the types of stories I like to tell (urban fantasy) and the themes I like to explore—MementoMori is the core theme of that game, and it really focuses on life, death, and what makes a life worth living and having worth lived. Shoutout to my second favorite game of all time, Suikoden 5 which is an amazing war drama about power and corruption and the ties that bind the generations, and my third favorite game Chrono Cross, which is about identity and meditation on various parallel universes.

I also, once I hit like twelve or thirteen, really started to like non-standard mystery procedurals, where the leads weren’t just cops, and that clearly shows through in The Flour Girl, and also taught me a TON about mystery structure, pacing, and how to play by the rules. Castle with Nathan Fillion is still my favorite TV show of all time, and I can see the influence of that in my work in the voice of my characters and how I try to blend some light comedy into my stories, without compromising the emotional core. CSI obviously was a big one in my age bracket, same with NCIS. Prodigal Son was one of the best shows ever and I’m still mad about its cliffhanger cancellation haha. I also love the McGyver reboot from 2016 as a great romp with procedurals different from “solve this murder.” I also took a screenwriting class, which I think super helped with my pacing. And I have three older sisters with a love for Gilmore Girls, which 10000 percent helped my dialogue. If you want a free masterclass in dialogue, watch Gilmore Girls. (it’s also just a really good show haha I’m Team Jess).

And there is a medium that combines comics, games, and novels called visual novels that I read a lot of, as I think they are a good way to study a cross-section of screenplay and novel, as the visual/art underlaying every scene means you need to write differently, but they, along with digital CYOA stories called interactive fictions (IFs) also usually have different “routes,” and so seeing choice and how that can ripple through the same events can really help with story structure and experimentation during the draft stage, and its kind of thought process is something I do a lot of during my extensive outlining. In VNs, shout out to the Fate series, especially Fate Grand/Order and Fate Stay/Night by Kinoko Nasu (and whole writer’s room, for FGO) as a series that I adore and has a lot of themes that I like exploring, too—life, death, greed, humanity, heroes, and what it means to be good/do good even if someone isn’t good. And shout out to the IF writers out there; there are some INCREDIBLE writers out there releasing amazing work for free that’s crazy, like sometimes a chapter can be as long as the entirety of The Flour Girl, which is crazy awesome work. Some of my faves are Infamous, When Twilight Strikes, The Wayhaven Chronicles, and Apartment 502.

But if I had to boil it down to a base recipe or formula, if you take The Dresden Files and Castle and mix in a generous dose of Persona 3, you have my core formula. Like the original Coca-Cola recipe in a vault, that’s the formula written into my writing brain, and then supplemented by everything else.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

I sold commercial office furniture right out of college! I worked for a manufacturer and worked alongside authorized dealers all across the country before settling in Chicago for a few years. I always think day jobs for writers are fascinating, because I really do believe it was good for me. I had just gotten a B.F.A in creative writing from the University of Evansville, but I had five years where I wrote less than I had in years … but I experienced a lot of new things and people and I really think it was helpful for me. I travelled to places I had never been before—Las Vegas (which worked for my first novel), NYC in Christmas Time, Palm Springs, learned to surf in Huntington Beach, and all of those helped rejuvenate me so when I finally had the life circumstances to come back to writing. the pages flowed out of me—I finished my first manuscript in two weeks. I couldn’t keep that schedule up, but all those experiences made me a better writer, I truly believe. So, I would say, even if it seems like you are going the wrong way, if you are willing to be open to the experiences, be willing.

Things about me readers wouldn’t know, especially since I live in Cleveland and am open about that, is that I know how to surf! I love it, I think it’s so just … Relaxing isn’t quite the right word, maybe meditative? Out there in the water, trying to catch waves. If I lived closer to a surf beach, I would go all the time.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Oh, man, this is hard, and also is gonna come off as cheesy, but it was the feeling of relieved validation. I had been querying The Flour Girl for four years at the time Atmosphere picked it up, and the fact that someone believed in it, and “got it” and then helped make it the best it could be, and seeing that be justified for all of us when the book released was just … I mean it’s really hard to describe. Every writer has to be good with rejection, but still, after a bit, you start questioning everything, and so to have that happen was just so … yeah. It makes all the difference.

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

So, funnily enough, all my books technically have a soundtrack! I hate silence hahaha so I need to have something on when I write, so I make a bespoke playlist for every book as I write it. Sometimes it’s just songs I currently can’t get out of my head, others it’s just tried and true favorites that I know I can write to, and others are songs I associate with the story—sometimes it’s just the vibes of the song for whatever scene I’m working on, or the guitar riff or whatever; others, it’s the lyrics. And I keep adding songs to it the whole time I’m working on the manuscript! That said, in good faith, that’s not quite what this is asking, so, treating it like a major Hollywood movie or a classic TV show from the 2000s–early 2010s, here are songs that I think epitomize The Flour Girl (WARNING: it’s a lot of pop-punk. Yes, Mayday Parade is my favorite band, how could you tell?).

“Dead and Gone” – State Champs

“Last Young Renegade” – All Time Low

“Alone Together” – Fall Out Boy

“Live Oak” – Jason Isbell

“Welcome to the Black Parade” – My Chemical Romance

“Dirty Laundry” – All Time Low

“Pretty Good to Feel Something” – Mayday Parade

“By The Way” – Mayday Parade

“Golden Days” – Mayday Parade

“Think of You” – Mayday Parade

“Piece Of Your Heart” – Mayday Parade

“Ghosts” – Mayday Parade

“Oh Well, Oh Well” – Mayday Parade

“Bruised and Scarred” – Mayday Parade

“No Place Like Home” – Marianas Trench

“Wish You Were Here” – Neck Deep

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Hmmmmmmmmm … Well, first off, I hope that everyone who reads it enjoys it. The Flour Girl tackles some heady and heavy themes, but it is first and foremost, a book that I want people reading for enjoyment. To fall into the world and escape the (ever increasing) stresses and fears and lose themselves in something enjoyable for the time they have it. After that, sure, it’s a mystery, and I would love messages that were like, “I thought I figured it out, but it was different but I should have,” as that’s always the goal as a mystery writer. To give you all the pieces but still pull the trick. However, I really want the takeaway to be thematic. That who you were isn’t who you always have to be, and that it’s never too late to do good, and you must do good, and bad people can do good things, and the book wrestles with how to handle that. I don’t want to say that it will erase the past, but that shouldn’t stop someone from trying to be or do better, for themselves or others. And personally, the book was part of my attempt to wrestle with my not-thanatophobia-but-anxiety-about-death, and so if it could help others with that, all the better!

What creative projects are you currently working on?

So, I’m currently working on getting the audiobook for The Flour Girl, and building my social media presence, but aside from that, I have a few different projects up and moving! The next book with Atmosphere, it’s finished and should be on to editorial shortly here, if it’s not already, depending on when this appears haha. I’m working on the first draft of the sequel to The Flour Girl, the next Frankie Jones mystery; and then I’m brainstorming/workshopping a few different ideas, including a spy novel, a dark academia, and a very small-scale magical realism story (that I originally was going to do for my thesis but I went in a different direction). The juggling might seem odd, and it definitely won’t work for everyone, but I work on multiple concepts at once until I feel one is really honed and finished and then I will focus entirely on that one until the first draft is finished!

How was working with Atmosphere Press? What would you tell other writers who want to publish?

I really enjoyed my time working with Atmosphere! I already have another book in the works with them (not “Frankie Jones 2” … yet! Haha). I really enjoyed all the people I worked with; they are clearly passionate about the work they are doing and trying to prove that hybrid publishing is a valid path and should be valued as such. And what I absolutely have to call out is that I had an absolutely amazing time during editorial; it was a lot of fun and the editorial requests were smart, insightful, and really helped make The Flour Girl as strong as it could be, and definitely more than I could have on my own, which is always the goal. We worked in lockstep to make an incredible novel and release it, and I couldn’t be prouder and happier with it.

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