An Interview with Ynes Freeman

Ynes Freeman is an award-winning gothic fiction author, and she is the publisher at Memento Vivere Press. Her work is beautiful, intense, and deep. She believes writing is the secret to immortality and that authors live forever through their books, changing the lives of people they will never meet. Her wish is for all creatives to believe in themselves and that their stories are worth telling. Under a variety of pen names, Ynes’s work has appeared in Everyday Fiction ezine, Primal Elements (a poetry collection), The Order of Us (a Moms Who Write anthology), Dragons Within, and other anthologies. Learn more about her work by visiting @ynesfreeman on most social media.

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

I’ve been writing since I was in the first grade. My first short story was a Halloween prompt in which I was asked to write a description of mummies, vampires, ghosts, and pumpkins. I ended up writing a story about a girl who found a secret portal to a monster party. In second grade, I wrote my first ghost story. I’ve always been drawn to the dark otherworldly, and to adventures, in my fiction writing. As I grew up, I began to see elements of these spooky creatures in the world around us—and I wanted to write about that. It’s not difficult to find magic in the mundane if you pay attention and look out for it. Similarly, it’s easy to see apparitions in our world—old dreams that died, potential that was never realized, relationships of all types that you wish had turned out differently.

There is another side to all of this, of course. As part of my Hispanic heritage, I am deeply drawn to the Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead): this is a celebration of those who have come before us, a tradition in which we honor our dead. Without those who have lived and died before us, we would not have life. If we failed or faced darkness in our lives and things did not turn out the way we wished them to be, that is a “death” as well. And it paves the way for the new, deepens our experiences of life. There is a phrase in Latin, believed to originate from the ancient Romans: “Memento Mori, Memento Vivere.” (“Remember you will die, so remember to live.”) Darkness, death—apparitions, shadows, and darkness—deepen our ability to appreciate our life. I want to live every day to its fullest, and to call others to cast away their fear of darkness so they can live with a deeper joy. That is why I write gothic fiction.

What inspired you to start writing this book?

Beautiful Serpent, Restless Embers began as an exploration into the origins of Tarot cards in the fifteenth-century (approximately) Italian high courts. Tarot did not carry the esoteric meaning that it did at its start; it was a card game (Trionfi) played among nobility: a game of luck and chance. I thought about this in terms of the modern decks that exist today, with the major arcana made up of twenty-two unique characters. I thought to myself, “What if these characters were women with powerful gifts—and they were all being shuffled around, paired up—part of a game that was not of their own choosing?” I focused my exploration on Judgement, Strength, The Wheel of Fortune, The High Priestess, and The Devil (sometimes referred to as “Chains”). I was particularly drawn to the symbol of the ouroboros in this process, as it encapsulated both darkness and light, life and death, fate and chance, empathy and madness—the duality that runs like a vein through my entire novel.

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

It took me so long to settle on a title for my novel. The original working title (which I knew was just awful) was “Laurel and the Serpentine.” This later evolved to be “The Viper Within,” and later, “A Viper in the Court.” I took a look at other books with similar titles and realized that these working titles did not truly encompass the story I wanted to tell, and they did not set the stage for readers to know they were diving into something more complex, immersive, and literary. I chose “Beautiful Serpent, Restless Embers” because I felt this expressed the duality and the complexity of the story, while still letting readers know it is in the fantasy genre. (Fun aside: I still refer to my working manuscripts in this world as “Viper”—”What are you working on today?” “Oh, I’m working on Viper.”)

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

Opeth was an important musical influence when I was writing Beautiful Serpent, Restless Embers. Particularly in their Sorceress album, I heard a quiet, powerful darkness rising to catharsis, and I was trying to find my own way of expressing this. Writing in Laurel’s voice was like being in an echoing void and a beautiful trance all at once, and it took everything in me to try to depict it.

Describe your dream book cover.

I want to give a huge shoutout here to Eben Schumacher (ebenschumacherart.com). Not only did he do a phenomenal job with my book cover, but over the years of our working together on the art for this piece (and several other books), we became friends who bonded over art and writing. Eben isn’t just someone who drew me pretty pictures of my characters. We grew as creatives together—I as the author of this novel, and he as an artist who has now launched into a very successful career as a gaming concept artist. I always believed in him, since day one, and I am so proud that I was the first part of his journey into the professional world of art. It’s truly special to be able to look at the cover of this novel and smile, remembering our journey together.

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

My readers may not know that I actually did things a bit backwards: I started my career in publishing, long before I became an author. My first job out of college was as a technical editor, and then I transitioned into more of a marketing/sales role in publishing. It’s definitely made a difference understanding publishing before writing a fiction book. But there is still so, so much to learn, as the industry is always changing.

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

I wrote this book for dreamers. Dreamers who feel crushed by the weight of the world, empaths, and highly sensitive people (HSPs) who feel lost, aimless, and drifting in a dark and severe world. So often we feel that others value us based on what we can do for them, not for who they are. I want my readers to walk away from this book remembering that no matter what the world may do to them: they are still dreamers. Dreaming is what gives us hope; dreaming is what heals the world. Never forget your power.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.