Meet Fiona Embers

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Fiona Embers. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Fiona, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?

Creativity is inherent to who we are as humans. I believe it is not fragile or delicate, but rather a robust, relentless force that demands its due and will not be ignored. Not only does it survive all efforts to constraint or extinguish it, but its purpose is to imbue our lives with joy and meaning, and denying it for long deprives us of untold riches, of the manifold new dimensions to every experience that can only be accessed through creative expression.

I was a quiet kid who liked to read, draw, and do crafts. I also loved to write, and even in grade school I wrote short stories and poetry. Then, as I hit puberty, it turned out I was really, really good at math and physics, and it completely changed my focus through high school and college. Everyone I knew advised me to focus on STEM because it would lead to a well-paying job, and I did, to the exclusion of all else. I abandoned my interests in art and literature, and focused 100% on math and science, ultimately receiving a PhD in my discipline. I don’t regret taking this path, because I love my job and the people I work with…

But.

You knew there’d be a but.

Something was always missing, to the point that I was pretty miserable, even though everything in my life seemed perfect. It took me a long while to realize what it was. For many years, I had suppressed and ignored my artistic impulses in order to focus on my technical career; when the family came into the mix, their needs only strengthened my existing focus. But you can only keep the core parts of yourself locked up and starved for so long before they rise up and demand to be let out and fed. Denying the creativity that has always been there, fundamental to who I was and am, ended up making me dejected and—paradoxically—unable to enjoy the life I’ve built with the job for which I had abandoned such an essential part of myself.

So, in 2017, with no training in creative writing but with years of technical writing under my belt, I wrote a few short stories and submitted them for publication, and the rest is history (see more on my writing journey below). I have been publishing fiction of various genres and forms for eight years now, and have many short stories and two novels to my name (actually, my two pen names). With the support of my family, I have been able to integrate writing into my daily life, which is invaluable to my happiness and sanity. My creativity screamed until I finally released it, and it has made my life complete.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

As Fiona Embers, I write high-heat (often referred to as “spicy”) angsty romance novels, with heroines who are too much and heroes who can’t get enough. My work focuses on realistic, flawed people who need to work through the issues many people identify with in order to be able to form the deep connections, both emotional and sexual, that most of us crave. You can find my books through https://fionaembers.com or at https://books2read.com/fionaembers.

I also write short fiction in the literary, horror, and science-fiction genres under the pen name Maura Yzmore, and I have a number of pieces published in various magazines and anthologies, many of them free to read and accessible through https://maurayzmore.com/publications. (A compilation of anthology covers is one of the illustrations.)

My fiction-writing journey started in 2017, when I submitted my first few short stories for publication. Through online short-fiction spaces, I met some wonderful writers who are now among my closest friends. I also made a point of allowing myself the time to read for pleasure, something that had until then always been on the back burner because any free time I happened to have was supposed to be devoted to more work or to family. Part of this reading renaissance led to my getting reacquainted with romance, a genre I had read and enjoyed as a young adult, but one that had also gotten cut in my quest to streamline my life for maximum career efficiency. Reading romance has brought so much genuine delight to my life and helped me reconnect with long-hidden wellsprings of joy within myself that I honestly recommend that everyone, regardless of gender, read romance. There is nothing silly about the universal human experiences of love and desire, or the character growth that happens when we open ourselves to another person, and the happily-ever-after endings guaranteed in romance novels are a welcome antidote to the real-life turmoil arising from the economic and political uncertainty of our times.

After having accumulated a few dozen short-fiction publication credits, I decided I might be ready to try my hand at writing novel-length stories. In summer 2022, I started working on my first romance novel, SHOOT YOUR SHOT, writing around my day job. In August 2023, I signed a contract with Evernight Publishing, a Canadian publisher specializing in romance, and the book came out in March 2024. My second book in the same series, SOFT REBOUND, just came out in June 2025!

As Fiona Embers, I am currently working on a new series of novellas about some very lovestruck chemists (the first book, RINGS TRUE, will be published in a few months) and a new novel series for Evernight, as well as the two final books of the current series. I have plans for two more standalone romance novels and a very naughty novella series. As Maura Yzmore, I continue to write short stories and flash fiction, and have longer-term plans for horror novels.

All my various social media and author pages can be found through through https://linktr.ee/maura.yzmore_fiona.embers
You can buy my romance from various outlets through https://books2read.com/fionaembers
More information can be found on my author websites: https://fionaembers.com and https://maurayzmore.com
To keep up with new releases in various genres, you can also subscribe to my (very intermittent) newsletter through https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/822925/112918686130505172/share

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1) Commitment to improvement. If you are a person who is used to being competent, it can be very hard to take on a new endeavor, where you’re at the bottom and have a tall and steep hill to climb. You will start by being terrible. You will be so terrible that, at first, you won’t even realize how terrible you are or what exactly the terribleness is about. If you are supremely talented, you will both start at a higher level and improve faster than most, but if you have aspirations to sell books or otherwise compete at the highest level, you will still have to commit to continuous improvement. Part of the commitment is trying to be as honest with yourself as possible about how good you are. People say that comparison is a thief of joy, and there’s definitely some truth to that, but I feel it’s important to periodically take stock of where you are and how you measure against where you want to be, not in order to put yourself down, but in a forward-looking, aspirational way. If you are an author, read broadly across genres and deeply within your genre, and pay attention to what some of your favorite authors do to achieve the emotional and other narrative effects they do. Take a step away from your work for a few weeks and revisit if with fresh eyes; reflect on what works and what doesn’t for you as a reader. Edit mercilessly, but not endlessly, because It is also important to be honest about a piece of work being done—not perfect, but solid, aligned with your vision, and simply ready—and avoid tinkering for fear of the next steps, the steps that might lead to rejection. Then be bold and offer your writing to the world.

2) Resilience and discernment in the face of criticism. I have always been competitive, and working in a male-dominated technical field means I’ve spent decades having judgement passed on my work, and often bluntly so. This has taught me not to shatter under criticism, but rather to become discerning and mine it, like an archaeologist, for nuggets of good information, and discard the rest. Not all criticism is good or worthwhile. As the old adage says, “Don’t take criticism from the people you wouldn’t ask for advice.” This is particularly important when writing fiction, because every reader is a potential critic, and they are not always kind when their expectations of your work, warranted or not, have not been met. And let’s not even mention all the rejections by agents and editors on the way to publication! That is not to say I don’t get ever rattled by negative feedback; it’s hard not to, but the more I write and the more readers I find who resonate strongly with my work, the easier it becomes to tune out the negative voices, and I never get discouraged for long.

When you are in a creative industry, rejection is the norm rather than the exception. This holds for everyone, even (or perhaps especially!) those people who are very successful and considered household names, because 99% of the time they spent years on the grind before they “suddenly” hit it big. So it is important to find a way to steel yourself against rejection, because there will be plenty of it, and if every no deters you, you will stop before you even start. What’s even more important is that you cannot allow the people who don’t resonate with your work to affect your vision of how you express yourself. Staying true to yourself is paramount.

3) Cultivation of a community of peers. Being an author is a solitary endeavor, and our loved ones, even when they are genuinely supportive, don’t usually have a good understanding of how exactly if feels to have creative work rejected, what goes into drafting and editing, or what the mechanics of crafting a compelling story are. Surrounding yourself with peers who face the same challenges is invaluable for keeping your sanity and enthusiasm, developing your craft, and finding your readership. Other authors are not competition, because voracious readers consume many books per year. Exchanging reads and editing each other’s work helps elevate everyone’s skills, sharing tales of painful rejections makes them sting less, and mutual support and encouragement are sometimes the only things that keep you going in the face of adversity. It is wonderful to witness the people you care about level up in their work, receive opportunities, and ultimately find success. And one of my favorite things about having author friends—you get to read their amazing work early!

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When you feel overwhelmed, if at all possible, find a way to step back from the demands on your time and truly indulge yourself, even for just a bit. Carve out some time and space to do what truly refills your well. What that is will be different for different people—those who are extroverted will want to meet with friends; someone else might go into nature or amp up their exercise routine. My go-to relaxation is reading in solitude; nothing beats silent immersion in another word to help me regain my inner equilibrium. This is where having a supportive partner has been invaluable, someone who is happy to pick up my share of the family burdens while I reset and recharge. This willingness to step in and step up when the significant other is struggling is a key quality to look for in a lifetime partner.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fionaembers.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maurayzmore_fionaembers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MauraYzmoreFionaEmbers/
• Other: https://bsky.app/profile/maurayzmore.bsky.social

Image Credits

Image 1: Fiona Embers
Image 2: Jas Rolyn
Image 3: Timothy Dykes
Image 4: Amir Esrafili
Image 5: Klara Kulikova
Image 6: Alexander Krivitskiy
Image 7: Fiona Embers