Meet Dana Fraedrich

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dana Fraedrich a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dana, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

CW: childhood cancer.

When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). It goes without saying that this is not a battle any child should have to fight, but I didn’t have a choice. I’m beyond grateful for the support that came from every corner of my life, even from distant relatives and family friends I had never heard of, but no one in that circle had ever dealt with childhood cancer. What do you say to a child who’s just been told they might die from a disease that developed seemingly randomly? No one has that answer. In addition to this outpouring of love and support, however, I also had books.

My parents nurtured in us from a young age a love of reading. They read to us before bed, and my dad’s vast array of bookshelves–mostly full of science fiction, but some fantasy as well–was never off-limits. My parents were strict, but both had to work day jobs. Thus, like many clever children with latchkey lives, we got into trouble pretty often. Even when we lost TV privileges and the freedom to go spend time with our friends, though, my parents never took away books.

There’s a lot I don’t remember about my fight with cancer. My parents did most of the visible work–keeping track of my doctor’s appointments and carting me to and from them, administering medications around the clock during the initial and most intensive portion of chemotherapy. And given that I was only seven, I didn’t have very much agency and simply had to do what the adults said, as much as I hated it. Because even from that tender age, I understood that it was that or let the disease kill me.

This is the part, however, where I’d like to point out yet another important lesson my parents imparted to me at that time: the importance of bodily autonomy. At the beginning of my battle, in order to administer the various chemicals and medications involved with my chemotherapy, I had to have a port installed into my chest. Back then, there were two options. One that was subcutaneous, and the other was a version that was mainly on the outside. I was informed as to the pros and cons of each, and even though I was still a child and the above-skin option had more downsides, when I chose that version, my parents respected my choice and agreed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that imprinted onto my young brain the realization that our bodies are our own and choices affecting them are inherently ours as well.

Back to books, I had shelves and shelves of them as a child–to this day, nothing much has changed. And it was within books that I saw children who looked like me, being brave and, in some cases even, also fighting battles that they too should not have to fight. I carried American Girl books with me when I visited the pediatric oncologist’s office, and sat thinking about Lois Lowery’s The Giver and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web as I sat through treatments. These books and so many more gave me something my precious family and friends could not. Books showed me how to fight because the children in them lacked agency, just as I did, but still had to be strong and brave and resilient despite the odds.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

When I write a book, the people involved are always the first thing I think about. Wherever they are–in a fantasy world full of dragons or a futuristic society with flying cars and nanobots–the characters and their situations and feelings are what readers are going to connect with. In the first book, Out of the Shadows, of my steampunk fantasy series, Broken Gears, the main character Lenore is faced with struggles many readers will be unfamiliar with–she’s a thief living in a police state–but her struggles of figuring out who to trust, finding the people with whom she can make a home, romance, and fighting against a society set against her are all things most people can relate to. And because people are complicated, no one in my books are completely good or completely bad. They’re all various shades of grey with clashing agendas, which makes their situations and interactions all the more interesting.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I think the three things that have helped me the most in my journey have been curiosity, effective systems, and individuality.

The world is a wild place, full of crazy nature and interesting people. One of my greatest strengths when it comes to writing and storytelling is characterization and dialogue. A lot of that comes, not so much from talking to people, but listening to them. Asking people about their interests and ways of thinking helps me build characters who are fully formed and realistic on the page, especially when those characters aren’t like me. Broadening that, learning more about how the world works–from governmental systems in foreign countries; to the delightful weirdness of mushrooms; to how everyday items are constructed and made, as well as their history–gives one such a bigger perspective on how everything is intertwined.

As for effective systems, I genuinely don’t know where I’d be without them. Being neurodivergent, when the brain otters get frisky, I have to know how to manage them. And I do mean manage, because my life would be a mess if I let them run without fences all the time. But to keep them continually caged would only lead to burnout. Among various other routines and habits, I sit down every week with my coffee and do my time-blocking planner, which gives me a visual representation of the week. And you too are a fellow brain-otter-haver (or brain weasels, or corgis, or flamingos, or however you like to think of them), then I recommend you too establish systems and habits that create balance with your own brain critters, whatever that looks like.

And finally, individuality is harder to define. It might be easier to talk about what it’s not first. There are any number of writers who try to write to market, to chase what’s hot right now. Or, alternatively, they try to write like XYZ author. And if that works for them, great. I’ve, however, found both satisfaction and success in writing for myself. My queer cozy mystery romance, Falcon’s Favor, is a good example of this. I wrote it in the depths of Covid, when all I wanted was comforting, feel-good content. And that’s what Falcon’s Favor is–a real hug in a book. Of course, this has to be tempered with opposing opinions and conflict and pacing and plot and all the things that make a book whole and complete, as well as to make your fictional world three-dimensional, of course. But other people will feel the same as you. Others will want the same sort of books as what you crave for yourself. So I do recommend gathering the sorts of things that you enjoy and using those in your writing. And the more you write for yourself, the more individual your books will be.

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

I think creatives all over the world right now are really struggling with the issue of people devaluing art of all types. With the rise of AI-generated images and writing, there are far too many people who (incorrectly) think human creators can be replaced by AI. And, of course, it bears repeating that these AI that were trained on visual art and books and all kinds of other media without consent from the creators or any compensation for the use of their intellectual property.

And while I understand that with inflation, corporations charging more and more for their goods and services in order for those at the top to feed off the working class like lampreys, and the general terrible state of the economy, it’s very tempting to take what one can for free. I think AI has a great many uses, but wholesale replacing people and taking part in that theft that these corporate giants started isn’t the answer. And if not for the moral implications, then simply because the quality will suck. Do you want to put your name and reputation on something that sucks? AI lack the human experience to create works of art that touch our souls. This is not my original quote, but after all, why would I read a book, watch a performance, or spend time contemplating an image that no one actually bothered to create?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wordsbydana.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danafraedrich/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wordsbydana
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanaFraedrich
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@danafraedrichauthor

Image Credits

All photos are mine and photography credit goes to me.