Beka Gremiokva is an inhabitant of a the land of frigid winters, crispy summers, and far-too-short springs and autumns: the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. She is an author, a part-time grocery store clerk, and a part-time editor for SnowRidge Press.
Aside from writing and reading, Beka enjoys sketching and playing video games. She also loves spending time with her dog Tucker and with her nieces and nephews.
Additionally, Beka likes playing board games, having watch-parties with friends, and cheering on various sports teams. A random fact about Beka is that her cupboards are nearly overflowing with her fun coffee mug collection!
Welcome, Beka Gremikova!
Q) Welcome, Beka! We are excited to have you on today’s show. To start, please describe yourself in 3 words.
A) Loyal, Idealistic, Self-critical.
Q) Describe your writing in 5 words.
A) Quirky, Folkloric, Emotional, Genre-mashing, Magical.
Unexpected Encounters–Beka’s Newest Release
Q) Will you please tell readers about your book Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind and Other Stories? What type of reader will most enjoy this collection?
A) Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind and Other Stories is a collection of twenty-two short stories, many of them fairy tale or folklore retellings full of monsters, mayhem, and magic. Readers who love different twists on fairy tales and want to explore different genres will enjoy this collection. Unexpected Encounters is aimed at an Upper YA/NA/adult audience; though there’s no gratuitous content, it does explore more mature themes in quite a few of the stories.
Official Synopsis:
Encounters. Whether with magic or science, expected or unexpected, they can change our minds, our destinies, even our world…
In this collection of twenty-two short tales, journey across multiple genres alongside various characters, including:
~a mother who gathers dragon scales to provide for her family despite a perilous jungle and her own self-doubt;
~a young half-human, half-mermaid girl on the search for her father with murderous soldiers on her heels;
~an opera singer-turned-ghost-hunter attempting to thwart a Phantom who just won’t stop interfering with her act;
~a family at risk of losing their humanity to the Moon as its magic wreaks a monstrous change within them;
~and an alien on a rescue mission to save her best friend’s children from those who wish them harm.
Full of comedy and tragedy, heartache and hope, monsters and magic, these stories are an encounter that just might change you too…
Unexpected Encounters–Continued
Q) Having read and loved Unexpected Encounters myself, my favorite piece is “The Mermaid’s Soul.” The theme of finding power in extending grace to others and to one’s own self together with the elegant layers of faith woven in the narrative was something I found to be exceptionally beautiful. Do you have a personal favorite story in your book?
A) Oh my gosh, thank you so much! I’m thrilled that story touched you so deeply—those themes of internalizing grace and extending it are very important to me. <3 “The Mermaid’s Soul” has had quite the journey; I first wrote it around ten years ago, and it’s had several iterations since.
In regards to having a “favourite” story in this book, I don’t know if I can pick just one! But one of my favourites is definitely “Just a Hench.” For those who may not have read it yet, “Just a Hench” is about a young woman seeking a job at a villain agency—but the interview takes an unexpected turn…
While I obviously haven’t had the same journey as the protagonist in that story, its exploration of themes such as loss, self-worth, and fighting for yourself make it a deeply personal tale. Also, it was fun to weave in hints as to a certain character’s identity and leave it open to reader interpretation. If you know, you know. 😉
Flash Fiction
Q) In your foreword for Unexpected Encounters, you discuss how much flash fiction means to you as a creative. You have written several flash fiction stories that have been published through Havok and included within several anthologies. Will you tell us about your first published flash fiction story? What was your favorite element of that first piece?
A) My first published flash fiction story (under this pen name) is called “Burial,” and it’s an Egyptian-inspired fantasy thriller about a young embalmer who must keep the dead king from returning to life as a monster. My favourite element of that piece is definitely the spooky atmosphere, and it’s something I hope to expand on in the extended edition that I’m currently drafting.
Q) How has continuing to write flash fiction helped you grow as a writer since that first flash story was published and shared with readers?
A) Writing flash fiction helped me regain confidence in my stories as well as connected me to several people who have become very dear friends. It also helped me realize some areas I needed to grow in—I have a penchant for either overly convoluted or under-explained magic systems—that I can work on for future endeavours.
Writing and Faith
Q) You include God in your book’s acknowledgements. Can you tell us how your faith intersects with your writing?
A) Certainly! While I don’t write for the Christian market—I don’t consider my books to be Christian fantasy—I hope that many of the themes I write about, such as justice, mercy, redemption, and reconciliation, can touch both Christian and non-Christian audiences. I especially want to challenge Christians to reconsider how they view those topics; what does “justice” or “mercy” truly look like in this life? Are they as sparkling and perfect as they seem to be in the media…or are they a complex, everyday struggle that doesn’t always have a tidy resolution?
More From Beka Gremikova
Q) Will you tell us briefly about the other collections readers can find your works in? What are each of your included stories about?
A) I’ve had the honour of being involved in a few different collections, so I’ll focus on some of the most recent releases (besides the books I was involved in as a head editor):
“Chef’s Kiss,” a novelette in the Twisted Grimms anthology from SnowRidge Press: A banished prince-turned-chef wreaks sabotage on an important dinner party in order to get back at the father who cast him out, but his desire for vengeance puts him at odds with the woman he loves. A genderbent, 1920s-inspired fairy tale mashup of the more obscure fairy tales “All-Kinds-of-Fur” and “Cap O’ Rushes.”
“Lost Girl No More,” a poem in The Never Tales Vol. II from Twenty Hills Publishing: What if Wendy started growing up and Peter Pan didn’t want her to? A poem that explores the darker side of Peter Pan and Wendy’s relationship. A sequel to my poem, “Lost Girl,” from The Never Tales Vol. I.
“The Spindle Trap,” a short story in the Perchance to Dream anthology from Ye Olde Dragon Books: A The Parent Trap-inspired Sleeping Beauty retelling that follows Princess Theryn, a young princess who’s been cursed to sleep for one hundred years…but who also has a plan. When she learns that her parents are on the brink of separation, she invokes the curse to whisk them away from the forces trying to tear her loved ones apart. But what she finds on the other side of a century may be more heartbreaking than what she left behind…
Beka’s Future Projects
Q) Can you tell us about your future writing projects? What are your goals as an author?
A) I’d love to! I have a few contracted books coming down the pipeline, and then a few other personal projects I hope to work on in-between. After Unexpected Encounters of a Draconic Kind and Other Stories, a companion collection of short stories—most of them dark fairy tale or myth retellings—will release in Fall of 2024. Its codename currently is Project Pumpkin.
Beyond Project Pumpkin, I have two books contracted with various publishers:
Project Stone
This is a Beauty and the Beast-inspired story set at a magical boarding school, where a Residential Advisor must face her own budding—and outlawed—powers to save her students when the stone gargoyles come alive and launch an attack. Think Harry Potter meets fairy tales, but for an Upper YA/adult audience, complete with a dash of romance, a sassy statue man, and plenty of shenanigans.
Project Dance
This is a darker, gender-bent retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, where a soldier returns from war to find the man she loves trapped in a web of dark magic that has also ensnared his rapscallion brothers. She must use all her wits to save the princes before their nation falls to the dark forces creeping in. This one is also aimed at an Upper YA/adult crossover audience, and involves plenty of spying, pocket dimensions, a cinnamon roll prince, and some swoon. 😉
Between those projects, I have ideas for a Gothic fantasy Beauty and the Beast retelling featuring a mage architect and a sentient mansion; an expanded edition of my novelette, The Safe Tower, a Rapunzel retelling set in a fantasy dystopian world that has fallen to a zombie apocalypse; two sequels to my short story, “The Other Cinderella,” that explores hard-won redemption, reconciliation, and love; and expanded and re-released editions of a few short stories I’ve written previously: “Cursed Crush, or Help! My Mum Cursed My Crush,” “Like a Fox,” and “Burial.”
I’m also working on a Super Fun Super Secret Project with one of my best writing buddies, Zimri A.Z. Zoran, but I can’t say too much about that one yet. Except that it’s epic and I can’t wait for you all to learn more about it.
As for my goals as an author, I’d simply love to establish a loyal readership who shares my love of folklore and fairy tales and deeply emotional storytelling—and who don’t mind my quirkiness, haha! And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’d be honoured if someone wrote fanfiction based off one of my books one day. That’d be a dream come true. 😀
Book Talk
5-Star Reads
Q) How do you select what books to read? What was your most recent 5-star read?
A) I’m a huge mood reader, so I often have between 3 to 20 books on the go (yes, I’m one of *those* people, mwahahaha). It really does depend on what I’m feeling like that day. Sometimes I’ll be in the mood for a certain genre and just read a bunch of books in that genre all at once; other times, I’ll be hankering for a certain book and pick it up. It makes me rather dismal at keeping to ARC timelines (my sincerest apologies to all the ARCs I’ve picked up! I love you all!), so I don’t apply for ARCs as often as I’d want to.
My most recent 5-star read was The Screaming Staircase, Book One in the Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud. Spooky and mysterious, it was an ideal October read!
Literary Dinner Party
Q) If you were to host a literary dinner party and could invite three authors, living or dead, would you invite and why?
A) C.S. Lewis, Bill Richardson, and Dorothy L. Sayers!
C.S. Lewis, because I’d love to know whether his opinions on certain topics/beliefs would have changed if he were still alive nowadays. And of course, pester him about Susan and what her story would have looked like after the end of the Narnia series.
Bill Richardson, because he wrote a book, After Hamelin, that continues to haunt me to this day and I just want to pick his brain about how he wrote it, why he made the choices he did, and what it all means. Also, he’s a fellow Canadian. 😃
Dorothy L. Sayers, because she was a Christian who wrote characters that some would likely describe as un-Christian, yet the themes she writes about are so very interconnected to her faith. And I’d just love to unpack all that…and beg her to teach me how to write mysteries!
More About Beka
Q) If you had a theme song for your life, what would it be and why?
Okay, this may sound kind of corny—and I’m not a guy like the character the song is about—but I don’t care. “Son of Man” by Phil Collins from the Tarzan soundtrack. Tarzan is one of my favourite movies for its bittersweetness, its themes of adoptive love and found family, and its gorgeous music and animation. This song in particular I really, really love, because it’s all about the journey of growing into yourself and letting your individuality take flight. It’s such an encouraging song for me, a reassurance that, no matter how much I stumble, I will reach my final destination/goal one day.
Q) If you could have any mythical creature as a pet, what would you choose and why?
A) I’d choose a dragon, because I love reptiles and am obsessed with dinosaurs, so meeting basically a magical dinosaur would be fulfilling so many dreams of mine all in one go.
Advice from Beka Gremikova
Q) If you could give your younger self any advice, in terms of writing or something else, what would it be?
A) I’d tell my younger self to be kinder to herself and less self-conscious. I’m a huge people-pleaser, so when people don’t like me—or if I assume they don’t like me—I take it very much to heart. But it’s part of life; people aren’t going to like you, or won’t want to be as close to you as someone else, and that’s just the way of it. It doesn’t mean you’re unworthy of love; it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. Younger me spent too much time trying to earn the love and respect of others, and it’s something older me is still paying for and trying to work through.
So basically…I’d tell my younger self she doesn’t have to try so hard. That there will be people who see you and love you and who will remember you exist. They will find you. <3
For Authors
Q) What advice can you share with other authors?
A) So, none of this is “new” or original, but I think they’re always good to be reminded of. 🙂 Firstly, I’d advise other authors to have grace for themselves, and to set healthy boundaries if necessary, especially when it comes to reviews and social media. I struggle with comparing myself to other authors, and that just doesn’t lead to a healthy mindset for me, so sometimes I need to take a step away and recentre my thoughts.
I also advise other authors to not be afraid to do things differently. Your path doesn’t have to look the same as other writers’, even if social media tells us we have to do certain things to be “successful.” It’s okay to be hybrid, or self-published, or traditionally published, or whichever path you decide on. Each one has its own set of challenges and unique opportunities. But let’s not “gatekeep” ourselves into believing only one publishing path is valid.
Interview Wrap-Up
Q) Thank you so much for being here today! Is there anything else you would like to add before we sign-off?
A) I’d just like to say thank you so much for hosting me on your blog! This interview was so much fun!
Connect with Beka Gremikova!
You can find Beka on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@DreamofWriting). Remember to visit her website and sign-up for her newsletter for updates!
Remember to find her books on Amazon/other book retailers and request copies at your local library!
Now until December 31, 2023 ALL paperbacks through SnowRidge Press are 25% off—get some last minute holiday gifts for your loved ones and be sure to get yourself some books, too! 🙂
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