Cover Sketch by Joshua Griffin for Like Fire (Pub Date 08–13–23)

The Heroine’s Journey — or Yes I Have A Fucking Literature Degree

And no, just because I have to work constantly for cash doesn’t mean I ain’t got nothing to say in fiction

Amy Sterling Casil
9 min readMar 24, 2023

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See that above? I saved money for quite some time to pay to professionally publish the best book I’ve written to date.

You can read an earlier version of the first chapters here on Medium. I’ll just leave them up because I no longer have any interest in any type of “traditional” publishing or marketing advice. I can’t do anything about it and my top concern, as any real writer’s should be, is the work on the page (or screen). My concern is my honesty, integrity, and my relationship to my work.

What I’m about to say about my writing speaks to feminism and it speaks to dismantling the patriarchy.

Back before my baby died in 2005, my former partner Alan Rodgers was coaching me to be a “bestselling above the title Big Sci Fi or Big Fantasy writer.”

Our culture’s “messages” and the patriarchy are so dominant that I would have to be a total dork and a complete and total egotistical asshole to be that type of writer. The biggest-selling fantasy writer of all time was just skewered by an ill-tempered, mean WIRED magazine editor/writer. It isn’t that Brandon…

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Amy Sterling Casil

Over 500 million views and 5 million published words, top writer in health and social media. Author of 50 books, former exec, Nebula nominee.