1.- Could you introduce yourself to Jamreads’ readers?
I’m a cozy sci-fi author living in a tiny desert town in the US. My books are always queer and often feature romance and neurodiverse characters. I’m also an artist and enjoy using different mediums. I love drawing graphite portraits of my characters in particular.

2.- How did you start writing? What moved you to publish your works?
I’ve always loved writing, and I wrote steadily through my teen years. Other things, like having a son, took up all my attention after that, and I stopped writing for over fifteen years. I ended up in a terrible life situation, and that prompted me to begin writing again. I didn’t know it would be a book at first. I simply needed an escape, and the only place for me to go was in my head.
Eventually, I had a full manuscript on my hands and wasn’t sure what to do with it. I learned about self-publishing, making covers, creating newsletters, and swapping with critique partners, and eventually published the book. I kept writing. And even though my life situation improved after a time, I was not only hooked on writing again, but I had author friends. They were something I’d desperately needed at the time, even if they didn’t know the things I was going through.

3.- Currently, you’re a hybrid published author. How would you say is the experience? Call me curious, but how was the process of getting an agent?
I've enjoyed being hybrid. It's given me the professional support and distribution power to get my books into more hands than I would be able to do on my own, while still giving me the freedom to write fun niche things on the side. 
This also helped my state of mind while I was querying because if I couldn't get an agent for World Running Down, I could still self-publish it. Some authors who are unable to get an agent end up self-publishing out of spite, or they feel like it's a lower quality last resort in their desperation to get their book into the hands of readers, but I've never felt that way. Self-publishing is just as legitimate of an avenue. It all depends on what your goals are and how much time you have to invest.
I will admit the querying still took a toll on me, and I ended up getting so many rejections that said something along the lines of “I'm not the right agent for this kind of story” despite them specifically asking for trans characters that I began to believe World Running Down wasn't a marketable book. I had all but given up on the idea of getting an agent and publisher and was off passive-aggressively making my own covers for the book when two agent offers rolled in within the same week.
I've heard that landing an agent is even tougher these days, and my sympathies go out to anyone still in the query trenches.

4.- Identity is an important theme in your novels. Why would you say it happens?
When I started writing again, my first main character was a lost and traumatized woman who had escaped an abusive marriage and was trying to find some new place to call home. This was subconscious on my part, but looking back it's painfully clear that I was putting elements of myself into that character because that's who I perceived myself to be at the time. That need to process my identity and my experiences has never gone away. Sometimes it's subconscious and sometimes it's very intentional. 
Writing gay men like Reed and non-binary characters like Em in my Hep Cats of Boise series was incredibly subconscious. Back then I wouldn't have been able to tell you why I was writing queer characters. It simply felt right. I had buried my feelings of being trans so deep that it took writing many characters to unearth that realization. 
By the time I wrote World Running Down I knew who I was, but I was in a deep despair, convinced that I would never be able to go on hormones or afford top surgery. So once again this was me processing a situation in my life by giving a character these same feelings. Everything I’ve written after that has also been about identity in at least some way. I think because understanding yourself is such a complex thing, and it's something that many people can relate to. I find it very important to write characters that marginalized people can see themselves in.

5.- Your Hep Cats of Boise series could be called your presentation letter to the world, including winning an Indie Ink Award and getting SPSFC semis. Did you expect this kind of reception? 
I did not expect that, no. It's a relatively quiet book, very character focused, with a slowly ramping dread. It's definitely not everybody's cup of tea. I've had readers complain that it's too quirky and too boring. But learning that it was many of the SPSFC judges favorite book of the competition was flooring. And it definitely encouraged me to continue writing similar books. My upcoming book Key Lime Sky is quite similar in its narrow scope on characters and slowly building creepiness,

6.- World Running Down was your traditional debut. How was the experience? How did the idea for this book originally appear?
Overall, it was incredibly surreal, and I kept waiting for the day when it would sink in that I had a traditionally published book in bookstores that thousands of people were reading. Even after meeting people that were touched by the book, who cried and hugged me because they loved it so much, it still didn't sink in. 
Being my trad debut, I invested tons of mental energy into the entire process. I followed World Running Down hashtags on Instagram; I had a Google search alert for anything related to World Running Down; I looked at all the Goodreads and NetGalley reviews that I wasn't supposed to read. I agonized over every tiny thing and felt like I had to have a hand in all of it. I've realized that's not as important as I made it out to be. Of course, I want to be invested in my book, but at a certain point you just need to trust the process.
My frustration with being unable to transition was the inspiration for the book. And since this was my tenth book and the first one I was planning to query, I decided to throw everything I loved into it: A.I., art deco aesthetics, post-apocalyptic adventure. And of course, romance.

7.- We are close to the publishing date of your next book, Key Lime Sky. How do you feel about it? 
I feel far more chill about this release than I did about World Running Down. I've already gone through the process once, and I’ve also had other things taking up my focus the past few months, so I can’t obsess over the book production the way I might otherwise. Everything with this book has gone very smoothly, and it's great to see how my fan base grows with each book I write and in turn it boosts the promotion and excitement for each subsequent book. It's been great to see autistic readers excited about the representation, and having pie as a central theme in the book has given us opportunities for fun promotion.

8.- Denver, the main character of Key Lime Sky, is non-binary and autistic. Could you tell us more about the process of writing this kind of character, and which challenges arise to correctly portray such a character as Denver?
Considering that I'm non-binary and autistic myself it felt natural to write a character like Denver. However, I’m still always afraid of getting my own representation wrong, so I definitely ran things past other non-binary and autistic people. I'm grateful to have an agent who can directly help me with these types of representation too. One obstacle I've encountered - and it's one that I anticipated - is non-autistic people struggling with Denver’s believability or feeling like situations are contrived. They assume that’s a deficit in me as a writer instead of it simply being a life experience that they haven't had. But you can't reach every audience with your books, and just like with World Running Down, my intention was to ensure the people who share the same marginalizations as my main characters would be able to relate to them.

9.- Apart from an author, you’re also an artist, including the design of your own covers. What was in your mind while creating the cover for Key Lime Sky?
The painting for Key Lime Sky turned out to be a far bigger challenge than I anticipated. With both World Running Down and Key Lime Sky, I consulted with my editor before starting anything. We swapped ideas and settled on a concept that would convey both the plot and tone of the novels. My editor has a love for classic American dinner aesthetics, and she thought it would be appropriate to have a diner sign front and center. Because the only UFO in the book is the one that explodes at the very beginning, I didn't want to actually paint a UFO into the scene so I instead incorporated it into the sign. I wanted to convey the surreal suburban liminal space feel of the book, and I took inspiration from some of my favorite artists, including Edward Hopper and René Magritte.
My first attempt at the painting did not go well. I didn't like the chartreuse color of the sky, and I was struggling to get the landscape correct. At the time, I was already incredibly stressed out with my art because I had several people continuously pestering me to make them art that was beyond my skill level even after I've already told them no multiple times. I remember sitting at my canvas and realizing that I didn't know how to paint grass, then I had a nervous breakdown. 
I emailed my editor and told her to cancel my cover contract because I couldn't do it. She told me there was no pressure and that she would cancel it if I wanted her to but why didn't I take a week to think about it first? I took a bit of time off, then decided to try the painting again, this time with no expectations that it would have to turn out good or be used as my cover. I decided to lean further into the stylistic approach of the artists I was inspired by, and as you can see in the final painting, the grass is simply a smooth plane. But I completed the painting and my publishing team loved it. Design ended up tweaking the colors on the sign and the sky to make it pop more. We settled on hot pink to compliment the baby pink on the sign and the mint green color of the sky, and I think that was a fantastic choice. I'm told that everyone raves about the cover, so apparently it was worth the nervous breakdown.

10.- You’ve drawn portraits of most of the characters in your books; would you consider drawing them as a part of the process attached to create a character?
Yes, when I am developing a character I will often go through Pinterest and create inspiration boards for each of the major characters then settle on a certain look and pose. This helps me when describing them in the book and also to get a sense of their style. I often daydream about the characters and the book as I'm drawing, which also helps me get a better sense of them.

11.- For readers that are new to Al Hess’ writing, where would you recommend them to start?
That's a tough question. All of the elements and things that I love to write about are in World Running Down so that would be a good place to start to get a feel for my work. But if you want to start with my coziest and weirdest book, you should definitely pick up Yours Celestially.

12.- What can we expect from Al Hess in the future?
The book currently with my agent is a trans-for-trans speculative romance about an eccentric artist who falls in love with the “ghost” haunting his studio. I'm looking forward to giving more updates about this book in the future.