Celebrating S. Usher Evans
S. Usher Evans knows that finding your path as an author isn’t always a straight line. After publishing across genres, navigating career changes, and spending years searching for the stories that would connect with readers, she found an unexpected turning point in cozy fantasy.
In today’s guest post, S. Usher Evans reflects on more than a decade of indie publishing, the breakthrough that transformed her writing career, and the choices that come with figuring out what works. She also shares why she’s still making room to experiment—including a darker new fantasy release that proves sometimes the best creative detours are the ones you don’t see coming.
When Things Finally Work
A Guest Post by S. Usher Evans
When I first started publishing in 2014, I had great aspirations that I was going to earn a livable income right away. At the time, I was going through a quarter-life crisis where I questioned every decision I’d made up until that point. I’d decided to throw away my US Government job and everything I’d built in Washington, D.C. to move back home to Pensacola, FL to figure it out. For the better part of a decade, that meant doing freelance work to pay the bills while I tried (and failed) to get traction on every genre of book imaginable. My backlist is littered with all kinds of tropes: from space pirates to demon hunters to teenaged witches and everything in-between.
Things sorta changed around 2020 when my young adult epic fantasies started gaining traction, and I had a brief moment of, “Oh… maybe I could…?” Then, of course, the pandemic hit and the YA market somewhat evaporated, and I found, once again, I had some questions about my decisions. Was this all just a lark? Was I destined to write unmarketable books that no one wanted to read? Would I just keep making the wrong choices? Would I have to return to a soul-draining job I hated?
Enter Cozy Fantasy
In a fit of desperation, and also because I was a new mom of a high-needs toddler and having complications with my second pregnancy, I turned to this new concept of Cozy Fantasy. It appealed to me not just because it was an emerging genre that seemed ripe for the taking, but the lack of high-stakes plots and long, drawn-out battles was an absolute plus for an already stressful season of life. I wrote parts of Drinks and Sinkholes in hospital waiting rooms, and wrote the second book, Fiends and Festivals, in the first sixteen days on pregnancy bedrest. And in the middle of all that, I ran a Kickstarter for the first three books, which jumpstarted everything to heights I’d never seen before, allowing me to fund three audiobooks (narrated by the incredibly talented Deborah Balm).
Happily, that second pregnancy is now a vivacious and talkative three year old, and my cozy fantasy books (now numbering at 20) have made me a six-figure author three years in a row. Before I sat down to write Drinks, I’d told myself that this was my last chance to make a splash in publishing. Now, three years later, I’ve got at least 10 more to write, and I’m actively looking to branch out into a new cozy fantasy world, too.
Making Choices
Hope still springs eternal that my backlist titles will soon find an audience as ravenous as my cozy books. The tricky part about being a one-person show is that there are only so many hours in the day, and so much energy in my brain. That means that I do have to be judicious about where I invest my time and money, and sometimes, that means letting a really good series flounder in the background while I invest in the ones who provide the greatest return.
But as a human being with a touch of neurodivergence, I get bored. After so many books without romance or yearning, I found myself with a decidedly not cozy plot bunny about a devious, shadow-wielding witch who imprisons a green flag prince (a reverse Beauty and the Beast, if you will). I wrote that novel, The Curse of the Wretched, in just four weeks, and honestly, I think it’s one of my best. It arrived on Barnes and Noble in eBook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook this month.
I don’t think this book will equate to a full pivot away from cozy fantasy. It’s more of a side quest, a place to scratch that dark and angsty itch I get sometimes when things get a little too cozy. I’ve already started keeping a note on my phone with all the scene ideas I come up with at the gym for book 2, The Wrath of the Hallowed, and it’s going to be every bit as angsty and dramatic as the first. And when it’s done, I’ll be back to the world of magical bakers, grateful that after nearly fifty books published, I’ve finally got something that works.
About S. Usher Evans
S. Usher Evans was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. After a decade of fighting bureaucratic battles as an IT consultant in Washington, DC, she suffered a massive quarter life crisis. She decided fighting dragons was more fun than writing policy, so she moved back to Pensacola to write books full-time. She currently resides there with her husband and kids, and frequently can be found plotting on the beach.
Evans is the winner of the 2019 (The City of Veils) and 2022 (A Quest of Blood and Stone) Florida Author Project YA Books of the Year and is the author of cozy fantasy, young adult, and adult novels.
