Marie is an author from Cebu, Philippines. She has an amazing brother who’s her partner-in-crime in a lot of her work! They record her songs and videos in her bedroom and he pretty much does everything except the thing she does in front of the microphone or camera, plus he takes care of the graphic design and marketing needs. He conceptualized the cover for her novel and does all the social media.

When faced with writer’s block she takes a break and a cold shower! She also flip through different kinds of music and see if any of them jog her creative brain cells. Worst case, She runs to my boyfriend or brother or best friend (or all of them altogether in a group chat) and starts an impromptu brainstorming session.

We asked What do you do for fun? And she responded “I read! I like fantasy, mythology, time travel, dystopian, historical fantasy… and children’s books because they’re fast and easy reads, haha. I listen to music a lot, build up playlists on Spotify, and write my own songs when I’m especially feeling inspired. I love to travel, and I support the theatre arts by going to see a musical whenever I have the opportunity. I also enjoy stargazing and astrophotography. (When I was a child, I wanted to be an astrophysicist, and collected every National Geographic mag that had anything about stars and the universe on the cover.) And I drink a lot of coffee. Coffee is life.”

Her first novel, Hotel Fen, a urban fantasy collaboration with US-based fellow indie author Meri Benson, was published in August.

We asked why did you choose to be an Indie Author? “It has been my dream to put a book out in the world, but it seemed to be a long and daunting process. I struggled with finishing a manuscript and I could hardly imagine chasing after agents to get traditionally published, especially since I had a full-time day job; I wanted to write for art, and because I liked writing. Meeting and becoming friends with an indie author opened me up to the idea of self-publishing, something I only read about before and seemed to be just as daunting as going traditional. And, well, the pandemic contributed to my decision to go indie; these past two years have been “okay why not” years for me, so I just took the plunge and aimed to check something off my bucket list, and here I am!”

She has her own songs and covers up on Spotify. She is slowly building the soundtrack of her first novel!

Check out Marie’s website for more from her.