Interview With Author Astraea Long
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a rising college senior concentrating in astrophysics! I have written two books belonging to a duology, the first having been recently published and the second to come next year.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is called Welcome to the Damned, and I don’t remember if anything specific inspired it, but I just remember finishing my second rewrite of this book and seeing the title as a neon sign in my head. It’s set in a cyberpunk world, and the characters are your typical ‘morally gray and proud’ troublemakers, so once that neon sign lit up in my brain, I knew it had to be my title.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Not sure how unusual this would be, but I’m a huge binge-writer. This duology was originally one book, as a standalone, and I wrote it in seven weeks into 132.5 thousand words. Then I didn’t touch this story for a year because of college, and the next time I worked on it, I added nearly 30,000 words (I’m also an under-writer) in less than two weeks. Then I didn’t look at it for another six months. A product of learning quantum mechanics as a full-time student, I suppose :’)
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Nora Sakavic, the author of the All for the Game series, has largely influenced my debut duology through her representation of complex relationships involving characters who deal with trauma and have to learn to heal. Chloe Gong also inspired me as a writer because she showed me that young authors can be successful, too, and even though I always knew it was ridiculous to try to become an author while pursuing an astrophysics degree, I adopted the attitude of ‘Why not?’ and just went for it.
What are you working on now?
As an author, I’m currently revising the sequel to Welcome to the Damned. I have a couple other ideas for upcoming series, but I’m just focusing on the sequel to publish before I graduate. As a student, I’m continuing research I did during my junior year to try to publish that as well, and hopefully present it at a conference in December. I am also interning at CERN in Geneva this summer to work on dark matter search (I think).
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
My website is https://www.astraealong.com and my Instagram and TikTok accounts are both @theastraealong 🙂
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I’m sure we’ve all heard this, but just write it down. No matter how awful it is, just write it. This is probably easy for me to say because I’m a binge-writer, but if you logically think about it, your writing is never going to be perfect. You can make it better, but it can always be better (My published book can Definitely be so much better, but it’s out there now). So, spew out all your thoughts and imaginations so it’s in front of you and tangible. It will be messy and full of typos, but that will be your first draft. It only gets better from there.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Something along the lines of ‘You walk your own path’ or whatever. I do get frustrated sometimes that my book isn’t selling, or that I can’t solve this physics problem, but hey, how many physicists are also sci-fi authors? And professionally trained in ballet? (Yes, I almost went down that road, too.) And so on. What has helped me, is thinking about the different components that build up to become ‘me’ as a whole.
What are you reading now?
I just finished reading The Sunshine Court by Nora Sakavic, the existence of which is a miracle to me after she went off the grid for ten years. I’ve also been reading this 5000+ chapter Chinese web novel for ages, currently on chapter 1596…
What’s next for you as a writer?
After publishing the sequel, I’m also taking a gap year after college before grad school, so that’ll be a year of more binge-writing. The two possible upcoming series that have been rotating in my brain are: a xianxia style futuristic story about a girl who was kidnapped by the empress to become a secret bodyguard and assassin, and a superpower, dark-academia university setting that kind of takes on a deadpan narration.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Just the All for the Game series. That’s it. Can you tell I’m a huge Nora Sakavic fan?
Author Websites and Profiles
Astraea Long’s Social Media Links
Author Interview Series
To discover a new author, check out our Featured Authors page. We have some of the best authors around. They are just waiting for you to discover them. If you enjoyed this writer’s interview feel free to share it using the buttons below. Sharing is caring!
If you are an author and want to be interviewed just fill out out Author Interview page. After submitting we will send it out in our newsletters and social media channels that are filled with readers looking to discover new books to read.
If you are looking for a new book to read check out our Featured Books Page.