Ry Herman

Author Interview - Ry Herman

Author of This Princess Kills Monsters

A princess with a mostly useless magical talent takes on horrible monsters, a dozen identical masked heroes, and a talking lion in a quest to save a kingdom—and herself—in this affectionate satire of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale The Twelve Huntsmen.

Someone wants to murder Princess Melilot. This is sadly normal.

Melilot is sick of being ordered to go on dangerous quests by her domineering stepmother. Especially since she always winds up needing to be rescued by her more magically talented stepsisters. And now, she's been commanded to marry a king she’s never met.

When hideous spider-wolves attack her on the journey to meet her husband-to-be, she is once again rescued—but this time, by twelve eerily similar-looking masked huntsmen. Soon she has to contend with near-constant attempts on her life, a talking lion that sets bewildering gender tests, and a king who can't recognize his true love when she puts on a pair of trousers. And all the while, she has to fight her growing attraction to not only one of the huntsmen, but also her fiancé’s extremely attractive sister.

If Melilot can't unravel the mysteries and rescue herself from peril, kingdoms will fall. Worse, she could end up married to someone she doesn’t love.

Author Interview - Ry Herman

Author I draw inspiration from:

Honestly, I draw inspiration from too many authors to count; reading books is my absolute favorite thing to do. But if I were going to single out one author in particular as inspiring for This Princess Kills Monsters, I might go with T. Kingfisher. I love her wit and her humor, and the way she throws practical, no-nonsense characters into bizarre situations to see how they’ll cope. My favorite book of hers is The Raven and the Reindeer, a retelling of “The Snow Queen.” If you ever read the original story and thought that Gerda should totally have ended up with the robber girl, then this is the book for you.

Author Interview - Ry Herman | Author I Draw Inspiration From

Favorite place to read a book:

I’ve created a little reading nook for myself. It’s very basic—just a beanbag chair and a floor lamp, surrounded by a whole bunch of bookcases. Perfection.

Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:

Rowan, from The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein. We’d spend our time figuring out from first principles what this strange metal box was, why we were trapped in it, and how to escape. And the conversation would never be boring.

Author Interview - Ry Herman | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With

The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:

It depends on what you mean by that. I’ve wanted to write for as long as I can remember; I’ve been writing for so long I don’t remember the start. My first “books” were written when I was maybe six years old (they were not masterpieces, although Why Do Plants Gro? still has its fans among my parents.) But there was a particular moment when I decided to try and make a career out of it. I’d been working as a freelance editor for a while, and hit a period when I didn’t have any new projects coming in. It seemed like the best chance I’d have to find out if I could succeed as an author professionally. I was extremely fortunate to be in a situation where that was possible; my wonderful spouse agreed to support me while I was figuring it out.

Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:

I love the convenience of ebooks. I decided to start using them when I was packing a suitcase for vacation and had trouble fitting in the ten or twelve books I needed (at minimum.) Ebooks also make looking up words and references much easier. They do have their downsides, though. Hardbacks and paperbacks never need to be recharged. Physical books have other advantages, too. It’s very easy to flip back through the pages to hunt for something; touchscreen page shifts and search functions never work quite as well for me. I don’t really use audiobooks, but I’ve got nothing against them. I just tend to take in information better when it’s visually conveyed as written words.

The last book I read:

The last book I read was The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. I liked it. It’s a difficult task to keep a reader interested when the main character is, for most of the book, thoroughly unlikeable, and The Safekeep pulled it off handily.

Author Interview - Ry Herman | The Last Book I Read

Pen & paper or computer:

These days, I write almost entirely on the computer. I used to do more of a mix. I’d make plot outlines with pen and paper, then write my first drafts on the computer, and after that I’d print them out and take them to a café to make hand-written editing notes. That changed during the pandemic, when I stopped being able to go to cafés. It seemed pointless to print something out just to take it five feet away. Once I stopped, I never got back in the habit. I still sometimes do outlines on paper, but everything else is on the computer.

Drafting on the computer tends to be best for the way I write. I’m very much an edit-as-I-go person, even during first drafts. I’ll write a sentence, change it, play with my word choices, change it back again, then go on to the next. Doing that with pen and paper rapidly turns into horrible mess of cross-outs and arrows and words spiraling down the margins. Also, my handwriting is terrible.

Book character I think I’d be best friends with:

Morgana, from Among Others by Jo Walton. We’ve read all the same books. We’d chat about The Left Hand of Darkness and I Capture the Castle and everything else and mostly agree or agreeably disagree but just once we’d have a huge falling out over A Certain Author that one of us adores and the other can’t abide and then we wouldn’t see each other until we both realize how much we miss having someone to talk to about this stuff even if they’re sometimes Very Wrong.

Author Interview - Ry Herman | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With

If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:

For many years, I worked as a theatrical director. I love live performance. I think there’s an interplay between a live performer and an audience that you really don’t get in any other medium. I haven’t done a lot of directing lately, though. It’s a lot of work and I’ve needed to put my time and energy into my books.

Favorite decade in fashion history:

I’m a huge fan of 1920s fashion. There’s such an exuberance to it. The freedom of casting aside corsets and going out to dance. (That being said, as a regular attendee of goth clubs in the days when they were still around, I think the corset era had some beautiful fashions, too.)

Place I’d most like to travel:

I’ve never been to New Zealand, and it’d be great to go visit sometime. It just sounds like a really nice, really lovely place.

My signature drink:

Genmaicha—green tea flavored with roasted popped brown rice. I consume an astonishing amount of it.

Favorite artist:

I’m not sure I have one and only one favorite artist in any medium, so for the purposes of this question, I’m just going to pick a name from the many I think are great. I’ve always been fond of the Surrealists, and Dorothea Tanning is one of my faves. Her paintings are stunning, evocative, and sometimes hilarious (Tableau vivant speaks to anyone who has ever had a possessive small dog.)

Number one on my bucket list:

I’ve crossed a couple of number one bucket list items off in the last few years—seeing a total eclipse, seeing the aurora borealis. There’s plenty left on the list, though. At the moment, number one is still sky-related. I’d love to see a great comet, visible to the naked eye.

About Ry Herman:

Author Interview with Ry Herman

Born in the US, Ry Herman is now a permanent Scottish resident, and has been writing theatrical plays for most of their life. Ry is bisexual and genderqueer. Their hobbies include baking bread, playing tabletop roleplaying games, and reading as many books as humanly possible. They’ve published two supernatural romantic comedies, Love Bites and Bleeding Hearts, in the UK. This Princess Kills Monsters is their US debut.