The Age of Fire begins in six days.
For fifteen hundred years, Slate and the other rebels have trained students to return Fire’s energy to the city of Wen. Only one is left, and Nokhum’s past is less than ideal. If he cannot convince the Council of Elders to allow Fire magic to return, chaos will claim the city.
We spoke with author R. Ramey Guerrero about Dust of a Moth’s Wing, bipolar disorder and PTSD representation, and the process of writing a multi-book series. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Your epic fantasy story is set in a world where fire is outlawed. Could you share more about that fascinating concept? What inspired it?
Because I’m a pagan, I often think of the elements and balance. This got me thinking, what would happen in a city of elemental stewards if an element was outlawed? Would that unbalance be sustainable? What might the people do to put a band-aid on the situation?
In my story, fire is forbidden after a civil war where the fire stewards lost. The tribe of fire stewards was banished or killed, and their element was banned from the city. This imbalance threatened to upend the magical energies and lower the boundary that protected the city, but the Sea Temple, erected to honor the element of salt, bridged the gap by neutralizing most other magics in the city. The Oracles of the soil tribe foretold that Chaos would descend upon the city if balance was not restored.
The Age of Fire is coming, but there are no fire stewards to control the energy. The rebels believe this will destroy the city.
Your protagonist, Nokhum, has bipolar disorder and PTSD. Are these traits inspired from your own experience? What made you decide to write a neurodivergent main character in an epic fantasy that is not necessarily about mental health?
Nokhum’s experiences with bipolar disorder and PTSD are based on my own, and in some ways, he is a self-insert character because I used my own symptoms as inspiration. We have different traumas, but I feel very connected to his story. I’ve been writing versions of this story for twenty years, but it didn’t click for me until his personality mirrored my own.
I decided to give him PTSD based on the loss of Cat, his life-mate, and his time spent in prison after he killed one of the men he thought was responsible. But making him bipolar was a decision that came after my own diagnosis. I was in the hospital after a suicide attempt when I started my draft over with the idea of making Nokhum bipolar. I never saw main characters with bipolar disorder that weren’t murderers or criminals. While, yes, Nokhum has a past, the story shows him protecting children and seeking clues for his lost love. I wanted to create a character who, despite mental illnesses, is desired as a Peace Keeper for his skills.
After my diagnosis, I felt like a throwaway person. I felt imprisoned by my symptoms, knowing if I had a public episode I would be stuck back in the hospital against my will. I wrote about these fears in another context partly as therapy. In writing Nokhum’s character, I was able to better unpack my own symptoms and accept them.
What traits of PTSD and bipolar disorder did you include in Nokhum’s story?
Some of the major traits that I included came from when I dealt with psychosis as a result of a manic episode. In my story, it begins in the grey time before dawn, but Nokhum has still not slept. He’s in a manic episode where paranoia levels are high. He has irritability from this and occasionally racing thoughts. But mostly, he takes the unnecessary risk of seeking out a known slaver to find out information about his lost love. With his PTSD, he breaks down into a panic attack when brought back to the prison where he had so many traumas. Flashbacks and intrusive thoughts plague him. He is also reckless and hypervigilant.
What got you into writing? What are some of your favorite books?
When I was ten, I was taken away from my mom, but not legally. It’s complicated. My mom says I was kidnapped. My new guardians wouldn’t allow me any contact with my mom or any of my family. My mom had always encouraged me to explore the world through books, and she let me read whatever age-appropriate book I wanted. When I was taken away, I was only allowed to read books if Jesus was a theme. Nothing against Christians, but I’m not one. My room was tossed several times a week to search for contraband in the form of fantasy novels.
That was my big rebellion. I realized that year that they might be able to restrict me from reading, but they couldn’t stop my imagination. I could write about whatever I wanted, and no one could stop me. What were they going to do, take away my mind? I began writing this story when I was eleven, a few months after being taken, and in a way, it helped me feel in touch with my true identity and my mom. The story never was right and I restarted several times until my final version.
I have so many favorite books, but the ones coming to mind are the Song of Ice and Fire series (George R. R. Martin), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), the Green Universe trilogy (Jay Lake), and Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro).
Can you share a little about your future plans for this series?
My whole series is outlined, and I have thirteen books planned. While my goal is to publish one book a year, I’m finding that difficult because of funding. Being disabled restricts what I can do for my books. I’m currently writing my seventh book, but the third is in editing right now. I’m saving for my cover design, and I think I will have it soon. In the future, I want a cookbook of original recipes based on the foods my characters eat, but that might be overambitious since I am not a chef and don’t have the money for the ingredients I want. Eh, I can dream. I anticipate my third book will come out next year.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
While sales are great, if you want to read my book but cannot afford it, find me on Twitter and I will give you a file to read on your phone or computer. I only ask that you review it. That review might be lengthy, or it can be as simple as, “____ was my favorite character.”
*I will not attack you if you dislike my work. I imagine not everyone will.
My story features completely original worldbuilding with no Earthly cultures represented, and I have multiple POVs. There is no spice in this book, but in future books, there might be a chili pepper’s worth of spice. There are few to no romance plotlines. So if that’s your thing, please read.
If you like my story and feel inspired to create art, that’s fine with me, and I’d love to be tagged, assuming nothing is NSFW.
