Beth was born and raised near Oberlin, Ohio, and she hasn’t moved far. The charming college town is a favorite haunt of hers for daydreaming when writing and planning fantasy novels. When not writing, Beth can be found reading fantasy novels, cozy mysteries, and almost any book she can get on the craft of putting words on the page.
Hi! My name is Beth Overmyer and I am a fantasy author.
It started when I was little. The exact age isn’t important…I guess. But, as they say:
Once upon a time, I realized I liked make-believe, from acting out little plays—“Princesses” and “Cooking With Ugly Girls”—to daydreaming additional scenes for movies I enjoyed. All sorts of stories and scenarios would dance onto the stage of my mind. The more I imagined, the more I wanted to pretend.
Soon enough, I discovered these ideas could be committed to paper and reviewed at my leisure. So I wrote. Poems to begin with, then a picture book. I’d had a taste, and now I wanted more. MORE!
My first attempt at a novel came when I was twelve years old. Sadly, I chose a poor file name to save it as on my Windows 95-operated computer, and another file was saved over it. I like to rag on my mom a bit for this story, but I really have no ill feelings toward her. She was just recording tax information.
In 1999, I wrote a skit for 4-H and a script or two for a TV show I liked, and mailed the latter off. The folks at CBS were so sweet! They sent back my episode for “Now and Again”, gave me the name and information of the agent that repped the writers, and wished me best of luck with my career. Nothing came of it, but it was a good lesson: always delve deep until you have the info you need…and be kind.
Fast forward to the 2000s…
I was out of high school and floundering. For a while, I thought I was meant to pursue acting (once I realized poetry wasn’t the field for me.) Hated it. Then I thought maybe dramaturgy was the thing. Nope. I wrote a personal essay, which became my first publication credit. Then I joined a few online writing groups in 2007. The Critique Circle was the one that stuck, and I learned some important lessons in craft and mindset from many writers, and I even made some friends.
Next up was a movie screenplay. I had heard of NaNoWriMo and tried their month-long program called Script Frenzy!, which led to a completed screenplay. I submitted it to a screenwriting contest and placed best in comedy. No prize money, and no real interest in the script beyond the contest. Doubts lingered as to whether or not it was legit.
Then, in 2011, after several attempts at different long-form projects (and a handful of short stories that made it into anthologies and e-zines), I wrote a middle grade book called In a Pickle. I queried a few agents, once I had revised and gotten feedback, but no one bit. Then I got a bite from a small publisher that had rejected another manuscript of mine. It was an e-rights first press, and I signed. My book came out at the end of 2012.
Going forward, I kept writing…and added the duty of promoting/marketing a book to that. I finished another middle grade project, but by then I wasn’t entirely convinced that was the age category I wanted to continue writing in. So I moved on to adult fiction (the age, not anything risqué.) Circus in a Shot Glass came out from another small press in September of 2018, and the publisher went under about three years later.
But I had a fantasy novel for adults up my sleeves, and things started to click. In January of 2019, after months of querying agents and publishers, Flame Tree Press offered me an advance and a contract for The Goblets Immortal. Then came the sequels – Holes in the Veil and Death’s Key. With that series complete, I started another. Brittle, Tempered Glass, and Forged made up the Blade & Bone trilogy. All six novels – 3 TGI books and 3 B&B books – are published by Flame Tree, but my next book will be published elsewhere.
The adventure began in my mind and imagination and continues down the uncertain paper-laden path. Will you join me?
Add What You Do
Fantasy author
Self-employed
Where to buy my books
Amazon
E-books, paperbacks, and hardcovers
Barnes and Noble
E-books, paperbacks, and hardcovers of most of my titles
Books-A-Million
E-books, paperbacks, and hardcovers of most of my titles
The Goblets Immortal series is available at most internet stores.
Beth Overmyer 