Claudie Arseneault

Ace and aro rep, board games, fantasy worlds and future dreams!

Hey everyone,

As I draft this post, I’m in a little turmoil of my own. And I specifically chose to draft it now because of the really gentle and soothing vibes Claudie Arseneault’s work has always given me. I was actually delighted to hear from the author for an interview.

For those who don’t know, Claudie Arseneault is an author with a huge back catalogue of aroace fiction with a focus on platonic relationships, including The Baker Thief and City of Spires. The chance to talk with her about her work and inspirations was amazing.

Chaos Gays: So, with these interviews I’ve gotten into the habit of getting people to introduce themselves first, and their work, so could you tell anyone reading a little about what you write? (I may know, but doesn't mean everyone does!)

CA: I'm Claudie Arseneault, an aroace writer from Quebec City. I write queer fantasy almost exclusively, and most of my work centers platonic relationships, aro and ace heroes, and very often happens in a single-city setting (Baker Thief and the City of Spires series). I've also put together an anthology of aromantic spec fic, Common Bonds, which as far as I know is still the only aro-focused one today.

Chaos Gays: Queer fantasy can never go wrong! So one thing for me is that I’ve always been in love with the sheer quantity and quality of your ace/aro rep. How did this get to be a thing you’re so known for? Was it something you intentionally set out to do?

CA: I think it comes half from spite, half from the need for exploration. By the time I discovered asexuality and aromanticism (around 2014-2015), I was already writing at a near professional level. And I started to see it within my characters, like little bits of myself I had scattered. A lot of Isandor was rewritten and reimagined with that lens, and because I had such a wealth of characters, it became easy to explore different sorts of storylines and different ways to be ace and aro.

It was also a time where the rare representation we had was often poor or walked tropes that'd isolate us (exile, death), where "queer ensemble cast" almost never included us (especially aromanticism), and where it felt impossible to be seen as an indie writer. I had a lot of energy and anger about being treated as not queer enough, not important enough, and I put all of it either in my writing, or into building a database of all the canon aromantic and asexual characters I could find, and writing about common trends I saw. We needed better, and we deserved it.

Chaos Gays: Spite is often a very good motivator, I find. And the fact that you're putting that representation out there must make a huge difference to a lot of people. Is there anything that as an author you're personally really proud of in your career? Or in the responses you've had?

CA: On a very personal level, I'm proud of how far I've come, especially when it comes to aromanticism. You can almost watch it happen live in the City of Spires series, as it delves increasingly deep into these experiences the more comfortable I get.

So I'd be writing like this no matter what, but I have gotten so many messages, as comments or emails or in even in person at conventions, that have told me I've helped them along too, and those truly make every struggle to get it right and get it seen worth it. These tend to come from Baker Thief, and that makes sense, as I often call it my self-validation book. I wrote it with an aromantic MC almost as permission to call myself aromantic, too.

Chaos Gays: That's so perfect to me. So, can you tell us about your series? Pitch them to us, but hopefully with lower stress-levels than most pitches require!

CA: Okay, so.. gonna let this one run long at times ^^;

1) City of Spires is a finished quartet of books that follow the political and at times magical battle between the idealist head of a noble house and the local imperialist wizard enclave. But it's also the story of long-gone noble returning a century later to a city he doesn't recognize, and of a broken trio of friends finding each other, and of a grumpy apprentice escaping the abusive enclave and finding a loving home. It's the story of the city as a living, breathing, interconnected place, so I've told it through a lot of point of views, like a mosaic. But they're all queer. A reviewer once described it as "Games of Thrones meets Mr. Rogers", and another like "queer Forgotten Realms" and, yes, both of those, LOL.

2) Baker Thief has only one book out, but it's a series dedicated to writing romantic tropes as platonic relationships. The first is enemies-to-queerplatonic, between a bigender baker who moonlights as a thief and the officer trying to catch him. The setting is rooted in my home city, with inspiration from Siena in Italy, and I deliberately let myself be more francophone with it.

3) The Chronicles of Nerezia is my most recent one, and it's a series of novellas that wrap the high stakes of epic fantasy in a cozy fantasy vibes. Basically board games and adventures! It's an ode to my love for JRPGs and TTRPGs, and is built like an episodic campaign, or that JRPG thing where you travel across the world to get to your Big World Reveal. It even has a magical Wagon that's sentient!

Chaos Gays: Long is perfect. I want to know ALL of the information. So, you write a lot of fantasy works with very complex worldbuilding. How does queerness, or even DOES queerness, feature in the rules and societies of your worlds and is there a reason you chose it that way?

CA: I tend to build queerness as a matter of fact within my world, either through the religion or just to posit it as a normal fact of every day life by not questioning its existence. Interestingly, both of my earlier books still have worlds where it might be okay to be aro and ace, but the world is still built to be harder on you. Romantic-sexual pairings are still the expected norm and the base unit of life. They're like this because I was exploring the frictions of being aro and ace in our allonormative world, and the inherent queerness of it.

Nerezia is very intentionally the other way around. I got tired of being offered "queernorm" worlds where everyone had been normalized, even on a structural level, except for us. I wanted something more radical. So I built societies that didn't favour romantic pairings, where the structural blocks were something else. The first city is organized in professions, with masters at the head of their clans, so your first duty is to basically colleagues. I wanted to have casually aro and ace characters evolve in universes where there isn't such a big deal made of romance and sex, and it is super fun and refreshing to write!

Chaos Gays: I adore that so much. While we're on the topic of worldbuilding, you did mention games to me when we spoke, including board games... How do these sorts of things influence your work?

CA: Games in writing is something I've always loved but am leaning into more firmly for Nerezia. Video games and tabletop RPGs are part of its inspiration, but more traditional card and board games feature heavily in the story itself. They're the cosy aspect of the books, the quiet hours. These things have been a major part of my entire life, with family and friends, and they feel like such a natural way to explore characters and establish a deeper bond. Games are so revealing of the people who play them, through how they play, how they deal with defeat, how they relate to their opponents and teammates, etc. And they're a great worldbuilding tool, too, through their themes and the type of rules they have! Every Nerezia novella has a different, primary game; I've made it part of my personal formula, and I love every second of writing like that.

Chaos Gays: That sounds fascinating! So, beyond the queerness and fantasy, is there anything that you feel connects all of your work together, or that keeps coming up no matter what you do?

CA: The focus on single cities rather than a big world seems to come up often. Even Nerezia, with all of its travelling, is a world of isolated city states. Platonic relationships in general, though that is distinctly rolled up in my own queerness. I will say, though, that family especially is one that has a lot of importance to me. It's very obvious in Isandor, where noble houses are all big extended family, and in Baker Thief, where the MC is trying to save his twin, and the "LI" has a big family with one sibling in town. But even Nerezia ... by undoing the traditional nuclear family, I installed new structures, and a lot of my MC's story and struggle is initially about what happens when you're not "good enough" for any of the Clans, and of finding your own place. I have an incredible family and I think their importance in my life bleeds into everything I write, one way or another.

Chaos Gays: That's so wonderful! So I've got to ask, do you have any writing dreams? Anywhere you hope to go (fictionally or in real life) or hope to be one day? Are there ideas lurking that you're desperate to share with the world?

CA: My small (but very big, in a way) dream is to sell enough to become a full time writer. Just a steady income where this is all I do. I quit my dayjob a little over a year ago and this is the happiest I've been, but I'm far from being able to maintain it.

My big big dream is for any of my works to be adapted into an animated series. I love this media form and it'd be such a thrill!

As for ideas, I've got plenty (more Baker Thief, more Isandor, brand new projects and so on...), and my main problem getting them out of the lurking stage is time! There aren't enough hours in a day, which is a huge part of the wanting to be full time. Let me do nothing but write, universe!

Chaos Gays: I love those thoughts so much. And I feel you on the hours. I swear days are getting shorter! So my last question is for fun purposes only. ... If you had to hop into one of your own stories and live life there, which would you choose and why?

CA: Baker Thief's city of Val-de-mer is basically home, but with cool quartiers identity and an annual tournois, and people can have fancy magical powers and queer struggles are much further along. Sooo, sort of an easy choice for me.

Chaos Gays: That's VERY fair. So thank you so much for talking to me, and if people can go check out your links, I think they'll find a new favourite!

As always, I had a lot of fun conducting this interview and learning more. If anything here caught your eye, I encourage readers to go check out Claudie Arseneault and her work!

Links

Website: www.claudiearseneault.com (Kept up to date)