Simon Doyle: “As a gay man, I write both of my younger self and to my younger self. I didn’t have any queer literature growing up, so I eventually turned to writing the stories I longed for.”

Simon Doyle is an Own-Voice, Irish author whose work explores the complex intersections of age, identity, love, and, occasionally, the supernatural, with an emphasis on gay/queer experiences. Driven by the stories he needed growing up, his storytelling features emotionally resonant characters, atmospheric settings, and a strong commitment to authenticity, providing readers with narratives that are entertaining, meaningful, and always diverse. He lives in Ireland with a neurotic rescue dog and his husband, Lucas.

Simon is the author of several gay YA romances, including The Sound of You, Snow Boys, with its short story companion piece entitled Snow Girl: A Snow Boy’s Story, and the two-book Runaway Bay series. He’s also penned the neo-gothic This Is Not A Vampire Story, a haunting gay paranormal romance.

In this interview, Simon and I explore a range of topics, including the use and impact of tropes and clichés, navigating queer trauma in fiction, and the ways personal life and history can shape one’s writing.

My review of Simon Doyle’s This Is Not A Vampire Story can be found in an earlier blog post.

When reflecting on the origins of your writing, both as a personal journey of creative expression and as a professional pursuit, who or what do you credit as your primary inspiration? At what point did you realize it was time to move beyond writing solely for yourself and step into the often intimidating realm of publishing? How do you manage the anxiety that comes with sharing your work with a global audience?

I don’t think I could credit any one particular author for inspiration as much as I (blame) my parents. They were both readers and taught me the value of a good book. They went from reading bedtime stories to me to helping me to read on my own. By the age of 4 or 5, I was reading Dr. Seuss books; by 7 or 8, I was reading old, yellowed copies of The Hardy Boys; and by 12, I was reading Stephen King (despite my mum’s warnings!). If I had to pick one author as an early influence, I’d go with Dr. Seuss. Those are the first books I actually remember reading on my own.

I’ve been writing for myself almost as long as I can remember. I started with some terrible poetry and some stick-figure comic book stories as a child, and I wrote my first full (completed) novel at 16. It was awful. Trust me, governments could use it as a torture device! But I’d dabbled in WattPad for a while, with some queer short stories, and the encouragement I received was immense. By the time I’d completed Runaway Train, it wasn’t so much a conscious decision to publish in book form (instead of piecemeal on WattPad) as a natural progression.

It was always my goal to be a writer, even when grown-ups said I needed a backup plan. I told my English teacher in high school to look out for my name on a book cover one day. I was 14 at the time, haha! So I never found it intimidating to put my work out there. Nerve-wracking, yes (it still is!), but never intimidating.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t manage the anxiety that comes with sharing my work. I’ve had to step away from social media a few times to breathe. Don’t ask me for a coping strategy, because my strategy is basically: close eyes, release book, cringe, wait for criticism, and repeat. And I can’t re-read that story later. As a writer, you know how it goes: the first draft is terrible, then you read and edit it a bazillion times. Once it’s out there, you can’t read it again, or you’ll find something wrong with it. I’m like that with life, too. Once it’s done, it’s done. Move on.

What about the genre of Romance, particularly within the realm of YA, inspires and excites you? In your view, what are the essential elements that make a love story truly compelling? How does writing gay/queer romance, especially in a young adult or teenager context, reshape or transform these elements, particularly when adapting traditionally heteronormative romance themes for a same-sex narrative?

Middle-grade stories are hopeful. Grown-up stories are often jaded and bleak. YA, for me, is that happy medium between the two. At 16, you still have hopes and dreams, but you know the way of the world. It’s that crossover between youthful, childish glee and the darkness of being an adult.

There’s also, for me, this second run of firsts. Your first run is the first step, first tooth, first word, etc. The second run of firsts is first kiss, first love, first heartbreak. And everything feels amplified as a teenager. I bet you still remember your first heartbreak. I certainly do! Those enormous emotions are what I love about YA. Give me angst mixed with the tenderness of tentative touches!

The essential elements of a love story have to be chemistry and conflict. Chemistry is what gives you butterflies right when you need them. Conflict is what gives you action and movement.

As a gay man, I write both of my younger self and to my younger self. I didn’t have any queer literature growing up, so I eventually turned to writing the stories I longed for. But queer stories themselves aren’t any different from heteronormative stories. I have always set out to show that queer love is just the same as straight love. We all have longing, joy, connection and heartbreak. Love is love. Isn’t that what we’ve been telling the world for decades?

Gay/Queer Romance, particularly M/M, as a genre can sometimes risk falling into formulaic tropes or fetishization. How do you maintain emotional honesty and depth in your stories, ensuring they feel genuine rather than performative? Do you find that writing from an Own-Voice perspective offers you a unique advantage in achieving this authenticity? 

Oh, I love a good trope! The Sound of You, for example, deliberately steals a number of tropes from Korean BL [Boys’ Love] stories. Our lives are built around tropes. Cliches are cliches for a reason. But tropes only work if they’re handled with care. As writers, we have to take the formula of the trope, decode it, and repackage it in a way that feels truthful. I want my characters to feel, not just do.

Writing from an Own-Voice perspective definitely has its advantages; I think it’s less a privilege than a responsibility. Representation matters. All stories (not just queer ones) can slip into caricatures if they’re not written well. I want to portray love in a way that feels genuine to me. It keeps coming back to: what is [this thing] for me? It’s more than authentic, it’s personal.

Do you think being gay subconsciously influences your work, making it inherently queer-centric? Or do you feel that, as a writer, you’re always aware of the content you include and you’re actively choosing to write with an LGBTQ+ focus?

I think it’s a little of both. Being gay influences the way I see the world; it’s part of who I am, so it’s going to shape the stories I tell. But I don’t feel as though I’m being intentional with it. I write the kinds of stories I wish I had as a kid, not because I feel limited to writing such stories, but because they represent me on the page. It’s intrinsic.

Snow Boys offers a powerful and intimate exploration of queer adolescence, capturing the fragile, urgent experience of young people coming to terms with their identities in a world that can be both cold and hostile. Set against a bleak, wintry backdrop that brilliantly mirrors the isolation many queer teens feel, the novel centres on characters wrestling with (internalized) homophobia, the fear of rejection, and the aching need for authentic connection. Your portrayal of queer youth is unapologetically honest; there’s no glossing over pain, confusion or the sometimes brutal realities of bullying and invisibility. Yet, you manage to keep it from getting too dark despite the serious themes; the balance between heartwarming and strife is just right. 

Since your YA novels, including Snow Boys, explore identity during some of the most formative, awkward, and vulnerable years for queer youth, how have you developed your approach to portraying queer trauma in a way that avoids exploitation or melodrama, while also being mindful of not retraumatizing readers?

It’s important to be honest about queer trauma because it’s part of so many young people’s realities. Pretending otherwise would feel false. But I’m equally conscious that these stories aren’t here to exploit pain or wallow in it. Trauma should never be used as shock value. It has to come from the characters and from the truth of their lives.

I try to ground those experiences in emotional authenticity, but always balance them with hope. Even in the darkest moments of Snow Boys, there’s connection, tenderness, and the possibility of love. Queer teens deserve to see not just the weight of the world but also the light that gets them through it, that crossover I talked about earlier.

Humour also plays a big role in that balance. I’m Irish, which means we’re great at laughing at ourselves. Humour is woven into my writing almost instinctively—it softens the blow of darker themes and keeps the story from sinking into despair. When something terrible occurs, I always follow it with something light. I think that’s just a natural instinct now. Readers, in my view, crave the warts of humanity, but they don’t want to feel depressed about it. Humour allows me to hit hard but still leave space for hope.

I don’t want someone to walk away retraumatized; they need to feel seen. If just one queer teen reads one of my books and feels a little less alone, then I’ve done my job. And honestly, I’m still getting fan mail from young men more than 2 years after its release, telling me how much it affected them. That alone is why I continue to do it.

Queer desire and loss are central to many Gothic narratives, though often portrayed in coded or tragic ways. In This is Not a Vampire Story, Victor cannot forget James, nor can he live fully in the present. His immortality becomes a kind of prolonged grief—an extended metaphor for the queer experience of carrying memory in a society that has long demanded forgetting, even repression. Much of Victor’s past occurs during a time when queer people were forced to hide their love and relationships.

Now, in the present, he works in a care home, still appearing seventeen, and surrounded by those nearing the end of their lives. His unchanging body contrasts with the aging world around him, and his queerness—like his vampirism—isolates him in a space meant for those nearing death. This setting brings a rare and poignant focus to the theme of queer aging and the emotional toll of surviving both time and erasure.

What drew you to explore the experience of outliving the people you’ve loved and filtering that narrative through the lens of a vampire (though you never use this supernatural classification in the story)? And what does it mean, in your view, for immortal Victor to carry those hidden histories into the present—memories that others have forgotten, or were never allowed to have and/or openly express in the first place? How did you consciously rewrite or reclaim classic Gothic tropes, particularly around loss, secrecy, and the passage of time, for a modern queer audience?

For me, immortality isn’t about glamour or power, it’s about memory. Victor can’t forget James, or any of the lives he’s touched, and that grief becomes part of him. In a way, he embodies the queer experience of carrying memory in a world that has often demanded forgetting or repression. He’s a reminder that history doesn’t vanish just because society looks away.

How he came to be is a complex story. Pain and regret have always had a place in my novels, so what better way to show that than forcing one character to watch his love interest die? Maybe I’m evil; I don’t know (he jokes). Placing him in a care home, surrounded by those at the end of their lives, felt like the perfect mirror. His body never changes, but the world around him does. That contrast lets me explore something rarely seen in queer fiction: the emotional toll of aging—or in Victor’s case, never aging—while still carrying all those hidden histories forward.

At the same time, while I was writing This Is Not a Vampire Story, I was also exploring Buddhism as a practice, and the question of what death really is became central to the novel. From a Buddhist perspective, death is simply a transition, not an ending. That understanding helped shape the novel’s heart. For Victor, too, there comes a shift in how he views mortality: what once seemed terrifying begins to look like release, or even acceptance. It’s a quiet but profound evolution.

I never set out to reclaim gothic tropes or narrative, though in writing about a vampire (and, as you state, I never once use the word “vampire” in the story), it’s difficult to avoid them. Classic gothic stories often coded queer desire as monstrous or doomed. For Victor, I needed something different. He’s not a monster, he’s a queer man navigating the weight of time.

Queer representation is at the heart of your work, but your commitment to inclusivity extends even further. In The Sound of You, Jun-ho Lee, who is half-Korean, is Deaf. As someone who also writes characters with disabilities, I understand how vital it is to portray them with respect and depth, showing that people of all experiences have desires, ambitions, and frustrations. It’s disheartening to see stories where characters are “othered,” with queerness, race or disability reduced to little more than a device for melodrama, stripped of nuance or authenticity.

I do want to acknowledge that many Deaf individuals, particularly those who identify as part of the Deaf community, don’t consider themselves disabled. Instead, they see Deafness as a rich cultural and linguistic identity, primarily through the use of sign language, not as a deficit or impairment.

With Jun, you’ve created a deeply nuanced character whose Deafness is not a limitation, but an integral part of his identity, as is his experience as a biracial person. His character feels authentic and fully realized, not defined by disability but shaped by the richness of his lived experiences. Owen, our love interest, adapts, and with time, communicating with Jun becomes second nature.

What inspired you to write a Deaf character who is also biracial, and was it tricky putting yourself in Jun’s head? What advice would you offer writers who want to respectfully and meaningfully include characters with disabilities in their work, highlighting not just challenges, but also the fullness of their lives, identities, and the importance of acceptance over the trope of overcoming differences?

The inspiration for Jun really came from two places in my life that converged. The first was a newfound love of K-dramas, especially Korean BL dramas. They can be a little silly in terms of plot, but at their core, they almost always carry this deep thread of hope. That sense of hopefulness was something I wanted to weave into The Sound of You.

Secondly, as a child, I had a very good Deaf friend. We lost touch over the years, but what stayed with me was his fierce independence and the way his Deafness wasn’t something that defined him negatively. It was just part of who he was.

That memory became a touchstone when I began shaping Jun. His Deafness is not a deficit, but an integral piece of his identity, alongside his biracial heritage. He’s not “overcoming” anything; he’s living fully as himself.

Was it tricky to put myself in his head? Yes, because I wanted to do it respectfully and with care. But I also approached it the same way I do with any character: by grounding him in humanity first. For writers looking to include characters with disabilities, I’d say not to write them as challenges to be overcome, and not to make their identity the whole story. Do your research, but more importantly, give them the same depth, contradictions, and vitality you’d give any character.

From Dublin to Belfast, the two books in your Runaway Bay series are set against the rich and evocative backdrop of Ireland, with each installment weaving the country’s landscapes, culture, and history into its narrative. In fact, Ireland features prominently throughout all your work. How has your Irish heritage shaped your approach to storytelling? Do you find that Ireland—its history, landscapes, and cultural sensibilities—naturally influences the settings you choose and the characters you create?

Ireland has a history of producing writers, so it must be in my blood! You can’t turn around here without tripping over a poet, playwright, or just someone spinning a good yarn in the pub. Sometimes I think storytelling is baked into the Irish culture. I say all that in jest, but maybe there’s some truth to it.

There’s also truth in that old advice to “write what you know.” Although I’ve lived in London, Leeds, and for a short time in Oklahoma, Ireland is my home first and foremost. It shaped me as much as it shapes my storytelling. So whether I’m writing a contemporary YA novel set in Dublin or a Gothic-esque vampire story, that heritage is always there. I’m influenced by what I see. I can only hope that people understand me when they read my Irish-isms!

If you had the chance to become one of your characters, which one would you choose and why? What specific qualities, experiences or inner conflicts of this character resonate with you personally? How do they reflect your worldview, values, or perhaps even parts of yourself that you don’t often express? What makes this character stand out to you above the others you’ve created? Would you say this character reveals traces of yourself more clearly than the rest, perhaps a subtle instance of “author slippage” showing through?

That’s a tricky question because the truth is I couldn’t choose just one. Every character I write carries a piece of me. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and I carry a piece of them. Either way, I’m already all of them in some way.

There isn’t a single character I’d want to be more than the others, because writing them is already my way of inhabiting them. I get to live through their fears, joys, mistakes, and triumphs.

There’s almost certainly plenty of “author slippage” running through my books, but it’s not confined to any one character. They’re all reflections of me in some way. I’m Victor as much as I am Amaral. Owen is as much me as I am Jun-ho. As a writer, I don’t think there’s any avoiding that.

What book(s) are you currently devouring? Do you have a preferred genre or are you quite diverse in your reading preferences?

My TBR pile is enormous (whose isn’t?!), but at the minute, I’m reading some Zen Buddhist texts as I further my explorations into the practice. And in terms of fiction, I’ve just finished Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a fellow Irish writer. It was my first Keegan story, and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

I do read mostly queer fiction when I can, but not to the exclusion of all others. I have an eclectic taste in fiction almost as much as I do in music (which, if you ask my husband, simply means “weird”!). I’m also reading some non-fiction textbooks that are helping to lay the foundations for my next novel. To me, “write what you know” means “study it first until you know it, then write.”

What does the future hold for author Simon Doyle? Are there plans to continue the Runaway Bay series? Maybe a desire to explore another gothic-inspired gay paranormal romance novel? “This Is Not A Werewolf Story,” perhaps? (We can workshop this.)

I always go where the story leads. I’ve announced that I won’t be continuing the Runaway Bay series. After eleven (honestly!) distinct attempts at Runaway Ridge (what would have been book 3 in the series), I had to accept that it was a story that refused to be told. Denis and Oliver from book 1, and Caleb and Kai from book 2, will live out their days at Runaway Bay without new arrivals to disturb them. I was young and naïve when I started that series, and my craft has changed so much since then.

As for “This is Not a Werewolf Story,” I originally had a plan for more “This is not a…” stories, and my editor was pushing for an alien story. But I find that when I’m pushed in a certain direction, my brain refuses to go there. It needs to journey on its own in order to feel free enough to write. But that’s not to say I won’t go there one day.

Right now, I’m working on a few very disparate stories simultaneously. My process is basically to throw stories at the wall and see what sticks. It’s messy, but it’s also where the magic happens, because when something does stick, I know I’ve found the one worth chasing. I try not to limit myself to genre beyond the basics: there’ll be love, and there’ll be hurt. But don’t be alarmed if my next novel is set in 16th-century Ireland—or the 26th Century!

Thanks so much, Simon, for sharing your journey and thoughts on your work in Gay/Queer Paranormal and YA Romance. It was a pleasure hearing about what drives you as an author. Can’t wait to see where your projects go next, and I’m wishing you all the best moving forward!

For more information about this author, follow Simon Doyle on Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, or visit his Website. To purchase his work head to Barnes & Noble, Indigo, or check out his Amazon Author Page.