Call Forth the Moonlight: An Interview with Z.M. Celestaire
- Swords & Sapphics team
- Apr 4
- 8 min read
Escape to your next fantasy with Call Forth the Moonlight by Z.M. Celestaire, which is out today! In this interview, we chat all about where the inspiration behind this magical, academic, ecopunk setting came from, how being a therapist has informed the author's writing, and what we can expect to see next!
Thank you for joining us! Could you start by introducing yourself?
Hi there! I’m Z.M. Celestaire (they/them). I’m a genderqueer bisexual author and illustrator who lives in Minnesota.
We would love to know more about Call Forth the Moonlight and what inspired you to write it!
Call Forth the Moonlight is a queer ecopunk fantasy romance told from the perspectives of a disgraced university professor and a lonely farmer whose lives and feelings become intertwined by the fate of an imprisoned gryphon.
Call Forth the Moonlight is a love letter to the film How to Train Your Dragon as well as the environmentalism messages in Hayao Miyazaki’s films such as Castle in the Sky.
What drew you to the fantasy genre, and what do you love most about writing romance in this setting?
I’ve been a fantasy reader ever since The Chronicles of Narnia, Catwings, and The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I was very inspired by strong female writers like Ursula K Leguin, Tamora Pierce, and Patricia C Wrede. I started inventing my own magical worlds in elementary school. I liked urban fantasy because I could see myself running into magic in my own mundane world, and I doubt I’ll ever leave contemporary settings for high fantasy for this reason.
Romance and magic go hand-in-hand for me; I love the idea of having a companion as you face down magical life-or-death stakes or even just the ethics of magical creatures.
Do you have any favourite tropes, and do any appear in the book?
I am just now starting to embrace the intentional use of tropes with my current WIP, so the tropes present in my published works are a bit oblique. My favorite scene in Call Forth the Moonlight is some serious hurt/comfort vibes, though, and I hope readers enjoy that chapter as much as I did writing it. There might also be a major hidden identity plot twist that will have you screaming, but…spoilers.
Ackerleigh and Nico also have a slow-burn romance that simmers throughout the course of the book. This was almost completely done as a way to diverge from my last books’ romance, which was instalove.
What did the world-building process look like for you? Was this setting inspired by any other places, real or fictional?
The world-building changed and refined itself a lot over the drafts based in part on alpha/beta/editor feedback. The cottagecore vibes of the book ended up being reinforced by my semi-modern time period where there are cars and electricity but few other modern conveniences.
The fictional country of Deubrise, meanwhile, was heavily based on the semester I spent in New Zealand. Many of the plants, trees, and birds that are named are native to New Zealand. Ravensbourne University, the school where Ackerleigh teaches, is inspired by the feeling I had when I visited the University of Otago in Dunedin, which was hands down the most magical town I’ve ever been to.
Oh, and because I took French for like 10 years, I incorporated a lot of French vocabulary in Deubrise, including the name of the country. It was fun taking French at face value in places and then remembering that I was writing a fantasy, meaning I could bastardize it wherever I wanted to and smoosh it together with other cultural terms like ocky.
Developing the magic system was a trip. I enjoyed making the spiritual component of magic and a system of absent/slumbering gods. This was also important to the way I differentiated urban life from country life. Urban life moved away from reverence for the gods, and folks who prioritize technology (like the made-up political extremist group, the Technocrats) tend to see consequences for this while simultaneously punishing those that are blessed by the gods with magiq.
Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? Which, if any, do you identify with most and why?
Ackerleigh and Nico are the POV main characters who grow together throughout the novel. Both characters have traits that are inspired by my own experience with neurodivergence, so I definitely see myself in both of them.
Ackerleigh is more like me in a lot of ways though. From his special interest in academia and his single-minded pursuit of all the degrees he can get, to his genderqueer identity.
Honestly, making Ackerleigh genderqueer was a lightbulb moment for me. It was June 2024 and, having come out as genderqueer in 2023, I was feeling forlorn about the lack of rep and pride for genderqueer folks. I realized Ackerleigh was already fairly coded as genderqueer but the decision to intentionally make him genderqueer was so, so empowering. His relationship with his appearance, which is at odds with how he wants to be perceived by the world, yet very much something he loves about himself too, is the way it is because that’s how I experience my own gender. He looks feminine, and loves dressing in soft fabrics and lace and embroidering his clothes, but he wants to be seen as assertive, strong, and capable.
And, similarly, which characters do you hope your readers will connect with the most?
I have a soft spot for Stella. Early readers hated Stella. But she’s not an accident either. Stella is an embodiment of the teenagers I work with as a therapist. I think when we’re adults we forget how alienating it is to be a teenager, let alone one like Stella who has been out and proud as a magiqon—and everyone hates her for it. Sometimes you have no choice but to get nasty in order to protect yourself. When readers encounter Stella, I hope they’ll think about the moments in life where they feel like it’s them against the world. Especially through a queer lens, where we know we have nothing to apologize for and our identities are beautiful, not shameful or dangerous. Stella is fighting for herself for all our sakes.
The story features a diverse range of representation, with queer and neurodivergent main characters. Why was it important to you to include this in your books?
I grew up very closed-minded, at war with my own queerness, and ignorant of my own neurodivergence in most ways that mattered. I am absolutely making up for lost time. The first non-het pairing I ever even wrote was only in 2020.
Writing neurodivergent characters was actually super intimidating. I only started to realize I was neurodivergent a few years ago, and although I got my official ADHD diagnosis in 2024, I still have a ton of imposter syndrome. My editor for CFTM is renowned for their neurodivergent characters so they helped me work up the courage to name Ackerleigh and Nico as neurodivergent even though I already knew they were.
Is there any additional representation that you’d like to see or write more of in the future?
I want to keep exploring my own gender and sexuality through my characters, so that means I want to see: more femme nonbinary characters, more autistic femmes, and more ADHD representation. You can bet that all of my future characters will hold pieces of my own identities.
Have you come across any challenges while writing or publishing this story? How have you overcome them?
I sort of mentioned Stella was a problem, ha ha. She needed a lot of polishing to even be considered a “diamond in the rough” and not just an actual problem.
Also, when I was drafting Call Forth the Moonlight during November 2023 for novel writing month, I basically just copy and pasted Andrew and Micah from The Heartwood Trilogy into the roles of Ackerleigh and Nico. It turns out that detaching characters from their placeholders is fairly tedious. I have pages and pages of sketches as I changed their character designs. Nico in particular underwent substantial personality changes, but I’m literally so happy with how that anxious bean turned out.
Are you a plotter or pantser, and did any additional research go into this book?
If I don’t have at least a loose plot, I’ll get scared and won’t be able to keep momentum going. A lot of times though the moments of inspiration come when I don’t know what I’m about to do but I have to keep stumbling forward until I get to the next plot point.
For Call Forth the Moonlight, I did a lot of bird research, ha ha. There are many different types of feathers, and a bird’s vocal chords are very special. When I decided to make Lunix capable of vocalizing, I wanted it to still feel avian even though they are a magical creature. Plus, since I do my own illustrations, I had to learn how to, you know, draw a gryphon. That at least was fun since I’ve now had a year and a half of progress to show for that, and I think I’m able to do Lunix justice.
We’d love a hint about what readers can expect from you next! What are you currently working on? Will we see more books set in this world?
Right now, I’m actually drafting a brand new sapphic urban romantasy! I feel so disingenuous as an author when doing high fantasy, so I’m staying with my contemporary settings. I’m very excited to be delving into a sapphic relationship at center stage. The magic is also near and dear to my heart.
And since you have quite a large backlist, which book would you direct fans of Call Forth the Moonlight to next?
Pick up Deny Me, The Nightshade Boy to jump into Lilydale’s dangerous Fae world!
You’re also an artist and therapist. Have you found a connection between the two, as well as writing? Do any inform the other, or vice versa?
Oh, absolutely. I realized especially with one of the books in The Heartwood Trilogy that I might at times inject my characters with slightly too much mental health crises, but I don’t notice because I have a pretty high threshold for what constitutes a crisis lol. With my current project, which is heavily informed by my therapy experiences, I’m working on allowing my mental health experience to inform my writing while avoiding utilizing it to fully process whatever piece of heartbreak I’m currently grappling with as a therapist. At least now that I’m writing in a public sphere and not just for myself.
I do love the concept of my characters still coping with mental health issues in a fantasy setting though, and that will always be something I do in my writing.
With five published works, what have you learned on your journey so far? Any advice for debut authors?
I have definitely learned that community is the most important part about establishing yourself as an indie author. Make friends with readers and other authors. Authors are some of our best advocates, and indie publishing isn’t a competition.
Our podcast and blog focuses on media we’re currently loving. Are there any books, shows, movies, or games you’re enjoying at the moment? Any recommendations for our audience? Bonus points if it includes sapphics!
I’m playing a game that totally has sapphic energy called Split Fiction, but I’m worried they’re just “really good friends” lol…it’s still a great game though! An awesome cooperative story about two writers who realize they’re taking part in a futuristic experiment where the creator is trying to mine ideas from authors! Very timely hehe.
I just finished Sorcery and Small Magics which is a debut from author Maiga Doocy and it was a delightful read with a very cool cooperative magic system.
About the Author
Z.M. (they/them) is a writer, artist, and therapist. Writing and art have been a hobby for some twenty years now since they were a goofy little middle schooler. Z.M. grew up devouring urban fantasy authors like Charles De Lint, Holly Black, and Patricia C. Wrede.
Z.M. lives in Saint Paul with their spouse, human child, and fur children.
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