Whilst on the hunt for a new read, I stumbled upon some fanart of a book I'd never heard of before: "Tahlwood: Secrets in the Woods," and whilst the title sounds promising, the synopsis is what captured my attention. Accompanying her author info, I found a link to sign up to be part of her street team; and so I thought, "Why not see if she's interested in answering some questions?" So, I ended up with the chance to ask her some questions about her novel, publishing journey, and writing life.

Of course, the first thing any reader would want to know before picking up a brand-new book is the content. So what better way than to hear what the book is about, than from the author herself?

Image credit: Courtesy of DM Gearhart

Let’s talk tropes, genre, and plot. If you had to summarize your novel, “Tahlwood: Secrets in the Woods”, what would be the main things you’d want your readers to know? What are some of the tropes present in the novel?

“Tahlwood: Secrets In The Woods” is a suspenseful and tragic coming-of-age story about a boy, Cody Miller, who rises to popularity quickly thanks to his position as the quarterback on the Varsity football team at Tahlwood High School. He and the other characters in this story are faced with the darker side of high school: bullying, peer pressure, substance abuse, and trying to keep their secrets from getting out. There is tons of teen angst, opposites attract, forbidden friendship, and small-town vibes leading up to the shocking twist in the end that many readers never saw coming. “Tahlwood: Secrets In The Woods” ends on a cliffhanger for the next book leaving readers wanting more. I plan for four books total in the Tahlwood series.

If there's one thing I love in YA novels it's the angst. As depressing as it may sound, I do enjoy tragic coming-of-age novels, especially when a beautiful story is accompanied by equally precious friendships.

What was the publishing process like? Were there rejections, hiccups, difficulties or was it a smooth journey? How did you find the perfect publishers?

I chose to self-publish my story. I started writing this story in middle school, and even then I knew I wanted to go the self-publishing route. I played around with this story in many ways.

I changed points of view, got rid of characters, and used it to really practice my skill as a writer. For over ten years I continued to revisit this story, until I finally decided to get serious about the rewrite that eventually led to me self-publishing.

Nothing is ever easy. I did make a few mistakes and doing it all yourself is a challenge. Hiring an editor, making a cover, formatting, marketing, and watching many Youtube videos to make sure I did everything correctly. I chose to publish on KDP and put my book on Amazon, but maybe in the future I’ll expand my reach to other distributors.

Going on a publishing journey is hard. Tons of authors get rejected daily, every year, for years, and multiple manuscripts, story after story. I really do have to say, I admire Gearhart's hard work in self-publishing her novel. I do agree, that doing everything yourself is a challenge - but you learn things along the way, and I'm glad that readers now get to read the product of her hard work!

Describe the plot of your book in three songs.

Three songs? Even with a playlist made for the book, this is hard. Okay: “Cool Kids” by Echosmith, “Kids (Ain’t All Right)” by Grace Mitchell, and “Topics” by Nevertheless

As a music and literature lover, this is my favorite question to ask and read. It's so interesting to see how authors interpret their story through music - it's like a universal way for us all to connect to the book through the author's lens, if that makes sense. It's almost as though we might all visualize the characters and setting in a different way, but a sort of "soundtrack" sets a certain tone.

What do you hope to achieve in the next years of your publishing career?

In the next couple years, I plan to complete the publishing process of this series. The second book “Tahlwood: The Secrets They Kept” will be published this year in 2025, and books three and four will likely be published in 2026.

Once this series is finished I have many stories on the back burner I can’t wait to get to. I plan to have a long writing career.

What was your “I did it!” moment? Have you had it or are you hoping for it?

I can’t say I’ve reached this point yet.

I heard somewhere that most books published will never sell one-hundred copies. So I set the goal to sell one-hundred copies of my book in a year. Unfortunately, I did not meet this goal.

BUT I did sell eighty-four copies! So I wasn’t too far from my goal. I hope in the next year that I can finally meet the goal and double that number.

Though, I also was informed that my book got introduced to a classroom library and I almost cried!

I know this may seem like a strange fear - and it's not really a fear, per se, but something I think of quite often, is all the media I'll never be able to consume. I mean, think about it: the perfect movie, perfect song, perfect book is out there and I'll probably never be able to experience it. I imagine that as an indie author, selling a hundred books must feel like such a struggle.

Go and buy the book, guys! Show some love and support. Just think about all the books out there that you'll never read - and make a difference for this emerging author.

Describe your main characters and love interests (if applicable) with other book characters.

Okay, so I know this isn’t a book character, but Cody Miller is lovingly inspired by Austin Aimes from “The Cinderella Story” starring Chad Michael Murray and Hilary Duff.

My other characters draw inspiration more from shows or music. For example the TV show “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and music from Avril Lavigne’s Let Go and Under My Skin albums.

All right, come on now. "A Cinderella Story" and Avril Lavigne? The 2000s and teenage angst vibes are so strong, I can practically feel it despite not having read the book (okay, okay, I haven't gotten around to it unfortunately - I'll try to hopefully). I don't re-watch movies that often, but "A Cinderella Story" is an exception. Now you're telling me there's a book in which our main character is inspired by the charming Austin Ames? Isn't that perfect...

What is the world like in your book? Whimsical, scary, adventurous, modern…?

While Tahlwood is a completely fictional town, the world surrounding them is very much like ours. The story is as modern and contemporary as it can be. The situations and circumstances these characters find themselves in are very real in today’s world.

Setting is one of the most important elements of a story. When reading about teens and the issues surrounding high school, it's always a nice touch when there's a touch of today's real-life world within the pages of the story.

Do you have any inspirations? Other authors, musicians, family, or friends?

I draw inspiration from everywhere. As I mentioned above a few of my inspirations already. Music is a big one. I always listen to music while writing and it bleeds its way into the stories I write.

I also add little pieces of the people I know into my characters. It helps me to really get to know my characters and make them believable. I wove pieces of myself into certain characters and intertwined them with pieces of my old high school friends. My husband’s high school stories helped me form a more believable teenage boy character.

I love writing because I can take all these little pieces and put them together in a beautiful way.

Every story has pieces of which are drawn from different parts of our experiences, people, and the world as a whole. As a reader, it's always beautiful to understand what the writer of a novel I'm reading was inspired by. I love the fact that Gearhart learned from her husband's high-school experiences to craft a realistic teenage boy.

How is/was publicity for you? Did you have a team, or did you have to advertise all by yourself? Did you give out ARCs or promote to beta readers?

It’s all been me, until recently. I started a street team this year and I am so excited to have a team helping me out now!

I gave out ARCs with the release of my first book and I plan to do it again.

I love getting feedback from beta readers too! I have pretty thick skin and love when someone can give me some good criticism to help make my story better.

Seasoned ARC readers reading this, if you've read and liked the Tahlwood novel so far, perhaps you could reach out to Gearhart one day and see if she needs any beta readers! It's awesome to have a team behind you that can support, encourage, and give advice when you need it. Having thick skin is an admirable trait to have when writing, because from personal experience... it can be hard to receive feedback sometimes.

What do want new readers to know about you?

I love writing! That might seem obvious, but I feel like I need to say this because I will never stop. The stories never stop coming to me.

I love reading, and it’s just a huge part of me. Reading and writing go hand-in-hand and it’s more than a hobby to me. The characters I write are not really a creation, they are real people in my head and they’re stories are so important to me.

When I’m writing and editing, I always want to be sure I tell their stories authentically. Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean that my readers aren’t going to see themselves in these characters one way or another. I love these characters and I love anyone who reads this book and loves these stories as much as I do.

This is such an important question. The connection between reader and writer can sometimes have an impact on the way we experience the novel. Nowadays, there's so many people reading a novel without knowing anything about the author then being shocked or surprised when they learn about the writer as a person or their intentions. Knowing that the author has such a strong passion and love for their readers can really feel encouraging.

Image credit: Courtesy of DM Gearhart

What were some of the best and worst times of your writing journey?

The best parts have been connecting with other indie authors and just knowing that I finally published a book.

The worst time is when my flash drive completely stopped working and it had my finished draft for book two on it. I searched everywhere for a copy of it. Thankfully I did find a copy, but the entire climax and ending was not on it.

So even though I had most of the book, I still had to rewrite the most significant part and the part I did a lot of research for. I had to redo some of that research, and even though I think the ending is way better now than the original, it was not a fun thing to go through! It gave me a bad taste in my mouth for this specific book and made it hard to get through the editing process. I love the story, in fact I think the plot is better than the first book, but the negative experience definitely affected my writing process.

It's a writing journey for a reason, not a writing "magic snap of a finger". Unfortunately, most writers, although they do end up publishing, first follow a long and tedious process before they reach a goal. I can't imagine how scary it must've been to lose parts of a story and to almost lose the whole book.

When was the moment of realization when you felt like, “I want to be a writer” or “I want to write a book”? Did you have one or do you remember it?

I have been a writer since elementary school. In latchkey I used some blank paper, taped or stapled them together, and drew my own series of picture books for a little girl. It was so fun because she begged me to write more.

My love for writing started there and continued to grow. I read a lot as a kid and always daydreamed about how I could twist certain parts of a story to make my own. Then in middle school, my idea for Tahlwood started to take over and I knew then that I wanted to be an author.

Isn't it beautiful how so many of our writing journeys started as kids? The little paper books, comic strips, and big imaginations are the start of tons of author's dreams to write and publish. It's almost like our daydreams as kids never died and now, we try to bring them to life. It's truly amazing.

Favorite books and authors of all time?

I’ve made some really great author friends recently and have joined some amazing street teams as well. Some fellow YA authors I love now are Bethany Atazadeh and Kendra Thomas. But as a teenager I enjoyed stories by Neal Shusterman and Lisi Harrison.

Who do you hope reads your book one day? A specific audience or a particular person?

I don’t have anyone specific in mind, but with the Tahlwood series there are a lot of hard topics discussed in my book. So there is a content warning, but I also included resources and contact numbers for RAINN, SAMHSA, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Though I wish there were not a need for these sources, I knew it was important to include these in the back of the book in case any readers needed them.

I want my readers to know: You are not alone, and your story matters.

I know I've already talked about other important questions that were asked, but this is probably the one that is truly the most important. Now, there are lots of YA books with important topics such as mental health, abuse, grief, etc. Unfortunately with the romanticization of "sad girl books", not many of them raise awareness or have the intention of doing anything further than entertaining the reader.

Fully knowing that the author has written a story with important topics yet wants the reader to know that they are not alone can sometimes feel comforting. I hope for all readers who read the Tahlwood series to feel comforted as well, and find peace in characters they may relate to.

What makes a good story?

Heart.

I can read a story with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes as long as I can feel the author's love for the story through their writing.

That's beautiful. We need more genuineness, which sometimes can be hard to find with the rise of AI and plagiarism, or people just simply wanting to make a quick dollar or some viral hits online.

What elements in a book (tropes, genres, etc.) do you love?

Forbidden anything is my vibe. Forbidden love, forbidden friendship, forbidden journey, etc, etc. An underrated trope I love in romance is when he builds her a house.

I’m also a huge slow burn fan. Give me the angstiest, tension filled longing between two characters and I will eat it up! I don’t want them saying I love you after a week, or even a month. Give me years of pining! It’s my favorite.

Last question! What's angst without the forbidden tropes? Oh, the desire and pining for something or someone you just simply can't have. The angst increases tenfold when there's a forbidden love to think of in private, or a forbidden journey to go on in secret.

For a full list with all questions and answers, you can access them here. All quotes and answers included within this article are respectively responses from DM Gearhart. Thank you to DM Gearhart for taking the time to speak with me.

All copyrighted images have written, explicit permission from the owners.