Rhonda Parrish: Thriving with her Tribe

When I ask someone to appear as a guest here on my blog, I am frequently humbled, awed, and amazed by the story they share with me. Rhonda’s story was that times a thousand.

As I read through the responses she sent to my interview questions, I laughed, I cried, and frequently nodded my head and said “I feel ya, lady.”

I mean, Rhonda and I have known each other as acquaintances for a few years, but I had no idea how much we had in common (besides both of us having multiple creative interests and being workaholic sisters).

I am so thrilled to share her story with you. But here’s the thing: the article that follows is actually a small smidgeon of the story she shared with me, because, y’all, the woman can write, and she wrote a lot. So we decided that I would write my typical “Cole’s Notes” version here, and then she will share the full, glorious story on her Patreon page.

It would be worth it to sign up to her Patreon for a month just to read the whole thing. Trust me. (But you get lots of other goodies as her patron, because her catalogue is, like, long. But we’ll get to that.)

Okay, without further ado, let me make the introductions.

Rhonda Parrish: Author, Editor, Hydra-Tamer

“I work hard to make people feel included no matter what stage of their own journey they’re on, and to give of myself to help other people along the road.”

According to her website, Rhonda Parrish is an “author, editor, and hydra-tamer” (with a cute, awesome graphic to match). She has edited nearly three dozen anthologies, is the past editor and creative mastermind behind Niteblade e-zine, and has written many books, stories, and poems, mostly in the speculative fiction genres.

For Rhonda, writing has always been there—through a troubled childhood, supporting herself through high school and distance-ed university, and a rocky first marriage. Her writing got temporarily sidetracked during her stint as a single mom before finding her current spouse, Jo, and, as you will see, is now the centre of her full-time career as a busy multi-stream creative with a thriving tribe of creatives around her.

Whatever Rhonda tackles, she does it with all her heart.

“I come from a long line of hard-working women. It’s a thing we take pride in—my grandmother raised ten kids and worked hard her whole life, which may explain why my mother was a workaholic, and so am I,” says Rhonda.

Rhonda’s childhood was, as she describes it, “unsettled.”

“My mother was young when she had my brother and me, and that impacted me quite a bit. Things got better over time. The lifestyle mellowed, the family life solidified. It was never idyllic, but it was… okay,” says Rhonda.

She was born in Calgary, where her family lived for a few years until her parents split when she was four. They moved to Nanton so her mom could work in the restaurant her grandmother owned. Soon, a little sister joined the family, but the father (who was abusive) skipped town around the same time she was born. A few years later, Rhonda’s mom remarried.

“Not so long ago, my grandmother said, ‘You kids didn’t have a happy childhood,’ and she’s not wrong. We didn’t starve, but we didn’t have much money. Relationships were chaotic. There was a lot of fighting and addiction problems. My biological father was completely absent, and my relationship with my stepfather was pretty rocky, especially when I was a teenager,” says Rhonda.

Soon after Rhonda turned sixteen, she moved out of the house.

“It wasn’t an antagonistic move. I had a lot of emotional support from my mother, and we knew it was for the best. But it was tough,” says Rhonda.

To support herself, she worked a full-time and a part-time job and babysat regularly. She was living with a boyfriend who had a hard time holding a job, and her health wasn’t the greatest. When she was 19, she and her boyfriend married, and a couple years later they had a daughter, Danica.

“My daughter was just over one when my first marriage dissolved. I was working full time as a waitress, raising Danica alone, and attempting to go to university by distance learning,” says Rhonda. “Sometimes working hard is necessary just for survival.”

Young Rhonda.

“The library was warm, friendly, and familiar. The playground was a jungle where I had few allies and was easy prey.”

Writing for her Life

In addition to the chaos at home, Rhonda was frequently bullied throughout her school career. Fiction was her escape.

“I’ve always been interested in story. In part, it was an escape from the turbulence of real life where I didn’t have many—or any—friends. I read a lot so I could escape a lot,” says Rhonda.

She discovered the library early—in first grade—and from then on, preferred to escape there than go to the playground.

“I remember the freedom I felt in the children’s section of the library. I can even still smell it. The library was warm, friendly, and familiar. The playground was a jungle where I had few allies and was easy prey,” says Rhonda.

Not long after that, she began writing. A lot.

“Apparently I was pretty good at it. All the way through my abbreviated school career I was the writer in the class. I was happy to grab onto that label and cling to it. It sure beat any of the others that were put on me as a kid,” says Rhonda. “That role became central to my identity.”

Her writing constantly impressed and intrigued her teachers. In Grade Six, she got 100 percent on a writing prompt assignment that became a short story (about merfolk! Yay!) for a teacher who famously never gave perfect scores.

“That moment is definitely on my Top Ten Proudest Moments list. And it happened at a time in my life when I really needed that injection of self-worth,” says Rhonda.

“That moment is definitely on my Top Ten Proudest Moments list. And it happened at a time in my life when I really needed that injection of self-worth.”

She kept writing, mostly for school. In Grade Eight, she wrote a report on Jani Lane, the lead vocalist of glam metal band Warrant. Her teacher handed it back with an excellent mark and a comment that read, “I don’t understand why you always write about sex, drugs, or rock and roll.”

“Teenage me thought that was pretty epic. ‘Yeah! Sex, drugs, and rock and roll! Whoo!’ Grown-up me is like, ‘Maybe that should have been a clue to that teacher that things weren’t all well in Rhonda’s world,” she says. “But she was a teacher, not a social worker, and she did what she could—including going out of her way to empower my writing.”

Not long after that, the same teacher arranged for Rhonda to attend a special event for the Grade Twelve students with an author guest. The privilege of being the only junior high student to attend, in a room full of people that included her bullies, reinforced her desire to write.

“I can still remember sitting in a desk at the end of a row, simultaneously hoping no one would notice me and that everyone would,” say Rhonda. “Which kind of sums up working in publishing as a whole, doesn’t it?”

After winning second place in a Remembrance Day essay contest put on by the local Royal Canadian Legion the following year—and getting paid a whole $20 as a prize, her first “paid writing”—she started to submit her work for publication. Unfortunately, she was trying for the wrong genre… for her.

“It went about as well as you’d expect. Primarily, I was attempting to write children’s stories. It was a mistake. The girl who wrote mostly sex, drugs, and rock and roll was just not ready for a complete switch of gears,” says Rhonda.

Some of the rejection letters she accumulated over the years had words of encouragement scribbled on them. After writing a non-fiction* piece for Canadian Gardening Magazine based on gardening with a goat—an experience she gained when her first husband gave her one as a wedding gift—she stopped writing. The busy-ness of life as a single mom (which she soon was) moved it “off the radar.”

Eventually, she fell madly in love with her current husband, Jo. They moved in together, Danica started kindergarten, and life stabilized. And Rhonda began thinking about writing again.

Jo, Danica, and Rhonda

Gaining Confidence

For that year’s NaNoWriMo (an annual November challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in a month), she wrote around 30,000 words. At the time, that seemed like a lot.

“My day job was writing erotica and the like—still that sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I guess—but now I was using my spare time to write other things. Fantasy, horror (which is definitely the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of the speculative world, amirite?), and poetry,” say Rhonda.

After joining an online critique website, she developed the confidence to start sending her work out for publication. Her first acceptance was a poem called “Snowflakes”.

“It didn’t come with a cheque but, empowered by that acceptance, I started writing and submitting more,” says Rhonda.

By then, the publishing industry was shifting to an online world. Submitting was less time-consuming and expensive than it had been in the old analog days of mailing self-addressed stamped envelopes with a manuscript. With more submissions came more acceptances.

“As I slowly began to build up some publication credits and got better at writing, I also kept attempting to do NaNoWriMo. I created an online community that stayed active even during non-NaNo months. We’d cheer each other on. At its peak, we had a couple thousand members,” says Rhonda.

On her third attempt at NaNoWriMo in 2005, Rhonda completed the challenge with a finished erotica title.

“The book was terrible, but I did it. Just knowing I could write a novel changed my life,” says Rhonda.

“The book was terrible, but I did it. Just knowing I could write a novel changed my life.”

Why yes, that’s Rhonda with The David Tennant. :-)

An Editor is Born

Submitting to so many markets of varying quality, many of them online, planted a new idea.

“That thing happened. You know, where a writer reads a book and thinks, ‘I can do better than this,’ except it was related to these online magazines. That’s how I, a woman who hadn’t graduated from high school, who had no formal education when it came to writing or editing or publishing, decided to start an e-zine and be both its editor and publisher. And Niteblade was born,” says Rhonda.

With Jo’s help (who did the cover design and the formatting of the downloadable version), Rhonda ran Niteblade for over eight years, putting out four issues a year. She worked with a staff of volunteers and paid her writers—not much, only a dollar at first, a little more later, but it was better than the “exposure” many writers are paid with.

“Working with all those people taught me it’s a good thing to give up control and delegate. When we shut down Niteblade after 33 issues, it was on my terms, because I felt like it was time to move on,” says Rhonda.

Keepin’ it fun. :-)

Oh, no! Rhonda’s being attacked by a Pokémon!

After Niteblade, Rhonda began editing anthologies.

“The first I did was Metastasis, which is speculative fiction with a cancer theme. It sounds depressing, but it isn’t. My mother had recently died of lung cancer, and I needed a way to process that,” says Rhonda.

At that point, Rhonda still had a day job she hated.

“Jo asked me what I would do if I could do anything in the world, and I said, ‘Write, but I can’t do that.’ I meant ‘because I’m not good enough’ or ‘because the odds are against me.’ But when he said, ‘Why not?’ all I could say was ‘I don’t know?’ And that’s just one reason why I dedicate almost book I create to him, because without his support, none of them would exist,” says Rhonda.

Rhonda has now published three full-length books under her own name—two non-fiction (Haunted Hospitals and Eerie Edmonton) and her most recent book, Hollow, a young adult horror novel.

She has also accumulated 31 published anthologies to her credit, which means she’s doing a lot more than just write. But when she thinks about her career goals, she often returns to that conversation with her husband.

“These days, I probably spend fifty percent of my time doing marketing and administration, forty percent editing, and ten percent writing, and that’s being generous. While I love editing and anthologies, it’s not nearly the same as writing,” says Rhonda.

Rhonda’s “Ego Shelf”—her books and anthologies.

Writing Is a Team Sport

When asked what she is proudest of in her life so far, her answer is surprising—and yet, given her history, totally not.

“I’m proud of the role I’ve played in helping to grow the community I’ve surrounded myself with. I work hard to make people feel included no matter what stage of their own journey they’re on, and to give of myself to help other people along the road,” says Rhonda.

She goes on to say:

“I love when people approach me at conventions to tell me I’ve had a positive impact on their life. Sometimes it’s because I accepted their first story, or gave them some good advice, or even just sincerely cared when they were struggling with their choice to ‘do this writing thing.’

“I spent so much time on the outside. So much time being left out and bullied. I don’t ever want to make anyone else feel that way. In fact, I want to do whatever is in my power to prevent it. I really believe ‘writing is a team sport’**, and I’m proud to be a strong, contributing member of the team. That’s what I’m most proud of.

“… and also of Hollow.”

“I’m proud of the role I’ve played in helping to grow the community I’ve surrounded myself with. I work hard to make people feel included no matter what stage of their own journey they’re on, and to give of myself to help other people along the road.”

Rhonda’s latest anthology, Hear Me Roar, is about women and dragons and was inspired by this gorgeous premade cover. (She’s a self-confessed addict to premade covers, but when they turn out such wonderful ideas, I say we encourage it. :-D)

* “I say “non-fiction” in quotes because I absolutely exaggerated the success I was having gardening with a goat,” Rhonda adds.

**Rhonda has made this saying of hers famous with swag and fun convention ribbons. I’m proud to be “on the team” too. :-)

Like a magpie, RHONDA PARRISH is constantly distracted by shiny things. She’s the editor of many anthologies and author of plenty of books, stories and poems. She lives with her husband and three cats in Edmonton, Alberta, and she can often be found there playing Dungeons and Dragons, bingeing crime dramas or cheering on the Oilers.

Her website, updated regularly, is at http://www.rhondaparrish.com and her Patreon, updated even more regularly, is at https://www.patreon.com/RhondaParrish.

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Normally, I put a bit of my own news after one of these posts. But since that was pretty long already, I’m just going to say one thing:

The new cover for The Waterboy is here, and so is the audiobook! Find out more on the book page.

The Waterboy by Talena Winters, now on audio. A standalone prequel in the Rise of the Grigori series.

(Also, the new cover for The Undine’s Tear, the first book in the main series, will be coming soon.)

Happy Friday!

And if you’d like to comment for Rhonda, either leave it here and I’ll make sure she sees it or head on over to her website or Patreon and touch base with her there. She’d love to have you in her tribe, too. :-)

“Writing is a team sport” ribbon from Rhonda.