Author Q&A: Tessa Silver

Today we're interviewing author Tessa Silver, who writes magical cozy mysteries.

Silver is the author of the Quillhaven Magical Cozy Mystery series. Whether she’s naming enchanted lattes or designing truth-detecting flowers, she builds worlds that feel like home, even when they’re hiding a criminal or two.  

Silver lives, writes, and walks by the ocean in southern Maine with her generous husband and hefty gray cat, Louis, who is also addicted to whipped cream and may or may not have magical abilities.

SADYE: How did you come to see yourself as a writer, and what inspired you to seek publication?

TESSA: I have been making up stories since I was twelve years old. The homework assignment was to write a short story, and I turned in a forty-page novel about an underground cat colony (and yes, those cats could talk!).

My imagination has always been vivid, even before the age of twelve. I get ideas all the time just by listening and paying attention to people and what’s going on around me. 

SADYE: What experience in your past or general aspect of your life has most affected your writing? 

TESSA: I felt led to strive for publication after my second cancer journey in 2011.

Being a published author had always been a vague but very real dream of mine since I wrote that forty-page novel so many years ago, but life had gotten in the way.

I spent many years in the field of education, so my creativity had a huge outlet there, but wanting to see my stories in print took a back seat to professional duties plus the responsibility of helping my husband raise the three children from his first marriage.

Cancer first struck me in 2001, but it was early-stage breast cancer so I did the treatments and then picked up my life pretty much as before. When it beckoned me again in 2011, it was more aggressive, and the treatment was more drastic.

I came face-to-face with my own mortality in a way that I hadn’t really absorbed in 2001. This served as a wake-up call so I made a list of things I wanted to do that I hadn’t done yet. One of the things on that list was to write and publish a novel. 

Soon after that, I began writing a women’s fiction “story” that had been on my mind for a while. The story eventually turned into a full-length novel called Dragonflies at Night and I published it in 2020.

After that, I wrote and published three more women’s fiction novels, and then began toying with the idea of magical cozy mysteries because they are so fun and magical, and because I can incorporate themes of love and community and basic human kindness.

SADYE: Which of your characters would you most and least like to trade places with? 

TESSA: I think it would be cool to trade places with Chloe Lovelace because she owns Sweetheart Creamery in magical small town Quillhaven. I do love some good ice cream and hers is magical, so it would be fun to be able to add real magic into ice cream to make people feel good and to solve some of their problems. 

I don’t think I’d like to trade places with Junie Fizzlebloom because she’s in touch with Weather Magic and I definitely wouldn’t like the responsibility of stopping thunder and lightning!

SADYE: What have been the most surprising, rewarding, and challenging parts of your writing career?

TESSA: I am continually surprised when readers write to me and tell me that the Quillhaven stories have touched their hearts in some way.

One fan called one of the books a comforting, feel-good read for anyone who enjoys gentle whodunits with a magical twist. That sentiment is echoed many times every week in emails from my dedicated readers.

Some of them are struggling with illness or disabilities or challenging family situations, and the Quillhaven books lift them up out of their everyday worries for a while. To me, that is priceless.

SADYE: What message or theme would you like readers to take away from your work?

TESSA: Continuing with what I said above, I want my readers to leave each book feeling comforted and feeling good — about themselves, about life in general, and about the fact that people are basically good.

This is especially needed these days, I think, because of all the bad things we are encountered with when we turn on the news or look on social media. 

Even though the Quillhaven magical cozy mysteries include two talking cats and are full of women and men (and some children too!) who practice magic with spells and potions, the stories are dedicated to my deep belief that everyday magic is very real, and it is all around us at every moment, if we choose to pay attention and keep our eyes open.

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Learn more about Tessa Silver on her website, where her books can also be purchased, and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

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