FAQ

What genres do you write?

Right now, I write queer romance novels with elements of history and the supernatural in them. In the future, I'm open to wherever my creativity takes me, but expect to seeat least another historical m/m trilogy (or more-ology), a contemporary mixed m/F and m/m series, and maybe some werewolves in the future.

Is Aurora Chatsworth a pen name?

Absolutely. From my bio, it should be pretty clear why I'd want to publish under a pen name. While it would be hilarious for someone looking for information on Diplomatic Policy to find my books (and hey, perhaps there'd be a sale there?) it's easier to keep my two jobs separate.

Where are your stories set?

All over the world, anywhere you can imagine. I hope I can invoke a sense of place in all the cities and countries that I write in, and help take you there even if you can't leave your kindle.

What emotional themes are common in your books?

I tend to write a lot of powerful love at first sight and people connecting despite coming from different world -- whether that's social, or cultural. I don't write a lot of fancy weddings; I keep promising my editor I'll give her one eventually, but she's still waiting.

How can I contact you?

You can reach me through my website's contact page.

You're a Jewish writer who often writes about Jewish characters. What are your feelings on Palestine?

I have lived in both Israel and in the Arab world for many years, I speak Arabic and Hebrew (both badly) and my work directly touches on the conflict. My ability to speak publicly about this issue is limited by the terms of my employment.

AI Statement

I use AI to edit, ideate and research in my books. I do not use AI to write — all the words in all my books are created by an actual human; me.

Here are some examples of how I use AI to help me write:

1. Spell-checking, editing and proofreading. Almost all my books have a ‘first pass’ edit done by AI to manage spelling, grammar, and basic proofreading. I am the queen of the run on sentence, and an AI proofread allows my human editing team to focus on story, character and continuity rather than having to remind me, yet again, that the period goes outside of the quotation marks.

2. Brainstorming.

3. Research. I use AI for research for details in my story, mostly through a tools which use AI powered search to summarize information on the open internet. This means that I have less moments where, for example, I need to know what the Swedish Royal Family would eat for breakfast, and end up spending 5 hours down a wikipedia rabbit hole and learning everything there is to know about cheese-making in upper Silesia in the Middle Ages, and no words have gotten written that day. That said, AI research is absolutely not sufficient on its own for anything key to the plot or setting, as my order history from Thriftbooks will tell you.

4. Manging characters and settings. I write almost exclusively with a tool called “Novelcrafter” which includes a module called the “Codex”. The Novelcrafter Codex helps me manage my character settings and details, and includes the ability to search and query the codex with AI

I’m very open about my use of AI as a tool, and what it can and cannot do; it’s the theme of my YouTube channel @rorychatsworth.

If you are boycotting the use of AI at all, here are some other authors who — as far as I know — do not use AI tools in their writing and are similar to my work. (Although, maybe in a more aspirational way… I would kill to write as well as a number of these folks.)

* KJ Charles

* Johanna Chambers

* C.S. Pacat

* Guy Gavriel Kay