Welcome to the Author Interview. This time, it features the lovely Shane Keleher, author of Bring Me into the Light.
If you’re an author who’d like to take part in the series, email me: debbie@myrandommusings.co.uk
Now over to Shane.
1 Firstly, tell us a little bit about yourself
I am an author based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where I live and run my creative business. My journey as a writer has always been driven by a deep love for storytelling, connecting with readers, and exploring complex narrative worlds. I’ve travelled extensively (fifteen plus countries) and lived in three of them. Travelling has definitely taught me the power of connection and storytelling. It’s the most profound way of recognising how truly connected we all really are.
My partner and I have been together for almost ten years and he’s just about the most wonderful boyfriend in the world. He makes every day warm, exciting, and fun.
When I’m not deep in the writing process or preparing for regional book festivals, I manage online retail operations where I combine my love for pop culture, vintage collectibles, and modern design. I’m also a bit of a maker – I love utilising 3D printing to create functional reading accessories, which allows me to bring a piece of the literary world into the physical hands of fellow book lovers. For me, whether it’s crafting a novel or designing a unique piece of merchandise, it’s all about creating something that resonates with people.
I also teach ESL every now and then. I love the opportunity to interact with students from all over the world
2 Tell us a little bit about your books
My focus right now has been entirely on my first novel, Bring Me into the Light, which officially launched at the beginning of July.
At its core, the book is a deeply emotional and compelling journey about identity, resilience, and the profound human need for connection. It explores what happens when we are forced to confront our deepest vulnerabilities and step out of the shadows of our past. It takes place in 1940s Berlin and 1950s Toronto. I wanted to write something that feels both intensely personal and universally relatable – a story about the courage it takes to truly allow yourself to be seen by the world.
The response from readers during the pre-order campaign and the launch has been incredibly rewarding. There’s nothing quite like sending a story you’ve poured your heart into out into the world and watching it start to resonate with people on its own terms.
3 Where do you find your inspiration for your books?
Inspiration for me is less about a single aha moment and more about being an active observer of the world around me. I find that a lot of my best ideas spark when I’m interacting with family or friends, or even just people watching on the street. I think that everyone has a story and everyone has something powerful to share. A writer just needs to listen and be open to what they see and hear.
I’m also incredibly inspired by human resilience and the quiet, everyday complexities of how people connect with one another. I love taking a real, raw emotion or a universal human dilemma and building a narrative world around it to see how a character will fight their way through. Ultimately, inspiration comes from a mix of paying close attention to the real world and the simple desire to explore the questions that keep us up at night.
4 What, for you, is the best thing about being a writer?
On a personal level, writing gives me a space to explore and try to answer the many questions about the human condition that I constantly wonder about. It’s a way to make sense of the world. Then, on the page, it’s the privilege of sharing beautiful stories that show how incredible strength can appear in the most unlikely of situations. It’s about giving a voice to resilience when people least expect it.
But honestly? Nothing compares to the moment a reader reaches out to tell me that my story really moved them. Knowing that something that started as an idea in my head travelled across the page and made a genuine, emotional impact on a real person’s life. That is the ultimate reward. It turns a very solitary craft into a legitimate connection.
5 And the worst?
The hardest part is definitely the isolation and the sheer endurance it requires. I love writing, but it is an incredibly solitary and long journey. It can easily take me a year of sitting alone with a manuscript to bring a book to life.
Because you spend months and months living entirely inside your own head with these characters, you inevitably lose all perspective. You get so close to the canvas that you can’t see the painting anymore. It becomes very difficult to know if it’s actually good, or if the story you’ve poured your life into for a year is truly worth telling. Navigating that creative self-doubt while pushing through the marathon of finishing a novel is easily the most challenging part of the craft.
6 If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?
Without a doubt, telekinesis. And my reasons are entirely, unapologetically selfish.
It comes down to what I call the comfy chair dilemma. There is a very specific, intense mental battle that happens when I’m perfectly settled, warm, and comfortable, and typing away. But suddenly, I realise that I want a snack or a drink. A full scale war breaks out in my brain between my cravings and my absolute determination not to get up. That is usually the exact moment I start wondering if my boyfriend is busy or can be sweet talked into a kitchen run.
7 Do you have any tips for anyone wanting to write their first book?
You need to accept that the first things you write won’t be great. And that’s totally fine. It’s like that for everyone. You almost have to purge all of the bad writing before you can get to the good writing. You learn by doing. I’m a big believer in perfection is the enemy of progress. Just write. You can’t edit a blank page.
8 Tell us one random fact about you
If it has to be random, I’ll say that I have never met anyone who can handle spicy food like I can. When I was in Korea, my students all insisted that white people can’t handle spice. I failed to convince them that I love spice. One day, I went out for Mexican food with a Korean teacher. She was astonished at how liberal I was with my application of hot sauce. She went back to her class and said, “No, no. Shane absolutely loves spice.”
9 Who is your favourite author?
I have to go with Margaret Atwood. Beyond the pride of her being a fellow Ontario author, her command over language and her ability to dissect the human condition is completely unmatched.
What I admire most about her work is how she can take incredibly complex, heavy themes (identity, survival, power, and resilience) and weave them into stories that are deeply compelling and impossible to put down. She has this brilliant, sharp wit and a fearlessness when it comes to exploring the darker or more vulnerable corners of who we are. As a writer, watching how she constructs a narrative and holds up a mirror to society is incredibly inspiring. Her work is a masterclass in storytelling with a purpose.
10 And your favourite book(s)?
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.
It’s a brilliant, haunting book that completely captures everything I love about literature. Atwood takes a real piece of Canadian history and weaves this incredibly dense, atmospheric mystery around the ideas of truth, memory, and identity.
What fascinates me most about it is how she explores the internal life of Grace Marks. You spend the whole book trying to understand her, balancing between sympathy and suspicion, and Atwood never hands the reader easy answers. It’s a gorgeous, complex study of how a person survives trauma and how society constructs stories around vulnerable people. Every time I read it, I find a new layer to appreciate in the craftsmanship.
11 What book are you reading right now?
Right now, I am reading What I Know About You by Éric Chacour.
It is an absolutely stunning, evocative novel. It’s set largely in Cairo and follows a young doctor whose carefully structured life begins to unravel after a chance encounter. What completely hooks me is Chacour’s prose; it’s incredibly delicate, poetic, and precise.
The book explores themes of forbidden desire, generational duty, and the heavy weight of family secrets, all told with this quiet intensity that just completely pulls you in. It’s one of those books where you find yourself slowing down just to savour the rhythm of the sentences and the emotional depth of the characters. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, and highly recommended.
12 Where is your favourite place to write?
It has to be my comfy chair. While a lot of people picture writers tucked away at a formal desk or sipping lattes in a bustling café, I do my best work when I am completely settled into my favourite spot at home.
Writing a novel requires so much mental endurance that being physically comfortable is half the battle for me. Once I’m in that chair, surrounded by quiet, my laptop is open, and my mind can just entirely slip away into the world of the story. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, the only hazard of the comfy chair is that once I am locked in, I am locked in. So, if I forget to bring my tea with me before I sit down, it takes a serious act of willpower to get back up. Or a serious attempt to look as cute as possible to get my bf to grab it for me.
13 Do you prefer to write in silence, or do you have a writing soundtrack?
Absolute silence. I know a lot of authors love curating elaborate playlists or listening to ambient tracks to set the mood, but for me, music is a distraction.
When I am writing, I need to completely immerse myself in the world of my story. I need to hear the specific rhythm of the sentences, the natural cadence of the dialogue, and the quiet internal thoughts of my characters without any outside noise competing for my attention. Writing is a process of tuning everything else out so that the narrative can become loud enough to hear clearly. For that to happen, a completely quiet room is my best tool.
14 What can we expect from you next?
I am already hard at work on my next novel, and it’s a story that is very close to my heart.
The book begins against the backdrop of the fall of Kabul in 2021. At its core, it’s about an unlikely but profound friendship between an Afghan woman who flees her homeland to settle in Canada, and a Canadian gay man who has never truly felt at home anywhere in his life.
It explores a concept I think about a lot, emotional homelessness, that deep, quiet sense of disconnection where a person feels like they don’t quite fit into the society around them, regardless of geography. Ultimately, it’s a story about the lifesaving power of friendship, and how finding the right person can give us the courage to step into the light, heal from our pasts, and finally become our bravest, most authentic selves.
15 Anything else you’d like to share with us?
I’m thrilled at how many people have been moved by my novel and I really appreciate the kind comments. And I am so appreciative of the various websites that allow indie authors the opportunity to introduce themselves.
You can find Shane on Substack, Link Tree, Instagram, Amazon and Goodreads.
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