IAA Day 29: C.L. Ambrose

Indie Author Advent Day 29: C.L. Ambrose

Welcome to day 29 of the 2025 Indie Author Advent! This fun series will help us to get hyped for 2026 by celebrating some of the wonderful indie releases of 2025! Today I am interviewing C.L. Ambrose. Be sure to check out my Instagram for even more excitement with this event!

C.L.'s 2025 Releases

• One Year to Teach You Love Again
• Skyewards

The Interview

1. What is your favorite thing about your 2025 releases?

"Writing One Year To Teach You Love Again and especially Skyewards was a very personal journey. Both books helped me to better understand who I am as a person. Also both books contain forms of queer representation (demi and ace) that we do not see often in MM romance. If only one ace person picks up Skyewards and finds themselves in it, then I'll be very happy to have contributed to making ace awareness more visible. Because, unfortunately, even in 2025 loads of folks don't even know what it means to be ace and ridicule ace people as prudish or stuck up. In reality, ace people are a valid part of the queer community and deserve to be seen and represented in media just like anybody else."

2. What are your inspirations for your books?

"I can get inspired by pretty much anything and never know when inspiration will strike next. My story ideas always just randomly pop up in my brain and when they don't leave me for weeks or even months, I know I'll have to write them down or otherwise I won't get any peace. One Year To Teach You Love Again was inspired by the desire to want to write a love after loss story because I lost my mum to terminal illness a few years ago and writing about this helped me heal."

3. Why do you think representation is so important in books?

"Representation isn't just important in books but in all media and general society – books only being one place to share queer experiences. I grew up in a very rural, very catholic place and we didn't have an internet connection before ca. 2008 when I was around 16. I also was never allowed to watch certain TV channels, so I basically didn't even know queer people existed until I finally went online. Like this, I figured out I'm queer myself and, in retrospect, everything makes so much sense. But I simply didn't know before why I felt so different and like the odd one out because there was no queer rep available to me. So in times like these current ones, where conservative bigots in certain countries are trying to ban any form of queer content from the public and especially from schools, queer representation in books is more necessary than ever, so that queer people can recognize themselves in it and feel less weird and less alone. And I'm more than glad to be able to contribute to this."

4. Any advice for people who want to publish in 2026?

"Just write whatever makes YOU happy and not what you think is trendy. You're the one who needs to read what you wrote most often and if you write something that doesn't appeal to you, personally, then I don't think you'll have fun doing this. Also 'just do it' and don't overthink things too much. There's an audience out there for everyone, the hardest part is finding it, but if you don't even try, you never will make it."

5. What are you most looking forward to in 2026? Any more releases on the horizon?

"Yes, I'll be releasing the first part of my zombie apocalypse trilogy, The Third State, in February and will start working on part two soon, hoping it will be ready for publication by autumn 2026. Also I hope to be able to squeeze in a few free short stories for my readers to enjoy."

6. Is there anything else you would like to add?

"Thank you for the opportunity to have my books featured and my voice heard, I really appreciate this a lot <3"

Outro

Thank you to C.L. for getting involved in this advent! I am excited to see what they come out with in 2026. Stay tuned tomorrow for another amazing indie author and their releases!