A Gardener's Guide to Love and Loathing: An Author Interview with Chelsea Pennington
- Swords & Sapphics team
- Jun 6, 2025
- 11 min read
I think we'd all love to spend our summers tending to community gardens with fellow queer characters. In this new author interview with Chelsea Pennington, she tells us all about her new sapphic romance, A Gardener's Guide to Love and Loathing, which allows us to do just that! Read on to discover Chelsea's writing process, the best advice she's ever received, and her part in an upcoming queer anthology!
Thank you for joining us, Chelsea! Could you start by introducing yourself?
Thank you for having me! My name is Chelsea and I live in Colorado. I’ve been an avid reader and writer my whole life. When I’m not reading or writing, I’m usually listening to a podcast, bird watching, or playing Dungeons and Dragons.
We would love to know more about A Gardener’s Guide to Love and Loathing and what inspired you to write it!
A Gardener’s Guide to Love and Loathing is a sapphic romance about two women who seem to be total opposites—the only thing they have in common is the community garden where they each have a plot. When someone attempts to get the garden shut down, though, the two have to work together, and will ultimately have to decide how much trust to put in each other and what they’re willing to sacrifice to save the garden.
This story is a mish-mash of lots of different points of inspiration! The very first spark came from simply watching YouTube videos of people giving tours of their community gardens. They’re such welcoming, joyful spaces with a really interesting history in the U.S., and I was immediately drawn to the idea of centering a romance around one. Then came the idea of it being about two people who don’t initially get along, going against the grain of the friendly community garden vibe. And Annie and Jude were born! The other biggest piece of inspiration can be seen in Annie’s journey—at the start of the book, she is in a PhD program for a subject she is skilled in and used to enjoy, but now things have changed. When I first started writing Gardener’s Guide, my husband had just left his own PhD program; his reasoning and story is ultimately very different from Annie’s, but it planted the seed of the question, “What do you do when something you’re good at is no longer good for you?” And I tried to explore that through Annie’s character arc.
What drew you to romance, and what do you love most about writing in this genre?
I feel like I came to reading romance kind of late! I grew up reading fantasy mostly (which I still love to read), and I was in high school when series like the Hunger Games, Twilight, and Divergent exploded, so I was primed to love dystopian stories. As I got older, though, I found myself really loving the romance subplots in books and wishing for more of it, when it finally occurred to me that there are entire books where the romance IS the plot! I think the first romance book I fell in love with was The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang in my twenties, and I never looked back.
After reading so much of the genre, it became natural that I tried writing it. Both in reading and writing romance, my favorite thing is how the guaranteed happy ending enables you to explore potentially difficult topics. Not just topics directly tied to romantic relationships—I’ve seen romance books explore things like corruption in the criminal justice system, the culpability of big pharmaceutical companies in the opioid crisis, and even argue that billionaires are unethical. Having the happily-ever-after of a romance creates a soft landing pad, so that readers are often more willing to explore difficult topics than they might be in a story where they’re not sure if things will turn out okay for the characters they’re rooting for. I love a fantasy that rips out my heart with a character death as much as the next person, but I think there is something particularly unique that romance’s HEA/HFN provides that no other genre can do.
Do you have any favourite romance tropes as a reader, and do any make an appearance in this love story?
So many! One that is in Gardener’s Guide is more of a micro-trope. I love when the two protagonists have gotten closer, but aren’t yet dating. Their friendship is still newish, but one character learns that the other character has something important happening (a birthday, the anniversary of a loss of a loved one, a big presentation) and no one else in their life either remembers or can show up, so the other character shows up to support them. I just love when a character can identify that something is really important to the other character, and knows how to be there for them. So there’s a few moments like that in Gardener’s Guide.
Can you tell us a little bit about your characters? Which, if any, do you identify with most and why?
Jude is a laid-back coffee shop manager who doesn’t really care what other people think about her, but she’s stubborn and sticks to her first impressions of people, good or bad. Annie is a people pleaser and a perfectionist, who has let her parents’ high expectations keep her in a toxic grad school program. They’re the two main characters, though there are lots of lovable side characters, including a cast of meddling gardeners!
I always put pieces of myself in each character, but I probably more closely identify with Annie. I’m definitely a recovering people pleaser, though thankfully my relationship with my parents is better than Annie’s situation! I’m also bisexual like Annie, and so while her backstory is very different from my experience, I definitely included the experience of coming out to yourself and others as an adult and feeling slightly “behind” everyone else.
And which characters do you hope your readers will connect with the most?
I hope they see themselves in any of the characters! Annie and Jude really balance each other, with complementary strengths and weaknesses. So I hope readers identify both with their struggles, but also with how they rely on each other and other people in their community when they need it, as well as the many ways they are strong and continue to fight for what they believe in.
The community garden sounds like a perfect cosy setting! Did any research go into it?
It was such a fun setting to learn more about! I did lots of research, but I always joked that it was the best kind of research—just watching videos of people gardening and doing some gardening of my own! I also relied on gardeners in my life and several books specific to gardening and what plants grow well in my area of Colorado.
In your previous article with us, you explore the biphobia still prevalent in the community. Why was it important to include sapphic representation in this book? Have you seen any progress since publishing The Mistletoe Connection?
As a bisexual woman married to a man, it’s always important to me to represent bi characters whose previous or current relationships with people of other genders don’t negate their queerness. It’s far too common for people to gatekeep who is “allowed” to write queer stories (or movies or music or other art) because, at first glance, that person doesn’t seem “queer enough” — whatever that means! That’s what I was focused on in my last article, and it was a big reason that the bi woman in my first book, The Mistletoe Connection, ends up with a guy, but she is still bisexual.
I’ve definitely seen more conversations about this as an ongoing issue in the community and I’m glad to see more people talking about it, but in some ways, a few voices in the LGBTQ+ community have also tried to shrink the community, attempting to exclude trans people, ace/aro people, etc. While that’s always been an issue, it’s become more prevalent than ever, in what can generously be called a misguided attempt at self-preservation. But only by joyfully accepting and protecting everyone in the queer community will we ever be fully free. So while people are more aware of things like biphobia and transphobia, I think we still have a lot more work to do!
Is there any additional representation that you’d like to see or write more of in the future?
Building on my previous answer, I’d definitely like to see more trans and non-binary representation in books! I am planning on writing some books with more neurodiverse characters, especially women with ADHD, since I think that is a combination that is common in real life, but is seen less in fiction.
Have you come across any challenges while writing or publishing this book? How have you overcome them?
Sometimes it feels like self-publishing is nothing but overcoming obstacles! For this book, probably the biggest challenge was some really harsh (and somewhat unfair) feedback I got from an early reader. Some of their comments were helpful, but just not phrased well, while other comments were completely uncalled for and even biphobic. It really threw cold water on a story I had been excited to work on up to that point, as I felt defeated and like the story might not be worth telling. I’m eternally grateful to the people in my life, especially my writer friends, who noticed I was struggling with the story and encouraged me to keep going. I took a break from it to work on a different project, but when I came back to Gardener’s Guide, I was able to recall how much I loved these characters and that it was a story I thought was important.
What made you decide to pursue self-publishing as opposed to traditional routes, and have you learned anything on the journey so far?
I am actually trying to pursue both to have a “hybrid” publishing career! My first manuscript I wrote intending to traditionally publish. The year that I planned to query literary agents, I decided to write The Mistletoe Connection so that I could have a project that was fully under my control, since querying is a LOT of rejection. I had thought it would just be a one-off self-publishing project that would also give me some insight into what publishing involves for when I got an agent, but I ended up loving the self-publishing process and wanted to keep doing it while I continued to query agents. The business and marketing side of self-publishing, although not as enjoyable as the actual writing and story creation, still feels like a type of creativity to me that I generally enjoy and so I’ve kept doing it!
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that you have to be your own number one fan before anyone else is. Both self-publishing and romance have a lot of stigma, particularly from people who aren’t actually involved in either of them. My first instinct when I published The Mistletoe Connection was to downplay it, to act like it wasn’t a big deal. But it IS a big deal! I wrote a book, which is incredibly hard, and then I published it! Anyone who does that should be immensely proud of themselves. And I quickly learned that when I acted confident and proud of my accomplishments, the people I talked to about it reflected that back to me.
Are you a plotter or pantser? How do you approach a new manuscript/outline?
Definitely more of a plotter, though my outlines are pretty barebones. A story has usually been simmering in my mind for at least several months before I sit down to write it, so I’ll have a bunch of ideas for plot points and characters. I organize all that into a basic outline—usually a page or two, often just relying on a genre-specific beat sheet. My first drafts tend to be “zero drafts,” which are much shorter and are largely me figuring out the characters so that I can go back and really make them come to life in the next drafts.
Your blog offers writing tips and advice. What has been the most valuable advice you’ve received from another author? Or, alternatively, what is the most important advice you give to your peers?
Oh man—I feel like everything I know, I learned from other authors, whether they’re writing friends in person or online, or from a podcast or another blog or writing craft book. It’s hard to narrow it down to the best piece of advice!
I’ll go with a nitty-gritty piece of writing advice that I heard at a talk given by Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles: Think about your character’s metaphor language. This is definitely true if you’re writing in first person POV, but even in close third person, think about your character’s background: where they grew up, their hobbies, level of education, what they do for work, etc. Use all of that to inform the metaphors and other descriptions your character gives. A simplified example is a character seeing someone who is tall. A character who grew up in Colorado might describe them as “looming over me like a mountain,” whereas someone from New York City might say “looming over me like a skyscraper.” We understand both descriptions, and it wouldn’t necessarily be out of character to have a New Yorker compare someone to a mountain, and yet—making little details like these consistent with a character’s experiences and backstory really make them come alive and feel like real people.
I tried to do this in Gardener’s Guide, by having Annie and Jude both use gardening/nature metaphors, and Annie use metaphors related to mathematics and school and Jude use coffee-related descriptions. Then, as they grow closer over the course of the book and their relationship, their language starts to reflect how the other person speaks. It’s subtle, but it adds a new layer to characters and character relationships.
We’d love a hint about what readers can expect from you next! What are you currently working on?
I actually have a short story coming out in an anthology at the end of June! Echoes of Us: Queer Stories of Discovery, Chaos, and Rising Above is a multi-genre anthology with a lot of fantastic authors, including A.K. Mulford, and all the proceeds from it support The Trevor Project. So that’s been my most recent focus! Beyond that, I’m working on a women’s fiction novel that I am hoping to query to literary agents next year. My next self-published project isn’t nailed down yet, but Gardener’s Guide will be the first book in a series so keep an eye out for that; and I’m also working on a cozy fantasy series about the curmudgeonly caretaker of a museum in a fantasy city that is totally different from anything else I’ve done, but I am having so much fun writing it!
Our podcast focuses on media we’re currently loving. Are there any books, shows, movies, or games you’re enjoying at the moment? Any recommendations for our audience? Bonus points if it includes sapphics!
I’m currently reading the Locked Tomb series (first book is Gideon the Ninth) which is sapphic and WILD. Gay necromancers in space, with the most mind-bending plots? Yes, please! I’m also re-reading the Legendborn Cycle, which is a favorite series of mine and I’m chomping at the bit to read the third book. I recently read Green Grow the Rushes by Caitrin Casey, which is a m/m cozy fantasy romance that’s just beautiful. For movies, I saw Sinners and I won’t stop talking about it to everyone—even though it’s technically a horror movie, I’m a scaredy cat and loved it. I’m also obsessed with anything created by the independent streaming service Dropout, and especially the newest season of Game Changer. I also have Lucy Dacus’s new album Forever is a Feeling and Corook’s new album Committed to a Bit on repeat right now.
About the Author
Chelsea Pennington lives in Colorado with her husband and their dog, Pippin. Her first story was Pokémon fan fiction in kindergarten, and she's been writing ever since. When she's not writing or reading, you can probably find her playing Dungeons and Dragons or bird watching. You can connect with Chelsea online at www.chelseapenningtonauthor.com or via Instagram and TikTok @chelsea.writes.books.
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