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Suzy chats this week with prolific author Simon Rose in the first of two episodes about writing time travel books for young audiences. They cover research, alternate histories, and time travel (in all directions!)
GUEST: Simon graduated from university with a degree in history and his first novel for middle grade readers, The Alchemist’s Portrait, was published in 2003. This was followed by The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, The Sphere of Septimus, Future Imperfect, An Untimely Death, and The Order of Excalibur novels. He’s also the author of the Flashback series, the Shadowzone series, and The Stone of the Seer series. In addition, he’s the author of The Children’s Writer’s Guide, The Working Writer’s Guide, The Time Traveler’s Guide, and has written many non-fiction books.
Simon offers editing, manuscript evaluation, coaching, mentoring, and writing workshops for writers. He’s an instructor with the University of Calgary and offers online workshops for both children and adults. He also offers workshops and author in residence programs for schools and libraries.
Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to Show. Don’t Tell Writing with me, Suzy Vadori, where I teach you the tried and true secrets to writing fiction nonfiction that are gonna wow your readers broken down step by step. We’re gonna explore writing techniques. I’m gonna show you a glimpse behind the scenes of successful writers’ careers that you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
And I’m also gonna coach writers live on their pages so that you can learn and transform your own storytelling. Whether you’re just starting out, you’re drafting your first book, you’re editing, or you’re currently rewriting that book, or maybe even your 10th book, this show’s gonna help you unlock the writing skills that you didn’t even know you needed, but you definitely do.
I’m so looking forward to helping you get your amazing ideas from your mind onto your pages in an exciting way for both you and your readers, so that you can achieve your wildest writing dreams, [00:01:00] and you’re gonna also have some fun doing it. Let’s dive in. Today we’re gonna be chatting with a really special writer to me, Simon Rose.
He was one of the very first professional authors that I met in the flesh, in person because he was teaching at a local university, and I took a creative writing course more than 15 years ago Now. Simon became the very first editor that I worked with and when I went back to, you know, most of you have heard this story that I wrote the first draft or, or started the fountain on maternity leave with my third child who’s 14 now.
When I went back to work after taking that creative writing course, after trying to finish that novel and realizing I didn’t know what I was doing yet, Simon was actually my writing coach and he met with me, and if it wasn’t for Simon, I probably never would’ve finished that book. So he holds a special place in my heart.
Still a really great colleague and friend. We love to geek out about the science behind writing and talking about [00:02:00] processes and everything going on in the industry. So I’m incredibly, incredibly honored to have this conversation with him today. He has published more than 20 novels, actually 21 novels, to be specific for children and young adults.
Eight guides for writers on how to write a book more than a hundred non-fiction books. Yes, you heard that right? More than a hundred non-fiction books, and he has created many articles on a wide variety of topics. Simon is a writing instructor at the University of Calgary, which is where he first met him, and he has served as a writer in residence for the Canadian Authors Association.
He provides editing and coaching services for writers in a wide range of genres, and you can find details of the references and recommendations regarding his work on his website, and the link to his website will be in the show notes. Simon also offers in-person and virtual programs for schools and libraries and offers a variety of online writing courses and workshops for both [00:03:00] children and adults.
He has extensive experience in writing for a wide range of industries. And offers copywriting services to the business community. Simon is a stellar example about how to create an actual career out of writing, and I am super excited to have this conversation with him today and for you to hear all about it.
Welcome to the show, Simon Rose. This has been a long time coming, so glad to have you here.
Simon Rose: Well, it’s a pleasure to be here, Suzy. I’m delighted to, to have been invited. Thank you.
Suzy Vadori: You’re so welcome. So there’s so much that you can share. I know that you’ve been a huge mentor to me over the years as well, and I appreciate you so much.
Today we are going to talk about writing time, travel, as well as other topics, but let’s start there. So you’ve written how many time travel novels and they’re for male breed and lower YA and t. Right.
Simon Rose: I knew you asked me a question right away [00:04:00] that would be difficult to answer ’cause you’re going to be asking me how many times, uh oh.
Suzy Vadori: How many fiction novels?
Simon Rose: Uh, novels as in these that, with the two latest ones that came out, it’s currently what? October of, of 2025. I’ve just, uh, released num uh, the, I now have 21. Novels, young adult, uh, sort of a, a young adult middle grade novels. Um, they’re not all historical fiction and travel and, and things.
Some of them are basic science fiction. I’ve got some paranormal ones in there as well and things like that. But, uh, these latest two are, um, don’t involve time travel, but they involve, uh, what if and alternate history. So, uh, history certainly, uh, always, always seems to be in there somewhere.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, absolutely.
And you’re right from middle grade to sort of young adult, teen. What’s the difference to you in [00:05:00] when you choose an age group to write for?
Simon Rose: Well, I think with the first ones, uh, and it’s a long time ago in 2025. Now the first one, the Alchemist portrait came out way back in 2003. It’s hard to believe really.
And that was written for nine to 12. So that was, um, uh, middle grades. The difference probably is as well as with the word count, uh, I suppose is the, I suppose the danger level and how scary it is and things like that, and how dark it may seem in places and things. I mean, some of the more recent ones, including these, these latest ones, the Order of Excalibur books about the, uh, alternate history of Germany.
It conquered Britain during the war in 1940. I mean, this is a pretty, this is a pretty dark time. My flashback series as well, which came out in 2015, that sort of era paranormal, uh, pretty dark too. A bit more scary, I [00:06:00] suppose that would be the difference for me.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, that’s a huge difference and a consideration.
And I love what you just said, the 2015 era. It’s. Simon, I just wanna take a moment and just appreciate that you have eras in your life as a writer and that is fantastic. ’cause many people who are listening to this podcast are wanting to become professional writers or trying to figure out how to do that.
You know, I love that it spans that amount of time. People who can do something for 20, 30 years are really impressive in my book because you keep having to reinvent. Has publishing changed for you since the beginning? I mean, this is a huge question and I know we could probably spend the entire podcast talking about that, but in terms of 2003 you said, how has that changed?
’cause you’ve been in like, this has been in the fastest changing section, I would say in publishing ever.
Simon Rose: How has it [00:07:00] changed? Well, I think, uh, I was very fortunate to, uh, to find a publisher back in 2000. Well, the first book came out in 2003, and if someone was to ask me, um, and I fully had a conversation with you about this in recent memory as to, well, when did I first connect with the publisher?
’cause the book came out in, I think April or May of 2003. But, so I must have been in touch with the publisher maybe. At least 18 months earlier, perhaps. Wow. And he was being edited, you know, all the rest of it and things. But, uh, certainly it’s, it’s changed. I mean, uh, that particular publisher, I did, uh, eight books with him, uh, over the course of, uh, up until 20, um, 14, I think.
And I knew about self-publishing and, and, and I, I knew that people did it on Amazon and, and everything else. I wasn’t really sure if I was confident enough if I could do [00:08:00] self-publishing of fiction. Uh, I didn’t really have the confidence. I don’t know why. I had lots of ideas and I’d pitched these particular stories to the, to publishers before, and I had some interest and everything, but I thought, well, maybe I should do it myself.
But I started off, I published this book on Amazon called The Children’s Writer’s Guide. Which was basically made up of all the handouts I’d ever used, uh, in classes at the local University of Calgary, classes that were in-person classes that were writing, um, for adults who wanted to write for children and teenagers.
So, you know, you know, that’s
Suzy Vadori: where I met you, right, Simon? In 20,
Simon Rose: well put him in a book, put him in a book and put it on Amazon. And from that I produced another Few Guide. I produced the Time Travelers Guide, which was all about historical fiction and writing time. Same sort of thing from all the handouts Later on, more recently, that’s about [00:09:00] five years ago.
I produced this book from handouts as well. I was so imaginative with the title. I decided to call it the Children’s Writer’s Guide Two and that, yeah, I couldn’t think of anything else to call it. But with, with that, but those came out, the Children’s Writers Guide, I think was published in 2014, something like that.
Uh, but then finally once I’d, uh, grasped the nettle as it were with guides, I thought, you know what? I’m going to put a fiction book out. And I had this idea, uh, for this, um, parallel universe thing called The Shadows on Series, and I did those on Amazon. And, uh, my, but to be clear,
Suzy Vadori: you’d, you’d published many, many fiction books traditionally, but this was the first time that you had sought publish books.
Simon Rose: Yeah, it was the first fiction one I’d done. Yes. I did that one in, I think it was 2015, and I put ’em all out at the, in the same view, I think, I think I might’ve even put ’em all out at the same time on Amazon, but three books. [00:10:00] But in anyway, around the same time, I attracted the attention of a, of another publisher with my first paranormal book.
We did two sequels of that. So how is it, I think the original question was how has it changed? How is it different?
Suzy Vadori: How has it changed? Right. I mean, your career has certainly changed and, and in 2003, self-published would’ve been in its infancy if it was even really a viable solution at the time.
Simon Rose: I think it was in its, it probably was in its infancy.
Yes. And I think people, and, and I think people looked, a lot of people might have looked at self-publishing in a slightly different way and, and thought, oh, it’s, it was, it wasn’t quite real publishing or something like that. There, there a stigma to it. That’s the word. Yes. Well done. I needed a word there.
Yes. Stigma.
Suzy Vadori: Good with words. I like the words Simon. Okay.
Simon Rose: But that was the thing. Yeah. I think maybe that was it. But I mean, if I, if I look at. I have just published these books, the Order of Excalibur books. There’s a book and a sequel about the alternate history of Occupied Britain [00:11:00] and everything. Got my copies from Amazon and everything to, to use it at Christmas events and excel at Christmas events and sign and things.
And I’ve, I paid for a professional cover and all the rest of it. And, and looking at that and looking at my books about the English Civil War, which I put out during COVID and everything. The quality of the, of the books, there’s no differences. Uh, really? Yeah. It, it’s, it’s top, well, I suppose you’ve gotta pay for a decent color.
But I mean, the quality of the book is very good, really, I think. Anyway, uh, your
Suzy Vadori: covers are actually stellar. They’re so beautiful, and we’ll, we’ll put some links in the, uh, show notes so that people can go and take a look. Oh, thank you. So take, okay. What is a time travel novel? So we’ve established, like you, you do a lot of time travel novels, but you also have other genres.
But what exactly is a time travel novel? How would you define it?
Simon Rose: Well, I, I started off with, with the [00:12:00] first one, it was a time travel. I, I’ve always liked, I, um, I should clarify. I was, um, as, as you can tell from the accent, I am not, wasn’t born here in this country. I was born in the uk Were you born in this
Suzy Vadori: era or have you time traveled, Simon.
Simon Rose: That’s true, isn’t it? I could be a time traveler, couldn’t I? But no, I was born in the uk. I came to Canada in 1990, but I got my degree in, uh, university degree in history. With the intention perhaps of, of, uh, becoming a history teacher at, at, at a school and things. It never worked out that way, but always had an interest in history and things.
It was always my favorite subject and things like that. So I suppose I was always going to probably write, once I started writing books. And stories and things. Those were the first ideas I had. I mean, I, I enjoyed science fiction growing up, the Star Trek and space and all this sort of stuff. I’m, I must admit I enjoyed all that, but I was never all that [00:13:00] interested in writing about it.
Uh, I enjoyed watching it, but uh, it was always the time travel episodes in Star Trek perhaps that I was most interested in. Uh, and there were a fewer, there were a few adults and everything, so I think with them, what is a time like? It’s usually where somebody travels back in time from the present day, isn’t it?
I suppose. Well, I guess I, that’s my question
Suzy Vadori: because it could be, so are most of your books, I I don’t actually know the answer to this. I’ve read many of your books with my kids. My, are most of your books traveling backward in time because you wanna do historical and do you also go into the future?
Simon Rose: I’ve got it.
I’ve got one, uh, where somebody takes pictures of villain, uh, takes pictures of the future to try and, uh, get rich. I, I think I should remember this. I haven’t read it for a long time. It came out in, I don’t know when it came out, 2010 maybe. And then I’ve got another one called Future Imperfect, where the, um, the lead characters are getting messages from the future on [00:14:00] their phones.
Uh, but most of the time I’ve got characters that go back in time.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, because of your historical focus that Yes.
Simon Rose: Ventures and things, because I find it, I have to do research into, uh, like anybody else would. I’m not, uh, I don’t know everything about the past. I have to, it might be easier for me to do research than other people because I’m familiar with the era, but even I am not that if I’m going back in time in a story and I’m writing about.
Any particular setting or like the, like the here, the Heretics tomb is a story I wrote about somebody. They go back in time to the time of the Black Death. Now I know what the Black Death is and how it killed lots of people and everything, but what I wasn’t that familiar with, I thought, well, what sort of medical treatment did they have?
They didn’t have. Mm-hmm. Obviously they didn’t have the same as we have today, and it wasn’t all witchcraft and goodness knows what else, but they must have had [00:15:00] something. I had to do research, some idea how it was spreading
Suzy Vadori: or some idea of how that
Simon Rose: they treated one of, yeah. And, and in some of these say that’s say, so there was definitely research into that.
And then there were other ones perhaps where I had people going back in time and they, they’re, they’re traveling around on horseback maybe, and I’d never, I’m not a horseback person in the modern day and things. So it’s like, well, how do people. You know, what did horseback riding look like? Or how did they do that back in, in the day?
And, and things like that. Or battle scenes and weapons and all this sort of stuff had to be researched.
Suzy Vadori: I love that
Simon Rose: In these, uh, in these stories. And
Suzy Vadori: you like the, you like the research.
Simon Rose: I don’t mind the research at all.
Suzy Vadori: Wow.
Simon Rose: I, I had to do, I had, even this alternate history one, I had to do research into that, uh, because it’s, it’s not that long ago.
In some ways, it’s not that long ago, world War ii, but it is now. [00:16:00] Of course, it’s, it’s almost a century ago.
Suzy Vadori: Historical, and thank you for writing what you write, Simon, because historical fiction is actually my very, I say this all the time on the podcast, but it’s actually my very favorite genre to read. I don’t write historical fiction, of course, but because I like to do the research.
Things up. I, I wanna move it forward. I don’t wanna stop, I don’t wanna research, but thank you for doing it because I actually really, really love to read it. And in fact, Simon, you were my very first writing coach. So I often talk about the fact that I wrote the fact what later became the fountain, the first draft on maternity leave, leave with my third child who’s 14.
Now, what I don’t talk about as often is how. To go back to work after that maternity leave and it wasn’t done. And so Simon was my coach who held my feet to the fire, had the deadlines for me, and helped me finish that book. And one of the things, maybe you have a lot of stories to tell about me, Simon. I don’t know.
Uh, one of the things that was cruel about the fountain [00:17:00] and the way that it’s structured, because in a 16-year-old, Ava makes a wish that somebody had never existed in actually a racist time. Simon, you had me treat that as if it were almost a time travel novel, which I’d never thought about before. There was a lot of structural things that you were able to show me that happened in a time travel novel that I had created by a re, even though my people didn’t actually travel in time.
The wish traveled in time and rewrote history, right? So there was a lot of really cool things that you were able to teach me, so thank you.
Simon Rose: Thank you and thank you for writing the Fountain. I remember enjoying reading it at the time. Yes.
Suzy Vadori: But a but a typical time travel doesn’t happen like-minded. Um, some of the things that you taught me were about consistency and the idea that you can’t change everything because you will completely confuse your reader.
So just change a few things and there was some really practical tips that you gave. So thank you [00:18:00] for that. How do you start when you’re creating, in particular because the podcast episode’s about time travel. When you’re creating a new time travel novel, where do you start? Do you start with the device, like how they’re traveling in time or do you start somewhere else?
Oh,
Simon Rose: I usually start, I, I’ve usually got the idea of where they’re going to travel in time, what the settings going to be usually. I mean, it’s not every, not every, I have my favorite eras perhaps, but sometimes they’re not always my favorite historical era might not be. The one that’s most suitable for a story.
And I might think, eh, I’m not that interested in writing about that. Or it might be too complicated to be honest. Don’t What
Suzy Vadori: makes it suitable for a story? Can you give us an example?
Simon Rose: Well, I think if it’s got things in it that it, that in that setting, like the time of the Black Death, I mean there was stuff there, there is all sorts of dangers in there.
There were all sorts of things I could do with the, with the World War II one that’s just been vicious, just come out. And, uh, and then the Civil War series, the Stone of the [00:19:00] Seer Series, which I, uh, wrote during COVID and, and put out during COVID. I mean, that’s the, about the English Civil War, where the, where the king lost a war and also lost his head at the end of it.
I mean, that was. One of my favorite era when I was studying it at, um, at school and everything. Uh, one, one of his favorite
Suzy Vadori: eras is, is about a beheading. It’s very used.
Simon Rose: It’s just that, and I like, and, and, but there’s also, you’ve got to think as well about, uh, historical era that, uh, that the readers, the young readers will find interesting as well.
And the entire, I mean, the medieval era, the middle ages and things, uh, lasted for a long time, but it’s, they will. Associate this with knights and castles and swords and all this sort of stuff, and kids, the, the young readers will be, they, they’re familiar with some of this and they enjoy novels that are set in that era.
And, and sometimes there’s a story that I, uh, again, I was familiar with. [00:20:00] I was familiar with the story of, uh, king Ed Edward the fifth, who was 14 years old when he inherited the crown in England. But his nasty uncle decided to, uh, put him in the Tower of London, ’cause he was only 14 or something like that, seized the crown for himself.
And then the young king and his brother were never seen again, and they were known as the princes in the tower. And that became my second novel, the Sorcerer’s Letterbox, which also became my email address.
Suzy Vadori: Was gonna say the Rcer letterbox, that you still use that, right? And that’s one of your I do.
Simon Rose: I decided when I opened it.
You break in novel. I decided to use it. I mean, why not? And uh, but that brings me onto the device, which was important.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Does it matter what you choose? Does it matter? Well, I.
Simon Rose: It has to be plausible. That’s the thing. I mean, you can certainly, if you want to in a kid’s story especially, you can certainly simply have somebody deciding.
I decided I wanted to travel in time and then poof, then I [00:21:00] was back in another era. Well, no, I was instilled. Doesn’t do it for me. I mean, in the sorcerer letter box, there is a letter box where messages are sent. A, a scroll is sent back and forth through time with messages asking for help. And it’s in mid, it’s written in middle English, and I got a, uh, I think in the book itself, there’s a page with the, where, the, where this scrolled me.
The message is, uh, there’s a, uh, a version of it in the book and I got a co I got a copy of that made for, uh, to take to school on school visits. So I could show to show to the kids and all this sort of stuff. It’s not in Latin, it’s in middle English, but it was important that the, that’s, that, that seemed plausible.
And with the Alchemist portrait, the first one, when he travels in time, the, the, the character travels in time. He travels in time through the frames of the painting. He can only travel to because the painting was hanging on the wall in the [00:22:00] past. He can’t step out of, uh, he can’t step through the frame in the modern era and travel, say to ancient Egypt or, or ancient Rome, or, I mean, ’cause the painting hadn’t been painted yet.
And also he will step outta the frame in the location where the frame was located in the past. So that was important in the one about the black death. It, it’s a jewel and everything that can be carried in, in, in your pocket. So again, that’s important. You’ve got this thing with you and so it seems to be plausible.
And then if you lose this, this piece of jewelry, uh, this gemstone, then you’re going to be stuck in the past, which is going to be quite terrifying for the readers to think, oh my God, Susie’s going to be trapped in the past because she’s lost the. Lost the gemstone or whatever, but
Suzy Vadori: then you have to find it again, right?
Yeah. Give some things to do. So it
Simon Rose: has to be, has to be pla has to be plausible. And it, and it’s interesting, [00:23:00] similar to the location one, when I did my paranormal one, the, the flashback one. In that one I have somebody touching a gravestone in a cemetery, being haunted by visions of, uh, someone who was their imaginary friend when they were growing up.
Who wanted help from them when they were growing up, but they were too young to understand and they, it freaked them out a little bit. But that again, was touching an object that in a certain place, uh, in a certain location.
Suzy Vadori: And how much time do you spend signin? Do you do this? Like what’s your process? Do you would.
Obviously you’ve exclaimed that. You picked the setting first, where they’re traveling back to you, but then you do spend a lot of time creating rules around is it plausible? What are the limits? You know, what if they lose it? You’ve got all these kind of cool things around your device and time travel and how it works.
How much trend do you spend upfront or do you just kind of write it as it goes, or do you decide all of that before you start writing? [00:24:00]
Simon Rose: Well, that’s interesting. Now see, that’s come up recently in, in the course I’m, uh, doing at the university. And it has in recent memory in terms of outlines, uh, ’cause I don’t think I had an outline for the first book, the Alchemist portrait, but I did for all the, I I did all the others.
And, and a lot of the time people will think, uh, or say to me, oh, I can’t work like that. I can’t have an outline and stick to it and this or this. And I tell them, well, no, you don’t have to stick to it religiously and strictly. Exactly this thing. It helps if you’ve got a bit of a plan, uh, and everything.
My latest, my current projects like that, uh, I, I had an outline for it and in the, the entire second half of it has changed in recent memory because I just, and, and, and the one I put out last year, which was another time travel story, I didn’t like. When I finished it, I didn’t like it at all, and I thought, I’m never gonna put this book out.
I don’t like it. And [00:25:00] then I was out with my walking my dog, and I got some ideas and I thought, oh, actually, yes, I, I can change this in places and I’ll, I’ll quite, um. I, I quite liked it. So I do, I do have an outline, and then if I, if I, I have a local coffee shop just up the street from me here. And what I’ll do is, again, pe I have to make sure people understand and they’ll say, oh, you, you write this with pen and paper.
You write the entire book. And I say, no, no, no. I’ll, I’m, I’ll print off the, the chapters in the middle that are giving me grief, giving me some problems that I’m stalled on or something. I’ll take them to the coffee shop and work on them and, and things, and sometimes I’ll get, I’ll get a wattle, two or three chapters written by hand over two or three hours at a coffee shop, and then I have to, when I, I have to come home.
And type them up as quickly as possible. ’cause otherwise, uh, I won’t be able to read my own writing ’cause I’ve written them [00:26:00] so quickly. But then I realized I’ve completed those three or four chapters in the middle that were giving me problems. This latest project has was like that. I, I got stalled with it last winter, left it alone for a while, went back to it, and now it’s in, in decent shape except for the bit in the middle.
Suzy Vadori: Thank you very much, Simon. We’ll drop all the links to all of your hundreds of books out there, more than a hundred books, so thanks for coming on. You’re welcome here. Anytime.
Simon Rose: Well, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure to be here. I hope that people have been inspired by it.
Suzy Vadori: Thanks a lot, Simon.
Simon Rose: Thank you very much.
Bye for now.
Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning in to show. No. Tell writing with me, Susie Vori. I’ll me continue to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or planning to write. Please consider subscribing to this podcast and leaving a review on Apple Podcast, [00:27:00] Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening. Also, visit susie Vadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list where you’ll stay inspired and be the first to know about upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community.
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