PHOTO: Bethanie Finger, author and librarian, photographed in Nevada where she lives with her husband, two dogs, and a thriving creative spirit.
Grief Imagination Resilience And The Power Of Story
Bethanie Finger reflects on transforming personal loss into fiction, the long road to publication, and the balance of creativity, librarianship, and life in her emotionally resonant fantasy series.
Bethanie Finger writes with the quiet strength of someone who has lived inside her worlds long before they took shape on the page. A librarian by training and a storyteller by calling, she brings both precision and heart to her fiction. Her characters are not merely imagined—they are experienced, felt, and remembered. In More Than Life, More Than Lost, and More Than Love, her richly layered trilogy, readers are invited to traverse grief, resilience, and transformation through the eyes of Cordelia Kimbal—a heroine as wounded as she is formidable.
It is no surprise that Bethanie’s writing bears the hallmarks of deep research and thoughtful structure. Years spent immersed in library science and literary craft have endowed her prose with authenticity and texture. But it is her emotional candour—the echo of personal loss, the struggle with rejection, and the daily negotiation of joy and fatigue—that gives her stories their enduring pulse.
Her love of music, her connection to younger generations, and her boundless curiosity as a hiker and explorer all seep into her narratives, lending them an immediacy and soul that resonate far beyond the page. Bethanie’s world-building is meticulous, but it is her empathy that makes her stories feel so alive.
With a voice both lyrical and grounded, Bethanie Finger offers readers not just escape, but companionship. Her writing reminds us that storytelling is, at its heart, an act of survival and connection—and that the stories worth telling are the ones we cannot let go of.
How did your dual background in Library and Information Sciences and Creative Writing influence your journey as an author?
As a librarian, my focus was on data collection and research. I spent hours collecting information on world-building. What did it smell like? What was the weather like? The terrain? The day temperature versus the night temperature? The smells? Plants and foods; customs and clothing. Everything I learned built the world of the village of Alaro, which is where most of book one takes place. I think without my training I would not have had the mental bandwidth to handle that level of research and dedication.
My education with creative writing taught me structure, outlining, accuracy. I knew early on that although this is a fictional world, I wanted facts that were rooted in reality. My education taught me story-structure, world-building, storyline layouts and character development. The formulas I needed to create my books.
What inspired the creation of Cordelia Kimbal and the richly imagined world of the More Than Life trilogy?
This story was ignited after I unexpectedly lost my father. Through Cordelia, I was able to handle the stages of grief that I struggled to accept in reality. Cordelia’s journey from fallen lady to competent member of the working class is what book one really focuses on. I wanted readers to know and love her before the journey to Qualaris really began.
Can you describe the emotional or personal challenges you faced during the fifteen years of querying and rejections?
In the beginning, I felt the rejection very personally; these are stories and characters that I have grown to love, how could someone else not love them, too? But I realized that publishing goes beyond a good story. Think about the last book you read that you attached to. I’m not talking about a book you enjoyed. I mean a book that absolutely consumed you; as soon as you finished, you wanted to read it again; you spent hours searching fan art and fan fiction just so you could stay in that world; you tell everyone you meet to read that book, even if they are not book readers themselves. That’s what publishers and agents are looking for, and being able to provide that to the right person at the right time is tricky. Once I was able to accept that part of publishing, I was able to handle the impact of those rejections with more strength. I won’t pretend there weren’t times when I wanted to give up, but I never stopped writing, so I never stopped querying either.
How has your role as a school librarian shaped the stories you write or the characters you develop?
As a school librarian I am exposed to different age groups, younger generations. I learned from my students about the struggles and stresses in their lives, how they plan for their futures, what they look for in friendships, what they find appealing about book characters and stories. When writing about younger characters than myself, I was able to think and ask myself, what would my students do in this scenario and how might that influence my characters?
What role does music, especially the influence from your father, still play in your creative process today?
Music is so inspirational! I make a playlist for every book, and I have had more than one chapter inspired by a single line in a single song; so, the music I would once have listened to with my father found its way into my stories.
What was the most surprising or rewarding moment during the writing of More Than Love, the final book in your trilogy?
I think realizing I wasn’t quite done with the stories or with this world. I wrote two characters, Marie and Russell, that were barely in the story at all and were used to help drive the plot. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about them; who were they? How did they meet? How did they fall in love? What was their connection to Qualaris? I realized I wanted more from this world and so their story inspired the entire spin-off \[More Than Dreams] that I’m working on now!
How do you balance the demands of writing, podcasting, and working in a school library, while still finding time for hiking and exploration?
I won’t pretend I don’t have a full and sometimes overwhelming schedule. But the thing is, all of the activities and responsibilities that fill up my schedule are things that I love doing and that bring me great joy. So, I do get tired, of course, but I never get tired of it.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors who are navigating long periods of rejection or self-doubt?
Don’t let those moments of rejection become bigger than your love of writing. If you love writing, you will always be writing, creating and imagining. Let that be your focus on the days when you feel defeated, use it to motivate yourself. You’re going to write anyways, might as well keep at it! I would also recommend finding a writing community to join; connecting with other authors who have been through what you’ve been through, who might even be in the trenches beside you at that very moment, can help remind you that you aren’t as alone as you think you are.
