A. E. Costello is a student at the University of West Georgia who has published her first fiction novel. Costello is a senior who is majoring in English. She published her book, The Other Side through Amazon’s self-publishing service.
The Other Side is about a 17-year-old African American male in a small town in Georgia. Jaxon Reeves lives a normal life with his friends and girlfriend and goes to church with his family. This is until he goes out of town and gets attacked by a werewolf and becomes one as well.
“Upon coming home he faces discrimination and prejudice, joining this world within a world that he never knew,” said Costello. “He confronts his humanity, or loss of humanity, as his faith is thrown into question and he has to reconcile himself as his parents’ son and the son of God.”
Costello worked on the book for seven years before she got it published. Those seven years were full of periods of time where she would write every day as well as days where she would procrastinate. She also had an exercise to develop her characters where she would interview them.
“I would talk to the main character, Jaxon Reeves, about his feelings, his relationships with other characters, with God and make sure I was writing his decisions properly,” said Costello.
While Costello currently has the goal of being a novelist this was not always her career path. Originally she wanted to be a veterinarian like her aunt, however, around the age of six she discovered her love of writing and her innate talent for it.
“I’ve been writing every day without fail. Being a novelist is my main career, but I also will be a comic artist and graphic novelist,” said Costello.
She started writing The Other Side in 2011 after she got out of high school and she continued writing it when she got into college in 2013.
“Degree first, career second. This means that papers, projects, assignments and readings all had to take priority over my novel, which was very hard sometimes,” said Costello. “A novelist career is very important to me but getting my English degree has to come first as I’m not a full-time writer yet.”
Most writers tend to draw from their own lives in some way for inspiration for their writing. Costello based the setting of her novel from her real-life surroundings.
“I basically based if off my town that I grew up in, since moving from New York to Georgia.” said Costello.
Moving forward in her writing career Costello will be switching self-publishing companies. For her future books she will be using a company that will allow her books to be in bookstores and libraries. Costello is currently working on her second fiction novel which will be called Dorgia.
