Evette Davis is a science fiction and fantasy writer. Sadly, this fascination started early in life thanks to her father and sister, who insisted that she join them to watch Star Trek. A love of Star Trek was actually a prerequisite for our husbands, but that is a story for another time.  Evette’s father also gave her first Carlos Castaneda novel, which started her fascination with alternate realities and shape-shifting. But the biggest culprit behind Davis’ interest in science fiction is the Los Angeles Public Library system, which gave her a library card in elementary school, setting her up for a lifetime of reading anything that interested her.

Davis is most recently the author of 48 States, a semi-finalist in the 2023 Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize, and which Kirkus named one of the Best Indie Books of 2022. Davis is also the author of The Others, the first installment of The Council Trilogy, which Spark Press will release in September 2024. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle. Davis is also a member of the Board of Directors of Litquake, San Francisco’s iconic literary festival.

Evette has a day job. When she’s not writing novels, she advises some of the country’s largest corporations, non-profits, and institutions as a consultant and co-owner of BergDavis Public Affairs, an award-winning San Francisco-based consulting firm. Before establishing her firm, Davis worked in Washington as a press secretary for a member of Congress, which afforded her a courtside seat at the beginnings of the total dysfunction of current-day politics. She previously was a reporter for daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Davis splits her time between San Francisco and Sun Valley, Idaho. She likes to take long walks, drink good wine, and watch the San Francisco Giants play baseball.

You are an author, but is it your day job? If not, what fills your days? I have a day job co-running a Public Relations firm in San Francisco. I’ve been running my company for 25 years while raising a daughter and writing novels. Yes, I do sleep, but I don’t watch that much television.

Did you always want to be an author? I always wanted to be a writer, but my focus was on non-fiction and journalism. In fact, my professors in college were quite vexed with me because my fiction read like literary journalism, and my reporting was too florid. My first job out of college was on the business desk of a local newspaper as a junior reporter. Eventually, I learned to focus on the five W’s (who, what, when, where, and why.) From there I went to Washington DC to work in politics, and then I started working in consumer public relations before founding my own firm in 1999. Eventually, I decided I had the focus and endurance to write novels.

What is your most recent book, and what inspired you to write it? The Others is the first installment in an urban fantasy about Olivia Shepherd, a San Francisco political consultant with hidden talents who is plunged into the world of the Council, a shadowy organization of supernatural beings that secretly meddle in human affairs. Olivia is the lifelong embodiment of a question I havebeen trying to solve for decades: where do women derive their power, how do they learn to use it, and how do they reconcile being leaders in the face of societal expectations? The Others began as an idea for a play. I had an idea to create a frustrated political consultant down on her luck who starts seeing an ancient female warrior off-stage. The guide would give her funny advice on besting her adversaries, but only she could see her. Playwriting is not my jam; that is how the novel and the character were born. The Others and The Council Trilogy are also a way of dealing with my unease over the polarization of politics in this country and how moderates have been robbed of their voice. I gave them magical powers to help get things back on track!

How do you hope your book uplifts those who read it? First and foremost, I hope they like the story and want to stay up all night to find out what happens next. I want to tell stories that intrigue people and grab them from the first page. Beyond that, I hope they relate to Olivia’s journey to understand and love herself in the face of adversity.

What are you most excited about with this book? There are two more behind it, full of near-death experiences, thrilling plot twists, and erotic interludes between the characters. The Others is the first installment of The Council Trilogy. The second book will be released in March 2025, and the third will be released in the fall of 2025.

How did writing a book help your career take off? When that happens, I will get back to you. Writing novels takes focus and discipline, and I think those skills serve you well in many other circumstances.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to succeed in your professional industry? Find a good editor and pay, barter, or trade to ensure that your work is read and edited by someone other than you who knows what they are doing.

How do you handle setbacks and criticism? I sulk and eat ice cream, and then I move on. It’s impossible for everyone to love your work. The world is a big place, and you will find your audience. On the other hand, sometimes criticism is valid, and you must be confident enough to listen and decide whether you want to change your work.

Being an author today is like running a business. How do you manage all your publicity, and social media and keep your engagement up with readers? I have a full-time publicist and an assistant to help with my social media. I see everything, but I need help.

How do you hold yourself accountable and achieve the goals that you set forth? Some days, I manage to make my goals. Other days, I don’t. There are times when I have to work, or my family needs something, and I have to make peace with that. Being a writer is a solitary endeavor, and most of the time, I excuse myself after dinner and head upstairs to my office to write. I’m pretty good about telegraphing to my husband that I have deadlines coming up that I need to make. He is a journalist, so he understands what I’m dealing with.

How do you structure your day and make time for writing? I mostly write in the evenings and on weekends. Since I don’t ski, in the winter, I write all day on vacation and then join my entourage for apres-ski.

What do you find most fulfilling in the career that you’ve chosen? I love helping people tell their stories and figure out how to communicate about their big ideas.

What book uplifts you? Okay, a moment of vulnerability here: I am a sucker for historic romances. Especially series like The Ravenels by Lisa Kleypas. They all have happy endings and feisty female characters who defy the odds, and they’re so different from what I’m writing that I can laugh and enjoy myself without introducing problems for my characters dancing around in my head.

Anything else you’d like to share with your readers? I love living in San Francisco and believe its got a bright future ahead of it despite its setbacks from the pandemic. I have a black lab named Cairo. She and I are best friends and walk together in Golden Gate Park every day. I’ve been married for 29 years and have a twenty-one-year-old daughter.  When I’m not working or writing, I love to try new restaurants in San Francisco with my friends. I like going to movie theaters to see films; it’s more fun, and I love to eat movie popcorn.

Connect with Evette and grab a copy of her new book via her website.