Harrison Gaylord reported this story on assignment from the Herald of Randolph. The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost.

When Courtney and Clarke Collins first formed the idea for their upcoming fantasy novel, their lives, as they put it, were “going to hell.”

Clarke’s parents were getting divorced, and Courtney’s mother was dying from cancer, she says. The couple, who now live in Randolph, were far apart in 1998 when Clark spent a college semester in Germany and Courtney stayed in the states, taking care of her mom.

One day, from across the ocean, Clarke emailed Courtney the first chapter of a elaborate story. That started a collaboration.

“He would write a chapter, then I would write a chapter,” Courtney says, “and it would kind of go back and forth, so there was this connectivity there.”

For Clarke, it helped the couple bond from afar. “It was a combination of reaching out, because I was relatively alone in a foreign country, and just wanting to connect and do something sort of fun, not just a typical correspondence,” he says. “The first line of the story just came to me as I was typing.”

Now, the Collinses are putting the final touches on their manuscript, entitled “In the Name of Honor, Vows and Valor,” which is scheduled for release by Shadow Spark Publishing in January 2025.

For the Collinses, who are both 46, the adult fantasy genre offers an antithesis to their more conventional day jobs. Clarke is the deputy director of benefits and wellness for the state of Vermont. Courtney is assistant director of the Environmental Center at Vermont Law School in South Royalton. Their book reflects a creative partnership that has flourished between the couple in their marriage and, now, as writers.

A Tale of Love and Literature

The Collinses met while undergraduates at Hamilton College in upstate New York. It was a classic love-at-first-sight moment, as they tell it. After graduating, they lived in Boston, then married outside of Philadelphia and moved to San Francisco before coming to Vermont.

From the beginning, the couple says, they connected through a love for literature, as lifelong readers. When Clarke was young, his mother let him choose any book he wanted from the library. One of his picks was J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” which he credits as a huge inspiration in his writing. “In the Name of Honor” includes Tolkien-esque elves.

Courtney attributes her interest in fantasy stories to her small-town upbringing in New Hampshire. She grew up two doors from the library, and fantasy novels enthralled her with the idea of being in another world. While writing, Courtney often listened to Celtic musician Loreena McKennitt’s songs, which she considers a large inspiration for her and Clarke’s book.

The description of “In the Name of Honor” on the publisher’s website reads like a fairytale with “Game of Thrones”-level peril. It involves a hero named Dimitar who’s up for knighthood and agrees to guard the princess Kaleela after the best friend of her father, the king, is murdered by “vile Corrupted creatures” that are now after them.

It’s considered an adult fantasy, though the Collinses believe it could have crossover potential for a young-adult audience.

A Tale of a Publishing Journey

With their writing finished, the Collinses faced the challenging task of finding a publisher. Traditionally, writers would secure an agent who presents their manuscripts to publishers.

At the time, the COVID-19 pandemic was at its height, and people stuck at home during the lockdown starting writing, creating a surge of authors who were seeking representation. The Collinses turned to small-press publishing, where they found a more personal touch and an emphasis on the story as much as on the potential for profit, they say.

Shadow Spark Publishing, a small company that publishes authors from all over the United States, as well as Japan and England, signed the couple to a two-to-three-book deal, says Jessica Moon, Shadow Spark’s cofounder and creative director.

“Their pitch was immensely intriguing,” Moon wrote in an email response to questions about the Collinses. “I was immediately drawn into the world they’ve created. To put it another way, I couldn’t stop reading. I had to know what happened next, which is always a good sign.”

Moon added that she also writes with a partner, her Shadow Spark cofounder, Mandy Russell. “I loved the thought of bringing another set of co-authors into the house and am very familiar with how to manage that kind of dynamic,” though she and Russell aren’t married, she says.

“We’ve become something of an odd sort of family in the (publishing) house.”

Courtney Collins became an editor at Shadow Spark in early October. She says she gets a charge out of copyediting.

Identity and Intimacy

Courtney identifies as a bisexual woman. In their book, the couple made an effort to include “incidental queerness.” This means some characters identify as queer, but that isn’t the point of their inclusion in the story. “It just is,” Courtney says.

She also wanted to avoid bringing trauma into the identity discussion. “You get that enough in real life,” she says.

Instead, the novel assumes a safe space where queer characters are simply understood and accepted. “Will this book be banned in Florida? Yes,” Courtney says.

The writing partnership mirrors their symbiotic relationship, the Collinses say. Clarke describes himself as Courtney’s complement.

They both contribute their own strengths and “life baggage” that pours into their characters, Clarke says. “As we read over it again, we realize how much we’ve brought into it: ‘Oh, that character’s just me,’ ” Clarke says of the story, laughing. “It’s worked out perfectly for us.”

Courtney cites the intimacy of brainstorming with a partner who understands the story and the characters the same way. “Hours at a time, we will just sit and talk about possibilities, things that don’t even end up in the manuscript,” she says. “It’s all world-building.”

She added, “When we talk about the story it’s like someone has just like injected the serotonin straight into my vein. It’s fantastic.”

Courtney credits Clarke with inventing many of the story’s characters and creating the integral plot with his first draft. He revised thoroughly, then Courtney took over the editing. Both would prefer to work on the other’s copy, which gets tricky, because someone has to do the writing first.

Clarke says his favorite part of the process was sharing this fictional world with his wife, an escape that the two can enjoy together. Their story’s characters are their creations, as if they were their children, Clarke says, though they have two kids together in real life.

“The sense of accomplishment with what we’ve achieved is amazing.” Courtney agrees. “Being able to share these characters and this world with someone so deeply, intimately.”

She stops midsentence and says, in a rare moment for a profuse writer, ,”I’m not sure I’m able to put it into words.”