Self‑Publishing Truths, Yeti Wizards, and Raising Readers with Theresa Villarreal
- Valerie
- 14 hours ago
- 17 min read
Theresa Villarreal sits down with BookWorthy to discuss the need for stories that speak truth, like her Adventures in Oculus, and what she is doing to influence the publishing industry.
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This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity but reflects the full conversation from the BookWorthy Podcast. Grab a cup of coffee, listen, and read along. This post does contain affiliate links. Thanks for your support.
Valerie - Welcome to Book Worthy, where we talk about the heart behind the books that your kids are reading. Today, we're talking with children's author and co-host of the Storytellers Shelf podcast, Theresa Marie, who is the author of the Adventures in Oculus series, a middle-grade portal fantasy that transports readers to enchanted realms full of courage, friendship, and discovery. Theresa's story carries Christian undertones, blending imagination and faith. Welcome to Bookworthy, Theresa.
Theresa - Hey everyone, happy to be here, and I'm really excited to talk about my author journey, a tiny bit about my podcast, and what we do, and I'm just really excited to be here today.
Valerie - I'm excited to have this chat, but before we get going to the meat of our conversation, we have to do our random question of the week, which is, what is the scariest thing you've ever done for fun?
Random Question of the Week
Theresa - So I've kind of mentioned this to you before, but just a little backstory about me. I am married to a Mexican American, and his family lives in Mexico in San Miguel de Allende. So I don't know if you guys know where that is, but that's in the heart of Mexico. It's actually considered to be the center of the world in Mexico.
It's one of the oldest areas, and it's got an obvious Spanish influence. If you go there, it's got a lot of Spanish elements. It's got the cobblestone streets, et cetera. So here's a fun fact. So obviously my husband's family lives there, and his dad about two years ago, when we went, we stayed at a rental house that my amazing father-in-law had prepared for us that we could stay in for like two weeks. Basically, we were kind of left to our own devices, and my husband, my kids, and I were all hungry, and we wanted to go and get something to eat for dinner, obviously. And it was late, and we'd been traveling all day, and so we wanted to find something. And they don't, obviously, they don't have like a, you know, fast food restaurant in the area. So we had to think, what can we do, right? So my husband Googled a place, and it was like, well, this has a lot of five-star reviews. Let's go check it out. So we take the car that my father-in-law had let us borrow, and we go into this area that's like an older area, but it's not too far from the rental place that we were at, and it has the Spanish cobblestone streets. And I don't know if you guys have ever been to Mexico, but the streets are not like American streets, especially if you're in the older part of Mexico, because the alleys and the streets themselves are a bit more narrow, and they don't actually have lights on at night like street lights when you think. Can you go? Okay, this is an experience, but I guess if there's a five-star review, let's give it a try. We're very adventurous people, and we like to try those things. So we go, and there are cobblestone streets, and we're looking, it was wintertime, right? So it's, well, in San Miguel, they actually get about 50 degrees or so at night. So 50, 49. So we're all bundled up, and we're looking around, we have the car, and if you've been bumping when you're driving on cobblestone streets. So it's like a dark alley, and you're going, " Are we sure we wanna do this? So we go and there's like a neighborhood and in front we see a lot of there's lights and the lights go into a house the house is a garage transferred into a restaurant where there's everybody is there right so we go there and we park the car and in front of the place where we parked the car it looks like a house out of i don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie the burbs with tom hanks this house is like got like large grass and it's not the house, thank goodness, that we were going to go eat at, but it's across from where we were going to go eat. And I'll go, and my American gringo self, do we want to park the car here? And my husband's like, we'll be fine. Trust me, I grew up in Mexico. This is completely normal. So we go, and there's this, it's a restaurant that's converted, or it's a house garage that's been converted into a restaurant. And we go inside, and it's actually a restaurant. It's got like the full kitchen, tables. Now, just to let you know, the tables are like those cards, like playing card-type tables. So it's even more funny. Okay, you know, we have to make do with what we can, you know, trying to get some dinner. And then we go there, and we actually have a good time. They had this one dish. I forgot the name of it. But basically, it's an, and if you have my Latina Latino listeners, you guys might know what this is, especially if you're Mexican. This is a very Mexican dish. It's basically like a flour or a corn type of base. And it was shaped like a sandal. And it has, like, I believe it's like beans that have been refried, and then it's got like cheese and nopales or nopalitos on the top. So it's like a good appetizer.
My kids were like gobbling it up. They loved it. So that was just the start, sort of an appetizer, and then we got like tacos and horchata and everything. It was great. And amazingly, see this is what happens when you go on an adventure. You meet new people, you have new experiences. It's a great way to really try something new. And there were some, since it's like it was actually very full, the restaurant and all the locals, they're like, yeah, go there. That's the place. Right. Two gentlemen were sitting next to us. It's like one of those things out of a movie where it's like, OK, I don't know these people, but I guess we're sitting next to them. We'll have to try to have a conversation. At first, no one was talking. We're just kind of on our own devices. Let's eat. And then one of them just said, " Oh, where are you from? And he said it in English. And I was like, " Oh, well, we know Spanish because my husband speaks Spanish. He's bilingual. And I sort of speak Spanish. I know more of a sort of like the I Love Lucy, where I'm like, oh, yes, hi, nice to meet you. And then they started talking. We had a good conversation. At the end of it, we became good friends and acquaintances. So it was a good experience. Yeah.
Valerie - That does sound fun with it. Can only imagine as a parent walking into a strange location that's dark and like, I'm going to feed my family here.
Theresa - Yeah, and there's like no place to go after that because it's like, where, where do we go? Because there's no, like, there's no, like, quick kind of just want to get something to eat for dinner. Like, where can I go? I don't know the area. Okay.
Valerie - Sounds like quite the adventure. Well, tell us a little bit about the adventures in Oculus.
The Heart Behind The Adventures in Oculus Series
Theresa - So as far as inspiration, I started this project about, let's see, 12 to 13 years ago. And it was after the birth of my firstborn. And I wanted to have a creative outlet to go ahead and get writing. Because I've always kind of had that, even though I went to business school. I went to U of H Business. Yay, U of H Cougars. I went to business school, got a degree in marketing, and I know that's the opposite of going into writing, but I've always been very creative. I really wanted to have an outlet because, to me, being creative is really important. As a new parent, having a sort of cathartic writing space is very important as well. So I started this as like, I wanted this as a sort of a mom kind of love for her babies kind of thing. And it was a lot of love put into this, meant for my kids, because I'm a mom of two. And so the story begins, where my character is a middle-grade student. My character has this hand-me-down wardrobe, and he gets it from his mom, who gets it from her grandfather. And that's actually kind of important because that goes into the second book, like why, you know? And so again, it's a portal fantasy. So the wardrobe is important because it's sort of a gateway to get into the land of Oculus. So he goes to Oculus through this portal from his dog, Leonard, who kind of helps him to get into that world of Oculus. And so he, when he gets there, he gets to a tundra, and it's cold, and it's icy, but then there's sort of like the Eskimo-type homes around him, and he sees like smoke and everything, you know, coming from the chimneys. And then out of nowhere, there's this giant figure who happens to be a Yeti, because I like Yeti, because I'm from the 80s. And I think of Harry and the Hendersons. And yes, because that's, you know, like when you're from the 80s, you got to bring in Harry and the Hendersons. Yes. So I love Yetis. And so my character is a philosophical Yeti who happens to be a wizard. And he helps Dominic along the way, and they go on this quest to help rescue the land of Oculus from this. It's a witch who looks like a figure of a spider. Like her lower half is like a spider's body. Kind of like when you think of a trying to think of the name of the spider, but you know, Black Widow, like a Black Widow, because I'm from Texas and there are Black Widows in my area. Anyway, and I'm not a big spider person. So, and then also, because I always liked Greek mythology. So she has the, you know, the snake hair like Medusa, but there's a reason why. So she used to be like this beautiful woman who's like a noble woman, and then because she lusted for power, she turned into this figure, into a dark figure. So I did that on purpose because I'm going to add later. After all, again, this is about world-building; if you're a fantasy writer, it's all about world-building. And my inspiration is from my two favorite authors because again, this is Christian undertones. So obviously, I can never compare. They are two amazing, two great. It would be Tolkien and C.S. Lewis because they are my utmost favorite authors in the entire world. Yeah. And what was your question?
creating that truth-telling and creating that where we create critical thinkers in storytelling.
Valerie -No, you're good. They're just doing a great job telling us about the books. But yeah, it's great to see those, you know, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien undertones that kind of inspired your unique take on this portal fantasy and just all that Dominic goes through and kind of gets to experience in this new world and discover about himself, which is what usually makes good books. Well, your description of this book, you call it a middle grade book, but it does seem to kind of bridge between a little bit of YA, young adult, and middle grade. What made you choose to be in that bridge space between the two genres?
Theresa - So a lot of it comes from the fact that I wanted the books to grow with the reader. So as you know, middle grade starts from age eight to 12. And I wanted my books to kind of showcase the fact that the main character starts at around 12 years old, and then the goal is seven books. And so I wanted the character to grow and the reader, the person reading the book, to grow with the character. So I thought it would be kind of like a fun spin on that.
Valerie - Very neat, there's definitely a lot of books that do, the books that we enjoy like Harry Potter or even Lord of the Rings are those books that kind of grow with you as you get older, that you can return to no matter your age and still enjoy and glean great little truths from. So that's really neat. Kind of what do you hope kids walk away from with your books?
Theresa - I wanted people to seek truth, that's part of it. In that sort of C.S. Lewis is like that truth-telling. And to see in the books friendship, courage, and a sense of hope. I've always been one of those people who, I don't know if you, I grew up with my parents, they're boomers, right? And my mom loved stories that had the triumph over evil. And I'm the same way. And again, that's how I grew up, like good triumphing over evil and creating that truth-telling and creating that where we create critical thinkers in storytelling. Because that's part of it, to get those kids to read. And that's something that I see as both a mom, as an author, and the fact that I have a podcast, that we're seeing a lack of literacy right now in kids. And we want to get kids reading again. So we have to create books that inspire them to read.
Valerie - Yes, totally agree. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your podcast, the Storytellers Shelf Podcast?
The Storytellers Shelf Podcast
Theresa - Oh, thank you so much. So the Storyteller Shelf Podcast was sort of started between me and my amazing co-host, Jackie Garcia Morales. She's from New Jersey, and I'm here in Houston, and we're like, let's do a podcast. And funny enough, we actually have not met in person yet, but we met on LinkedIn.
And she works in publishing, and she saw my books, and she was like, " My gosh, I love your books. They look amazing. Let's have a conversation. And originally, she wanted to try to get my books in an imprint that she worked with. And so then we had a conversation that lasted for four hours, and then we kept talking back and forth, you little by little, you know how it is. And we kept in touch, and then.
We had such a good conversation. I was like, " What do you think about doing a podcast? Because again, it goes back to being a mom, being an author, and seeing that there is a need to really hype up. We've got to get kids reading again. And we wanted something where we had authors because we see a lack of, since I am a self-published author, that we want to have traditional and self-published.
Writing has become more about how many words you can have, and it should be really about what you're writing about, not how many words.
To be able to sit and have a conversation without a stigma, you know, because there's still somewhat of a stigma for self-published authors, you know, that kind of thing. And so I wanted, and she and I have the same conversation that we need to have, to inspire, demystifying publishing. How does publishing work? Because there are so many, and I always like to use this analogy a lot when we have guests on, like,
We recently had Lois Lowry on. My gosh. She's the OG. That's what I like to say. And she gave us so much insight into how, as a writer, she said, I love what she said. She's very frank, and I love that about people. I like it when people are just straight talkers. She said, "Writing has become more about how many words you can write, and it should be really about what you're writing about, not how many words." It's basically for us as a podcast, it's again, this is our first season, and we want to grow, and we are having a book drive that's coming up for helping in our community. But we work with nonprofits coming on our podcast. We just did one with Books Between Kids, and since I'm in Houston, we actually partner with them for our book drive. And then we have authors on. We're about to have an episode with Kwame Mambelia and Max Boudry. And again, we're reading Lois Lowry. And this is all about inspiring authors and demystifying publishing because there's such a lack of information. And again, it goes back to and sorry if I'm going on a tangent, everybody, but you know how think of the Wizard of Oz and you have the gatekeeper guy and he's like, don't ring that bell and you know, or like with the where you have the wizard and he has the curtain and then you take the curtain and it's it's this old man and he's holding the keys of Oz basically. No, we want to take that out and show the wizard because there's a lot of misinformation about how publishing works, especially for self-published authors. Like, I could go into a whole tangent about whether anyone realizes that we are actually paying money for our own ideas when we get ISBNs as self-published authors? So we're paying for our own ideas. Like change my mind kind of thing. That's what my thought is on that.
Valerie - Well, it sounds like a very interesting podcast. It's kind of taking that mystery of publishing and kind of taking a deeper look at what it takes to be published. What, what even is a publishing house? What do they do, and all that? I love that. And I will be having to listen to myself because I'm self-published too. It's one of those, like, got to figure it all out on your own. So you've got to be the whole house yourself.
Theresa - Yes. My gosh. Yes. Yes, exactly. We're just like Bert from Mary Poppins. We're like doing the song and dance, and we have all the instruments all at once, the self-published authors. And we're having to figure this out, and there's like not where, where do we turn to? And we can't really turn to it because there's a stigma.- behind self-published authors. What's that? I mean, I get it. We have to create quality books. That is the most important thing. But if you're going into, if you're investing, this is my thought, and I'm going to go on my little soapbox about this for a minute. Just hold on a second. Okay. So one, you're investing your own money into buying ISPANs. And by the way, okay, fun fact, they're $400 if you are paying for ISPANs people, because you need that, in case you didn't know, if you're a self-published author, you're spending that kind of money. And not to kind of make traditionally published authors feel bad, but they're not having to know about that. People don't really know about that. You pay for that through the Library of Congress, through Bowker, and it's very expensive. It's 10 ISBNs, and it's about $400 just to pay for your own ideas. So that's my change of mind about that. Get kind of annoyed. You're having to spend that money because if you go to any self-publishing kind of made-to-order kind of thing, when you think of those kinds of sites like Ingram and Amazon, hopefully they don't take too much from this. But basically, you're spending the money, you're investing the money, and obviously, you're having to pay for an editor, and depending on whether you are a picture book author, you have to pay for a spread. Meaning that when you have illustrations, you're having to pay for those illustrations unless you are a very talented author-illustrator, because that's actually what literary agents are looking for right now. So if you try to go the traditional route, literary agents are only looking for author agents. So that kind of sets it into its own little niche, and you're kind of stuck. So you kind of have to go the self-publishing route, and you wind up having to spend even more money. Again, this goes back to let's demystify the publishing aspect. If they're working hard to spend the money, investing in themselves, there's still a lot of good things to be said about self-published authors. And I'll go even further than that because I know this from my friend, my ho-hos, a little tidbit of fun, in fact.
Did you know that publishing professionals, such as the big five or big six, still miss edits, and you might see some oopsies in the books? So it doesn't matter if it's traditional guys, as long as it's a quality book. Let's go back to that. So that's my little soapbox rant.
Valerie - I love it. Think we could probably start a podcast all on our own for just that topic because yeah, it is. It's one of those unique elements where, you know, quality books are the goal, not just words on a page. And you know, it's, there's kind of a little bit of a loss in that and in the children's book section, especially.
Theresa - Yes, yes. And finally, just a little extra rant, but... So, places like big bookstores. I'm not talking indie bookstores, but a particular bookstore, which I will not name, but a particular one, and we know where we're going with this, basically the only bookstore that everyone knows. They don't really like to work with self-published authors. They're kind of snotty about it.
Valerie - Little bit. Yes. It's very interesting. Theresa, tell us a little bit about what your favorite book is?
Theresa Villareal’s Favorite Book
Theresa - Yes, so many. Can't tell you how many things I love about Anne of Green Gables. I grew up reading Anne of Green Gables as a kid. Who doesn't love Anne and the fact that she's so feisty? So, you know, yes. She's like my favorite character. The fact that she tells the truth. She has a huge imagination. Cause she's always like, she's always saying things like you don't have an imagination, and watchers and things like that. She has resilience because she was an orphan, and not-so-nice people raised her. And then she got adopted by amazing people like Marilla and Matthew. My gosh, I love Matthew. And if you've ever seen the Canadian version from the eighties, my gosh, I love it, I get teary-eyed thinking about Matthew because he was so amazing. And there's so much joy, and it shows friendship, like what is a kindred spirit. I only learned that terminology from Anne of Green Gables, a kindred spirit. So yeah, so one of my favorite books. Yeah.
Valerie - Yup. Too fun. I love that. It's definitely a favorite of mine too, and I relate to Anne a lot. And I'm a redhead and a bit of a fiery personality myself. So.
Theresa - My late mother was a redhead, and I get a lot of my personality from my mom. So, yeah.
Valerie - Well then, you're kind of an honorary redhead, then, for certain. Hey! Well, Theresa, what can we expect next from you?
Ways to Connect with Theresa Villarreal
Theresa - I'm very excited to share this. So, in September, it's going to be the latter end of September, but I will be re-releasing with an amazing new cover and more for the first book. So it's more bonus material. So please, I will be sharing that on my author website and as well on my podcast because my co-host is really great about sort of shouting me out and being like an extra to your leader, like go me. So yes, I will be sharing that as well as in my newsletter. And I will be. I'm actually in the process of querying two picture books, and I'm working on a chapter book. And then, as far as our podcast, I haven't shared this with anyone. So you're the first to hear this, we have a lot of things that we're going to be growing, like for example, publicists, paid arc readers, and then just one of the goals in a couple of years. Just a little, you know, one of our goals is to start a small traditional publishing house. But that's long-term. We have to build from that. But yeah, so that's on the horizon. So the media name is called the Storyteller Foundation LLC.
Valerie -Sounds very exciting with a lot going on. So I'm sure that that's going to be fun to keep track of. And we'll make sure to have links to your website and the podcast in the show notes for people to find you easily. Well, thank you, Theresa, so much for joining me today.
Theresa - Thank you, it's been great talking to you. And I hope to continue this conversation at a later time as well, so yes.
Valerie – I’d love to have you back for sure. Well, thank you. And thank you for joining Theresa and me on this episode of the Bookworthy Podcast. Let us know in the comments what the scariest thing you've ever done for fun. And be sure to like and subscribe to discover more great books together.
Happy reading!