Gabriella Buba writes bold, immersive fantasy grounded in Filipino mythology and powered by unforgettable, bi brown heroines. A chemical engineer by day and author by night, her debut novel Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a sweeping epic that reimagines colonial history through a fierce and fantastical lens. In this conversation, she reflects on cultural reclamation, the intersection of science and story, and why planning is her secret creative weapon.
Gabriella, first off, huge congrats on Saints of Storm and Sorrow! It’s been getting incredible recognition. What was the spark that first inspired Lunurin’s story, and how did it evolve into the epic we see now?
Thank you! I have been fascinated by the idea of a failed child chosen one for a long time. I wrote a lot of early drafts of Saints around this idea that weren’t Filipino at all! I was writing what I knew and I’d never read a Filipino fantasy. Then one day when I was deep down a research rabbit hole I learned about the oldest extant black Madonna in the Philippines (wooden Mother Mary statue) and how she was actually a pre-colonial idol that the Spanish ‘discovered’, renamed Mother Mary, and installed in a church in 1571. The article discussed the goddess’s origins and possible identity because her real name has been lost to time, and I immediately thought, “I bet she’s angry we forgot her name.” When I finally made that leap to make my story Filipino and about our history of cultural loss yet resilience in the face of colonization, Saints really exploded into being from there.
You have such a fascinating background—being a chemical engineer by day and fantasy author by night. How do those two worlds intersect (if at all) when it comes to your writing process or creativity?
I’m something of an oddball in the engineering world. I’m an engineer who can write, this is a fairly rare skill set among engineers. And so naturally I’ve transitioned from project management and execution into a role that’s far more focused on writing. In my day job, I develop engineering standards, procedures, and guidelines for my company, as well as design equipment and facilities to serve as go-bys for other engineers. It’s a form of science communication in a way and I enjoy it a great deal.
On the writing side, I’m often told that people can tell from my fantasy that I’m a chemical engineer, which always surprises me until they point out most people don’t think of redox reactions when they think of lightning magic. I’m often asked if I’d ever write sci-fi but to be honest being an engineer makes that even harder! I’m constantly debunking my own world building concepts before a story can get off the ground because the numbers just don’t work out. But one day I’d love to learn to suspend my own disbelief and itchy calculation fingers enough to write a sci-fi novel.
What does a typical writing day look like for you? Do you have any rituals or habits that help you get into the right headspace to write—especially while juggling a full-time career?
I’m very lucky in that I work a hybrid schedule 2 days WFH, 3 in the office. This allows me a lot of flexibility and helps me manage both of my jobs. I get most of my writing done on days I WFH or weekends. I usually switch gears either from work or home/family activities around 4-5pm and write till dinner then back at the writing until I’ve hit my daily word count which can go anywhere from 9pm to 11pm. I prefer to sleep early so late nights aren’t ideal.
For me a big thing I do to switch gears is go for a walk. My day job and writing job are both screen focused and if I’m not careful I can get sucked in and not move from my desk for hours. So when I’m ready to start writing I’ll get up and go for a short walk. I find it really helps me to talk through with my partner my writing plan or current problem while we walk, and then by the time I’m back at my computer I’m ready to dive in on writing. I cue up a writing playlist. I have one for each of my stories and I start working on the day’s goal.
I’ve also got a lot of guardrails set to prevent me from getting distracted. Writing can be hard and the modern world has so many easier distractions, so I’ve set limits on my phone that prevent me from doom-scrolling or block apps entirely during my writing “hours”.
If things start to get dire before a deadline I have some amazing writing accountability friends who are kind enough to harass check in on me and demand progress updates.
After that it’s really butt in chair, hands on keyboard and you gotta make the words appear even if they aren’t great words.
Your stories are deeply rooted in Filipino culture and mythology. What’s your process like when it comes to weaving traditional elements into fantastical worlds?
My fantasy worlds are more of a slight left step, an altered mirror of our own world where I can ask all the interesting and hopefully empowering what-ifs of Filipino history, folklore, and mythology. So it starts with a lot of research, both through books and research libraries. I also reach out to speak with my family, elders, the stories I grew up with, in addition to researchers in the Philippines who have been so wonderfully generous with their time and sharing of resources.
I like to ask questions like, what if the stories we have of babaylan’s powers were true? What if the early rebellions against the Spanish were successful? How much did the western Christian lens of the Spanish clergy recording our traditions shift the focus of many of the early recorded myths? What if they were restructured around the matriarchal and queer pre-colonial cultural sensibilities instead?
You write bold, romantic fantasy centering bi, brown women—which is both powerful and refreshing. How important is representation in your work, and how do you approach it with intentionality?
I think many authors of color and queer authors have this experience of starting their writing journey writing white straight stories because those are the kinds of media we consumed and so that’s what we learned to write. It’s hard to create what you’ve never seen. It took me many, many years, and wonderful writing mentors to realize that the reason my stories weren’t working was because my stories and my characters were all deeply Filipino who were trying to fit them into a medieval pseudo-European fantasy that was never going to resonate.
I really hope that by writing the stories of bold, brown, bi women, I can make sure that writers coming up after me know it’s an option to tell their own stories, so they don’t spend years white-washing their own stories.
When it comes to intentionality it comes back to research. The world is so wonderfully diverse. Reality is so much weirder than fiction, I have yet to be unable to find research to substantiate making my stories as varied and multicultural and rich as reality.
Let’s talk about inspiration. When you’re stuck or need a creative recharge, what do you turn to—books, music, movies, something else entirely?
I have a lot of pent up energy, and both writing and my day job are a lot of sitting and screens so when I’m creatively stuck my favorite thing to do is I travel and hike, I love experiencing the world and getting the chance to unplug. When I can’t get away I turn to my other hobbies, and sometimes it seems like it might be easier to just list the hobbies I don’t do. Lately I’ve been designing clothing, sewing filipinianas in modern and casual styles, I make jewelry, paint and create digital art, and do creative book-themed makeup looks. Anything that keeps me from doom-scrolling or vegging out on the couch with Netflix on auto-play.
With Daughters of Flood and Fury coming out in 2025, how does your drafting and revision process typically unfold? Are you someone who outlines meticulously, or do you prefer to discover the story as you go?
There’s a saying one of my earliest engineering managers LOVED that goes “An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing.” It’s a mantra I live by.
So I’m a big outlining, tracking, and numbers gal. I have a whole writing spreadsheet that I’ve built that helps me breakout my writing goals and deadlines in terms of actionable daily chunks, and tracks my progress.
My drafting process is to write a pitch, then a query blurb, then an outline. Sometimes I start my outlines on sticky notes on a wall, sometimes they go straight into my custom outlining excel spreadsheet, where the story is broken out by scene and by character POV. Once I have that I sit to draft. It really helps to be able to stick that day’s scene outline into a blank word document to get me started typing.
When it comes to revisions I have a few very trusted Alpha readers and Critique Partners who get first look at my rough drafts. I build reverse outlines based on feedback either from my CPs or editor in my excel outline, making notes on each scene about what changes are needed, where new scenes will be added, what scenes will be moved or deleted. Then it’s really easy to go scene by scene, notes in hand for each day. Planning really saves me so much time, especially when I’m on a tight deadline.
Finally, what’s one piece of writing advice you’ve received that’s really stuck with you—or something you wish someone had told you earlier in your journey?
Write it bad, you just have to finish. I can’t remember the name of the writing craft book I picked it up from. I can see the cover in my head but have tried to re-find it for years with no success. But it is so true. So many writers get stuck polishing that first chapter forever, or they never start at all because “they aren’t good enough” to write the story in their head. But the story will never exist if you don’t write it, so you have to write it bad. Anything can be fixed in revisions. Whenever I get stuck I remember, just write it bad.
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