For a while, the creative covers were more of a public inside joke than anything else. "We posted them on Facebook and no one paid any attention, so we forgot about it and occasionally made more bad writer covers to send to each other as a joke."
Their book art was busted out of anonymity when it caught the attention of Star Trek: The Next Generation actor, Wil Wheaton, "I went on holiday and Jo decided to post them all on Tumblr, when Wil Wheaton of all people came across them. I turned on my phone to like a billion notifications. That was two years ago and people are still commenting on them. P.S I was a teenage TNG nerd and I fangirled for MONTHS."
As book-lovers and authors, Lewis-Hammond says the real name jokes are all in good fun. "We're not being b*tchy about any particular book or genre, but it is funny that you can punt out a generic idea and get a flood of comments saying, 'Oh, that must be XYZ or ABC," when we didn't necessarily have a specific book in mind," adding, "We both read and write a lot and were trying to make each other laugh by pissing about with tropes. It escalated A LOT."
Writers' HQ was set up to run writing retreats and online courses for badass writers with no time or money. As two smol writers we felt the literary establishment was entirely aimed at rich Boomers who take themselves far too seriously and wear way too many scarves, so we created a place where we get to talk about the writing we love at the same time as helping writers who need help with time, space, money and general support, and where we also get to make each other snort tea out of our noses.
