E.R. Scrivener believes adults need fairy tales.

"Fairy tales are hope for the darkness of this world," said the Mount Joy writer. "The reality of living in this world is so hard sometimes. That's why fairy tales are important, because they give you that happy ending."

Wanting to share her love of fantasy stories, Scrivener decided to write a book.

"I've always wanted to be a writer," she said, although she earned a degree in social studies education and was a teacher for several years. "Seven years ago, right before COVID, I began focusing on writing. I would write while my daughter was napping, and I wrote my first novel that year."

She had friends beta test the work, and she realized it wasn't ready for publication.

"I wrote another novel. I wrote short stories. I took classes, and I got feedback from anyone who would read my stories," she said, adding that her friend and fellow author K.R. Fenner was instrumental in the process. "I just learned a lot."

She wrote three novels that she says "will never see the light of day," but she kept improving.

She also began to lead a group at her church, Mount Calvary in Elizabethtown, after the women's director at the church asked her what gifts she could bring to the ministry.

She came up with Nook, a book club for women that she leads with a friend.

"I started Nook five or six years ago," she said. "We started with several women meeting at my house and other houses, and now there are about 20 in the ministry. We read nonfiction, classics, modern fiction. We read anything."

Nook inspired Scrivener to write more, and it led to the creation of the "Drowsy Dragon," a literary magazine.

"While I was leading the book club with my friends, I realized I wanted our stories to bring people together," she recalled. "There are lots of literary magazines out there, but I thought if I could somehow combine this passion for book clubs and fellowship and community I found with these sisters with stories of goodness and light, that was the best of both worlds."

Her first issue of the "Drowsy Dragon" came out last year in October. The second issue was released in April.

The biannual magazine is available locally at Seymour's Little Shop of Books in Mount Joy and Bookshelf Shenanigans in Elizabethtown, among other locations, as well as online at Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The first issue features stories by Scrivener and Fenner, with one additional writer. For the second edition, she expanded to include another local writer as well as a writer based in Texas whose work she admires.

The "Drowsy Dragon" fits a niche that was missing in traditional literary magazines, she said.

"A lot of mainstream fantasy is dark. Not all of it, but a lot of it," she said. "My stories don't fit into that category, but I can't be the only one who wants some light sometimes."

It may seem like "Scrivener" is the perfect aptronym for a writer, but it's actually a pen name.

"The 'E.R.' stands for my first and middle names - Elizabeth Rose," Scrivener said, noting that she chose her pen name intentionally. "In my first novel, there was a scrivener, a scribe, or someone who writes down another's words and records them for them. I liked that idea, because I'm a Christian. I wanted all the stories I write to be what God wants me to write, not necessarily what I want to write, so the name came out of that."

She's inspired by Psalm 45, which she has displayed on a wall in her home office.

"I look at it in my library when I'm working," she said. "It reads, 'My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.'"

As if running a book club, publishing a literary magazine and being a mom to a now-7-year-old daughter weren't enough, Scrivener is finally ready to publish her first novel.

"The Untold Bakes of Addlewood" will be released in September.

"I pitch it as 'Julie and Julia' meets Robin Hood," she said. "If you like baking, French patisserie in particular, baking comes into it because I'm obsessed with 'Great British Bake Off.' ... It came out of my love for baking, but it has adventure, too."

In her admittedly limited free time, Scrivener enjoys spending time with her husband, R.C., and their daughter in their home she's renamed Crickhollow House, a nod to a hobbit's house in her favorite series, "The Lord of the Rings."

No matter what she's doing, Scrivener tries to live by a mantra of spreading light and positivity to everyone around her.

She believes in magic, adventure and sunrise.

"The kind of magic that is hidden in the everyday ordinary. The promise of freedom, danger and discovery, and a path that leads us home," she writes on her website. "Hope that promises us, though the night be long and dark: Sunrise is coming."

To learn more, visit https://sites.google.com/view/erscrivener/home.