GREETINGS, BOOKWORMS! I’m Aisha Kandisha, Head Librarian at Kandisha Press. Join me in the dusty stacks of the library I will never leave again as I chat with some of my favorite Women in Horror. Today we feature author Shelly Lyons!
Shelly Lyons is a Los Angeles townie who loves dark fiction and 1970s-1990s horror and thriller made-for-TV movies. Several of her stories have published in anthologies, and another appeared at the end of Brian Asman’s novella, Return of the Living Elves. Ghoulish Books published her first novel, Like Real in 2023. Find her on TikTok as @dollterror13, on IG as @mizlyonshere, and on Facebook as mizlyons.
What made you want to become an author? Did you have an “Aha!” moment when you knew you were born to write? Or perhaps a beloved book inspired you?
At six, I discovered Nancy Drew books, and they changed my life. The exact book was number three in the series, called The Bungalow Mystery. Thanks to Carolyn Keene, who I thought was one person who had a 60-year writing career, I learned words like “titian,” as in Nancy had titian hair, and “retorted,” as in “’blah…blah…blah,’” Nancy retorted icily.” About five books in, I got my first college-ruled notebook and began writing Nancy Drew-inspired fan fiction filled with adverbs and adverb-laden dialog tags. By fourth grade, I felt I had the necessary qualifications to call myself a writer.
What do you believe are your strengths in writing? And when you feel you need to improve on a particular writing skill, how do you go about it?
Dialogue and visuals are elements people point out, and areas in which I feel confident after many years of screenwriting. When I took up prose again, transitions baffled me. How do writers suddenly transport us into a flashback without denoting it in the scene header or via a title? As for skills improvement, I learn a lot from writing podcasts and craft books, though I’ve only finished Save the Cat and Save the Cat Writes a Novel. If I’m stuck, I’ll do forensics on a book I’m reading. I paste a Sticky Notes on lines I think work brilliantly and then when done with the book, I go through it again, Sticky by Sticky, and commit the learnings to Notepad for future study. I don’t know that I’ve ever looked at them again once they go to Notepad, but I’d like to believe the flagging and typing plants the seeds of wisdom well enough.
What are your thoughts on the book industry today, or more importantly, about the book community? Do you feel it is getting harder or easier to make it as an independent author these days?
You know how sometimes you see an actress who always plays the Neurotic Chick, and at some point, you realize she’s one of a tiny handful of actors who play Neurotic Chicks, and you wonder why aren’t there more actors playing Neurotic Chick? Only Such-and-Such and What’s-Her-Name play Neurotic Chicks. Is the world one giant ensemble, and once Neurotic Chick has been cast by either Such-and-Such or What’s-Her-Name, all ye who aspire to play Neurotic Chick be damned? And you tell yourself: If I were just better, maybe I could do that… if I had a more prestigious agent, or any kind of agent. Is it me? Do I suck? I think I can play Neurotic Chick, but the audience clamors over Such-and-Such and What’s-Her-Name and doesn’t know who I am. Do I need to take a thousand selfies of my lunch? Do I need to spend hours re-posting thought leaders? Do I make TikToks about my word count? Is it okay to toot my own horn? Is that a humble brag? Or a brag-brag? What’s the razor’s edge of megalomania? When does self-deprecation become sad? Is it okay to break the rules and apologize afterwards? Will I ever get to play Neurotic Chick? Ahhh! Yeah, sometimes it feels like that.
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
My protagonists struggle with identity, addiction, and mental illness, hooray! I love wolfman stories and am obsessed with duality and doppelgangers. The story still tugging at me is called The Thing She Carried, published in the 2022 anthology “Peculiar Monstrosities,” about a pampered stripper, who, after her sugar daddy dies in their tent on Mount Hood, must trek 13 miles back to the lodge, contending with early winter, river crossings, a creature stalking her—and worst of all: the thing she carries. I love Fontana the stripper, and yes, that was a logline.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
I’m writing the screenplay and novella based on The Thing She Carried and trying also to find homes for a novella and novel—one an alcoholic and the other a bride turning into a reptoid. I also dream about taking a Dracula tour—either to Whitby where Dracula’s schooner crashed to shore (my husband at this point will gently remind me that Dracula is a fictional character), or to the Carpathians, baby!
KANDISHA PRESS 