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 Angela Yuriko-Smith!
Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Shimanchu/Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years of newspaper experience. Publisher of Space & Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and an HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.
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?
Yes, it was a supervillain that inspired me to write. I wish I remembered what villain it was. I just remember they were annihilating the heroes with their words and just as they were at their peak of power they gloated something like “See? With just my words I control the narrative. He who wields the words rules the world.” That was too much temptation for my young mind. An avid reader, I realised I could create instead of passively consume, and in doing so write my own future. Of course, the heroes won… that time, but their nemesis was my divine inspiration.
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?
I think my strengths in writing were honed with newspapers. They taught me to write fast and well, be prepared to kill any darling for a last minute tire advert and make every word count. When I feel the need to improve a certain writing skill I like taking classes from professionals that model the skill I seek. Horror University from the HWA has a lot of good ones as does Reedsy.
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?
I think the role of independent author has morphed into something much broader. We’ve always had to be our own marketing team, but now that marketing can cover about 10 social media platforms, a video channel, newsletters, chat groups… on top of doing the boring things like accounting, taxes, answering email… but we also have so many exciting tools to handle this. There is a solid trend of authors to grow and take charge of their followings with direct sales instead of depending on the usual channels like Amazon. Audiobooks are another exciting opportunity. I recently finished testing KDP’s Virtual Voice Beta which uses Speech-To-Text (similar to what has been around for years to read documents and help the visually impaired) and produced a few of my backlist with it. In about 10 minutes I had an audiobook version of my stories that was pretty decent. Considering most of us can’t pay for an audiobook production, only 4% of all ebooks on Amazon have an audiobook edition and it’s the fastest growing readership… I’m interested.
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
Honestly, it’s a short story I wrote called “Perfect Girlfriend” that appeared in Don’t Break The Oath : Women Of Horror Anthology Volume 4. We were just emerging from COVID lockdown and I was going through an art identity crisis. Since my first story in second grade, most of my fiction was horror. Suddenly, as the world felt like it was sinking into all sorts of real life horror I wasn’t sure I wanted to add to that. When I got invited to Don’t Break The Oath my scare-o-meter was dry. I wondered if there could be such a thing as happy horror, and Robin Hood came to mind. Could I write a heroic, horrible person? Bob winked into existence as the chivalrous, friendly passerby that befriends the heroine in the story, a post-consumer riot doll. I’m actually republishing that story as How To Find Love: Perfect Girlfriend Book 3 in my How to Fix This series. On pre-order now, it releases March 21, 2024. All the books in the series are scheduled to be free on Kindle every 21st of the month.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
Besides the How to Fix This series [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CT28CT74?binding=kindle_edition&qid=1708494633&sr=8-15&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin] I just published How to Be an Authortunist in paperback, ebook and audiobook (listen to the sample if you want to hear Virtual Voice). That is also scheduled to be free on the 21st of each month [https://amzn.to/3T4X9rc] I’ll release my first novel length work, Inujini, on June 23, 2024 (also Okinawa Memorial Day) and the whole collection of How to Fix This on November 21, 2024. Besides that it’s all publishing Space and Time magazine and managing my weekly writer-centric calendar mail out Authortunities [https://authortunities.substack.com/].
KANDISHA PRESS 
This is a terrific interview! I enjoyed it. :)
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