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 Kenzie Jennings!
Kenzie Jennings is an English professor residing in the sweltering tourist hell of central Florida. She is the author of the Splatterpunk Award nominated books Reception, Always Listen to Her Hurt, and Red Station.
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?
I’d wanted to be a fiction writer ever since I was a kid, and it was only because I lived and loved to fantasize. There wasn’t a particular “Aha!” moment then. There was one, however, recently: Not all that long ago, I learned of the term “maladaptive daydreamer,” basically, someone who lives in her head because her fantasy world, even during its darkest times, can be much more engaging than the slog of everyday life. The “maladaptive daydreaming” hasn’t left me yet, and I honestly believe the day it ebbs is the day I die.
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 can’t claim any sort of particular strength in my writing because I feel I could improve in every aspect of the process. I enjoy writing about complicated women in strange, and often awful, predicaments, so maybe that’s a strength for a woman writing horror (out of empathy?), and maybe it’s something I could try to experiment with…or walk away from for a bit, as getting out of one’s comfort zone can be liberating under the right circumstances.
Whenever there is an aspect of the process that I’m having difficulty with, such as crafting relevant “filler” during the drafting stage, I have to write my way through it, which can be painfully slow. It feels like it takes forever for me to complete something worthwhile.
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?
It’s definitely harder to make it as an indie author these days because not only do we have to *compete with authors who are well-established in our genre, it also feels as if everyone is writing and publishing something. The market seems oversaturated now, so it’s far too easy for indie authors to drown rather than float. What makes it even more frustrating is that in order to stay relevant, writers must constantly churn out work AND be their own PR machine. Many of us who are struggling to do that have a day job that is time-consuming (and, for me, mentally exhausting), so we tend to find ourselves drifting and then sinking, only buoyed when someone out there discovers our work and shares it with others.
*I chose that word carefully, and I realize it’s fraught with implication. However, the experience so often feels akin to a constant competition for readership.
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
I’m hardly prolific as an author (my publications are so few and far between), and due to that, I don’t have much to share aside from what may be in a stray bio. Thus far though, the project I’m most proud of would have to be “Wreckers,” a story I wrote for The Avarice anthology (D&T Publishing) that I later published in my collection Always Listen To Her Hurt. It’s centered around a worldwide murder-suicide cult that plots its revenge on humanity for destroying the earth. They do this by causing a collective mass-casualty event…with their cars. The story feels so much bigger than I could effectively capture in a short story though. I like character development and world-building, so one day, I may develop it into something much larger.
I can’t explain why “Wreckers” is my favorite piece because I just don’t know. It may have to do with the fact that I have a terrible driving record due to my own anxieties while on the road. A lot of us in horror tend to write about the things that scare us the most. It also doesn’t help that I live near the two most dangerous roads in the U.S., and there are ALWAYS horrifying collisions occuring.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
I’ve a couple of short stories coming out this year in anthologies. I’m THIS close to finishing my erotic horror-thriller Anatomy of a Good Woman, hopefully by the end of May, definitely by the end of summer. Northway will also be underway during the summer, along with another student anthology I’ll be putting out under my tiny imprint, Blistered Siren Press.
After those projects, anything goes. My dream project is to come up with a frightening supernatural premise, a gripping haunted house tale or something like that, because I want to try something different, and I don’t know about you, but I love a good scare.
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