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 Tonya Walter!
Tonya Walter lives in Minnesota, where she writes stories about carnivorous plants and haunted airplanes. Her fiction has been published by Apex-magazine.com, Unnerving Magazine, Dark Recesses Press and more. Her upcoming novella, Intro to Chaos, is available from Unnerving Books on Amazon. Bits of her fiction and weird art live at thefictitioustonyawalter.com. She can be found on Twitter @fictitioustw
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 started reading early and spent most of my childhood in books. I was always writing, too, but never considered myself a “writer.” A friend of mine reached out to me, years ago, asking for feedback on a novel he’d just written. I’d read so much, but never had to sit and think about why I did or didn’t like a story. It was a humbling exercise. I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t give him more constructive feedback, so I started writing short stories, kind of tinkering with the mechanics, trying to figure out how this art I loved so much actually worked. Soon, I was hooked. I revisited and studied my favorite books, found some great online fiction magazines I’d been missing out on, and then learned I could submit my own stories. One of my first submissions was to Apex Magazine, for their Valentine’s Day flash fiction competition. I was one of the runners up. For better or worse, that win went straight to my head and I haven’t been able to quit writing since.
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’ve been told my writing is “vivid.” I think I can bring a reader into a scene pretty well, create an atmosphere they can breathe in. If there’s a specific skill I’m trying to improve, I’ll seek out examples of artists I think nailed it. This isn’t always other authors. I might binge movies, or music. I get some of my best lessons from nonfiction, probably because structure is my downfall. I can handle language, I can paint a pretty picture, but knowing how to arrange the scenes, the order in which they’ll have the greatest impact, is my struggle. It’s why I keep going back to history. Most of those stories, we all know how they end already. If an author can make those compelling, that is the skill I want to master.
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 feel like I’m just getting started, so I don’t have much to compare it to. I can say, the industry is intimidating! There are so many voices, good voices, it seems overwhelming, like you’ll never be heard. It’s also such a supportive community. So much of what I’ve seen of indie publishing is people helping each other out and cheering each other on. I have a lot to learn, but I do feel like the indie publishing community and the horror community in particular provide all the learning opportunities I could need.
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories. Short fiction is where I play. Most of my writing is working with a concept: toying with a weird POV, conveying a single feeling, warping a timeline, trying on a new voice. I love my short stories, but any time I’m able to take those experiments and use them to build a piece of long fiction, I feel like I aced a test. I’ve written four novellas, one of which was published in March by Unnerving Books, called Intro to Chaos.
Intro to Chaos was fun because I basically just crammed everything I enjoy writing into one project. Ghosts, monsters, psychic phenomenon, haunted houses, cursed towns, a loner heroine, trippy dream sequences…I worried (right after I submitted the manuscript, of course) that it was too much in too little space, but I know for a fact that at least a few people have read and enjoyed it, which is all could hope for, really. Besides, I put Chaos right in the title, so readers were warned.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
I’m starting the sequel to Intro to Chaos, which will be my first novel length book if I can pull it off. It’s going to answer some questions about Chaos’s background, specifically her mother. She’ll solve the mystery of her ghostly sidekick, and learn a little more about purgatory. One of my unpublished novellas deals with a couple of minor-god-like figures, and Chaos is going to visit this world. I’ve accidentally created a monster, realizing I can tie all my long fiction together into a single universe for Chaos to roam.
I’ve also put together a collection of short stories, since I seem to have gone through a “cursed dwelling” period without realizing it. It hasn’t found a home yet, and I might end up trying my hand at self-publishing, or maybe sell the stories piece meal on my website. I’ve been playing with recording and would like to make it an audiobook, if I do end up putting it out myself. This is as planned as my future gets. Everything else is blind fumbling.
KANDISHA PRESS 
Leave a comment