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 Lesley Morrison!
Lesley Morrison dabbles in speculative short fiction, experimenting with different genres and voices. She is inspired by dream archetypes that exist beneath conscious thought and the story telling that draws them to the surface, attended by an uncanny thrill of recognition. Her latest story, The Rooms Behind the Wall, was published in the anthology These Dark Things from Briar Press NY, in October, 2024. A new story, Influencing Henry, will be published in The Writing Disorder.com Spring 2025 Issue. She has published stories in Luna Station Quarterly, Pif Magazine, horror anthology From the Yonder II, The New School’s DIAL magazine in NYC, and Canadian magazines TransVersions and On Spec. She recently fled NYC for Oahu. She can be reached at lesleymorrisonspeculates.com.
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 one strength is clarity of image – another is persistence – I keep editing and updating and fixing and submitting until a story is accepted. I hate giving up on a story I believe in, as the overall process can take months. I don’t write in a disciplined way so I’m very slow. Recently I reread Martin Amis’s final book, Inside Story, which has excellent writing advice along with a lot of wisdom, and naturally, stunning prose. If I have something I want to improve, I think of authors I admire who demonstrate that quality, and try to take an objective look at how they achieve it. I like to learn by osmosis, essentially, but I did study all the essential texts back when I started and I had a wonderful mentor and editor, my late mother, Canadian writer and artist, Heather Spears.
What are your thoughts on the book industry today, or more importantly, about the book community?
It’s funny, reading some of the other interviews, I see that I belong to an age gone by. I started writing and submitting in the 1990s in the old-school way (studied annual publications of markets, mailed in printed manuscripts), then life and work kind of took the forefront for many years. During that time, the community changed almost beyond recognition. Now, self-publishing and especially self-promotion, something I would have sneered at back then, has taken a more integral role, and online communities have given fans and authors a much more collaborative relationship. I don’t think anyone is going to turn down the Times bestseller list, but there are other ways to feel fulfilled with your writing, to gain an audience and be successful, whatever you deem success to be.
Do you feel it is getting harder or easier to make it as an independent author these days?
I think for writers who understand how to market, it’s far easier to promote themselves more effectively than it once was, or to find support that’s readily available through myriad groups and communities with common goals. It can be a much less solitary pursuit than it once was, if that’s what you want.
Tell us about your work. What story are you most proud of?
I like to try something a bit different each time, different styles, techniques, voices… maybe I’m still looking for my own voice but I think I just like to keep myself challenged. Probably the story I’m most proud of at this point is called The Soundtrack of Your Life, an archetypical New York story. It pulls from multiple sources from my experience and has a technology I’ve wanted badly for years. It was like stirring a whole lot of disparate ingredients into a pot and having something come out that I didn’t expect, but was really fun to write.
What are your upcoming works and plans for the future?
I have a short story coming out in the 2025 Spring Issue of The Writing Disorder.com, a literary journal. It was a new genre for me, dark humor, which I’d like to explore further. Otherwise, I’ll be waiting for inspiration to strike, which is not terribly efficient, but kind of how I operate.
KANDISHA PRESS 
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