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Welcome to another instalment of Introverted Indies. This week, we are chatting with Ally Kelly, author of Thorns Among Shadows, which is due to be released on the 12th of November.
But, firstly, a quick bit of author news. Part two of the Communes Curse series, A Mad Man’s Hope by Lucy A Mclaren, was released today! Book 1 Awakening: The Communes Curse is also only £1.22, bargain!
Buy Awakening: The Communes Curse here
Buy A Man Mad’s Hope here
So onwards, with our interview with the inspiring Ally Kelly! Wow, has this woman done it all!
Hi there. Thanks so much for joining us at Introverted Indies. We are so pleased to have you here and to get to know you and your books. First things first, can you tell me a bit about yourself?
My name is Ally, I live in a small apartment in eastern Connecticut with my three-year-old orange cat named Merlin and work part-time in retail.
Great to meet you, Ally, and Merlin! Can you tell us a bit about your writing and your current releases?
I've been writing stories since I was young, at least eight or nine years old. I started out writing what I guess would be fan fiction, long before I knew what fan fiction was, back in what was probably the mid-nineties. The stories were mostly a mix of two of my favorite movies - Star Wars and Hocus Pocus - and elements from whatever other fandoms I could think of to add in - The Wizard of Oz, Animorphs, The Swan Princess . . . you name the movie or TV show, especially from the nineties, and it probably had some kind of influence on whatever story I was writing at the time. I wrote both stories and "scripts," and for a long time was convinced I was going to be the next female George Lucas who would write, star in, and direct my own Star Wars movies. I wrote my first Star Wars "novel" between the ages of eleven and fourteen years old. From what I vaguely remember, there were definitely some original fantasy elements added in to my early stories, but mostly they were filled with things I'd seen in my favorite movies.
When I was eleven, I started going into Yahoo chat rooms, where I learned how to do text based role playing, and when I was in high school I wrote my first original fantasy story based on a role play I had done, which is what got me started on writing in original fantasy settings, and allowed me to slowly move away from writing fan fiction.
The stories I write now are usually high fantasy, with lots of magic. I love writing about magical creatures, like fairies and dragons, and I love writing about characters who go on epic journeys to far away lands, or have to face some sort of evil. I'm a huge sucker for things like found family and royalty, especially.
As far as current releases go, I have my very first fantasy novella about to release November 12th! It's a young adult fantasy fairytale retelling of Rapunzel, with the roles reversed. It has romance, a strong female heroine who loves horseback riding, archery and books, fairies, an evil stepmother, a ballroom scene, a quest, and lots more. It's the first retelling I've ever tried writing, and I'm super excited to see what happens with it once it's released! I've also been published in four short story collections, three of which were published by the non-profit publishing company I am a co-publisher of called Worldsmyths Publishing, which is a branch of Worldsmyths, my Discord server for speculative fiction writers.
It sounds like writing is in your blood. I was the same. Writing stories from a young age and penning a (utterly terrible) novel at sixteen. It's all part of the creative process, the good and the bad! Your Rapunzel retelling sounds excellent. Can you tell us more about Worldsmyths Publishing? What made you decide to start your own publishing company?
Yes, totally agree about it being part of the creative process. My one regret is that I no longer have a print out of that "novel," because when I was in my early twenties I was going through stuff in the attic and decided to throw it out, not truly thinking that in another ten years or so I'd want to be able to look back and read it and see how far I had come.
So, Worldsmyths having a publishing company was actually a sort of accidental thing, and something that I can't even fully take credit for it happening! I started Worldsmyths in 2016, back when forums were still more of a thing (which makes it sound so long ago, haha). I had started lots of online writing communities before, but they all closed for various reasons. I wanted Worldsmyths to be THE fantasy writers community that I put all of my heart into - I wanted a forum, I wanted a website domain, and I wanted to REALLY put effort into making it work and making it last for a long time. So, a writing friend and I worked together to build the forum, but she was going into the Air Force so wouldn't be around a whole lot once she went into training, so I had to have other staff members to help out, which is how I found Odessa Silver (which is her pen name).
I wanna say it was a year or two later that we were still kind of struggling with the forum - trying to get people to actively post on a forum when they'd rather be posting on Facebook, for example, is hard! We were seemingly constantly struggling with activity and trying to make it work. I think I discovered Discord in 2018, and I opened up a Worldsmyths server. Odessa was resistant to using Discord at the time, she didn't want to use both the forum and Discord. Eventually, we had a member (Freya Bell, which is her pen name), who is now a co-admin, join and give us feedback on the forum. I made Freya. a moderator, and it got to the point where we got a vote from the community and decided to pull the plug on the forum and shift completely on to Discord, which happened at the end of 2019.
Speed it up, it was the end of 2020 and we were coming up on our fifth anniversary year in 2021. One of our members, who is now a moderator, said we should put together an anthology of short stories and publish it to celebrate five years of Worldsmyths. Publishing a short story collection was something that had been discussed on the forum in the past, but I had no idea how to go about it, and there were too many logistics and legalities to try and figure out, so we never pursued it. So, my co-admin, Freya Bell, Odessa and the member, C.P. Miller, all got together on voice chat and we discussed the logistics and whether or not we could pull it off. Freya Bell lives in Canada, and we quickly discovered that it would be far easier to establish a non-profit publishing company in Canada than it would be in the United States, so she filled out the appropriate forms and we officially had Worldsmyths Publishing, a non-profit self-publishing company.
We did a call for submissions from members of our Discord server, using a general fantasy theme (something we learned quickly was a bit too broad), and ended up with a lot of submissions. I believe it took us about six months of editing the stories and giving feedback and letting the authors make their edits, and then choosing what stories we wanted to end up on the long list and then the short list. Three of the four of us would get on voice chat behind the scenes and read the stories together, and determine what stories to cut and what stories to move forward. I believe we ended up with either twenty-four or twenty-five stories in the final version of the book, which was published in October of 2021.
Since then we have published a writing prompt book and three more short story anthologies, with our latest being Written in the Wind, which was published in March of this year. I am publishing Thorns Among Shadows, my Rapunzel novella, under Worldsmyths, so it will be our first non-anthology publication, and also my very first publication as a solo author.
Wow, what an exciting and interesting writing career. I am in awe. It's so encouraging to hear about people like you taking the publishing world by the horns; it's inspiring and incredible to hear about authors supporting authors. That is exactly what we are trying to do here at Introverted Indies. Saying that, with all your experience, do you have any advice for your fellow authors? And when do you find time to write with everything else you do?
Ooh, that's a tough question. I don't know if there's any one piece of advice I would give to other authors. There's always the "typical" advice that those who've been writing for years often give - things like "write every day," or "write outside of your genre," but I actually rebel against those things. I once ran a writing forum, years ago, where I got into an argument with one of the members who told me I wasn't a "real writer" because I didn't write every day. At the time, I maybe wasn't taking myself and my writing as seriously as I could have been, but that didn't mean I wasn't a "real writer" because I wasn't writing every day. As I've gotten older and had more experience with writing, I've found that sometimes you just need a break from writing and putting your brain into a creative mode, and that's okay. There are other ways to get the creative wheels turning, even while you're not actively writing - watching a movie, or reading a book, for example. When I read books, it plays out like a movie in my head, so I'm using my imagination even when I don't really mean to, and sometimes it kind of gets vague ideas rolling in the back of my mind.
So I guess that would be my biggest piece of advice - it's okay to not write every day, and don't beat yourself up for not doing so. It's okay to take a mental break from writing, or from editing, or whatever part of the process you might be in. As far as writing outside of my genre goes, I straight up refuse to write outside of the fantasy genre. I once had a creative writing professor try to tell me I should write more "realistic" stories before writing fantasy (I guess she probably meant "contemporary," like...real world situations with a modern era), and while I can see what she was saying now, to a small extent, I still refuse to do it. The real world is boring and depressing, and I'd rather immerse myself in one where I can read or write about magical quests and creatures like fairies and dragons and forget about the real world. There's something magical about being able to bring characters you've created in your mind to the page, and it's even more magical when you're writing about someone using magic or flying on the back of a dragon or going on an epic quest.
As far as finding time to write, working part time in retail makes that a bit easier, since my days off change each week and they're usually during the week, or I have an early enough shift that I get out of work and still have the rest of the afternoon to write. I don't really have any major responsibilities outside of working, and I have a small social life, so most of the time I'm spending my days/nights just sitting on my couch with my laptop and watching TV, reading a book, or doing stuff for marketing Thorns or administrative stuff for Worldsmyths. I do also hang out with my friends and family and go to fun things like go out with my best friend somewhere, but typically I am home if I'm not working or doing those things. I typically do my writing in the evening, as well, usually after I've eaten dinner, though I will also write during the day.
Such great advice. I'm sorry to hear someone felt they could tell you that you weren't a real writer. How silly! I mean just look at all you have achieved in your writing career. I agree with you. Putting too much pressure on yourself to write every day or to conform to what others think you should be writing stifles creativity.
I love writing fantasy, too. The freedom to make a world totally unique and where the boundaries can be pushed is so freeing. However, I am writing a crime novel, and that has been a different process for me, much more planned in terms of writing and slower to write! As a reader, what are your favourite books? Do you tend to read the genre you write?
I always have such a hard time with this question because I've realized that while I am a huge fantasy genre lover, I really haven't read THAT many fantasy books (especially "classic" ones, but that's something I've set a goal for myself to change) - when I was in middle school I was obsessed with what are now the "legends" Star Wars books, so those are what I read for the majority of my childhood, until I was a sophomore in high school when I finally started reading more fantasy and moved away from Star Wars (though as a kid I did also read the Goosebumps and Animorphs books). I grew up in the nineties, so I am from the generation that read and fell in love with Harry Potter, as well (while I don't agree with the author's stance on certain things, those books will always hold a nostalgic place in my heart).
When I was a junior in high school, I discovered a book called Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier, and I fell IN LOVE with it. It's a beautiful retelling of the folktale of the brothers who are turned into swans by their stepmother, set in an alternate version of Ireland (which is also probably one of the reasons why my lifelong dream was to go to Ireland, which I finally go to to do in 2022). That was the book that really pushed me into reading and writing more fantasy stories. The whole Sevenwaters series is amazing, but the first book, especially, is my favorite.
My other favorite books are the Graceling Realm books (though I've admittedly only read the first three) by Kristin Cashore, Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan and The Hunger Games (I'm actually re-reading The Hunger Games right now).
Yes, I read in the genre I write - just like with writing, I refuse to read outside of my genre, as well, although I have read books outside of it, both for school and for pleasure reading. My favorite book I had to read in school was To Kill a Mockingbird, it was the ONE book that I genuinely enjoyed reading for school. The teacher would tell us to reach chapters 1-4, or whatever, and I'd keep reading because I enjoyed it so much. But other than that, I basically just stick to fantasy books.
Nothing wrong with sticking to what you enjoy! It's been so lovely chatting with you, and I've learned so much. Lastly, can you tell us where we can get your books? And how can we keep in touch with updates or future releases?
To get Thorns Among Shadows, readers can pre-order the eBook on Amazon, and it's also available for pre-order in ebook, paperback and hardback on Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.
For updates and future releases, readers can follow me on my social media:
And here's the link for subscribing to my monthly newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/AKFantasyWriter
Thank you so much, Ally, for joining us on Introverted Indies!
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