Today we’d like to introduce you to A.L. Davidson
Hi A.L., can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I realized I wanted to be an author when I was about ten years old. I was visiting my BFF one afternoon and she had a copy of Cornelia Funke’s “Inkheart” that she got from the library on her bed, and I was so enraptured by the cover I couldn’t stop staring at it. Instead of hanging out, I completely ignored my friend to read the book until it was time to go home. On the drive back, it dawned on me that I wanted to – and could! – create stories that captivated people in the same way that book captivated me. I had already been creating comics for a while, so shifting to YA-style books was a natural transition. I wrote several books throughout my teens, got caught up in a vanity press scheme (as all young authors are apt to do) and even spoke on a fantasy panel at a convention at the age of 16! It felt like my author dreams were well on their way to becoming a reality!
Life came crashing down when my 20s came along and crushed that dream. I had to put my books on the back burner for a long while. I tried to get back into writing as often as I could, but the pressures of adulting and life kept making it harder and harder. Flash forward to March of 2020, a week after I lost my job due to the pandemic, and I started writing what would soon become my biggest project. The first sentence of that space opera WIP was drafted on 3.27.2020 – a date so important to me that I have it tattooed on my finger! I dove headfirst into my space opera and, at the two year anniversary in 2022, the series was only 75% finished and had hit the 1.3 million word mark.
I gradually got into the short story and flash fiction scene in the writing community on Twitter in the summer of 2022, and those short stories started turning into novellas – which were refreshing breaks from the massive 650+ page books I had been working on. I began submitting to lit mags and anthologies, it was a slow process building up a portfolio and reputation, but things really picked up speed in 2023. I was accepted into three anthologies, published my debut novella and debuted two web novels on the Tapas platform, sold two books to wonderful indie presses, and managed to run four successful Kickstarter campaigns. I have a small but mighty fanbase, was nominated for several wonderful indie awards – and a Pushcart Prize, which is a huge deal for short fiction writers – and have at least ten more books on the way in the next year and a half.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No one tells you that being an author will turn you gray before your mid-30s! Publishing is such a finicky, ever-changing, frustrating industry. Trends change faster than books can be written, social media has made it more complex than ever to break into the industry, the market is oversaturated, and finding an audience, an agent, a publisher, etc. can seem impossible. It’s all so complex and diverse, which means there really isn’t a proper how-to guide on what to do to “make it”. And making it can vary wildly from author to author. Everyone has advice and all of it is conflicting, your feeds will be overwhelmed with “vague tweets” while you get rejections every other day, AI is making everyone uneasy, printing prices keep going up, and the stats of how many books die on sub can make you feel so defeated before you even begin.
Earlier this year, my querying journey of trying to find an agent, as well as a publisher for a novella that means the world to me, actually landed me in the ER due to the overwhelming stress of it all. I’ve been told by numerous editors, agents, and publishers that my work was “too weird” or “too original” to ever find a home in traditional publishing, agents don’t want to rep me because I specialize in novellas, which trad doesn’t want to invest in, and I like writing weird genre-blends that don’t often make sense, so no one wants to take the risk! It has been incredibly rewarding, but it’s also challenging getting to where I’m at. Ask any author and they’ll tell you the same, even if their journeys seem completely different. They call it the “querying trenches” for a reason!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a horrormance and cozy sci fi author! I love writing stories about ghosts, grief, isolation, queerness, ecohorror, disability rep, space exploration, and the human condition. My books tend to focus characters with a variety of queer and disability rep, which is important to me as a queer and disabled author, with a strong focus on realistic romance and friendship. I was nominated for several categories in the 2023 Indie Ink, Queer Indie, and BBNYA awards, and my short story “The Elysium Café” – published by The Icarus Writing Collective – was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, which is touted as “The Most Honored Literary Award in America”. I’m best known for my cozy horror web novel series “The Night Farm”, which got its start on Patreon and Tapas, and now has a print edition of its first season. I’m also known for my short story series “R-PNZL: A Futuristic Fairytale”, my time-hopping-genre-swapping power couple Strauss and Santiago, and my debut ecohorror romance novella “When The Rain Begins To Burn” – which was an incredibly personal book since the main character is a Type 1 Diabetic, like myself. Overall, I have written over 2.5 million words of fiction since March of 2020 and have a large library of upcoming books that will be split between indie presses and self publishing!
My weird blends of genres tends to make my work stand out from other indie authors, even if it’s out of confusion for the absurdity of the things I’ve made possible since some of these things absolutely should not have worked as well as they did. I’ve been writing horror romance for years, way before it started to become cool (long enough that many trad agents and publishers told me my work would never sell in trad markets, even though it’s now on multiple agents’ wish lists for genres). My mixture of honest and authentic romance steeped in ecohorror and cosmic horror offers up jarring moments of horror, twisted happily-ever-afters, and characters that are easy to fall in love with. People have described my writing as “haunting yet weirdly cozy”, which is an appropriate descriptor for my work, and I’ve had quite a lot of readers send me touching messages saying that my diverse cast of characters makes them feel seen in a way they don’t often find, especially in the horror genre. I may not be an indie darling or have a ton of sales, but people find comfort in my books and that’s an amazing feeling. My skills really seem to lie in the cozy tales and the sci-fi elements, so I’m trying to do more stories of all sizes in those genres.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I have a ton of books coming out over the next few months both in the cozies genre and the horrormance genre, and I’m always bopping around the local author events, book fairs, and Planet Comicon in downtown KC! I have a book slated for early 2025 that is set in a lo-fi, not-so-distant-future version of Kansas City, so if you want a cozy sci fi book set in our awesome city, make sure you keep up with me for a release date on that one! It’s going to be a fun story!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://disturbancesbyalycia.weebly.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maybemockingbird/
- Twitter: https://x.com/MayBMockingbird
