Diversity

Interview with Author Angela Hsieh and her graphic novel: Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology

Welcome to From the Mixed-Up Files, Angela! It’s a pleasure to talk to you about your amazing graphic novel, Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology. The graphic novel was released on May 27, 2025, by Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins). Here’s the blurb from Bookshop.org:

Lu dreams of being a great adventurer, just like her ah-ma, who is a world-renowned geozoologist. Ah-ma has traveled far and wide, researching unique animals like dreamy cloud-jellies, enormous sunfish, and playful mossgoats. There’s nothing Lu loves more than reading Ah-ma’s letters about her quests, even if she and her mom struggle to understand the Cylian language Ah-ma writes in.

But when Ah-ma’s letters suddenly stop, Lu becomes worried. So when a nearby town needs a geozoologist, Lu decides to go on the journey to find Ah-ma. She charts a course with the help of Ren, an old friend turned new travel buddy.

As they follow in Ah-ma’s footsteps, Lu begins to discover the complex relationships between geofauna—and between people. What stories has Ah-ma never told her? And what’s Ren hiding from her?

What is Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology’s origin story?

As I get to know myself as an artist and writer, I’m realizing that there’s no one single origin for any of my stories. Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology is a combination of things I love and that have shaped my life: animals and nature, the relationships with the people around me, and growing up as part of the Taiwanese American diaspora. That being said, I can show you the very first illustration I ever made in the world of Geozoology:

Several years ago, I made a birthday illustration for a friend who really loves guinea pigs. My thought process was: “What if guinea pig… but BIGGER?” To really set the scene, I wrote a short travel postcard-style description on the back with fun facts about this guinea pig mountain’s behavior and ecology.

Needless to say, my friend loved it. So did a lot of other people, it turned out. So I set about drawing more giant landscape-animals (with proto-Lu for scale) and writing facts about them. The project transformed several times: from a series of illustrations that I thought I might turn into a calendar, to a picture book, to a graphic novel (though one very different from the Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology that was eventually published). 

Four years passed between that initial illustration and signing the contract for the book; another four passed before it was published. That’s a lot of years for ideas to meld together, come apart, and change. That’s also a lot of time for me to change as an artist. 

Can you share Angela Hsieh’s origin story as well?

I was one of those kids who loved reading and drawing. I had a vague idea that it’d be cool to make a book one day, but I wasn’t one of those “one day I’ll grow up to be an author” kids, you know? I read lots of manga and comics and watched a lot of animated films, so I knew that other people were out there making cool stories, but it all felt impossibly distant for me. I also thought I’d be going into the medical field for the majority of my education, so making my own stories was lower on my list of priorities for a long time. 

I don’t think there’s any one specific turning point in my life when I decided to make my own book, but rather a collection of events that led me down this path. One such moment was walking into my local Barnes & Noble as a high schooler and picking up the Flight comics anthology. Until then, I thought of comics as either 20-volume epic manga series (unattainable by its enormity) or daily funnies (something I enjoyed but didn’t want to make). Reading Flight made me feel like making comics could be an achievable goal. The seed was planted. I didn’t do anything with this revelation until about 15 years later, after I’d gotten an undergraduate degree in biology and finished my illustration degree, but I got there eventually. 

When did drawing evolve into visual storytelling for you? Have you always been drawn to telling stories with your art, or is it more of a long and winding path to get where you are today?

I both drew and wrote from a young age, but I didn’t really take the idea of combining the two seriously until I was an adult. And even then, I didn’t find my way to comics until after I graduated from art school. I thought I’d be an editorial illustrator, which often requires a more symbolic/conceptual approach than a narrative one (though the two aren’t mutually exclusive). I found myself more drawn to the narrative approach than the conceptual one. I realized the things I wanted to say could not be encompassed by one illustration.

To be completely honest, I resisted making comics for a long time because of the amount of time and work they require. But at some point, I came to the conclusion that they’re the best medium to tell the kinds of stories I want to tell (at least for now), so I just had to take the dive. 

As a MUF STEM Tuesday contributor and career scientist, my reader’s radar activates when I see STEM used in a fantasy story.  You used real-life science and nature in Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology to create a believable world by grounding the fantasy with recognizable natural elements. How important was it to you to get the natural elements right, but with enough fantastical elements to engage the reader?

I hope I got that balance right! I was a nerd child who read Audubon’s First Field Guide: Birds from cover to cover. I also loved reading the Pokédex entries in Pokémon. Since Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology is more about exploring and learning about the world and less about, say, which geofauna would win in a wrestling match, I aimed for somewhere in between Pokémon and Audubon’s First Field Guide on the spectrum of fantastical to factual. 

In terms of telling a compelling story, the balance was less about fantastical vs. realistic and more about weaving the science-y stuff into the plot to such a degree that learning about the world felt like a natural progression of the story. I tried to approach worldbuilding in, well, a scientific way. If I change one thing (i.e., there are big animal mountains), what else will change? In a world where people have to live among these big animal mountains that move around, how would people interact with them? Some people, like Lu and Ah-ma, would try to learn as much as possible about them. If we follow these characters, we’ll learn about the world through their eyes. 

The geofauna’s behavior is based on that of real animals, and their geological features are based on real-life locations. The most fantastical things about them are that they’re (a) huge, and (b) made of rocks. Otherwise, most of their biology and ecology is pretty similar to the way nature works in real life. I didn’t feel the need to put a fantastical spin on something like hydrangeas changing color based on soil pH because it tied in neatly into the world and the story I was trying to tell. And because the natural world is already pretty magical, if you ask me. 

One part of your book I enjoyed was the use of the Cylian (Mandarin Chinese) language heritage to drive Lu’s interest, need, and frustration in understanding Ah-ma’s writings from her letters and travel journals. How challenging was it to incorporate the Cylian language into the story? (You did a beautiful job of this, by the way!)

Thank you! I very quickly came to the conclusion that whenever written Cylian showed up on the page, it would not be actual Chinese. The practical reason: My Chinese is not nearly at the level required to write letters, much less scientific field notes. The conceptual reason: Even readers who can read Chinese wouldn’t be able to read Cylian, so all readers would be put in Lu’s shoes when she struggles with the language barrier. 

My parents sent me to Chinese school when I was a kid, so my hand still remembers the shapes of the characters, even though I’ve largely forgotten what they mean. I was able to write characters that resembled Chinese, which, upon closer inspection, were incomprehensible. I took a lot of inspiration from Xu Bing’s installation, A Book from the Sky. I wasn’t aiming for semantic meaning as much as I was aiming for the emotional tension you feel when looking at something you “should” understand but just can’t wrap your mind around. 

Like many second-generation Asian Americans, I speak my parents’ mother tongue all right, even if my reading and writing leave much to be desired. My team and I went back and forth a couple of times when trying to figure out how best to represent Cylian (Mandarin Chinese) vs. Lirrish (English) dialog. We tried chevrons and colored speech bubbles, but we ultimately decided that the most elegant solution was to use colored text (purple for Cylian, black for Lirrish) and add a short note at the beginning to explain the difference to readers. The reader, like myself and Lu, will be able to understand spoken Cylian, but be at a loss when confronted with the written form. 

The drive Lu feels to understand the language deepens her connection with Ah-ma and reveals her strong curiosity about the world. How did you connect Lu’s curiosity to her problem-solving skills of following Ah-ma’s trail?

Curiosity and problem-solving often go hand-in-hand in real life. I find that people who want to understand how the world works are also the same people who’re driven to create interesting solutions to challenges. It only made sense to me that a curious kid like Lu would try to understand the world as her ah-ma, her idol, would see it in order to find where she’s gone. Lu wants to know things. The only way to know things is to go out and find answers!

Page 70 might be my favorite page of the book. It’s a masterclass on how to represent the passage of time and space on a single page. The four panels at the top of the page depict the passage from night to dawn and are set over a sweeping landscape establishing shot of Lu and Ren entering Ambyton. (Wonderful work in my opinion!) How difficult was it to come up with a solution to the problem of representing time and distance in such a compact space? 

Thank you! Playing with the passage of time is one of my favorite things to explore in comics, right up there with the page turn. It makes me feel clever when I’m able to pull it off, haha. One of the interesting challenges of making a graphic novel that involves a lot of traveling is showing the days on the road without the story dragging or the pages getting repetitive, but still getting across to the reader that days or weeks have passed. On a comic page, the gutter—that is, the space between the panels—represents the passage of time. More, smaller panels will slow the reader’s eye down and make it feel like more time has passed. It’s one of those things that I didn’t think about consciously when I was just reading and not yet making comics, but now that I’m creating comics, I’ve learned it can be used to great effect when done with intention. 

For this particular page, it wouldn’t say it was terribly difficult—mostly because I’d been itching to use this technique ever since seeing other artists do it. Shaun Tan has a breathtakingly understated spread in The Arrival that depicts a lengthy journey by ship via the changing shapes of the clouds, day by day, in a grid of sixty square panels. This is followed by a page turn to a splash page of the ship on the ocean, a small shape dwarfed by the cumulonimbus clouds towering above it. Just gorgeous. When I see someone do something well, I want to try it too. 

As creators, we are interested in the creative processes of other creators. In my graphic novel critique group, it’s an oft-discussed topic. Three members of our group are sketch-to-script creators, while I’m firmly grounded in the script-to-sketches camp. For your graphic novels, what’s your approach?

You can’t see me, but I’m giving you a script-to-sketches fist bump. I do some visual development ahead of time for characters and locations, but when it comes to the story, I have to write it down first. I don’t draw very fast, so I want to make sure the beats and pacing are right before I commit to drawing hundreds of pages. I work in a fairly straightforward way, from script to thumbnails to sketches/pencils to colors. (Since I worked in a lineless style for Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology, I skipped inks and went straight to colors.)

Having the script first means I can plan for putting speech bubbles on the page from the moment I begin drawing the book. I always make sure to plan the layout of the speech bubbles when I thumbnail. Dialog takes up a lot of space! Even with a “finished” script, I ended up cutting lines as I drew, trying to keep only what was necessary so that the pages didn’t feel overly cluttered. 

Do you have a critique group or a group of fellow creators/friends with whom you bounce your work and ideas off?

I do! I’m part of a few groups, both local and online. I’ve got a couple of trusted friends who see the early stages of my work, before they’re anything near a fleshed-out story, and I’ve got critique partners who see the more refined draft and help me work out the rough spots. I try not to bring too many critique partners into any particular story I’m working on. There’s definitely such a thing as too many cooks in the kitchen. 

I’ve got to give a special shoutout to Middle Grade Escapades. It’s not a critique group, per se; it’s a marketing collective made up of 2025 middle grade debut authors. It’s been invaluable to have the support of folks who’re also going through the same roller coaster of an experience that is putting a book out in the world.

Apart from art and your creative practice, how do you spend your free time?

I’m a big believer in doing things that aren’t directly related to my creative practice. It both expands my world and gives me things to make art about. I love baking. My sourdough starter from 2020 is still alive and contributing focaccia to the household. I also practice (very amateur) bonsai. Every time I pass my window, I can’t help but stop and stare at the little garden we’ve got out there. One of my favorite things to do is hang out on my couch with a book or a crochet project and a cat on my lap. I play D&D and do my best to carve out time to spend with friends. 

After the release of Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology into the world, what’s next on your plate? Book promotion? School visits? Back to work on the next graphic novel?

I’ve spent my summer jetting about the US on my self-styled “book tour”—as of writing this, I’ve just gotten back from the wonderful Bigfoot Kids’ Book Festival in Washington—and I’m ready to hibernate in my apartment and just work on my next book! Though I met many wonderful readers and fellow authors this year, book promotion takes a lot out of me, and I found myself without any energy left to create. I’m looking forward to getting back into the rhythm of making things again. 

The From the Mixed-Up Files family wishes you and Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology the very best of luck, and hope it finds its readers! Thank you, Angela, for being our guest! Your book is absolutely fantastic. 

Thank you so much for having me, Mike!

Links

Angela Hsieh Website

Kids Comics Unite! Interview

Lu and Ren’s Guide to Geozoology Publisher’s Page

 

Author Spotlight: Debra J. Stone, writer of The House on Rondo

photo of Debra J. Stone

Photo by Anna Min of Min Enterprises Photography, LLC

We’re excited to welcome Debra J. Stone to our blog today. Debra is the author of The House on Rondo, a personal story of the street where her grandparents lived when she was a child. Thank you for being here, Debra, and for answering our questions.

Did you have any childhood dreams for when you became an adult? Yes. If so, did they come true?

I wanted my own apartment and to live in a big city. Yes, I made my dream come true. I moved to Chicago in my early twenties and lived in a high-rise apartment. When I was about seven, my mother took me to see children’s theatre productions that made me want to be an actor. As an adult, I was a stage actor for a fifteen years.

It’s wonderful to know you made your dreams come true.

Did you love to read as a child? Yes. If so, can you tell us some favorite books?

I loved to read and went to a neighborhood public library.

My favorite books were the adventure stories of Jack London, especially, Call of the Wild, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, A Street in Bronzeville, and the poem “We be Cool,” Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, “The Littlest Mermaid,” scary stories by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven,” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne, and The Little House on the Prairie series, but I stopped reading them because of Pa’s ugly remarks about native people. My cousins were of the Ojibway tribal nation. These are just a few that have come to my mind.Debra with family

Many wonderful childhood favorites. It’s a shame when stories quote people’s ugly remarks. I’m glad you were supportive of your Ojibway cousins.

What was an early experience where you learned that written language had power?

I learned how to spell my name before I entered kindergarten and I was the only one in my class who knew how to do that. I wrote letters to my paternal grandparents in California telling them news about the family, and they encouraged me to keep writing. Those letters developed into stories.

What was your biggest fear when you were young? Did you get over it?

The werewolf was my biggest fear after watching Lon Chaney, the actor in the movie. Yes, I got over it because they weren’t real. At least I hope so…

I sure hope so too. 😊

Debra with siblings

Debra with siblings

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Debra J. Stone as a child

None, I was very fearless as a young person. Except, when watching the werewolf movie!

It’s fabulous to meet someone who was fearless even when they were young. What a great role model for readers!

Is your past woven into the story?

Yes. I am the oldest of three. Every Sunday, my family drove to visit my maternal grandparents who lived in a house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul. We lived in north Minneapolis, across the Mississippi River, which divided the two cities. So it was exciting seeing the city streets with people and the traffic.

If so, how?

I wanted to give a voice to the voiceless. The House on Rondo, character, Zenobia, put a human face to the loss of a neighborhood community in the name of progress. The interstate highways isolated inner-city neighborhoods. Now, we travel around most major cities.

I remember Toni Morrison’s, saying to writers, “write the story you want to read,” has influenced my storytelling.

So this story has a deep personal connection. Thank you for sharing this with us. It had to be hard to see what happened to the neighborhood.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I didn’t know. I wanted to be an actor like Cicley Tyson or Ruby Dee and act on Broadway in New York.

What is your favorite or most challenging part of being a writer?

Procrastinating is my challenge. My favorite part is research and creating characters.

Have you had any careers besides writing?

Yes. I decided to leave an international banking training program to become an actor. I studied Stanford Meisner theatre technique in Chicago. After this, I acted in improvisational theatre and wrote sketches for performances. Later, when I came to a crossroad in my acting career, I moved back to Minnesota and worked in academic researching youth development programs. Lucky for me, I had other skills and interests that I followed.

You’ve chosen a very unusual viewpoint character. Can you tell us how you chose who to tell this story?

After a dozen drafts, the voices came through, and one of those voices was the house. It made sense to me and I liked it. I’m a big fan of magical realism, and I’m influenced by writers such as Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Toni Morrison, Percival Evertt, Kate DiCamillo, and others who use this interesting viewpoint of animating objects or animals.

In addition, both Zenobia and former cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl are vivid characters. Can you tell us more about how you developed them? Are they real characters?

No, they’re not based on one single real person but are based on a composite of young persons and adults I’ve known in my life. However, the character of Mrs. Ruby Pearl is based on my research on a real Black cowgirl who lived in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the copyright of her photo dressed in western cowgirl gear in the early 1900’s. Instead, I was able to capture her essence in a photo from online resource of the African American Smithsonian Museum. The research helped make the fictional narrative real. I also like to use the acting skills I learned to develop characters.

cover of The House of Rondo bookWhat made you choose to write about Rondo Street?

I found that I couldn’t stop myself— it haunted me.

It was an obsession, a good one, of Rondo and the vitality of this community that I vividly remembered.

Please tell us about the historical research you did to make this feel authentic.

I was fortunate to have a Jerome Fellowship in Literature so that I was able to travel to Nebraska and see for myself the Sandhills and the towns of western Nebraska. My maternal great grandparents migrated to this land after the US government moved the Pawnee nation to reservations. I researched Black migration to the West, and they became known as the Exodusters. I used documents at various state and county historical societies, local libraries, museums, oral histories, and government agencies records of transportation and interstate highway development. I used microfilm records of old newspaper articles. It was not possible to do more live interviews of people who lived during the early history of Rondo Avenue—most were deceased.

What was your favorite part of the research?

My favorite part of the research was finding 1920’s and later photos of the people who lived on Rondo.

What was the most difficult part of researching?

The most difficult part was finding out so few photos of Black people existed in historical societies and museums.

That’s such a shame that we’ve lost such an important part of our country’s history. I’m glad you’re doing what you can to make us aware of this part of it.

Did you have to leave anything out of this book that you wished you could have included? If so, what?

I wished I could have had included some of the research I did about the tribal nations who lived on the land in Minnesota and Nebraska. I wanted to include more stories about the Black towns of the Western United States. I couldn’t make it work in the narrative. Perhaps, it will be another story…

Can you share a bit about the resistance?

In my research, there were residents who tried to save their homes and businesses but lost them anyway.

In the resistance, there was sadness yet also joy. People are still celebrating the Rondo community by holding jazz festivals and rethinking about how to bringing Rondo Avenue back. Even though it will be a different community than the original.

I hope they can make that happen! It’s wonderful that people are still celebrating and creating a strong sense of community.

Do you have any message or advice for the teachers and parents who will be sharing your book with their students and families?

The importance of history and community.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

The joy of Rondo Avenue and whatever they want. It’s out in the world now, and I have no more control of this story I created.

Can you tell us what you’re working on now?

Hmmm, I have ideas but not ready to share what they are yet…

Well, we can’t wait to see what you write next. The stories of Black towns in the West and more history of the tribal nations in Minnesota and Nebraska all sound like wonderful avenues to pursue, but I’m sure your creative muse will direct you to the perfect story. When it does, we’ll be looking forward to reading it. For now, I’ll encourage our readers to pick up a copy of  The House on Rondo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debra J Stone writes essays, poetry, and fiction. She received a 2023–25 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship in Literature and the 2023 Loft Mirrors and Windows Fellowship for writing books for BIPOC children and young adults. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and her Australian cattle dog, Ruby. Find her online at https://www.debrajeannestone.com/ or on Instagram @debra2036.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When thirteen-year-old Zenobia has to leave her friends and spend the summer at Grandma’s while Mama recovers from a stroke, life seems so unfair. But then the eviction letters start arriving throughout her grandparents’ neighborhood, and white men chalk arrows to mark the gas and water lines, and a new world of unfairness unfolds before her. It’s 1963, and Zenobia’s grandparents’ house on Rondo Avenue in Saint Paul—like all the homes in this thriving Black community—is targeted for demolition to make way for the new Interstate Highway 94.

As Zenobia gradually learns about what’s planned for the Rondo neighborhood and what this means for everyone who lives there, she discovers how her story is intertwined with the history of her family, all the way back to Great Grandma Zenobia and the secrets Grandma Essie held close about the reason for her light skin. With the destruction of the neighborhood looming, Zenobia takes a stand on behalf of her community, joining her no-nonsense neighbor, onetime cowgirl Mrs. Ruby Pearl, in a protest and ultimately getting arrested. Though Zenobia is grounded for a month, her punishment seems of little consequence in comparison to what is happening all around her. Even though the demolition continues, she is proud to discover the power and connection in protesting injustice.

The House on Rondo captures the heartbreak, resistance, and resilience that marks a community sacrificed in the name of progress—a “progress” that never seems to favor Black families and neighborhoods and that haunts cities like Saint Paul to this day. As Zenobia learns what can be destroyed and what cannot, her story teaches us that joy, community, and love persist, even amid violence and loss.

Interview with Horror Author Ally Russell

Something strange is in the air today and we couldn’t be more excited! Author Ally Russell is here to chat about her new book, MYSTERY JAMES DIGS HER OWN GRAVE. With spooky twists and a hero who’s not afraid to face the unknown, this mystery is sure to give readers plenty of chills and thrills. 

Lisa: Welcome to the Mixed Up Files! Please tell us about your new book.

Ally: MYSTERY JAMES DIGS HER OWN GRAVE is the story of a 13-year-old girl who was abandoned in a cemetery and raised in a funeral home by her adoptive aunt. Mystery can smell ghosts, and she suffers from sleep paralysis! At Garcia Graves & Funeral Home, Mystery and her Tia Lucy handle the funeral arrangements for Lady Ellis, the town’s wealthy matriarch. However, when a priceless family heirloom goes missing, Tia Lucy is accused of graverobbing. It’s up to Mystery and her best friend Garrett to track down the real culprit, but in order to do so, they have to battle a vampiric ghost.

Lisa: How did you come up with the idea?

Ally: The idea of Mystery James began with a problem I was having in one of my old apartments. Sometimes I would catch a whiff of what I can only explain as a tangy, electrical smell. I’m certain it was coming from a USB charger, but one day, my very creepy brain whispered…what if it’s a ghost? That thought gave me goosebumps, and the thought turned into scribbles about a kid who could smell ghosts. From there, Mystery’s world of Ellis Town was born.

Lisa: Did you base any characters on people you know? If yes, spill the beans!

Ally: Ha! I’m sure there are bits and pieces of real folks in each of the characters, but the one that sticks out the most is the character Eliza Ellis. Eliza, is based on one of my dear childhood friends, Kimberlee. Kim is warm, kind, protective, and welcoming. Some of my best childhood memories—from laughter to scares—include Kim (who is also a fellow spooky girl). I wanted Mystery to have a good friend like that. I would also like to mention that Kim’s mom once told me that I reminded her of Wednesday Addams. It was the highest compliment to my 11-year-old brain, and I suppose it was inspo for Mystery.

Lisa: How much of your real-life experiences play a role in the stories you tell?

Ally: I wish I could experience more creepy moment, but alas…I’m a scaredy cat. But I think that’s why I write stories about girls who are brave. I wasn’t a brave kid. I don’t think I’m a brave adult. So, my books tend to feature girls who battle things I find frightening—from cryptids to spirits.

Lisa: What books did you like to read when you were a kid? Do those books influence your writing?

Ally: I was a big fan of the usual suspects: Goosebumps, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, The Dark Thirty. I also remember enjoying Paul Zindel’s horror books, like Rats. My absolute favorite was Tales for the Midnight Hour by JB Stamper.

I don’t remember many of the finer details about these books, but I do remember how they made me feel. They scared me, but I also felt safe while reading them because if they ever became too much, I could simply close the book. I think these books influence my approach to horror for upper middle grade. I want to give young readers the thrills and chills they’re asking for, but I also want them to feel safe—like a roller coaster ride.

Lisa: Do you have a favorite chapter? If yes, why?

Ally: Oh, that’s a tough question. I had a really great time building this world. I love every scene inside the cemetery, especially when Mystery meets Baron for the first time. I love every interaction between Mystery and Eliza. But I guess chapter eight is one of my favorites. At Lady Ellis’s funeral we get to see a bigger cast of characters, and the Winstons are some of my favorite supporting characters. Shh…I just finished revisions for the second book in the Mystery James duology, and I snuck in a scene with the Winstons.

Lisa: What was the hardest part about writing this book?

Ally: Avoiding the traditional “rules” of the supernatural. Baron is a vampiric ghost, and it was tempting to ground him in either the physical or the spiritual world, but I had to keep reminding myself that this is a work of fiction, and I can make up my own rules about the supernatural.

Lisa: Why did you choose to write children’s books?

Ally: Because in most cases, a love of reading and books begins in childhood, and horror was the genre that turned me into a reader. Right now, we live in a scary world, and I want to write children’s horror books that are fun and engaging so that young people don’t develop an aversion to reading, art, and critical thinking.

Lisa: What is your writing process? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Ally: I used to think I was a pantser. I thought the right words would just come to me as I sat there with a blank screen, but it never happened. Then in 2020, I finally learned that I am a plotter. All books begin with a detailed synopsis. Of course, some things will change as I write, but the synopsis acts like a road map and keeps me on track and motivated to write. I can always tell when the synopsis isn’t working because the writing becomes a bit of a slog.

Lisa: What advice would you give 12-year-old Ally?

Ally: I would tell her to save every idea. I would tell her to always make writing a priority, even when she’s tired from all the stressful and nonsensical adult stuff that she has to do. And I would tell her to always make time for reading.

Lisa: Thank you so much for stopping by The Mixed Up Files, I loved chatting with you. To all our readers, be sure to add MYSTERY JAMES DIGS HER OWN GRAVE to your Goodreads list and pick up a copy at your favorite indie or check out at your local library.  

Author Bio:

Ally is the author of It Came from the Trees and the Mystery James series. She grew up on a steady diet of Halloween parties, horror films, Unsolved Mysteries, and Goosebumps books. She has always loved scary stories, and got her MFA from Simmons University and, eventually, a job working in children’s publishing. She hails from Pittsburgh—ground zero for the zombie apocalypse. Ally lives with her husband and her two black cats, Nox and Fury. She’s afraid of the woods, the dark, and heights.

For more information about Ally, please visit her website and follow her on Bluesky or Instagram.

Happy Reading!