Shelly Campbell - dREadCon Author Spotlight
- BookBox Canada
- Jul 18
- 4 min read
Shelly! We are so excited for you to be joining us all the way from Alberta for our second annual dReadCon.
Tell us a little bit about yourself, what books we can expect to see at dReadCon, and where we can find you on social media.
My name is Shelly Campbell, and I write dark speculative fiction. I’ve been told the Dark Walker series feels like horror with heart. Not only will I have all three books in the series at dReadCon, I’m fortunate enough to have Eerie River Publishing hosting a book launch for the newly released Seed, book 3 in the series at dReadCon. Can’t wait to celebrate a book launch with you all! I’ll also have limited copies of my grimdark fantasy series with me.
You can find me at:
Do you have a favourite character you have written? If so, what book are they in and will it be at dReadCon?
Hands down, David, the main character of the Dark Walker series. He deals with all the horrible things I throw at him with an awkward tenacity and humour that I wish I had. He starts out lonely and directionless and by the end of the series he has some achingly strong connections and he’s taking names and kicking ass. It’s nice to see him stand up and take the wheel in Seed. As terrified as he is, David doesn’t back down. He’ll be in my three favourite books at dReadCon! And Seed is even getting a little book launch at the con! How cool is that?
If readers take away one thing from your books, what do you hope it is?
If you’ve ever felt a darkness brush up against you that feels inevitable and huge and unstoppable, you are not alone. We’re fighting alongside you. And you don’t have to be loud to make big changes. Sometimes quiet people save the world too.
What's the strangest thing you've ever Googled while writing a novel?
How to brain tan a deer hide. That’s the first one that comes to mind (for my grimdark fantasy duology, not the Dark Walker series.
What advice would you give to new writers trying to break into the genre?
Feed your Imagination. Read. People watch. Explore books on craft, but not too many—that’s a whole different kind of procrastination! Take the advice you like and leave the rest and then just write. It’s a skill. Like anything else, the only way to get better at it is to keep writing and reading. And rest assured, there’s a reader out there who needs your books. It’s a magical way of connecting with people across the voids of distance and time, just a hunk of ink and bound paper, creating pictures and characters and worlds in someone else’s head.
How do you approach world-building in dark fiction?
While some of us like keeping our fictional escapades firmly rooted in familiar ole Earth, other readers—my favorite kind—prefer their escapes to be the far-flung sort. One of the huge pros of writing in my genre(s) is that I get to play in worlds that aren’t only fictional, they’re not governed by the same rules, or occupying the same timeline as my own. That gives me a lot of room to spread my wings and get really creative, but, as wise Uncle Ben on Spider-man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.
Yes, I’m free to write imaginary settings different from the one we live in, but if I want readers to stick around for the ride, I’d better dang well make these places feel realistic. I might not have to play with the current rules of our day, but I do have to build worlds that are governed by some sort of logical law. I can create characters that aren’t human, but they’d better be relatable. Because I want to take readers from ‘But it’s not real!’ to ‘Whoa, that felt real’. So, I suppose the huge breadth that horror/fantasy and sci-fi offer can be a pro and a con both.
I enjoy the challenge of putting characters in otherworldly situations and giving them enough depth that readers will want to turn the page to see what happens next because they care about this character. No-one’s going to turn the page if they don’t feel a connection.
One of the cons of writing in these genres is the amount of work that has to go into world-building. I’ve plunked my characters and readers into a very unfamiliar place, and I have to convey a sense of history and teach my readers the ropes without making them feel like they’re reading an encyclopedia. Tolkien may get away with that, but I certainly can’t. That means I have to figure out a delicate balance between making my worlds feel lush and vivid without info-dumping. And sometimes, it’s hard to strike that balance well.
What type of music if any do you listen to while writing?
I live in a noisy household full of boys who like to listen to sports at full volume and birds who sing at the top of their lungs so I spend most of my writing time with a set of headphones on bobbing my head as I write. My generic playlist mostly consists of instrumental music that sounds like the epic soundtrack for some movie trailer. There’s some though, that really resonated for me while I was writing Seed, book 3 in the Dark Walker series. So I’ve plunked them into a Dark Walker Series Playlist. Feel free to click and listen away. What are your go-to songs or playlists, people? I’d love to hear all about them.
Playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3x3WAgdypOBs9IRJZaivFY?si=ZdMx5v_lRV2warQAr1zrkw&pt=7b23b5d26bba19e24d8e78ac5699e59f&pi=o26zEWT-QwO2p
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