DEBUT SPOTLIGHT: NICOLE WILLSON
It’s always a pleasure to interview a fellow author who writes Gothic fiction. And today, I’m happy to feature Nicole Willson, the debut author of TIDEPOOL, a historical horror novel set in a fictional seaside town beset by an ancient eldritch curse, releasing on August 3rd from Parliament House Press. I had the opportunity to read an ARC of Tidepool, and this novel had me by the collar from the very first page! From Nicole’s phenomenal sense of atmospheric world-building to her suspenseful, page-turning pacing, I was completely swept up in this story. I finished it in less than 24 hours after my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, and I truly believe it inspired some of my strange fever dreams! You can read my full review here.
THE FULL SYNOPSIS
If ye give not willingly, the Lords will rise…
In 1913, Henry Hamilton disappeared while on a business trip, and his sister, Sorrow, won’t rest until she finds out what happened to him. Defying her father’s orders to remain at home, she travels to Tidepool, the last place Henry is known to have visited. Residents of the small, shabby oceanside town can’t quite meet Sorrow’s eyes when she asks about her brother.
When corpses wash up on shore looking as if they’ve been torn apart by something not quite human, Sorrow is ready to return to Baltimore and let her father send in the professional detectives.
However, after meeting Ada Oliver, a widow whose black silk dresses and elegant manners set her apart from other Tidepool residents, Sorrow discovers Tidepool’s dark, deadly secret.
With this discovery, some denizens of Tidepool—human and otherwise—are hell-bent on making sure Sorrow never leaves their forsaken town.
“The creeping dread of Lovecraftian horror by way of American Horror Story —Tidepool will ensure you never look at the ocean the same way again!” Peter McLean, Author of Priest of Bones.
And now for our interview:
Paulette: Tell us a bit about TIDEPOOL. What inspired you to write it?
Nicole: I’ve been a horror reader my whole life and it’s my preferred writing genre. Tidepool is historical gothic horror mostly (though not completely) set in 1913. I came up with the idea while walking along the beach, thinking about American Horror Story, and imagining what I’d write if I were in charge of a season of AHS. I started thinking along Lovecraftian lines, picturing an ocean full of frightening creatures, a tiny shore town, and a mysterious woman who was the only thing standing between the town and those monsters. Before long, I realized the story I was imagining was something worth keeping for myself. Sorry, AHS!
Paulette: AHS is one of my very favorite series, and I definitely felt the vibes as I was reading. You managed to convey real, visceral horror along with a healthy dose of sly camp, just like the writers of AHS, and that’s a feat that’s not always easy to pull off! Can you tell us a little about your writing process?
Nicole: I’m what’s known as a plantser. Ideally, I like to make at least a small outline of what I’m going to write before I get started, although I reserve the right to deviate from that outline if the story or the characters decide they want to go in a different direction from what I planned. And that happens quite frequently.
But for my most recent WIP, I didn’t even have the story idea until the first day of NaNoWriMo, when a newspaper article sparked my imagination and made me abandon what I’d been planning to write. I pantsed the heck out of that thing and had a complete draft by the end of the month. I don’t necessarily recommend that approach, but it was a true challenge and kind of fun.
If I’m working on a novel or a short story, I try to write at least a little bit of it every day until it’s finished. It’s too easy for me to lose connection to the story’s world if I don’t work on it consistently. Other than that, I don’t generally write every day.
Paulette: I too am a plantser, and I use an outline as more of a safety net rather than a foundation, because I love leaving room for discovery writing. And congrats on the new project! I’ve often joked that I have good intentions with NaNoWriMo, but I’ve never completed a draft during November, though I always try!
And I agree about the consistency. If I take too many days off from a project, I lose interest and it becomes much easier to procrastinate. This is especially true for me when I’m drafting—my least favorite part of the writing process. How about you? Do you have a favorite and least favorite part of the process?
Nicole: I love writing a first draft when the story decides to go in a different direction from what I’d planned and I’m just a transcriber along for the ride as the characters dictate their own destinies and the story all but writes itself. Writing days like that are glorious and remind me of why I love to do it.
My least favorite part is when I have to review a draft for about the thousandth time. Something about this always makes my impostor syndrome start howling in my ears. Everything sounds terrible, I hate every word I’ve written, and I never want to see my own book again. That passes, of course, but it can be hard to deal with while it’s happening.
Paulette: As someone currently in the thick of book two revisions, I can relate to the impostor syndrome, even though revisions are my favorite part of the process. Writing is hard! It’s important to reward ourselves. What are some of the things you like to do to celebrate reaching your writing goals?
Nicole: The week my publishing deal was announced was also the week of my 20th wedding anniversary. My husband and I marked these two milestones with a trip to the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore, where we had sparkling drinks and dinner and ended up adopting an orange tabby cat from an ASPCA rescue truck that pulled up to the pier where we were celebrating.
Paulette: That is the sweetest story! What a way to celebrate two big milestones in your life. Debuting is such a rollercoaster as an author. What have been the most challenging aspects of becoming a debut author?
Nicole: Trying to make people care that I’ve got a book coming out! I’m not a natural hustler, and becoming my own publicist has been hard. I’m still trying to find the balance between not promoting enough and promoting so much that I’m annoying everyone.
Paulette: I hear you. I’m pulling on a lot of my past entrepreneurial experiences as I promote my book, because I don’t have a publicist, either. The pressure is there and it’s real! It’s a tricky thing to balance it all. I promise, you have not been annoying! Your book is amazing and the world needs to know about it. I think authors often sing themselves short. And on that note, do you have any advice for authors, especially those heading into their debut year?
Nicole: Make friends with other writers sharing your debut year. If you can’t find a group, or if an existing group doesn’t let you in for whatever reason, create your own group and invite your fellow debutantes. Being able to support, commiserate, and celebrate with people in my debut year has been such a great and helpful thing.
Paulette: Absolutely. I think building community and cross-promotion among writers is one of the best ways to move the needle, especially when it comes to reviews! It’s always good to make friends and foster genuine connections. I’m so thankful to have gotten to know you during our debut year, Nicole, and I’m so excited to see what happens in the months to come as people discover Tidepool and your wonderful writing!
Nicole Willson lives with her husband outside of Washington, DC; this does not mean she wants to talk U.S. politics with you. She has been a frequent visitor to small coastal towns located along the Eastern seaboard but has yet to see anything truly alarming emerge from those waters, much to her disappointment. She’s hopeful that her lifelong aversion to eating fish or seafood might earn her a little mercy when the hungry ocean gods finally start coming ashore.
Nicole’s debut horror/dark fantasy novel Tidepool will be coming out from Parliament House Press in August 2021. The novel was showcased in Pitch Wars 2017, where Nicole was mentored by Peter McLean (Priest of Bones). A Spanish translation of Tidepool will be coming out from Dilatando Mentes in 2022.
Her story “Christmas Every Day” appears in Cemetery Gates Media’s Halldark Holidays anthology edited by Gabino Iglesias (Coyote Songs). She is a regular contributor to The Weekly Knob, a prompt-based writing challenge on Medium. You can find an up-to-date list of Nicole’s fiction on Medium here.
Nicole is a member of the Horror Writers Association. She has attended the Borderlands Writers Boot Camp and the Futurescapes Writers Workshop.
She has been a publications editor, a web content specialist, and an editorial assistant. She fulfilled a longtime dream of competing on “Jeopardy!” in 2011, although she did not fulfill her longtime dream of being a Jeopardy champion, alas.
If you actually read all this, she’s grateful.
If you’d like to pre-order a copy of Tidepool you can order directly from Parliament House or Amazon
You can connect with Nicole via her website, Twitter, or Instagram