Featured Interview With Asha Nyr
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in Marin County, and though I am very open about my history, it’s a difficult topic to discuss. Having survived sexual assault, psychological abuse, and physical abuse, I developed PTSD, and as soon as I could go to college, I left my hometown as quickly as possible.
At first, I wanted to be a marine biologist, having a great love for animals and being fascinated by the mysteries of the deep, but I ended up switching to art with a minor in electronic music. It was my stronger suit, having illustrated since I was a child and written music since hitting my teen years. I worked hard and ended up being valedictorian at my second college for animation and visual effects.
My career didn’t progress how I’d expected, as it often doesn’t. I sold my soul to a tech giant for a while to pay the bills, but then I became disabled from worsening POTS and hEDS—genetic conditions—and lost my job. I couldn’t work anymore. I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area now, trying to restart my life.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
October 10, 2021, was the date I started writing my first book, The Mistake and the Lycan King. I’d been in therapy for years, chipping away at my PTSD, major depression, and anxiety disorder. When trauma started making it hard to leave my apartment, I took to writing as an attempt at exposure therapy.
Exposure therapy is gradually exposing yourself to the element of your trauma. Since my trauma was not, let’s say, a fear of dogs where I could slowly approach a dog over time, I tried writing for the first time in my life. Putting characters through traumatic events and taking them through an adventure that provoked healing offered me a chance to follow along, understand myself better, and desensitize myself to intimacy, invalidation, and other topics that challenge my mental health.
I’ve never stopped.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I’m not caught up on current novels because I have a habit of rereading my favorites, which were predominantly Sabriel by Garth Nix, The Belgariad epic by David Eddings, and the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. I think, due to rereading, each ended up contributing to my writing style.
Garth Nix inspired the concept of merging a little horror into fantasy, something I’d never considered before then, and allowed me to better push my boundaries. The Belgariad inspired me to write elaborate lore however I dreamed it and had me appreciating personality diversity. I fell in love with the characters. Piers Anthony had me falling in love with humor and how it could enhance the experience with levity. I felt like he permitted me to use puns, a type of humor that has people groaning… but not my readers! They eat that stuff up, and nothing feels better than making a reader laugh uncontrollably.
All combined, in my novels, the humor balances out the darkness, and the world is rich with lore and diverse personalities.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I’ve written twelve novels so far across two different series, but I’ve only published three of them so far. It’s just taking time to get them all professionally edited and designed. The latest is The Packless and the Fae Prince, which brings back beloved characters from the first book.
Externally, it’s about fated mates, one being a wolf-shifter from a remote pack, the other being a fae prince from another realm. When Hekla is forced to move into the Realm of the Fae, she struggles to adapt to their lifestyle. Her status as Belenus’s soulmate is rejected by the queen, who forces him into an engagement he doesn’t want, and the rest of the book follows the struggle of escaping both that and a tyrannical rule.
But to me? The book is about escaping the bubble of a warped reality. It mirrors how I felt when I went off to college, learning that the rules I grew up with weren’t healthy or the standard. The world felt bigger after that, seeing happy or content relationships. It brought me to my knees. I still suffer though, looking to build that for myself, and the book helped me find ways to cope with that pain.
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