Featured Interview With Sydney Walters
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born and raised in the D.C. area, where I currently live, just a stone’s throw away from my parent’s house actually!
I don’t have any pets at the moment, but I consider myself an aunt to all of my family and friend’s pets.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was always a big reader; I took my school book reports very seriously, and would go to Border’s book store every weekend to look for something new (and to go to the store cafe for hot chocolates!)
I started writing when I was 10 years old, and actually had my first poem published the same year in a book called ‘Timeless Voices’.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite authors are Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Maggie Stiefvater, and Dominic Holland.
I’m generally a fiction reader, but I enjoy biographies as well.
My favorite authors inspire me to write, and I’ve been lucky enough to connect with two of them in the past year for writing advice.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest novel is titled State of Grace, a historical fiction story inspired by the tragically true events that took place in the burned town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.
Fascinated by ghost towns from an early age, I am now an avid explorer of ruins and abandoned places around the globe, including Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town’s history and cultural impact—serving as the inspiration for the horror franchise Silent Hill—moved me to write my own take on it, and thus, State of Grace was born. State of Grace is my debut novel, the first in a series centered around historical events told from a young woman’s perspective.
“Growing up in Centralia wasn’t easy for Grace, who was just four years old when a coal mine eruption nearly destroyed her hometown and took her father with it. Her days were clouded with ash and despair until younger brother, Sam, was born. The pair grew up together, albeit in a world of uncertainty, until fate decided it had other plans: Sam slipped into one of the many sinkholes peppering in the crumbled town, falling into the still-burning hellfire below him.
As tragedy envelops her family and her sanity again, Grace fights to make it out of Centralia. But where will she go, and what will she do? With a college scholarship, the help of her new friends, and some promising academic opportunities, Grace struggles forward, trying to find a balance between letting go of the past while honoring where she came from.”
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