Rising Stars: Meet Wallis Kinney of Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Wallis Kinney.

Hi Wallis, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started writing my first novel during a particularly grueling semester studying Astronomy and Molecular Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. When the endless hours of science became too much, I’d escape into my own fairytales. The book I wrote between classes and during long cold nights on the telescope is the book that got me my literary agent. When that first book died on publishers’ desks with no offers in sight, I began to question if I’d ever sell a book. To distract myself from the rejections, I began writing a cozy little love letter to October as a gift for my older sister. It was a story about a witch getting up to autumnal hijinks the week before Halloween. She uncovers family secrets, flirts with a necromancer, and faces off against an ancient trickster god. That novel, A Dark and Secret Magic, caught the eye of editors and was published in October 2024 with Alcove Press. It made the USA Today Bestseller list and has been published in five foreign languages and counting. The German edition stayed on the Spiegel Bestseller list for nearly a month this year. Watching readers find the book and connect with the cozy and magical atmosphere has been a magnificent joy. I’ve stayed in that same magical universe for my next novel. While not a direct sequel, it exists within the same world. This time though, instead of setting the story during a New England autumn, I’m writing about the magic of winter in Colorado.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The publishing industry can be quite opaque, especially for non-agented authors. From the outside looking in, it was tough to know what was normal and what was a red flag. Luckily, there is a wonderful community of authors online who share their experiences to an intimate degree on YouTube and Threads. Those corners of the internet were so helpful in keeping me grounded with realistic expectations for how the publishing journey would go.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m still so early in my career, with one book published and another arriving in a year or so, it’s hard at this point to identify what sets my writing apart from others. I’ll have to come back to this question when my hands are wrinkled and knobby and have typed out millions of words in dozens of worlds. Only then, when my bibliography is complete, do I think I could identify what sets it apart from the imaginations of my colleagues.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Writing is often considered a very isolated hobby but my best advice is to RUN from that mindset. Build a community and support network of other writers that you trust and have creative chemistry with. Be generous with your ideas, care about their stories, help them through the tough parts and insecurities. Encourage commitment and accountability. Argue against waffling, stagnation, and negativity. When you feel envy at your friends’ success, acknowledge it and always accompany it with equal or greater celebration. And remember that rising tides raise ALL ships.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://walliskinney.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wallisimo_writes/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Wallisimo

Image Credits
Ellie Rich