Ask the Author: Stacy Willingham
Answered Questions (9)
Stacy Willingham
Hi there! Thank you so much for reading my books, I'm so glad you've been enjoying them and so grateful for your support. I AM working on a new book (technically, I'm done working on it), and it'll be out on August 26, 2025. It's called FORGET ME NOT and you can learn more about the synopsis on the Goodreads page (as well as enter a Giveaway to win an early copy!).
Stacy Willingham
Thank you so much, Rocky! I hope you enjoy both A Flicker in the Dark and All the Dangerous Things. To answer your question, most of the books I write will likely be similar to A Flicker in the Dark in that they will be character-driven thrillers that feature a deep sense of place and some psychological components, at least for the time-being :)
Stacy Willingham
Hi Bailey, All the Dangerous Things will be available in the UK on February 2! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy it!
Stacy Willingham
Oh no!! I'm so sorry to hear this, Melinda. I'm reaching out to my team now to see what happened. Stay tuned!
Stacy Willingham
Thank you so much, April! Yes, my favorite part about writing thrillers is coming up with the twists, so there are several in All the Dangerous Things as well. I hope I'm lucky enough to keep writing many more!
Stacy Willingham
I've always had a fascination with criminal psychology and true crime, so serial killers are intriguing to me. The vast majority of murders take place due to very common emotions (things like love, lust, jealousy, greed, vengeance, etc), so while the majority of people would never act on those emotions and take another life, we can at least understand the emotion. With serial killers, however, it's almost impossible for a normal person to wrap their mind around why their commit their horrible crimes. All that to say, one day, I was watching a documentary and a picture popped up on the screen. It was of Dennis Rader, also known as BTK, walking his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. At that point, BTK had murdered ten people already and nobody knew his identity yet, including his family, and it hit me right then that if strangers had a hard time understanding a serial killer, I couldn't imagine how their families must feel. It felt like an Earth-shattering betrayal that would have repercussions across every aspect of your life, and the idea of A Flicker in the Dark was basically born in that moment. I wanted to tell the story of a serial killer through the eyes of his daughter, because through those eyes, the villain suddenly became much more complicated.
Stacy Willingham
It takes a lot of time to learn that rejection isn't personal, even though it feels like it is in the beginning. Everything about reading is subjective, so it started getting a lot easier once I realized that every rejection wasn't a rejection of ME or even my story; rather, that particular reader just wasn't my audience -- and that's okay! I don't fall in love with every book I read, either. Agents, especially, have to be extremely choosy when taking on a new client, so try to look at every rejection as you just slowly checking them off a giant master list, which means that with every rejection, you're getting closer and closer to the one that will eventually say yes. It's all progress.
When you're first getting started, make sure you're doing a lot of research on each agent before reaching out. Look for agents who represent the genre in which you write, and maybe even have some authors in their clientele who write in a similar way. Check out their Publishers Marketplace profile and see if they are talking about their "manuscript wishlist" on Twitter; that way, you can personalize your query and let the agent know that you chose them specifically, as opposed to sending out a mass query letter to every single one.
Good luck!
When you're first getting started, make sure you're doing a lot of research on each agent before reaching out. Look for agents who represent the genre in which you write, and maybe even have some authors in their clientele who write in a similar way. Check out their Publishers Marketplace profile and see if they are talking about their "manuscript wishlist" on Twitter; that way, you can personalize your query and let the agent know that you chose them specifically, as opposed to sending out a mass query letter to every single one.
Good luck!
Stacy Willingham
You have to believe in yourself. I used to *hate* reading clichéd advice like that when I was deep in the weeds of trying to finish my novel or get agented, but it's the truth! Writing can fill you with a lot of self-doubt if you let it, and those feelings are made even worse once you throw all the inevitable rejections into the mix. Writing is so personal, so when you fail, it stings. You have to really, really believe in yourself, and believe to your core that your hard work and perseverance will eventually pay off... even if it takes years! If you believe in yourself, you'll keep going. And if you keep going, your writing will take you where you want to go.
Stacy Willingham
When I'm struggling with writer's block, I usually force myself to stand up from my computer and take a walk with my dog. Even if I try to get my mind off of the book, I inevitably spend the entire time thinking about whatever problem I'm trying to work through, and by the time I make it back home, I've had some kind of lightbulb moment... or, at the very least, a general idea of how to move forward. I also find inspiration reading the words of authors I admire. Reading a chapter of anything Gillian Flynn or Emma Cline's "The Girls" usually does the trick. If all else fails, I'll pour myself a glass a wine and try again tomorrow.
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