1.  Have you always been a writer?

I think I’ve always been a writer, even before I understood what that meant. As a kid, writing felt less like a hobby and more like a compulsion, something I did to make sense of the world, to cope with it, or to reshape it into something I could survive. Stories were a place I could put things I didn’t have language for yet. Long before I thought of writing as a career, it was already how I processed fear, grief, love, and curiosity.

2.  When did you realize that maybe writing was actually a "thing" you could do, get published and even sell?

That realization came slowly, and honestly, with some resistance. For a long time, writing felt too personal to be “professional.” But once people started responding to my work, really responding, emotionally, viscerally, I began to understand that what I was doing mattered outside of myself. The shift happened when I realized stories don’t have to be perfect to be powerful. They just have to be honest.

3. What was your first sale as a writer and how did it feel to sell your work?

My first sale felt surreal. There’s something deeply vulnerable about letting something you made in private exist in the world, and then having someone pay for it. It was validating, yes, but also terrifying. It meant the work was no longer just mine. It belonged to readers now, and that responsibility stayed with me.

4. How has writing helped you in other areas of life?

Writing has taught me patience, resilience, and how to sit with discomfort instead of running from it. It’s helped me articulate boundaries, confront trauma, and understand people—even the ones who hurt me. Writing also sharpened my intuition. When you spend years listening closely to your own internal voice, you get better at recognizing when something feels wrong or true in real life.

5. What was your biggest accomplishment as a writer?

Honestly, continuing. Publishing books, building an audience, and sustaining long-form projects are all meaningful, but the real accomplishment is persistence. Continuing to write through burnout, grief, doubt, and fear. Continuing even when the work feels too strange, too dark, or too personal. Staying committed to my voice, even when it didn’t fit neatly anywhere.

6. Who has inspired you the most in the writing field?

I’ve always been drawn to writers who understand dread and intimacy as two sides of the same coin—voices that linger rather than shout. Shirley Jackson’s quiet menace, Stephen King’s empathy for flawed people, the classics and their sharp, unsettling truths like Jane Eyre or even The Picture of Dorian Gray, the classic authors are among my favorites for that reason. But I’m also inspired by contemporary horror and gothic writers who refuse to sanitize female rage, grief, or desire. Writers who let women be monstrous and tender at the same time.

7. What are some of the challenges you have faced as a writer and how did you overcome them? 

Self-doubt has been the biggest challenge, especially the feeling that my work was “too much” or “not enough.” Too dark. Too slow. Too strange. I overcame it by realizing that trying to please everyone was killing the work. Once I stopped sanding down the sharp edges and leaned into what made my writing unsettling and emotional, things began to click.

8. What is the best writing advice you have ever received and why do you feel it is important?

“Write the thing you’re afraid to write.” That advice matters because fear is usually guarding something important. The stories that scare us to tell are often the ones readers feel most deeply. Safety doesn’t make memorable fiction, honesty does.

9. What sort of writing do you do now?

I primarily write horror, Southern Gothic, folk horror, psychological horror, with a strong emotional core. My work often centers on women, inheritance, bodies, transformation, and the quiet horrors that live inside families and small towns. I’m also deeply interested in serial storytelling, journals, and layered narratives that feel intimate and secretive.

10. Where can we find some of your work online?

Much of my ongoing work appears through my Patreon and serialized projects, as well as on platforms like Amazon. I also share art, excerpts, and updates through social media, where my visual work and writing often intersect. I have Facebook and Instagram under my name!

11. What advice do you have for aspiring writers thinking of taking the leap of getting their work published?

Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait until the work feels perfect. Publishing isn’t a finish line, it’s a conversation. Start it. Learn as you go. Protect your voice, but stay curious. And remember that rejection isn’t a verdict on your talent; it’s part of the process of finding the right readers.

12. What are your final thoughts about being a writer?

Being a writer isn’t about productivity or accolades, it’s about attention. Paying attention to what hurts, what lingers, what refuses to stay buried. Writing is an act of witness. Sometimes it’s lonely. Sometimes it’s cathartic. But it’s always honest. And for me, it’s not something I chose so much as something that refuses to let me go.

ABOUT CHRISTY:

Christy Aldridge writes with a Southern Gothic soul—tales steeped in haunted houses, cursed bloodlines, and the kind of grief that lingers. When she’s not conjuring stories from the darker corners of the South, she’s wrangling four cats, two dogs, and the occasional demon (one currently housed in the body of a particularly spiteful Chihuahua). She’s also the founder of Grim Poppy Designs, where she crafts book covers that look like they crawled out of the crypt with style. Christy believes in ghosts, bad omens, and the power of a good story to leave a reader just a little bit haunted.