Meet Ronald Kelly

We were lucky to catch up with Ronald Kelly recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ronald, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I come from a long line of farmers and blue-collar workers, so I reckon hard work and giving it a hundred percent was sort of a staple in my upbringing. I’ve always applied that mentality to my writing as well. My journey between the time I began writing stories in high school and my first pro sale was twelve years of trial and error and honing my craft, so there was also plenty of stubborn persistence and patience involved. If a writer truly has the desire to see their work in publication, they should plan on hanging in there for the long haul.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’ve written and published in the horror genre for forty years. My novels and stories are set in the American South, mostly in my native state of Tennessee. I call my style of fiction “Southern-Fried” because it is very down-to-earth, folksy, and traditional. I began publishing short fiction in the small press horror magazines of the 1980s and 90s, then graduated to writing mass market paperback novels for Zebra Books for six years. Now, I mainly publish with independent publishers like Crossroad Press, Dead Sky Publishing, Thunderstorm Books, and Crystal Lake Publishing. During my career I’ve published 15 novels and nearly two hundred short stories.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I’d say my greatest strength as a writer is probably my connection to the South… the land, its people, and their customs. Another thing is my knack for storytelling, which I pretty much inherited from my maternal grandmother, who was a natural storyteller in the truest sense. I practically grew up listening to her pass down family history, folklore, and spinning ghost stories. My third strength would be the care and patience I put into the writing process. I believe a story or novel has its own individual gestation period; it comes to a full and satisfying conclusion when the proper amount of work and attention to detail, character building, and execution of plot is done patiently and correctly.

New writers should learn to absorb and process the atmosphere of their natural surroundings: the sense of place and the personalities and dialogue of those who live around them. Listen to the stories and histories of your family, friends, and your neighbors, then allow your imagination to build from those foundations. Authors should also take their time with the writing process. I see too many writers today attempting to build a career in an extremely short period of time… either out of financial need or in fear of becoming irrelevant and losing their audience. A book usually suffers if it’s rushed and not given enough time to evolve and come to successful fruition. Take your time and give it the attention and polish that it deserves.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

I read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird at the age of fourteen and it had a profound effect on me. The impact was twofold. First, it solidified my belief of how very evil and pointless racism was… something that I had witnessed throughout my childhood, in school, in church, even in my own home. And, secondly, it bypassed my intentions of becoming an artist and stoked my desire to try my hand at writing. Being a Southerner herself, Lee showed me that it was okay to simply be yourself and honestly share the types of people you grew up with, good or bad, and the blessings and travesties of growing up in a small rural town during the course of your narrative. I’d say I received my love of Southern storytelling from my grandmother and the validation for implementing my Southern heritage and experiences through the act of writing from Harper Lee.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ronaldkelly.com
• Instagram: Dixiedarkun
• Facebook: Ronald Kelly
• Twitter: RonaldKelly4
• Other: Online bookstore: rkhorror.bigcartel.com