Interview With Author Holly R. Valakresch
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m an American author and artist. Over the years, I’ve written in multiple genres under different pen names for both books and screenplays. I’m creatively restless, but I’m now intentionally narrowing my focus and committing to a single direction.
My current focus is epic fantasy, and my most recent releases are AN ANTHEM OF SUNS and A THOUSAND YEARS OF FROST.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
A THOUSAND YEARS OF FROST came out in December 2025.
In 2019, I had designed human-carrying dragon drones as a fun side project. Believe it or not, the engineers I went through had no idea where to start! I posted about it some, learned a bit about mechanics myself, and even confided in my brother.
He suggested I write a children’s book on dragons instead of trying to build human-carrying drones. No fun, right? But it struck a chord. He didn’t know that I had been secretly authoring books for the past four years, or that I sold twelve romance novels to a publisher a few months before under my first pen name. I only stepped away to try and find a more predictable career path. His advice was almost the permission I needed to go back to writing. I thought maybe it wasn’t such an unrealistic goal, after all.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I hadn’t written a children’s book since I was a child. As I aged up, so did my writing. I decided on an adult novel centered around dragons, and the Brothers Birse (an elite team of riders) was born. The only problem was that HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is one of my favorite stories, and I had no desire to compete with it. Why mess with perfection?
I ended up sitting on an unfinished draft for A THOUSAND YEARS OF FROST. I worked on other books and screenplays, one of which was AN ANTHEM OF SUNS. I started to query for it in 2020 and spent years re-crafting the story. Each time, it was a little better than the last.
As I revised the epilogue, I realized that the Brothers Birse and their dragons would fit in perfectly with the world of the Assassin Game Archives. This way, I didn’t have to feel like I was competing with HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. I could pay much-deserved homage to it while still crafting my own plot and world.
In 2022, I scrambled to merge the Brothers Birse and their story with the sequel components for AN ANTHEM OF SUNS. I wrote and re-crafted the first and second books so many times. It wasn’t until 2023 that I had officially made a story I was proud of.
I spent much of 2023 querying both books. I believed agents would be more likely to take a risk on the epic fantasy word count if they knew I had two manuscripts ready to go. But in the end, it made no difference.
In 2024, I hired a professional editor. In 2025, I released both novels. This is my very long-winded way of saying that A THOUSAND YEARS OF FROST came from what felt like a thousand years of trying to bring dragons to life in any way possible.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
My unusual writing habits include, but are not limited to:
1. Refusing coffee and tea. It just isn’t my jam. The only time I consistently had coffee was when I worked as a barista–and only because it was free. If it isn’t a cup of water, a smoothie, or a milkshake, I’ll pass.
2. I float between a minimum of three manuscripts at a time, and this does not include other projects or businesses I may be tending to on the side. It may sound odd, but if there is no pressure, then there is no result.
3. Sometimes, I get writing OCD where I have to craft sentences without using letters that dip under the invisible line. This includes g,j,p,q, and y.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I credit the most inspiration to my childhood fairytale books. I still have some of them that I revisit from time to time.
THE NIGHT FAIRY had quite an impact on my writing and storytelling, but if you mean YA and adult books, then I would say THE HUNGER GAMES, DIVERGENT, and THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF ADDIE LARUE.
Maybe these are popular answers, but as we so often like to say, they changed my brain chemistry. I will probably never recover, and I don’t wish to.
What are you working on now?
I’m currently tending to edits on a standalone called THE FEY LIBRARY, working on a second draft for THE WINDED THRONE, the third book of The Assassin Game Archives, and re-writing a book called ERRAWYND.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I genuinely receive the most interactions on TikTok or Bluesky. They may be the most powerful marketing tools to date.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
If you ever feel like you can’t come up with something original for your story, go all the way back to the history of your world and work from there. Consider how past events could alter motivations in the now.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Everything that hurts you, find a way to overcome it. Everything that you feel is difficult for you, find a way to still do it.
What are you reading now?
The Housemaid, Tarzan of the Apes, and Treasure Island.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I plan to see where my work organically takes me. With any luck, the screenplay versions of my novels will not entirely go to waste!
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would take my book of classic fairytales, The Great Gatsby, The Hunger Games (but it would have to be a condensed version with all three books in one binding!), and… an original Divergent fanfiction that I re-read about every 18 months. What can I say? It never gets old.
Author Websites and Profiles
Holly R. Valakresch Amazon Profile
Holly R. Valakresch’s Social Media Links
Author Interview Series
To discover a new author, check out our Featured Authors page. We have some of the best authors around. They are just waiting for you to discover them. If you enjoyed this writer’s interview feel free to share it using the buttons below. Sharing is caring!
If you are an author and want to be interviewed just fill out out Author Interview page. After submitting we will send it out in our newsletters and social media channels that are filled with readers looking to discover new books to read.
If you are looking for a new book to read check out our Featured Books Page.