Cotton Candy and Ivy Tholen

I’ve made no secret that slashers are my absolute favourite subgenre of horror; my favourite movie is Scream, of course. When I ran across Ivy Tholen’s Tastes Like Candy, I had to have it immediately. This book follows Violet Warren and her friends as they get invited to the Senior Scavenge in 2020. The eight of them will break into the Poison Apple Carnival (sounds fun, right?) then gather at sunrise to celebrate their upcoming senior year. Things quickly go awry as a sinister masked psychopath starts slashing their way through the girls in horrifyingly bizarre ways, and Violet is left to wonder what any of them did to deserve being slaughtered and left to die.

This Women’s History Month, I definitely needed to celebrate my favourite female slasher author!

Q: Who has been your biggest supporter(s) throughout your writing career?

A: My family. They’re the ones who encourage me, give me time to work, and they’re the first ones to read what I’ve written. I trust their opinions more than anyone on this planet, and they’ll tell me if something is good…or if it needs work.

Q: Where do you draw inspiration from in your work?

A: I’m a firm believer that our brains are big sponges and we’re a product of everything we consume, from media to random conversations we overhear at a grocery store. I’ve read amazing books and been jealous I didn’t write them, I’ve seen terrible movies I hated and wanted to take the concept and make it better. I also don’t believe there’s anything new under the sun, it’s just a matter of taking what you’ve absorbed and making it your own.

Q: What does it mean to you to be an author?

A: It means that I get to share all the weird thoughts and voices in my head with people, and it’s nice to learn that other people are on my wavelength.

Q: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to certain music, snack, make loads of phone notes when inspiration randomly strikes, etc.?

A: I’m a procrastinator. I’m supposed to be editing my new novel right now, but instead I’m happily answering questions for this interview. I can do all the plotting and note taking and planning in the world, but the only thing that works is sitting in front of my laptop and writing until I’ve got a thousand words on the page. I’m incapable of working in silence, so I throw something on television in the background, usually old movies, occasionally TV.

Fun fact: if I have a character I need to name and don’t have anything in mind, I’ll pull names from whatever is on the TV and use them. There’s a creepy teacher in Tastes Like Candy named Mr. Luzon and the girls go to a restaurant named The Jinkx Room. I was watching a lot of RuPaul’s Drag Race while I worked on the book, and Manila Luzon and Jinkx Monsoon are queens from the show.

Q: Is there a genre or subgenre that you want to explore that you haven’t yet? Conversely, are there any that you’ll never write?

A: I will always write horror because it’s my one true love. It’s not my goal to write the next great American novel; I just want to have fun and be entertaining. I currently write in the slasher subgenre because they’re super fun, but I’d also like to veer into the supernatural. I used to work at hotels, and some day I’d love to write a trippy book about a haunted hotel. I will never, ever, ever, ever write a rape revenge story or anything involving sexual assault. They’re boring, gross, and played out. There are more interesting ways to empower a character into kicking ass than…that.

Q: What has been the hardest part of your career as an author so far?

A: Writing a novel is like cracking open your brain and allowing people to see inside, and I am extremely introverted. In order to write, I generally have to pretend that no one will ever read it, otherwise I’d go nuts. I do not read reviews, I don’t Google myself, and I’ve been known to dodge comments and messages on social, though I’m working to get past that last one.

Q: What do you consider to be your greatest strength and weakness as an author?

A: I’ve heard repeatedly that my characters are realistic, and that people care about them. As a slasher writer, I’m also pretty proud of my kills. The first time a friend read Tastes Like Candy, he asked if I was okay, and I loved that. I would really like to get better at crafting small, jaw-dropping, record scratch type moments throughout stories. Those are always so fun to experience as a reader, and I want to be able to nail them.

Q: At some point in our lives, we’ve all heard the negative comments: “You’re not good enough.” “You’ll never make it.” “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” “You don’t belong.” How do you move forward when faced with negativity?

A: This was me, inside my own head, for many years. I’m not usually the kind of person who spits out inspirational quotes, but this one by Anais Nin stuck with me: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” One day I realized, “All this negative talk is holding you back from the only thing you want to do. What is the worst that could happen?” I sat down and forced myself to write five hundred words a day for my first novel. Eventually I published it. No one read it, and the world didn’t end. I actually felt better knowing how low the stakes were and wrote Tastes Like Candy without fretting over whether or not people would like it (they did, and much more than I ever could’ve expected).

Q: What advice would you give to women who are wanting to write, especially if it’s something others might perceive as “outside of the norm”?

A: Do not have it in your head that you can’t write a certain type of character because of the generic advice of: write strong female characters. Write women how you want to write women, not how someone else tells you to. People love to harp on “writing strong female characters” and I feel like this gets misinterpreted as “women who act like men and punch people and have no feelings and are badass.”

This often goes hand in hand with saying that Ripley from Alien is the best written female character because she was originally written to be gender neutral. Essentially, wash away all the femininity because it might remind people they’re reading a story about a woman. Personally, I’ve always interpreted “strong female characters” to mean “strongly written” as in fully formed people of all personalities and backgrounds. So, if you’d rather have your hero be a struggling new mom or your villain be a ditzy nail tech, go for it. Of course, if you’d prefer to write about physically and emotionally strong badasses who kill aliens, you should. The world can always use more Ripleys.

Ivy will be releasing Tastes Like Candy 2: Sugarless on April 22nd. Set five years after the first book, Violet is haunted by the events of her Senior Scavenge and begins to receive strange text messages seemingly from beyond the grave. Meanwhile, a new group of girls is breaking into the Poison Apple Carnival for their Senior Scavenge and, unbeknownst to them, a copycat killer is waiting there for them. After receiving a call for help from someone back home, Violet comes back to Belldam to try and save the girls. The problem? According to the people of Belldam, the Senior Scavenge never happened.

I’m so excited for this book to drop, and you best bet I’ll be preordering it as soon as it’s available! If this sounds like something you might like, subscribe to her newsletter on her website and follow her on Instagram so you don’t miss any important updates! And while you’re waiting, check out Ivy’s current read, How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix!