Lorna Selley adores all things eerie and paranormal, and her fiction blends traditional mystery tropes with supernatural elements. After 15 years in content development and editorial roles, she followed a lifelong dream of writing, inspired by singular explorations around the world and the tense, atmospheric detective fiction she encountered in her studies. She is a graduate of Suzanne Kingsbury’s Gateless Writing Academy.
A Glimmer in the Hollows plot summary
Twenty years ago, six-year-old Olivia Garcia ran into the looming evergreens of Driftwood State Park, leaving her babysitter, Jessica Paige, alone on an unlit gravel road. Most of Jessica’s memories of that night vanished with Olivia, except for strange visions of two girls falling into a black pit, deep underground. Haunted by nightmares and fragmented memories, Jessica spends her nights searching for clues about the past and why so many children disappear in the misty Appalachian town of Driftwood.
Why do you write in the genres that you do?
I’ve been a fan of mystery and suspense for decades and naturally gravitated toward those genres when I started my own writing journey. But I quickly found myself creeping outside the limits of those genres and borrowing from sci-fi.
I enjoy the blend of mystery, suspense, and soft sci-fi, even though it’s challenging to get right, because it allows me to explore human stories and their complexities in a way that is both grounded and familiar, but also expansive and unexpected. I think all of us are naturally curious creatures who love a riddle. We want to uncover what’s hiding beneath the surface and find hidden truths.
Sci-fi allows me to explore the boundaries of reality, while I use the mystery and suspense genres to build an unsettling atmosphere, adding gripping twists and turns to the plotline. At the heart of it, I’m most interested in exploring how characters navigate the unknown, and these genres lend themselves well to creating the right settings and scenarios for that to happen.
Do you keep a notebook of ideas?
Yes, always. It’s an essential part of my writing process because inspiration often strikes at the strangest times—like when I’m standing in line at the DMV or at the grocery store.
Often, when I feel mentally stuck from typing, I’ll take a break and use a notebook instead. Sometimes the simple act of writing, instead of typing, can be incredibly helpful. I jot down potential character traits and backgrounds, plot twists, random dialogue, or even the outline for an entire chapter.
For A Glimmer in the Hollows, I relied heavily on a notebook because the layered mystery and dual timelines came to me completely out of sequence. I’m in no way a linear writer, and I’m terrible at sticking to my own outline, so instead, I color code ideas as they come to me and annotate them later.
Would you rather own a bookstore or run a library?
Definitely a bookstore! I love the idea of curating an ever-changing catalog of books. A bookstore gives you the freedom to create a cozy, welcoming ambiance that’s full of character—the more eccentric, the better, filled with nooks and cubbyholes for reading.
I worked in a library while I was in graduate school. And while I loved diving into all the books and learning how to catalog them, I would much rather be lost in an aisle at the bookstore.
How many words or pages do you typically write in one writing session?
I aim to write 1,000 words a day, but that varies wildly. I envy writers who can crank out pages upon pages at a time. I am still far too fastidious and exacting with word choice, which often interrupts my writing flow, but I’m slowly getting better at allowing myself to get the ideas on the page before immediately jumping into self-editing.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I can’t write without my fifteen-year-old dachshund napping at my feet. There’s something very reassuring about him being there.
Also, I must have a pot of tea or matcha on hand, and atmospheric, ambient music playing. I struggle to write fluid prose when I’m not at home, so I use time away to create outlines and jot down ideas instead.
People will like your book if they like stories about…
Cross-genre, eerie paranormal mysteries with soft sci-fi elements and complex, trauma-haunted characters who must navigate the fine line between reality and the unknown. A Glimmer in the Hollows moves between past and present timelines, using flashbacks to reveal the main character’s splintered memories and unravel the secrets of a long-missing child. If you enjoy atmospheric wilderness, small towns with dark secrets, a slow-burn romance, and plenty of suspense with unexpected twists, then you’ll probably enjoy A Glimmer in the Hollows.
Who would you most want to read your book?
More than anything, I want the book to end up in the hands of readers who will connect with the characters and the journey they go on—those who’ve been captivated by a sense of longing and unresolved mystery and crave more of it.
Who is on your Mt. Rushmore of greatest/inspirational authors?
Shirley Jackson – Her mastery at weaving tension into everyday moments has definitely influenced my own writing. Her ability to build psychological suspense and horror without relying on gore or extreme violence is genius. The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are two of my favorites.
Stephen King – He blends supernatural stories within human experiences that feel very relatable, despite being bizarre and otherworldly. He’s also perfected the ability to balance character-driven storytelling with completely consuming plotlines.
Gillian Flynn – I adore her deeply flawed, complex characters, and how she explores past trauma and its influence on the present day. Her work is also a masterclass in dark, twisted, gripping plotlines. Sharp Objects and Gone Girl both haunt me.
Tana French – She has perfected the art of the slow-burn mystery and dual timelines, and I also adore her introspective narratives. Her mysteries are intricately layered, and her stories unfold with a carefully measured pace and precision.
Do you ever use dreams as inspiration for your writing?
Yes, definitely. Dreams are a great source of inspiration because of their unpredictable directions and unexpected images. While I was writing A Glimmer in the Hollows, I was suffering from extreme insomnia, and the medication I took to treat it gave me extremely vivid, strange dreams. Much of the book was written in the early hours after being inspired by those dreams.
Dreams are also central to the plot of A Glimmer in the Hollows, where two characters begin to question their own understanding of where dreams and reality begin and end, because of the inexplicable things that happen in the middle of the woods at night. This uncertainty adds to the eerie, unsettling atmosphere of the novel, and it allowed me to explore the idea of unreliable consciousness in a dreamlike setting that seems both vivid and unreal.
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