Tash is a teacher in real life, but dreams of being a full-time writer, and living a life of never-ending travel. Though born in the hilly sheepland of Wales, Tash has lived in South Korea and Chile and now calls Vancouver, Canada home.

Story telling has been a part of Tash’s life for as long as they {neutral third pronouns, please} can remember, but only in the last few years have they started to write them down and share them with other people.

Although the journey definitely hasn’t been smooth, Tash has dozens of universes, hundreds of characters, and the overwhelming desire to share them with the world.

Interview:

How did you come up with the dystopian world of SLAM?

I love dystopian futures, and I also love superpowers! I wanted to write a superhero book for a long time, and when I started writing I didn’t initially intend it to be set in quite such a dystopian future, but it happened very organically. And honestly, looking at the world around us today it doesn’t seem like too far a stretch (superpowers aside).

Organized desk or messy desk?

Depends on if my girlfriend has tidied it recently or not!

When did you start writing?

This question always throws me a little. I wrote a lot as a child, I actually wrote my first book at eight with the help of my best friend (it was a terrible child-spy adventure heavily influenced by Alex Rider). As an adult, I never stopped making up stories, but I did stop writing them down. It takes me a long time to go to sleep, so usually I’ll just lie in bed for a couple of hours and go on imaginary adventures. When my girlfriend dared me to write a book I had the ideas ready to go and it only took me a couple of months to get them all on paper.

Why do you write?

Because I got so bored of being able to predict 90% of every book I read, and also reading about the same characters over and over again, none of whom I could really connect with. The world’s getting better now in terms of diversity in the media, but every time I set pen to paper I think of how alienated and different I felt as a kid and hope that someone, somewhere, will breathe a little easier if they see some of themselves in one of my characters. It’s all very well and good having LGBTQ+ books about being queer, or the books about POC where race is a defining factor, but I was never really interested in those books even if I had had access to them when I was younger. I’m mostly in it for the epic fight scenes and the dragons.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Half of each! I plot methodically and then one of my characters throws a spanner in the works at some point and I have to roll with it. Usually it improves the story immensely.

Do you have a day job? If so what is it?

I’m an English teacher, although right now I am teaching Philosophy, which is hilarious for me. I am terrible at Philosophy, especially all the parts where ‘there is no right or wrong answer’, because I think there always is a right answer, or at least one that is less wrong, and I don’t enjoy the discussions.

If you could be any of your characters, which would you choose?

Probably Leaf, from SLAM, who also comes into the main Psionics storyline in book two. He’s a street smart thief with a quip for every situation, very sticky fingers, the ability to con almost anyone with his mad acting chops and most importantly a heart of gold. Although he does hate fighting, which would be a waste of my blackbelts.

Blackbelts!?

I have two in Wado Ryu and one in Shotokan. I also got my black stripe in Tan Soo Do and have a whole rainbow of colours in other disciplines including Taekwondo, Judo and Aikido. I also boxed for a few years!

Can you talk a little bit about your gender identity?

Sure! Well, I identify as genderqueer, sometimes shortened to GQ, (you may have also heard the term ‘non-binary’ thrown around) which simply means that neither ‘man’ nor ‘woman’ really fits me. Gender identity is different to biological sex (chromosomes, hormones, etc.) in that it is more about how you feel on the inside than look on the outside. For a quick overview on the differences between gender, sex and gender expression, you should check out the genderbread person. I use the neutral third pronoun (they, their, them) which was actually the word of the year for 2015, which best reflects my gender identity.

Out of everything you have written, what is your favorite?

I just wrote a short story called ‘These Bodies Are Battlefields’ for an anthology, about Ice, a trans-masculine cage fighter in a medieval society. I’ve read it back more than anything else I’ve ever written, and I love it a little more each time.

What was your favorite toy as a child?

A soccer ball, you would rarely find me without one.

Do you ever write nonfiction?

I’m half-heartedly attempting to write some sort of memoirs about the scrapes a pair of ridiculous teenagers got into as they careen towards adulthood. It is loosely based on the nonsense I got up to back in the day. But don’t tell my parents.

What taught you the most about writing?

This might sound a little trite, but writing and reading did. Until you read your own work back, critically, (preferably with an editor) it’s difficult to get any distance from the words. I like picking my work up after a few months and reading it back and seeing how much I could improve it with some small changes.

What is your favorite TV show? Who is your favorite character?

My favourite show is a sci-fi called Person of Interest. The premise is a group of rag-tag misfits need to protect innocent people from crimes predicted by an Artificial Intelligence. It starts off as a fairly predictable episodic crime show, but veers rapidly into an extremely interesting and thought-provoking (and THRILLING) show dealing with issues like government oversight, terrorism (and they manage to be emphatically Not Racist the whole time!) and what it means to do the right thing. My favourite character from it is Sameen Shaw, who is an ex-government assassin who joins the team mid-series two. She has an Axis II personality disorder, officially making her a sociopath. Despite this she is very much on the side of Good. She kicks ass, takes names, shoots people in the dark through brick walls into the kneecap, and is generally in every way awesome. She also makes wonderful pop culture references and likes girls, if that wasn’t already enough.

Tea or coffee?

I’m British so I feel like I have to say tea? But I like both!

Who is the most frightening antagonist you’ve come across? Why?

I feel like it’s cheating to pick a TV show, but Kilgrave from Jessica Jones is giving me the monumental heebies, currently. This was made worse by a co-teacher of mine saying he didn’t understand why Kilgrave was scary. Kilgrave is terrifying because he takes people’s autonomy away, makes them do horrendous things, and you can’t fight him. Not even superheroes can resist his power, he can make you do anything he wants. And that is awful.

When reading for pleasure, do you read physical books or e-books?

Ebooks! Regular books are too heavy, but I do like to collect them for shelf decoration.

Do you read your reviews? Why or why not?

I do! I feel like one of the best ways to improve as a writer is by finding out what did and didn’t work for people. I’ve been lucky enough to only have a couple of negative reviews in amongst fistfuls of positive ones, so fortunately I’ve never had to be too down about it!

What are three things that you can’t live without?

Assuming that people aren’t covered by ‘things’; my kindle (full of books), chocolate, and my Blundstones (this is a very specific type of boot/shoe that approximately every single person in Canada owns. I did not understand why until I bought my first pair and now they are the only shoes I wear.).

How many words do you typically write per day?
Around two thousand, give or take. Although it does depend what I’m working on, I write dialogue scenes very slowly but action scenes extremely quickly. My background in martial arts and a willing participant in the house means I can very swiftly figure out the logistics, and I am very comfortable turning those logistics into words.

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Synopsis:

Telepaths, torture, mindwipes … the Institute has it all, and they use each of their brainwashed children as weapons, the way they see fit. To control society, repress its people. To make certain that they stay in power, no matter the cost. Serena’s baby brother Damon is one of those children, and these days he’s so altered that he doesn’t even recognize her.

When it comes to getting Damon away from those who kidnapped him, there’s nothing Serena won’t do. Even if she has to kill him to save him. First, though, she must prove to her father that she has what it takes to be a soldier against the insidious threat of the Institute. Her first mission has to be perfect.

But with inaccurate intelligence, unexpected storms, and Gav Belias, people’s hero of the Watch, on the prowl, will she even survive? If she doesn’t succeed, they’ll never let her go after her brother.

And that would be unthinkable, when it was her fault that he was taken in the first place.