East Aurora Advertiser

Author Continues Finding New Ways to Thrill Readers



It’s October. The nights are getting longer, the air is cooler and the shadows are taller. 

It’s the time of year where some people delight in being scared, even if it’s just a little, and they tend to second guess every sound that goes bump in the night. 

Local author Anthony Izzo creates this setting year-round. He is the author of over 20 books – all of them being thrillers or horrors – and he is on track to publish his third book this year.

Needless to say, he likes scaring people with his work.

“I guess that means I’m doing my job as a horror writer,” Izzo said, adding he thinks it’s gratifying when someone says that they were looking over their shoulder while reading one of his books. 

“One person told me that they were reading one of my books at night while waiting for their son to get out of work, and then their son opened the door, they were completely startled because they were so engrossed in the story.” 

Izzo published his first book in 2005, and everything he writes is on the dark side. His stories typically involve an element of the supernatural, such as werewolves, ghosts or vampires and they are sold under the genre of horror. Thrillers don’t have the supernatural element, but they can be suspenseful or scary, and often they are stories about a serial killer or a slasher. In recent years the lines have been blurred in this genre by publishers who may list a book as a supernatural thriller when it is really more of a horror story.

“They are separate but they overlap,” Izzo said.

Right now he is working on a novella called The Last Raided Sky. It is classified as a novella because of word count. Novels are typically over 50,000 words. The story is about a town that is under siege from an alien-type rain that transforms people into violent creatures. Before that, he wrote a book called A Rough Night at the Redeye Mine. It is about two teachers who, on summer vacation, explore the west in their Airstream Trailer. They stop to tour an abandoned mine where a disaster killed miners some 80 years ago. The characters soon find out that the legends of miners returning for vengeance are more than just stories. 

When he completes the novella, Izzo said he will probably start in the next book in the NightShade series, which he started earlier this year about werewolves. 

To date, he has never found himself at a time when he is short on story ideas. 

Werewolf image in a sitting pose

“I love the genre,” he said. “Things that happen in everyday life can be added with a ‘what if’ twist. That has been a great tool. The more you read and the more movies you watch keeps ideas flowing because you do get inspired from other movies and books.”

There are different techniques for building suspense and cliffhangers, but Izzo said that the main thing is recognizing what gets under his skin and scares him, because then he will more likely create that effect for the reader.

“In order to write something that is frightening, the idea of it has to scare you first,” he said.

All of his books are planned out with a rough outline after he is inspired by an idea. When planning a trilogy, he also likes to plot out where the next book will end. Izzo also keeps a master list of all of the names he chooses to use for characters, and this extra step saves time when working on trilogies.

Izzo’s creativity does not stop with writing: he also designs his book covers. Sometimes he creates them while he is writing, while at other times he creates an image then bases a story around it.

He also self-publishes all of his own books.

“I used to have an agent and a contract, but when ebooks took off 10 years ago, I began self-publishing my works,” he said.

Writing is not Izzo’s full-time job. He works in the IT industry, and like many others, he has been working at home during the pandemic. He typically spends 10 to 15 hours per week writing, and he finds that he gets more work done when he wakes up early and writes rather than staying up late to write.

“I’ve never been much of a night writer,” he said. 

Perhaps it’s because of the genre he focuses on. His characters seem to have their worst nightmares come true at night.

“I feel like I am at my best from 6 a.m. until noon. Before work.”

Izzo has a personal goal of continually publishing and building up a backlist of books. He also writes blog posts that serve as encouragement to other writers. He taught a continuing education class in East Aurora about how to start a novel and keep it going and he has also given a talk at the library about publishing and writing. 

“Any way people want to write I try to encourage them, and if I can be a source of inspiration I like to try to,” he said.

Over the years, he has learned a lot too. When he is stuck on a plot point, he takes a pause to figure out how the characters will get out of the situation, and what the next turning point might be. 

“I have never had writer’s block but sometimes I do get stuck. If I walk away from it and do something else then sometimes the answer presents itself,” he said.

He has also learned more about using just the right words and details in a story, and his novels are noticeably thinner, while still being full of context. They used to be 100,000 words but now they average closer to 60,000.

“I think I have learned a lot, especially what to leave out. My books have gotten leaner and shorter, which I think are a good thing. It’s more of a stream-lined story,” Izzo said. “As you get older, your world changes and you mature and that helps as well.”

Izzo’s books are for sale at Larwoods, the Bookworm, and all ebook platforms such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Amazon also carries his book in paperback. For more information, go to  www.anthonyizzo.com

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