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A University of Tennessee Martin graduate, she's been writing and scribbling since she was in middle school.

Today she has authored 27 books.

Coming up next on Tennessee Writes, we're sitting down with Alicia Chumney.

We'll find out how her scribbling has turned into so many books, where her stories come from.

Stay with us.

Books about Tennessee.

Books that come from Tennessee authors.

Books and stories with a Tennessee twist.

West Tennessee PBS presents Tennessee Writes.

Hello.

My name is Peter Noll, and I welcome you to this edition of Tennessee Writes, the show that takes you into the world of books with a Tennessee connection.

Grab a cup of coffee, your favorite comfy chair, as we get up close and personal with authors.

Some are from Tennessee, others have moved here, but they all have a Tennessee twist.

Today's Tennessee Writes welcomes author Alicia Chumney.

She's a University of Tennessee Martin graduate who studied English literature.

That education has definitely paid off as she is the author of 27 young adult and adult romance books.

Please welcome Alicia Chumney.

Welcome.

-Hi.

Welcome.

Have a seat.

27 books.

27.

Wow.

How long did that take you?

It depends on the story.

Some of my stories range from 10,000 words to 120,000 words.

Of course, the bigger word count the longer it takes.

20,000 words can take me anywhere from three weeks to six weeks throughout the entire process from getting the words down on the page to the final edit, and then of course blurb and everything l..

The 120,000-word book was part of a trilogy.

That took me about-- I'm going to say two years to write because-- Wow.

You went to UTM.

-I went to UTM.

-Where are you originally from?

-Jackson.

You're a native of Jackson.

I'm a native of Jackson.

I've lived here my whole life except for my four years at Martin.

Okay.

Wow.

Did you know back when you were a middle school scribbler that one day you will write 27 books?

I did not know that.

I had a middle school seventh-grade teacher, Ms.

Beard.

Ms. Morris now.

She assigned a short story for us to read aloud to the class.

I wrote it, I read it, my classmates loved it, and then it just snowballed from there.

How old were you then?

Oh.

I don't remember.

I just know I was in the seventh grade.

-What school was that at?

-Northeast Middle School.

-Okay.

-I don't know where Ms. Morris is now, but she was actually department head in my first teaching job, so it definitely came full circle.

Wow.

Ms. Morris, wherever you are, this is what teachers do.

They instill these dreams in your students.

Tell me what you thought you were going to be doing.

I thought I was going to be teaching English.

It was the more practical route, but I don't like lesson planning.

I hate giving the tests and I'd rather just sit down and write.

I substitute-taught for a while.

Then in the last year that I substitute-taught, The Enchanted Forest popped into my head and I started writing it.

Then in the last - definitely the last year that I wrote - some of my friends self-published.

I was like, "If they can do it, I can do it."

I've been trying the traditional route.

I was getting cut off and gatekept and all those other stuff.

It's like, "If they can do it, I can do it," so I did it.

I talked to some authors who we've talked.. the other route.

Is that called the professional publishing route?

It's independent route or traditional route.

-Okay.

-Traditional route, you go through, you get your agent.

You have the agent do the work, get the publisher.

Some people will go directly to the publishers, cross their fingers and hope for the best.

The agent's like your lawyer, so to speak.

It'd be best to go the lawyer route because they know the legal stuff.

You went self-published route?

I started off trying the traditional route.

It did not pan out.

I gave up for a while, and then my friends basically did it.

Then I was like, "Oh, this is not as hard as it is.

I'm going to try this route."

Then The Bookworm Next Door.

It was a fiction press story that I had done.

I had it.

The readers loved it, so I just pulled it, did some little editing, and threw it up online on Amazon and it went wild from there.

When you self-publish and you put it up on Amazon yourself, are they taking all the money or do you get some?

That's a great question.

There's two price tiers.

If you price your book less than $2.99, they get 70% of the royalties.

You only get 30, which amounts to about-- Most of my stuff that's in that price tier is ranked 99 cents.

I'll get about 30 cents off of it.

$2.99 and above, you get 70% of the royalties.

They get 30, which was a huge deal when I looked at the picture because traditionally published authors can get maybe 5% of the royalties.

Maybe.

They get that first big check, but that check's got to get paid back first, and then they can start getting 5%.

Sometimes they got to split that 5% with their agents.

I was like, "No, I'll keep the 70%."

I know it's more work on my end, cover design, blurb, finding all the editors, paying the editors and the cover designer, all that.

I'll take the 70% because that just ends up being more in my pocket once everything's paid off.

Sure.

If you had to do it all over again, you would do the self-publishe.. from the start?

I would do the self-published route from the start.

It hasn't always been an option.

When I started trying to publish it wasn't an option, but I would have done it sooner and I probably would have made a few other changes in that first year.

I made a lot of mistakes.

I would not do those mistakes again.

When you tell people, they ask, "What do you do for a living?"

You're at a cocktail party, in a supermarket at Kroger and somebody says, "What do you do?"

What do you tell them?

-I'm an author and I have an Etsy shop.

Then they ask what Etsy is, which is basically an online shopping mall.

I've bought from Etsy.

I'm sure many viewers have too.

Tell us when they say writer and they say, "What do you write?"

I write young adult and new adult contemporary romances.

It wasn't until recently that I started admitting writing adult contemporary romances under a pen name.

There's that as well.

Why does the author use a pen name?

Privacy reasons.

When I first started I was still in the school, so I was still substitute teaching.

I had a pen name for my stories so that the students, if they found out I wrote something, they wouldn't just Google my name and find all my books.

I wanted a little bit of "amonynity."

Sometimes I stumble over my words.

I'm better at writing them down.

[chuckles] -That's okay.

I think we all understand.

Some authors I've talked to, they get stalkers, people that are really into their stories.

Especially fantasy, I think you get a fan base that's maybe not huge but it's very dedicated.

Yes.

Those original bookworms, that's what I called them because they were obsessed with The Bookworm Next Door.

They wanted more stories and they wanted more stories and they want..

I wrote several short stories to go along with The Boo.. Then I wanted to write something else.

To this day, until I started releasing College Years, I was getting questions like, "Are you going to write any more Bookworms?"

I was like, "I wasn't planning on it."

I thought I had stopped at a good spot, summer after graduation.

No, they wanted more, so I'm working on giving them some more.

That's great.

Then of course there's The Enchanted Forest fans.

I've been throwing enough books out there to keep them happy for a while, but that's the best I can do.

[music] Let's dive into The Enchanted Forest.

Now, this is the first book of an eight-book series?

Nine?

-Nine book series.

And counting.

12-book intended with a short story collection at the end that concludes all the bonus epilogues and stuff, and a few other Enchanted Forest spinoff ideas that pop into my head every now and then.

When you started with the first book, Enchanted Forest Book 1, did you know it was going to go on to all of these other titles?

No.

No.

I had actually started with Book ..

It is a Beauty and the Beast retelling that matches up with Cinderella, but I was having trouble turning it into something different.

I put it aside for a little bit.

I was substitute teaching long-term, had a biology interim position, and during the planning period, The Enchanted Forest popped in my head.

I'd already put The Cursed Garden aside for a while.

That popped into my head and that's the point where I realized, "Okay, I started with the wrong book," and then just snowballed from there.

Then once I finished Book 5, I was like, "I referenced all these other characters.

I need to tell their stories too."

It just became all-- Encompassing.

This story is sort of going back between the real world, per se, and a make-believe fantasy world.

You sort of intertwine.

It's like the main character is walking in between classes and a.. before she knows it, she's in sort of the Enchanted Forest.

When I was writing that scene, I was thinking about walking to one of my English classes on the UTM campus.

I know the exact location in my head on the UTM campus where she goes from UTM to fairytale world.

It was just-- See, it's UTM-based right there in Martin.

A lot of my stories have a base in a school that I have been in.

Bookworm Next Door is Northside.

The Hastings Siblings is South Gibson.

Another story is in Milan, and it's just-- Really, it's West Tennessee-based, you know.

-Yes.

They're all West Tennessee-based.

Are the characters based on people you've met?

Some of the exes that I killed off, yes.

Usually the villains though.

[chuckles] For the readers who haven't jumped into The Enchanted Forest series yet, give them a synopsis.

I don't want to give anything away; the spoilers.

Like you said, Gabby is walking across campus.

It is the morning of her 21st birthday.

She just turned 21.

She's walking across campus going to her 8:00 AM class.

8:00 AM classes, go figure.

One moment she is in campus, next she is in a fairy tale village.

The cute guy that's in her class, who turns out to be her bodyguard, tells her, "You are the heir to the Wonderland throne.

I'm told your mother's dying.

We got to get you back to Wonderland.

Unfortunately, we're all the way on the other side in a completely different kingdom.

You got to go through three quests to get back home, hopefully before your mom dies.

Good luck with that."

Of course, it combines elements of Alice in Wonderland fairy tales.

I just love fairy tales in general.

You see elements of a lot of books that I've read.

It references popular islands offshooting off of the fairy tale kingdoms of Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Peter Pan.

They're all just smushed together.

I guess part of it's a little bit of a love letter to my favorite books.

I've talked to other fantasy writers.

They said most of their books are mashups of traditional fairy tales that we all know, and maybe more modern ones.

I love retellings.

I love reimagining them.

It makes my life a little bit harder because there's all the outlines and the plotting and all the elements that have to be included.

There had to be the three quests.

There had to be dragons.

There has to be this, there has to be that to make the fairy tales even just recognizable as fairy tales.

You have to twist them a little bit or squish them together to make them something new, something different because if you don't make it a little bit different, once you read one you've read all the fairy tales.

What's your writing process?

You mentioned do you do an outline.

Do you do a plot?

Do you write it all, or do you just..

Both.

It depends on the story.

Some of the stories have had outlines because there's elements that I have to hit.

Some of my contemporary retellings, especially the Jane Austen ones, there's elements that I have to hit.

I'll outline to make sure I get those elements of those stories included.

Some of my other ones, Bookworm, Hastings series, all of them, it's just I will write, and whatever flows out hopefully makes sense at the end of the rough draft.

If not, I can fix it in the second draft.

Of your 27 books you've written, what is your personal favorite?

My personal favorite?

The Consequences of Being Aiden.

It was the first story that I wrote-- Well, not the first one I wrote after the Bookworms.

I'm proud of the Bookworms.

Consequences of Being Aiden, it was my first retelling, actually, because I took Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Great Gatsby and smushed those two together.

I love Twelfth Night.

It's my favorite.

Having my character being conned into pretending to be her brother, and then having that older brother's best friend's romance and all that, it's still my favorite whenever I have to reread it for whatever reason.

Of your 27 books, what's the best-selling?

The Enchanted Forest, right here.

Enchanted Forest followed by the Jane Austen Variations.

Enchanted Forest probably because it's been around longer.

[music] Alicia, we've come to the part of Tennessee Writes we like to call Lightning Round.

Oh no.

It is where we ask our gues.. a series of book-related questions as quickly as they can in two minutes and we see how many you can answer.

Now, if you can't think of an answer, just say pass and I'll move on to the next one.

The clock starts after my first question.

-Okay.

-Do you want to play?

-Sure.

Why not?

-Okay.

Two minutes on the clock.

What is your favorite book of all time?

Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice, and Howl's Moving Castle.

-What book are you reading right now?

The Pumpkin Spice Cafe.

Last book you finished reading?

I don't remember the name of it.

What book have you read multiple times?

The three that I listed before as my favorite books.

How many times each?

Anne of Green Gables, at least 12.

Pride and Prejudice, probably six, and Howl's Moving Castle, about the same as Pride and Prejudice.

What author, living or dead, would you most like to have a dinner date with?

Maybe Jane Austen.

Paper books or e-books?

Both.

Who would you want to play you if your book is made int.. or your life?

Ohhhh.

I'll have to pass.

Favorite place to read books?

Wherever I can read a book at.

Least favorite place to read books?

In an uncomfortable position.

First book you can remember reading?

Baby-Sitters Club.

On average, how many books do you read in one year?

In one year?

Between 12 to 36.

What book is on your list to read next?

Lana Harper's first book in her series-- I'm blanking on the name.

How many books are on your nightstand right now?

12.

What book took you the longest time to finish reading?

There are five books that I have not finished reading.

Vanity Fair is one that pops into my head.

Do you own more paperbacks or hard books?

Well, three months ago I would have said paperbacks, but I've been working on converting them into hardbacks.

What's your favorite movie based on a book?

Ella Enchanted.

How many hours a week on average do you spend on reading books?

Not as much as I would like.

Probably about two hours a week at this point, but I'm in the middle of working on a book.

That's two minutes.

[music] -Alicia- -Yes.

-we've come to the period where we would like to hear you read some of your book.

Would you do that for us?

I'd be glad to.

Alicia Chumney reading her first book in The Enchanted Forest series.

This is the prologue.

It was going to be a solemn day that the spade would rather not deal with.

Emotions were not his strongest suit, but he was the only card with the capability to transport the Crown Princess to the other realm.

It was a Wonderland tradition for the future ruler to be fostered by someone in a different world, and the time had come for Princess Gabrielle to leave so that she would forget all about Wonderland and the Enchanted Forest.

Even he, the stoic spade, thought that being fostered out at two years old was too early, but he was not one to argue with Wonderland magic.

The land would slowly die if the royal family did not abide by their tradition.

Before the Queen of Wonderland's head guard and his youngest son had even left their cottage, the spade had explained to Ethan the way things would be done.

He told him about the magical bond that would form between the children in order to make things easier for Ethan to be able to track the princess when it was time to bring her home.

"Does that mean I'll be the princess's tracker?"

Ethan quietly asked his father.

"Yes," the spade answered.

"Do you understand what your role will be?"

Nodding his head, Ethan repeated what he had been told.

"When Crown Princess Gabrielle turns 21, I will be the person responsible for her returning to the Enchanted Forest in Wonderland."

"But do you understand what that means?"

the spade repeated.

"Before her birthday, I will be going to the other realm and guarding her.. who might wish to hurt her.

On her birthday, I will open the portal to help her return home.

I will teach her how to survive the Enchanted Forest and tell her everything she will need to know about our world."

The spade remained silent.

It was the only way he could hide the lump that had formed in his throat.

He had never realized how much being a part of the Card family, especially having the queen's head bodyguard as a father, caused his children to grow up quicker than most children their ages.

He did not tell his son that there was a slim possibility that there could be more to their magical bond than just being able to track the princess in 19 years.

Looking over at his cheerful queen, he was more than thankful that true love was enough to mostly break their bond, even though the Queen frequently asked her trusty spade for advice.

But he also knew that Ethan would not become a Card, and that could change everything.

Holding the squirming two-year-old in her arms, the queen tried to keep her tears to a minimum.

Her husband had already left the room with her four-year-old son, and the spade suspected that the king was using the boy as an excuse to leave the room and to keep his wife from seeing his own tears.

Seeing their youngest off to be fostered in another world was terrifying.

His own youngest son, Ethan, was standing at attention in only the way that.. mostly tall and still, but with the occasional twitch and fidget, his dark hair managing to fall over his forehead, no matter how often the boy tried to fix it.

The spade knew that Ethan would meet the princess again one day.

They needed the boy around to be able to identify the princess later, thanks to the magical bond that would form once the queen handed the toddler over to his son.

Nineteen years later.

Ethan Samuel Jackson was a man of many names, and he was informally called Jack Huntsman by his associates and colleagues.

The last thing the Huntsman was expecting was to find himself standing in formation in front of his father, the retired spade, his brother the Hart, and the Queen Alice V of Wonderland.

He had forgotten about his tracking bond to the princess until his father had called him for duty.

Normally, Henry the Hart would summon him for family things, so getting a message from his father was intriguing enough on its own.

When the retired spade sent his youngest son a message that Jack needed to meet with him about a task, it meant that Ethan needed to drop everything and appear before the spade.

Standing tall, the Queen addressed him.

"Almost nineteen years ago, you and your father traveled with my daughter into another world on a mission.

It is time for you to track down the Harringtons and bring back my daughter.

Her 21st birthday is quickly approaching, and she will need a familiar face if she is to take on the trials of the Enchanted Forest."

The Queen's speech triggered a faint memory from when he was six years old and holding the hand of a tiny girl as they led her to and through the portals of the worlds and handed her over to her adoptive parents in a land called Earth, or the real world.

"Your Majesty, was I wrong in thinking that the princess will turn 21.. Jack asked, wondering why he could not leave closer to the big day.

"Yes, she does, but I doubt that she will trust a virtual stranger.. her on the first full day of her 21st-first year and tell her that she is a princess of Wonderland and must return home as quickly as possible."

The spade looked at the queen before nodding his head.

It is a well-kept secret that the queen is dying, and it is imperative that the next Wonderland heir is found and quickly taught what she needs to learn about the kingdom.

[music] Thank you so much for sharing from your book.

I guess people can be following you on social media.

You may do that again.

Yes.

I have plans on readin.. and posting it on YouTube for those who like audiobooks.

I did it during lockdown, but those videos have gone long buried on my Facebook page, so, yes.

Are any of your books available as an audiobook?

Not right now.

It's too expensive for me to produce.

Because you're self-published.

Because I'm self-published.

It takes around minimum $10,000 for an audiobook.

There are systems in place where I could share - like profit-share - until the narrator gets paid off, but it's j.. on my immediate to-do list.

You'll be doing your own readings on YouTube?

-Yes.

-Okay.

At least The Enchanted Forest.

At least the first book in each of the series.

You said you're working on a new book.

I'm working on several new books.

How many?

At the moment I'm in the process of three.

Aha, the life of a busy author.

27 books and counting.

How can people get in contact with you?

You mentioned you have an Etsy store- Etsy store, yes.

-and that's where .. like book covers and tablet covers and e-reader covers.

Where can people get in touch with you?

I have a Linktree on all my social medias.

A Linktree.

Tell us what that is.

Linktree is just a link in the bio of my Instagram, which is, I think, ajchumney_author.

-We'll put this all up on the screen.

It's a link in the bio that will go to all the stuff.

It has the newest releases.

It has the first book in the series.

It leads to the e-book links and the paperback links, which the paperbacks can be found anywhere.

E-books are just primarily Amazon.

It has a link for my metal stamping shop.

It has a link for my author shop, which includes signed books, e-book covers, eventually some bookmarks, and some other things.

It even has links to the rest of the social medias.

You're a multifaceted author.

You're making bookmarks, you're making book covers, and you're writing boo.. That's incredible.

-Yes.

I crochet.

I've tried knitting, it doesn't work.

Of course, some of the book covers that I've been working on have been crocheted book covers.

Oh, wow.

Because it's easy to do while I'm sitting in the middle of my author's guild meetings during our shared sessions.

If I'm crocheting, my brain calms down and I can listen to everybody else.. their stuff.

Alicia, sadly we've come to the end of this episode of Tennessee Writes, but we hope to have you back.

27 books and counting.

Before you go, we would like to ask if you would sign your book for us.

I'll be glad to.

Let's see.

What should I write?

Okay.

[music] "Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Happy reading."

This is the part I've got to be careful because I tend to give my bank signature.

We don't want to give the bank signature.

For comments about today's show or to suggest a Tennessee author for a future program, email us at tennessee-writes@westtnpbs.org.

Tennessee Writes, on air and streaming now.

[music] This program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you.

Please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

[music]