Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #13 April 2015 | Page 117

Having written her first poem at 8 and her first short story at 12, Valery Riddle has come a long way from an amateur to a self-taught writer as she was trying to find herself in the one talent that really mattered. Between the understanding that small scribbles on the paper might mean something more than simple everyday words and the hope that she has something to contribute, the writer dared to go deeper into the shadows of human weaknesses and desires to find the unquenched well of subjects. Be it an innocent human error behind some drastic action or frightful hidden motives in everyday life, Valery sets on a journey to put her characters in such circumstances that would reveal it all. Just another face in the crowd, she watches people around her as a silent observer to find new plots to explore, while her true inspiration blooms in the quietness of nature, away from noisy cars and smoky cities, on seashores under the ever-changing sky. To follow her own words from the works that she herself calls “verses-in-prose”: “People crave bread and circuses, and I crave to see those people. I will let them outrun me to see them better. However close the sunset is, the sun will always remain in the sky and my shade will not disappear. I will not walk off my path to become closer to people. And I know that when I am asked for an explanation I shall not give it”. PAGE 116