M. Lopes da Silva is a bisexual poet, author and artist from Los Angeles. Their work has been published or is forthcoming from Ghost Orchid Press's Cosmos, Neon Horror Zine, and Nightscript. Unnerving Magazine recently published their novella Hooker: a pro-queer, pro-sex work, feminist retrowave pulp thriller.
IN SOMNIO editor Alex Woodroe spoke with da Silva about the sensory stimulation of soapmaking, the importance of restoring and revitalizing our identity, and the promising future frontiers of Queer Horror.
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AW: Does your story touch on anything personal to you? Alternatively, does it touch on any current events, world fears, philosophy, morality, moods, trends?
MLdS: In the past I have been partnered in very toxic relationships, and part of the cost of those relationships were pieces of my identity. It takes a lot of work to actually realize the value of your identity, and back then I did not have the support network or mental healthcare to stand up for myself. So this story is about the erasure of the self. Cultural erasure. The erasure of sexuality and queerness. The things we should not forfeit but are often persuaded to do so for the comfort of others.
AW: Aside from writing, what other artforms grab your attention?
MLdS: There are so many! I love to explore. Currently I really love making comics – they present an opportunity to study concepts in potentially very abstract ways that are unique from writing fiction or even poetry. I love to use my hands to make things, and drawing tends to satisfy that itch, but last year I ventured into soap making, and have found soap to also be an interesting way to tell stories. The senses can be engaged – sight, smell, touch – to convey an actual sense of place. Memories. Or newness created from nostalgic ingredients. I find this to be similar to writing, but distinct. I started an Etsy shop called SaltCatSoap earlier this year and luckily so far people have been very receptive to the soap narratives that I have been telling.
AW: Is LA writer-friendly, and does it ever bleed into your writing?
MLdS: Los Angeles is full of writers, and wonderful places and people for writers to meet. The trick is to get out of your apartment first. I’ve found that Los Angeles ends up in almost all of my fiction in one way or other because I’ve lived here for most of my life. In “A House Without Ghosts” there’s a lot of Malibu in there. Manhattan Beach. Santa Monica.
AW: Do you have any specific formative memories that roped you into Gothic fiction?
MLdS: I remember when I was about nine years old I heard a librarian read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and that was basically it for me. I remember how vividly I was drawn into the story, to the point where it felt like my heart was racing the narrator to reach the final line. Great stuff.
AW: Did you ever embrace the Goth culture? Carry a parasol? Do you still? If not, what was your teen ‘scene’?
MLdS: I only came out as bisexual in my late twenties, and have only very recently come out as non-binary, so my teen ‘scene’ was incredibly closeted! I wore a lot of random interesting clothing pieces (including a chain mail choker that’s still in my rotation today) and gender neutral items back then, as well as the stuff trending in the nineties. So a lot of terrible decisions i.e. exposed stomach/crop tops going on. Towering wooden clogs. A puffy blue fake fur coat. I actually do own a striped parasol and love a great deal about Goth culture, but I currently wear a lot of California casual that I like to spike with personal things I’ve collected over the years.
AW: Why Horror? Are you and Horror exclusive, and if not, what else do you flirt with?
MLdS: I think that investigating and deconstructing our pain and fears is probably the noblest and most interesting goal an author can have. Horror is a natural fit for these investigations, although whether anything of great depth comes out of the text depends on the author’s willingness to engage with these emotions fully. I try to do my best every time, but sometimes the result is more effective, sometimes less. I don’t like to restrict myself to any one genre, though, and often find it easier to give myself creative “breaks” by writing poetry and speculative fiction in between horror projects. I actually didn’t know what genre “A House Without Ghosts” was going to be when I first started writing it. It was a story that spilled out of me in a coffee shop in Santa Monica. I sat down and wrote the first paragraph and abruptly knew how the story ended – that was it. Because folk and fairy tales frequently influence my work, while I wrote it I thought that “A House Without Ghosts” might end up being speculative fiction. There’s still a lot of spec fic elements that remain in the story as it is, but I feel that in the end it cooled into the horror mold.
AW: Your novella, 'Hooker', tackled some themes that were both brave and incredibly fun and satisfying, marrying retrowave pulp horror-thrillers with feminism and queerness. Are we right to hope that the future of horror, and particularly indie horror, is looking more diverse and exciting than its past?
MLdS: There are so many fantastic queer horror authors out there right now in the indie scene. Hailey Piper, Eric LaRocca, Jessica Guess, Eve Harms and Eric Raglin are some names that come to me off the top of my head. They have strong voices and are doing exciting things with the genre. If readers are bored with mainstream horror and yearning for more queer voices in it, they should definitely start checking out independent authors.
AW: Where can people see more of your past/upcoming work?
MLdS: My novella, Hooker, is available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble online, however it’s probably best to search using my full name—M. Lopes da Silva—because the algorithm is an enigma. My upcoming projects are listed here and I usually make plenty of announcements on Twitter.
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IN THEIR OWN WORDS:
M. Lopes da Silva reads a selection from their story, “A House Without Ghosts”; watch below, then please support the IN SOMNIO campaign on Kickstarter!