Mae Murray has her Horror bona fides covered: she’s a regular contributor to Fangoria, Dread Central and more; she edited the critically acclaimed anthology, The Book of Queer Saints, in 2022; she’s currently charting a course through her first novel; and her short fiction has been published in numerous venues, including Shortwave Magazine, where her BRAVE NEW WEIRD story, “The Imperfection”, first appeared.
Much like Sonora Taylor, she’s also a tireless proponent of Indie Horror and one of its brightest cheerleaders. I chatted with Mae about the inspiration for her story, wearing so many Horror hats, and more.
Responses have been edited for clarity.
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“The Imperfection” deals pretty openly with some of your own life trials. Do you mind elaborating on what informed this particular story?
I've been reading and watching a lot of body horror lately. A lot of the stories I read dealt with body dysmorphia, queerness, transness, all things I can relate to on a certain level. But I kept coming back to the descriptions of pain in the contortion of skin and bone, the feelings the characters had of being betrayed by their bodies.
I thought about how that pain and feeling of betrayal isn't weird or fantastic to me; it is part of my reality as a person living with lupus. Could the real-life experience of illness be the heart of a horror story, rather than an indulgent work of nonfiction? The other side of the horror is the mental illness element, which I think isn't as obvious in the story. Mira, like myself, has obsessive compulsive disorder. In my personal life, OCD is one of the reasons I remained undiagnosed for as long as I did. Had we caught my lupus sooner, I don't know what life would be like now.
In the story, Mira's OCD gets worse after diagnosis because she has an intense fear of living with something inside her [that’s] beyond her control. It's definitely the most personal story I've ever written.
You’ve taken a very pull-the-curtain-back approach to writing your first novel, Dinner is Served; you’re essentially revealing it in live time as you write it. Care to share any of the unique challenges this has presented? Or maybe even more of interest: has it been helpful or revelatory in any way?
Dinner is Served was just a tagline before the official title, I'm Sorry If I Scared You, came to me. And that in itself is the nature of a project being shaped in real time and on a public platform. The biggest challenge of doing a project like this, especially my first novel, is knowing how much to reveal and when. There are so many things I want to be a surprise, and I worry about the process diluting the experience of the story.
But there is also an incredibly freeing element. It's like going on a public platform and pitching your screenplay to investors—the investors being the readers—and then taking them on the journey of creating the project the way a producer might, which makes them, in some part, creators themselves. I think for writers who have gained enough faith from readers, this could be a way to support themselves as indie creators without ever having to dip their toes into traditional publishing. $16,300 for a first novel is a lot of money for an indie writer, especially one who has never written a book. It was done through community support, faith in the campaign, and I think, more than anything, a desire to see someone succeed at something this unorthodox.
The way publishing works now, you spend years writing a book, only for it to sit in the 'trunk' because no one will pick it up. With my model, there's no agent or publishing house telling you the audience isn't there. You have the autonomy to go out, find your audience, get that support, and prove everyone wrong before they can say boo.
So while the process of the writing is daunting and vulnerable, it's also given me quite a lot of hope for other writers who may want to repeat the same model—as long as they can deliver. That's the gamble. If you don't deliver, you can never do it again. And I want to do it again, bigger and better every time.
What does your writing routine/setup look like? Do you have an office? A preferred coffee shop? The back of the bus? Standing under your neighbor’s eaves, avoiding the rain?
My writing routine/setup varies depending on what I need both mentally and physically on any particular day. I can never really guess at what I'll need, so I try to keep all options available: typing on my laptop, handwriting, typing on a wireless keyboard on my iPad, or on my recently acquired manual typewriter circa 1980 (a Christmas gift from my partner). We were living in a small apartment in Boston up until last summer, then we moved to the 'burbs for a bigger space—including a two-bedroom apartment so we could finally have a home office. That's where most of my "busy work" is done; outlining stories/novels, answering emails, filming interviews/recording podcasts, etc.
But if I'm being honest, I write best in coffee shops and at the library, so you know if I'm in one of those two places, I'm getting work done!
What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences helped sculpt this definition?
Weird, to me, means letting a reader in on an experience that isn't universal.
When I think of contemporary creators who do this best for me, my first thoughts turn to the screen; screenwriter and director Noah Hawley, who created FX's Fargo and Legion. Bryan Fuller, who created NBC's Hannibal. Julie Taymor, who directed the truly wild adaptation of Shakespeare's weirdest work, Titus Andronicus. I went to school for screenwriting, so I feel like the stories I write are always movies first, at least in my head. These creators have mastered the art of harnessing a universal feeling in viewers that make even the most macabre scenes feel familiar.
Contemporary writers I feel Weird kinship with: Ottessa Moshfegh, Melissa Broder, S.A. Cosby, Kelly J. Ford.
Classical writers who created the foundation of my Weirdness: Mary Shelley and Flannery O'Connor.
On the Tenebrous Discord, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist. It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.
Um. Um! Girl, Interrupted x Adam Faucett! (Adam Faucett is an Arkansas-based musician I saw perform in a smoky dive bar once, and I have truly never been the same).
What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you?
My 7th great-grandfather was John Bell, the only person recorded in American history to have died of supernatural causes. In Southern folklore, the Bell Witch of Tennessee plagued John Bell, his family, and his community in a series of attacks over the course of many years, only ceasing after John Bell's funeral. I learned of the legend when I was around 10, and women in my family are said to have a gift of predicting the future—most notably, when someone is going to die. When I was 11, I had a premonition that my stepmother would die in a car accident, and she did...the very next day.
OK, I’m formally declaring that this is the winning answer. Unless someone else has even Weirder distant relatives.
You’ve edited an anthology; written essays for Fangoria and the like; a pile of short fiction; and the aforementioned novel. Suffice to say, you wear many hats. Do you have a preference, or do you foresee yourself aiming your trajectory more precisely in the future?
I like to say I have a finger in every pie, and it's true. Each role fulfills a different need in me. As a nonfiction writer, I can tell my life story and talk about the things that interest me. As an editor, I can be a good community member by offering publication to new or marginalized voices. I can work one-on-one with writers and be part of a collaborative process. In fiction, I can use my imagination; reimagine things in my life I wish had gone differently, reshape narratives I've told myself, challenge myself to create a certain kind of emotion or tackle a new way to write prose.
I think the ultimate goal for me is the screenplay. When I was 14, my grandma bought me Screenwriting for Dummies for my birthday, and I'm still that 14-year-old trying to figure out how to get a movie made. But I don't want to give up any of it, ever. It all makes me happy, even when it doesn't.
BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume One, is on sale February 6th. Preorder print and eBooks here.