Chris Kuriata lives in and often writes about the Niagara region of Canada. His dark fantasy and horror stories have appeared in publications in Canada, the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, and Japan. His debut novel Sacrifice of the Sisters Lot is published by Palimpsest Press.
His story, “Family Not Going To Heaven”, was originally published in Cosmorama, and will appear in BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror Volume Two, available to preorder now.
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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-nommed story, please.
The human body's similarities to a jet airplane covered in cigarette smoke will prevent the passage to paradise after death, but a simple dietary cleanse can cure damnation. Try the soup.
What does your writing routine 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? Are you one of those true modern Weirdos who write your entire novel on your phone?
Like the way my cat has half a dozen favorite sleeping spots around the house, I write outside, or at the library, or at a favorite bar...Whatever venue I choose is usually determined by the weather. I write nearly everything longhand first, in a nice notebook. I've experienced the horror of digital files getting corrupted or just disappearing, so I like the comfort of knowing I have a hardcopy backup, even if it's filled with first draft errors.
What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences/influences helped sculpt this definition for you in your creative journey?
"Weird" to me means discovering the illogical and the physically impossible are not only true, but so natural and familiar to most inhabitants of the world that they consider these "extraordinary" things mundane. The collision of these two different perspectives can be beautiful as often as they are horrifying.
The opening passages of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House showed me a story was capable of communicating ideas I would have thought impossible. Roberto Bolano's 2666 and Herman Melville's Moby Dick showed me how much Weirdness there is to be found in the real world.
What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?
I once stayed at the (now demolished) Plains Hotel in Regina, Saskatchewan. One night, the door to my room opened, by whom I presumed to be another guest. He was dressed for bed, in a white undershirt and underwear. I waited for him to realize, "Oops, wrong room," but instead he came prancing inside, moving his legs like a boxer entering the ring, and went into the bathroom. I followed behind him, to say, "Dude, you gotta get out of my room now," but the bathroom was empty. No sign of my visitor.
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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two, is out June 26th.
