Leo Oliveira hails from Ontario, Canada, where he studied psychology and creative writing. He nurses a soft spot for rats, prehistory, and flawed queer characters. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fusion Fragment and Heartlines Spec, among others. His work has also been nominated for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers and Best Horror of the Year.
Leo’s BNW-winning story, “They Remember Faces”, originally appeared in Radon Journal.
BRAVE NEW WEIRD is out now! You can order it here.
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Give us the elevator pitch of your BNW-winning story.
The former research director of a company dedicated to industrializing endangered species confesses why he killed his boss. (Spoilers: it has something to do with ravens)
This world is friggin' Weird in a lot of ways right now, and many of those ways are not the fun kind. What secret tips can you share to help others navigate this mess on a daily basis?
Don't punch your ticket early is number one. Don't give up. Find joy where you can, be creative, be thoughtful. I've adopted the politics of spite. Absurdism. Do whatever you have to to get through the day, and hopefully something that'll make you look forward to the next one.
Do you take naps?
Sometimes. Usually past my first alarm and up to my second.
Multiple alarms? Masochist (I have them too).
On the Tenebrous Discord board, we ask everyone to introduce themselves as a Film-meets-Music Artist (Citizen Kane x Metallica, f’rinstance). It doesn’t have to be your favorite, and don’t spend too much time overthinking it; now GO.
Jurassic Park x Glass Animals
What's the capital-W Weirdest thing that's ever happened to you (that you're comfortable sharing)?
Oh, there's been a few. One I'll always remember was when I was approached by a woman outside a computer store while waiting for my uncle to arrive and help me get all the stuff back home. She started up a conversation about clothing brands, pointing to the sweater I was wearing. She watched videos and followed groups that talked about different brands like that, she said, and uncovered their secrets. By cutting into the clothes, they revealed that many companies sewed patches inside the lining of their products. Devil patches. You know, to summon the devil. And probably steal your soul. She looked up at me with tears in her eyes and told me that, unfortunately, the sweater I was wearing was one of those. Now, I live in the city, right? I've been around. I'm no stranger to street preachers yelling about the end times. So soul-stealing patches sewn inside the fabric of factory-made clothing behind secret hatches wasn't the weird part in context. This was during the pre-covid, pre-QAnon era. Conspiracism had not reached its heights, but the internet prepared me for it. No, what got me was the imploring way she looked at me, leaning into my personal space, grabbing my shoulder. Have you ever had one of those something-is-not-right-here feelings that activates every one of your sympathetic nervous system reactions? They all went off at once. She was measuring my reaction, it felt like. I expressed a suitable degree of horror at the idea that devil patches might've been sewn into all my clothes, promised I'd look into it, and then she was on her way. I think about her sometimes. I don't imagine the pandemic was kind on her mental health (whose WAS it kind to?), especially with how brutally people more susceptible to conspiracism were/are taken advantage of. No, it wasn't the content of her irrational beliefs I found Weird (though I did find it lowercase weird), it was why she approached me. She didn't talk to anyone else. She wasn't proselytizing or spreading the good word. I wasn't the only person on the street or wearing something that'd been mired in controversy. I think she genuinely believed it. She genuinely wanted to help. That's the part that gets me.
…I have nothing to add to this, other than I hope you went home and cut those patches right the f&$k out of that devil sweater.
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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror + More, Vol. 3, is out now!
