Luciano Marano wasn’t on my radar before we received his submission for BRAVE NEW WEIRD, but I’m damn sure remedying that now. His story, “The Mythologization of Tymber Prescott in Five Selected Photos”, toes the line of effective satire so well that it could be the real thing (and the inherent Weirdness of Celebrity Influencers opens up this discussion to Life Imitating Art Imitating Life…like a pair of mirrors facing each other).
Luciano is an award-winning author, photographer and journalist. His work has appeared in Year's Best Hardcore Horror; Monsters, Movies & Mayhem; Crash Code; Nightscript; PseudoPod; and many more. A U.S. Navy veteran originally from rural western Pennsylvania, he now resides near Seattle.
We touch on his wide and varied career, and more, in the following Q&A.
These responses have been edited for clarity.
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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?
Sadly, I am the opposite of a good example when it comes to disciplined writing. I don't write every day and I frequently do not write at the same time of day from one session to the next. The best I can do is try for a weekly word count, but the exact number I aspire to changes based on whether I'm on a deadline for any specific project or just playing with a potential story. I tend to baby myself if at all possible. All work and no play and all that.
I have a small TV tray which I use as a desk in the guest/storage/workout room of my home, but I just as often pull up a stool and write at the kitchen counter, head bowed, elbows planted on either side of the laptop, staring into the abyss of the blank page as if it were the bottom of a half-empty glass. Sometimes, if I'm very lucky, a funny little guy named Lloyd shows up and offers some friendly encouragement. He's a great listener, and makes a hell of a drink too! I didn't even know we had any whiskey in the house…
That Lloyd definitely seems to make the rounds of the Horror community.
Your story for BNW, “The Mythologization of Tymber Prescott in Five Selected Photos”, is both a subtle jab and a pretty searing indictment of social media influencers. The whole premise of “influencers” creeps me out; yet you manage to ratchet the Weirdness up even higher. What were you observing in this phenomenon when the idea for this story came to you?
I agree that if you take the time to consider the reality of things, social media is rife with creepiness. But honestly, I'm not some alarmist anti-technology Luddite (you can find me on Instagram @ghosttowngossip). The internet is one of mankind's greatest achievements and I wouldn't want to live in any other age. I do, however, feel we should be much more mindful of how we're utilizing social media specifically; its links to increased stress, depression, suicide—especially among younger people—have now been unquestionably proven.
I'd been reading a lot about content moderation, algorithm biases, and the aforementioned mental health risks associated with social media, and was looking to write a story that dealt with that technology in a realistic and believable manner while also including some element of the fantastic (or does it?). The trope of a pretty young girl possessed by demonic forces is one of the most familiar and often reused in all of horror, so I suspected the reader would be familiar enough with the general beats of the narrative to follow along with a non-traditional presentation, one which I hoped would mimic an experience they were very familiar with—scrolling through Instagram—and perhaps make them see that process a little differently.
I feel it’s imperative for writers of Weird/speculative fiction to engage with the issues of the day, especially our use of/dependence on technology, as often as possible. I'm not discounting the value of true historic fiction, and obviously every story dictates its own setting to some degree, but the current widespread prevalence of setting stories in the years immediately preceding the ubiquity of computers and cell phones is, in my mind, becoming the new "lost in the woods" or "there's no reception here" trick. Honestly, if I read that a book or movie is set in that time, or in the wake of some devastating societal collapse, I'm almost always instantly less interested. There are exceptions, obviously, and I'd be remiss to not admit that I myself have written things set in the past, but we must not allow ourselves to become complacent about depicting the recognizable and accurate reality of how most readers live and move around in the world right now—or how they might in five, ten, fifteen years. To wallow in nostalgia, fun as it can be, or simply ignore the obvious plot implications of modern life's basic accessories and accoutrements: that way lies stagnation and irrelevance.
What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences helped sculpt this definition?
There's no wrong Weird. That being said, a willingness to disregard preexisting genre boundaries is, for my money, a key aspect of the best Weird fiction. I also think surrealism and ambiguity can be major factors in whether a particular piece is considered Weird or not. Metafiction, postmodernism, the intentional blending of truth and fantasy: all of these techniques yield stellar examples of Weird writing. However, most of my own favorite pieces of Weird fiction play with non-traditional narrative structure—epistolary literature, stories presented as lists, transcripts, footnotes, social media posts, internet comments, etc. It requires a little more work on the part of the reader, but the ultimate experience is often far more interactive and can result in greater submersion than "normal" fiction.
I believe the finest practitioner of this kind of writing currently at work—and one of my favorite writers, period—is probably Gemma Files. John Langan is another favorite of mine. The writings of William S. Burroughs, Richard Brautigan, and Jack Kerouac were very formative for me early on. Similarly, though I discovered them later, I find a lot of Weird inspiration in writers whose work is not easily categorized: Robert Aickman, Joel Lane, J.G. Ballard, A.C. Wise, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Lucius Shepard, Laird Barron, Nathan Ballingrud, Karl Edward Wagner, Harry Crews, Flannery O'Connor, and William Gay, to name but a few.
Now you’re just looking at my bookshelves. You’re lucky I have exquisite taste.
So, 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.
I like to think of my personal aesthetic as The Twilight Zone set in the rough part of town, maybe an especially sketchy trailer park? So I guess I'll cheat a little and say Rod Serling x Rob Zombie.
Your bio is pretty sprawling: prose (obviously), but also photography, former military, award-winning journalism. Does your heart lie with any over the others? And how do the rest help to inform your fiction writing?
I think every aspect of every writer's life probably informs their fiction to some degree. I've been fortunate enough to have many great opportunities, and I've worked very hard to make the most of them, and I hope that I'm able to call upon my varied experiences, both personal and professional, to help make my fiction more authentic and nuanced. It's a difficult thing to examine one's life in pieces and try to make all those disparate moments add up to yourself. I'm hesitant to look too closely at how things work inside my head—it's very, very dark in there. And I fear I may not be alone…
I will say that most of all, throughout my entire life, I've felt compelled to tell stories. Even as a photographer, my work always included a strong narrative element. Working as a journalist taught me how to find a fresh way of looking at a story that might seem boringly familiar at first glance, and how to ask questions and really listen to people. I believe the dialogue in my fiction—not that this particular story is a great example—has greatly benefited from the many hours of interviews I've conducted and transcribed, and it's one aspect of my work that readers have been kind enough to single out for repeated praise.
Also, journalism—especially in the world of newspapers—teaches a writer the importance of every single word because there's only so much space available. You quickly learn to identify what is truly important in a story, be less precious about every sentence, no matter how brilliantly you wrote it, and get on with the point already! Deadlines, too, are something you must very quickly learn to respect.
Cliché as it might sound, the military did teach me discipline. There, also, deadlines and schedules were of tantamount importance. Despite what I said earlier about my casual writing schedule, when I've promised a piece to an editor, or promised myself I'd complete something by a certain date, I always do.
And, being a Navy man specifically, I've also become quite skilled at remaining productive despite the occasional hangover. Speaking of which, what happened to Lloyd? Oh, there you are, my friend. Now then, please, hair of the dog that bit me!
What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you?
Interesting, how so many things seem Weird to me only in retrospect. Here's one I hadn't thought about in a long time:
In first grade I was almost murdered by a classmate in a random act of unprovoked violence. This other boy attacked me on the playground one day during recess and began to choke me while trying to stab me in the eye with a straightened paper clip. We struggled for what seemed like a long time, but probably wasn't, in sight of at least two teachers before one of them finally took notice and came to pull him off me. This was about thirty years ago now, and I was an Army brat going to school on a military base overseas, so it was quite literally and in every possible sense a very different time and place, but I don't remember much being made of the incident afterward. I also can't recall any specific hostility or antagonism between myself and that boy prior to the attack.
Since then, I think part of me has been constantly aware, at least minimally, of the potential for senseless violence simmering just beneath the seemingly mundane moments we take for granted every day.
Also, I've got a real thing about depictions of eye trauma—looking at you, Fulci!—and I struggle to even use eye drops. Laser surgery? Please, I'd rather have my teeth drilled without anesthetic.
BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. One, is out February 6, 2023. Preorder information coming soon.