IN SOMNIO: A chat with writer Brianna McGuckin

Briana Una McGuckin's gothic and fabulist fiction appears in the 2020 Stoker-nominated anthology Not All Monsters (Rooster Republic Press), as well as The Arcanist and Hides the Dark Tower (Pole-to-Pole Publishing). She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Western Connecticut State University.

A tragic fable—or fabulous tragedy?—that will haunt you long after it ends, AFTER THE APPLES paints a world of foxes, madness, and that gun on the farmer’s porch…

IN SOMNIO editor Alex Woodroe digs deeper:

(CW: alcohol use disorder)

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AW: Does your story touch on anything personal to you? 

BM: Absolutely. Widow Wit, the mother fox in this story, manages her pain by eating these fermenting apples that fall at the edge of her forest, and her young kit doesn’t know how to deal with it. I grew up around a few alcoholic adults, and I wanted to tell a story about what it’s like to know someone who drinks like that when you’re young, to love them deeply. Not to put those people in a bad light, but to show how complicated it is: how much they love you when they’re sober, and how they may not even know the ways they hurt you when they’re not—because they don’t remember. Then suddenly there are these things that happened but don’t get talked about, out of fear and out of embarrassment, but also out of love. I wanted to be fair to both characters, the complexity of their bond, while also pointing out that that dynamic, of ignoring truths just to spare our loved ones who are struggling, creates new problems in ourselves. It sows self-doubt, and erodes trust in other people too, and that’s a very lonely reality. It’s dangerous.

AW: What little things bring you joy? 

BM: Smells. I collect perfume oils, which are subtler and truer smells than alcohol-based perfumes, and often made to smell like interesting things: the earth after rain, or hot chocolate. I have an embarrassing number of different ones—one that smells like a bonfire, one that smells like typewriter paper, one that smells like a church. You get the idea. But I don’t judge myself too much, because I wear them in my writing practice, to evoke settings, or characters, or moods for whatever I’m working on. It really helps to place me in the story. 

AW: Do you have any specific formative memories that roped you into Gothic fiction?

BM: I think it was watching Beauty and the Beast that did it, first. The prologue is haunting, with the stained glass vignettes, and Alan Menken’s dark reinterpretation of “Aquarium” (from Camille Saint-Saens’s Carnival of Animals) playing underneath. It takes my breath away even now. I am fascinated by the foreboding of it, and the foreshadowing of love—of hope. I think every Gothic romance is, more or less, the Beauty and the Beast fairytale. Rebecca certainly is. Jane Eyre is. Dracula…Well. Dracula is the beautiful, terrifying exception. I was so appalled to learn how badly Hollywood had misinterpreted Dracula. Stoker would be furious with Coppola for having the nerve to call it Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But that’s a tangent I won’t go on. Anyway, long live Beauty and the Beast.

AW: Did you ever embrace the Goth culture? Carry a parasol? Do you still? If not, what was your teen ‘scene’?

BM: I did not have the budget to embrace true Goth culture until after college, when I could splurge on a nice pseudo-Victorian dress or cape. I don’t go out like that, but I dress very eccentrically at home. Petticoats are vastly underrated undergarments. I have some that are so lovely I wear them as skirts in themselves. 

AW: Why Horror? Are you and Horror exclusive, and if not, what else do you flirt with?

BM: I feel I barely write horror, that I’m an imposter in the genre. I probably shouldn’t count myself out so much. To answer your question, I am very aware of the connection between fear and excitement, between dread and anticipation. They are so close to each other that they touch, and often that touching is electric, in almost a sensual way. That fascination, with sensuality and startling vividness, leads me some other places: fabulist fiction, and some romantic fantasy. I’ll go anywhere there’s room to suggest that there is more going on between people than just what can be objectively observed.  

AW: Where can people see more of your past/upcoming work?

BM: In addition to IN SOMNIO, I have a piece coming out in The Lost Librarian’s Grave in October of this year, which I’m especially excited about because I am a librarian myself. The story is called “Good Boy Anyway,” and it’s about a grave-digger who is haunted by his recently deceased wife. More on that here: https://redwood-press.com/  My blog has links to other anthologies (and some electronic publications) I’ve contributed to. That’s here: https://moonmissives.com/find-my-fiction/ 

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IN HER OWN WORDS:

Briana explains the origins of her story AFTER THE APPLES and reads a selection from it; follow the IN SOMNIO Kickstarter here!

IN SOMNIO: A Chat with writer Barbara A. Barnett

Barbara A. Barnett is a Philadelphia-area writer, musician, coffee addict, wine lover, & all-around geek. Her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Fantasy Magazine and Black Static. Outside of writing, she has spent most of her career working for performing arts organizations, most recently as an orchestra librarian.

In SELF STORAGE, the line between a storage unit and a therapist’s couch is thinner than you’d think; IN SOMNIO editor Alex Woodroe spoke with Barbara about her story and career (edited for space & clarity):

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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?

BB: The opening scene is lifted straight from real life. I drove past that [sign] and immediately thought, “That is so going into a story.” I intended to write a comedy at first, but the phrase “self storage” got me interested in the idea of storage units as a metaphor for people locking away parts of themselves, the issues they don't want to deal with. Once I latched onto that, things went in a much different direction. Mia’s neuroses are far more extreme than my own (and I don’t have a creepy doll collection), but her compulsiveness is most definitely drawn from a personal place. I’d say some of her tendencies are mine cranked to eleven.

AW: What music do you play? Does it connect to your writing in any way?

BB: My undergraduate degree is in vocal performance, but I also play piano and occasionally dust off my clarinet (though the poor thing is very dusty at the moment). Genre-wise, I perform classical and musical theater more than anything else, but with a healthy dose of folk, pop, and other miscellany thrown in there. And a lot of choral music too, since I sing with two different choirs. My musical tastes are pretty darn eclectic, so I enjoy getting to genre-hop.

Music and writing definitely share real estate in my brain. I've written several stories about musicians, so sometimes that connection is pretty obvious. The rhythm and sound of the words is an area I tend to fixate on when writing—I spend a lot of time reading my works-in-progress aloud—and I think that stems from having a musical ear. And I almost always listen to music while writing, particularly film scores.

AW: What's an orchestra library like?

BB: It is a land of many paper cuts. Orchestra librarians are the ones who make sure the right piece of music goes to the right musician at the right time, so we're constantly shuffling parts in and out of folders for concerts and rehearsals. We put markings in the music, make changes and corrections, print and bind parts, prepare audition materials, rent or buy new music as needed, coordinate with conductors to make sure we're using the correct edition of a piece, and keep instrumentation and performance history records.

Seriously, so much paper.

AW: Do you have any specific formative memories that roped you into Gothic fiction?

BB: The first thing that comes to mind is an animated version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow that aired around Halloween when I was a kid. That image of the Headless Horseman hurling a flaming pumpkin head at Ichabod Crane stuck with me. Pretty dark for a Disney cartoon—they didn’t force a happy ending onto it—and something in my kid brain went, “Yes, that please.”

AW: Did you embrace Goth culture? Carry a parasol? Do you still? If not, what was your teen ‘scene’?

BB: I had some Goth leanings, particularly with the epic amount of black in my wardrobe, but never full-on Goth. "Goth adjacent" would probably be the best description. My teen scene was hanging with the band and theater kids, where geeky weirdness of all types abounded.

AW: Why Horror? Are you and Horror exclusive, and if not, what else do you flirt with?

BB: I've got a pretty serious thing going with both horror and fantasy, though occasionally I'll flirt with science fiction. And as someone who often writes humor within those genres, I'm absolutely fascinated by the way horror and comedy work together and will ramble excitedly about said topic to anyone who will listen.

What I love most about horror is the catharsis element, how it provides this safe way to process ideas and emotions that are dark, scary, or disturbing. The real world can be pretty terrifying, but horror makes it a bit more bearable by saying, "Hey, at least it's not rage zombies. You could totally be fighting rage zombies right now."

AW: Where can people see more of your past/upcoming work?

BB: My website, babarnett.com, is the best place to see what I'm up to and find links to where I'm lurking on social media.

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IN HER OWN WORDS:

Check out an exclusive clip of Barbara’s SELF STORAGE, read by the author herself. Coming to IN SOMNIO: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror!

IN SOMNIO: A Collection of Modern Gothic Horror coming soon from Tenebrous Press

IN SOMNIO cover art by Sally Cantirino

In the hands of Mary Shelley, Daphne Du Maurier, and Shirley Jackson, Gothic Horror often explored the bleak shadows of our very homes and the darkest corners of the human mind. It examined themes of madness, personal transformation, phantoms, and the occult.

Drawing inspiration from these original Gothmothers, IN SOMNIO takes those familiar themes and recasts them in a modern light.

This collection features nineteen vibrant, unique stories ranging from deeply intimate one-room settings to sprawling fantasy worlds; from the depths of darkness to comedy and adventure. Each story brings a new perspective on our inherent love of Gothic Horror and what those vital elements of terror still have to say today.

Follow the Kickstarter Pre-Launch page for IN SOMNIO and receive notification upon launch.

IN SOMNIO’s unwieldy roster of talent:

And featuring lavish illustrations by:

Follow the kickstarter pre-launch page! You'll be notified when the project is live so you can grab early bird discounted ebook & print copies, exclusive merch, and collections of ebooks from our IN SOMNIO authors.

Gothic never goes out of fashion; now you don’t have to either.