Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #8: Colleen Anderson

Colleen Anderson’s poem, “Machine (r)Evolution”, may occupy the least page space of any piece in BRAVE NEW WEIRD, but its impact is pretty damn oversized. Colleen and I talked (a lot) about the encroachment of Artifical Intelligence in the art world, among other things.

Your piece for Brave New Weird, “Machine (r)Evolution”, packs a lot into its brevity, as far as timeliness goes. The subject of Artificial Intelligence—Machine Learning—in regards to both art and prose, is a hot issue right now. What are your thoughts? 

I’ve seen machine learning from a long time ago. I went to college for photography, [dealing] with film that had to be developed. It was four years of learning how to take a good photograph, in terms of lighting, composition, technique, etc. 

Then along came digital cameras. I had to learn the camera again, and every phone has a lens better than what my first camera had. Newspapers—increasingly obsolete in their own way—no longer wanted to pay for photos. While there are still some areas that require skilled photographers, there are many more places that will take…photos shot by the kid down the block.

So in essence, we’ve had machines to change our lives since the beginning. Like my poem illustrates, there have been hiccups throughout history that have caused luddites and technologists to clash. Will we get to a point where the machines take not only all of our jobs but also our intellect and creativity? I think maybe not, yet this has become such a common fear that the intelligent machine is one of Hollywood’s favorite tropes.

And yes, we have hit the age of AI, where poetry, [fiction], and art are now being computer generated through a cornucopia of algorithms. I know several people who have been playing with this and in the SFPA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association) there have been some discussions. 

I’ve also used AI to write two poems, “Second Nature” which came out in Goatshed #1 in the UK in 2022, and “Lessons in Spellcasting,” which came out in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly in 2021. In both cases, I plugged a few words into an online AI and then reworked what was generated. Nothing was good to go off the bat. The OI (Organic Intelligence) had to fix them; but then I always have to work and refinine new poems.

OI & AI; it’s a synthesis. Just as video did not kill the radio star, I don’t believe that we will lose the creativity of the human spirit. Will we use AI? You bet. We’ve been doing it for centuries. Will the world be filled with more bad art? You bet. But art is always about pushing boundaries and experimentation. Good artists—of any type—will master the medium, not let it master them.

So yes, we are going to hit another uncomfortable hurdle and some people will lose their livelihoods. That’s never great and not all advancement is great; but we cannot stem this tide, nor the ones that come after. Whether we like it or not, technology will be with us, as long as we don’t destroy the world.

OK, so I am totally gonna open this can of worms. Tell me more about the poems you crafted with the assist of AI. 

**I need to note: Tenebrous has made our stance on AI abundantly clear; we've added clauses to both our art and writing contracts, severely restricting/forbidding the amount that AI can be used to create work for the Press. Difficult to enforce? Maybe, but it’s about our commitment to working with artists. 

But I'm curious what your experience was like, and to what degree you had to go to sculpt a piece that was uniquely yours.

[So this was in] 2019-2020; even with a few years passing, AI has already changed. At that time, what I used was more a line generator, where you type in text and then more text is pulled from all over the internet.

In this case, it was a lot less sophisticated compared to the AI generators of 2022. A lot of gibberish comes out and you need to start with some text. “Lessons in Spellcasting” came out as a whole lot of gamer related phrases. It was not a finished or coherent poem in any way. I chopped out lines and [added in a thread] so that a story was told. It took as much work as if I’d started from scratch.

I just popped in this line today: 

finding snakes in bed

This is what was generated at this link; not good for much but spurring on my brain:

Finding snakes in the bed is scary...

Carrie under Boppy.

What's in your nightstand?

What's in your bedroom?

This is me at 12 months or so!

Happy Halloween everyone!

I am planning on doing my own little get together

“Second Nature” was a little more cohesive, but I had to coax the poem out. The generator pushed me into a new pattern of writing and thinking. It was more choppy, which worked for the piece. I haven’t tried the new AI formats that are causing quite the stir; [though] I might if I hit a block. For me, they’re a tool to push me into seeing differently; but they won’t be my assistant writing work for me. I find that…lazy. 

Also: I would strongly advise new writers or artists against using these [methods]; Picasso was a portrait painter and learned the basics of his medium before he deviated into his own experimentation.

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?

Routine is an interesting word and I’ve always been very bad at it. I work in stops and starts and spurts of energy. I’m not disciplined like other writers; I’m more manic at times. Deadlines are my friend. Procrastination is my demon. My office is my couch; but [it could] also be the local pub. I’m an extrovert, so sitting around people, even if I’m not talking to them, actually helps me focus. Plus, I can look at the locals and study them, and use them as characters.

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences helped sculpt this definition?

Every few years a new term comes out to describe speculative fiction or some branch of it. Much of this is revitalizing from the publishing/marketing point of view so in some senses—while it helps the reader to find the things they like—categorization can be quite arbitrary. There once was cyberpunk, then splatterpunk, solarpunk and you-name-it-punk. Magic realism, horror, bizarro—it’s really hard to know sometimes if what you’re reading is any one of these or all of them. Weird is like bizarro but perhaps with more sanity (I say this tongue in cheek). Weird is strange; it’s horror but perhaps more of an uneasy feeling, a crawling along your spine, an unsettling creep that has changed the landscape as subtly as a frog being slowly boiled. It’s not quite one thing, and not quite the other. Mood sprinkled with unease and something just so strange that you sit back and go, “Well that was just Weird.”

I’ve never loved Lovecraft and if I wanted to slash my wrists, I’d read more of his works. It’s strangely melancholy and nihilistic. It is definitely Weird, but once upon a time Lovecraft’s works were called horror…well, I actually think they were called Weird, then horror, then Weird [again]. China Mieville, now that’s full-on Weird. Jeff Vandermeer, SF Weird. Helen Marshall, body Weird. There are a host of writers and historically many others who are considered the progenitors but I think there have been enough essays on them that I won’t go into the history.

On the Tenebrous Discord, 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.

Delicatessen x Brian Eno (ask me tomorrow and it will change)

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you (that you’re comfortable sharing)?

Well…many years ago I knew a guy who had moved back to Australia. He was coming through Vancouver and we got together for dinner. We talked about Canada’s Loonie and Twonie (our irreverent names for the one- and two-dollar coins). He told me about Australia’s smaller version. The two dollar coin had five kangaroos on it and the one dollar coin had an Aboriginal on it. To keep this relatively short, he gave me one of each. I kept them in a large shell in my bedroom. One day the kangaroo coin went missing. I never found it. It was gone for something like 15 years.

I moved. I’d been in my new place a couple of years. I was walking home one day, with a bag I had bought recently. I reached into the pocket to put something away and felt a coin. I pulled it out, and it was the kangaroo coin. When I got home I went to the shell and yes: there was only the one coin. Here was its mate. I’d moved, I’d packed and unpacked, I’d thrown things out, bought new things, and no matter how I try to deconstruct this, I have no idea where that coin was for 15 years and how it appeared in a relatively new bag kept in a kitchen with shelves that I didn’t have previously. I’ve had the coin back now for a little over a year. I lost contact with the friend who gave them to me and I keep wondering if he died, or was somehow trying to contact me. Now, that is Weird.

Your resumé is stacked. In addition to writing, I know your passions cross into editing, sculpture, jewelry making, and cartography (just guessing with that last one!). What does 2023 have in store for you? Or you for it?

I’m not a cartographer at all, though I drew a map for a novel I wrote; it’s not pretty. I plan to do more editing and will be freelancing in the new year, and maybe I’ll get back to making some jewellery. I’m hoping to find a publisher for a mosaic novel/collection of dystopian climate fiction, with a Weird twist. Plus, a new book of poetry, The Lore of Inscrutable Dreams, should be coming out in the spring. I’m doing a concentrated retreat to work on a new novel and maybe get one of those other novels published. I’m also working on a collection of Rapunzel poems and planning to collaborate with a poet. I’ve never done collaboration before for poetry so I’m looking forward to pushing the boundaries.

There will be other stories and poems that rise like Frankenstein’s monster as [inspiration hits]. This last year I wrote some body horror SF poetry; I might explore that further. Oh, and yes, I’ll be the president of the SFPA so I’ll be busy in that department. promoting and working on building the organization for our members.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. One, is out February 6, 2023 and available for preorder now.

Buy print copies here.

Buy eBooks here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #7: Joe Koch

I’ve lauded Joe Koch’s nightmarish, lush prose to anyone who would listen on a number of occasions. I won’t subject y’all to that again; instead I’ll keep it simple: Joe Koch will fuck you up.

Joe’s story in BRAVE NEW WEIRD, “Blood Calumny,” originally appeared in their collection Convulsive, available from Apocalypse Party here; it’s as good a reason as any to catch up.

These responses have been edited for clarity.

***

As much as I enjoy your short fiction, I’m prone to sermonizing about your 2020 novella The Wingspan of Severed Hands until I’m blue in the face. My lazy one-sentence description is “like if William S. Burroughs directed an episode of The X-Files”.

So: have you ever had an extraterrestrial experience and/or tried to shoot an apple off someone’s head?

God, thank you, Matt! It took some time for people to find that book, and word of mouth is probably the only thing that saved it from vanishing into total obscurity. WSB is my absolute writing hero so I love your summary, too!

I regret that despite growing up near Gulf Shores, Alabama and participating in all sorts of [redacted], I've never met (fucked) an alien, nor have I ever shot a gun or an arrow at all, much less shot my wife in the head. I have never played Chicken or William Tell. What a sad and empty life.

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?

I thrive writing in a space where I have privacy. My tiny apartment is also my office on the top floor of an old house eye-level with the tree canopy. It's my own treehouse of horror, a little blanket fort where I can safely play with my demons.

So much of writing is thinking, though. When I'm not actively typing or laboriously editing (I do a LOT of editing!) I can be "writing" and working on a story while I walk, bike, shovel snow, avoid shoveling snow, or whatever.

What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? 

Maybe Weird means the rules of science and logic and reality in general can be broken. I'm really interested in pushing an experience on the reader that holds truth without adhering to mundane fact. It's the difference between myth and religion, so to speak. Weird can transgress beyond religion to touch something more profound.

The situation of existing as a mind and being conscious is incredibly Weird despite being an everyday experience we take for granted. Right now we are telling a story about who we are: you, the publisher and me, the writer. My mind is thinking about itself and forming or filtering this perception into a story for you. But how does a mirror gaze into itself? How is any of this possible? Weird takes nothing for granted and looks deeply beyond the surface of things.

Honestly, though, Matt, I don't have a philosophy. I just made all that up on the spot since you asked. I prefer to leave genre definitions to others with more expertise.

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.

Fight Club meets (early) The Hafler Trio.

Hopefully I don’t misquote you too terribly, but you said something along the lines that “Blood Calumny” comes as close to embodying your Trans experience as anything you’ve written. What made this piece so revelatory to you?

I think you're referring to a tweet where I said it's a story very close to my heart. I took a few different experiences from reality and bundled them up with a bit of twisted murderous fantasy to express some of the rage I'm still processing as an older person who recently came out. I spent five decades navigating life being seen as a woman. That's half a century. That's a lot of rage.

It's not the story that best embodies my trans experience overall, however. Unfortunately, that story exists but keeps getting rejected by publishers! Oh, this writing life. Perhaps it's too wholesome to be entertaining. Too much about self-acceptance, personal honor, and resolving your conflicts with the past.

You don’t hold your readers’ hands; at first blush, your prose can be impenetrable. But once you dig through the layers, there’s a solid core of propulsive Pulp plotting in there; narratives wrapped in Weird cocoons. This might be reductive, but do you find that you generally start with the plot/theme or the imagery first when writing?

Plot and imagery go together for me, like in a movie. One of the first criticisms I received when I started writing was that the weather and setting seemed to be part of the characters or action rather than a proper backdrop. So I had to realize that I'm writing about perception, that my perception may be more synesthesia-like than some people—more animal-like—and I had to learn to communicate that with intention.

Like I said before, my goal is pushing the reader into an experience—sometimes very hard—rather than presenting a cozy outline of objective events they can make choices about engaging with. Because that's how we experience life, isn't it? Everything happens all at once and we're along for the ride having our feelings and doubts and epiphanies. So when I start a story, it's only when such a heightened complex of plot and imagery has formed into a tight little ball that it's ready to explode onto the page.

BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Vol. One, is out February 6, 2023 and available for preorder now.

Buy print copies here.

Buy eBooks here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #6: Luciano Marano

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.

***

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.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #5: Jolie Toomajan

Alex and I both have mad crushes on Jolie Toomajan (her writing, you heathens; get yer minds outta the gutter), but she’s too busy pursuing her la-di-da higher education than rolling around in the grime with us on a regular basis.

That’s OK, we take what we can get from her. In this case, it’s one of the Bravest, Newest, Weirdest stories of the year in “Water Goes, Sand Remains,” which first appeared in the anthology, Death in the Mouth: Original Horror from People of Color. But bonus: we managed to snag Jolie and Carson Winter’s composite novel Posthaste Manor for publication next Halloween!

Carson told us his version of events last week, but today we’ll talk to the highly educated end of the horse; the one that holds up her pinkies while sipping some kind of fancy tea out of…whatever the elite drink tea out of. A flagon, maybe? Whatever. Take it away, Professor…

These responses have been edited for clarity.

***

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 secret is out now: I mostly write on my phone. I have a really intense schedule and tend to get inspiration at any time like I'm possessed, so I just blurt thoughts into my phone while cooking dinner or out running with the dog. 90% of my first drafts are completed this way. Though it helps to have a scene list to help me organize it later, I don't pay any attention to whether I've already said or written something, whether I'm writing things in the right order, even whether these two sentences actually go together. I have a very, "We'll fix it in post" attitude about my writing. 

Taking all that and turning it into a story is a little more traditional. I have an office, I make coffee, I put on the playlist I want. Then I spend 80% of my writing time picking my cat up off the keyboard. The remaining 20% of the time is spent organizing what I have. 

Once I have something more organized, I tend to go back to working on it on my phone, changing things on the sentence level, making notes to move things around. I also always print and read things after major revisions, too. 

Yeah so over here it's just pure fucking chaos.

You’re the second person that I really, really like who’s told me this year that they write on their phone. It’s a practice I’d never fathomed before, which probably just says something about my fine motor skills more than anything. Maybe there are scads of you?!

Anyway. A couple more canned questions before we move on to the custom jobs. What does “Weird” mean to you, in the context of storytelling? And what creators/experiences helped sculpt this definition?

This is a hard question for me to answer, because there are a ton of academic answers as to what "Weird" is, but I still feel like I just know it when I see it. I think at its core, Weird fiction knows that something isn't quite right with the world to begin with, and it settles itself in those places of wrongness and explores them, exaggerates them, and pushes them into view.  

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.

Bikini Kill x Pink Flamingos

I sense a theme there.

So, we’re waiting for you to start cranking out books for Tenebrous; but noooo, you’re much more concerned with your education *eyeroll*. So tell us, what the hell is this doctorate all about that you’re pursuing, and why do you think you’re so much better than me?!

I love this question because I don't usually get to nerd out about what I study outside of this very strict, how-does-this-interact-with-this-theory academic context, and I want to all the time. 

I'm writing a dissertation about the women who wrote for Weird Tales. Like, I have this theoretical lens that I developed, but that's only interesting to other academics, and honestly these women were powerhouses who have not gotten nearly enough recognition. Margaret St. Clair, Dorothy Quick, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, just to name a few, were just absolute beasts of writers, way ahead of their time. And so many of them were using their work to speak truth to power. They really deserve the kind of attention that some other authors from Weird Tales have already gotten. I will talk about this all day. Seriously, my DMs are open.

Trust me: Alex and I have already been plotting ways to exploit you.

The good news is that I have no interest in going into the academy as a profession (I'm basically getting a PhD for fun at this point; that says a lot of things about me, none of them good), so I can get right into cranking out the collections for Tenebrous as soon as I graduate in a year! 

Damn straight. Get crackin’. 

You are working on one big upcoming project for us, though. We managed to trick you into that…or maybe you tricked us. One or the other. Trickery was involved, I’m sure of it. Anyway, tell us more about Posthaste Manor! 

I don't even know how it happened. One day Carson and I were like, "We should work on something together. What if we took on the haunted house?" and I looked up and we had…a composite novel? A collection of interconnected short stories? A book. It's for sure a book! 

And working with Carson, who is a massive talent with such an incredible eye for all the little perversions we deal with day to day and are forced to accept as normal, was so easy. Plus he's phenomenal at coming up with fantastically original concepts; he really made sure this wasn't going to be just another haunted house story. We worked well together and basically spent 6 months going "Yes, and…" at each other. I have never had so much fun writing before. We have different styles, but he approached what I was doing with a tremendous level of respect, and we play well off each other; we have very similar underlying interests. 

Posthaste Manor is a little different in terms of my own writing, too. It's more explicitly Horror than a lot of the other stuff I write, which tends to be quieter; the emotion I explore more often is grief, not fear. I went into Posthaste instead aiming to have some really gruesome fun; I think I did that while keeping the main parts of what makes my writing my writing.

And you’ve also spearheaded a project that will be releasing in the next couple months.

Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic is a charity anthology of speculative fiction on the theme of Hysteria. AaFS was birthed from fury and frustration and terror in the immediate aftermath of Roe v. Wade falling. It is tentatively scheduled for release in March 2023, and proceeds will be going to the Chicago Abortion Fund. 

Because abortion access is a human right. 

The stories in it are phenomenal—and the quality of the slush pile was humbling. These authors have all been joys to work with. I can't wait for [it] to see the light of day. 

I'm editing; Cosmic Horror Monthly is publishing; but like all art, this is really a community project with a lot of hands in it.

The day after Roe v. Wade was overturned, Carson [Winter, again] said that he and Charles [Tyra, publisher of CHM] couldn't just sit on their hands. CHM handled all of the boring work of contracts and formatting; Jenny Kiefer suggested "hysteria" as a theme; and several of our friends volunteered to slush read. The cover artist is Mary Esther Munoz, who killed it. We also emailed you for some help, since Your Body Is Not Your Body was both an amazing anthology and made bank for your charity (ed. Note; it’s true: they did, it is, and we did), and Alex [Woodroe, duh, you know this] was so willing to advise me when I had questions as a first time anthology editor. 

AaFS is amazing, the work in it is incredible and I can't wait for everyone to read it; but it's also a testament to the fact that the horror community is filled with good people who want to help.

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you?

I am reasonably certain I accidentally slipped into another timeline on a train when I was ten (it's like a whole big story). I have no proof of this, I just have no other explanation for what happened. 

***

Posthaste Manor will be out in time for Halloween 2023. 

Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic is out in March, 2023. Check in at Cosmic Horror Monthly for details.

Brave New Weird is out February 6, 2023; preorder info coming soon.