Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #13: Tania Chen

Tania Chen is a Chinese-Mexican queer writer whose work tends to encompass themes of identity, horror and death; in other words, themes that land right in the Tenebrous wheelhouse. Tania’s piece for BRAVE NEW WEIRD, “En el Patio de la Casa del Callejón”, is brief, graceful and enigmatic; I got a chance to speak with the author about it and more.

These responses have been edited for clarity.

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“En el Patio de la Casa del Callejón” is one of the shorter pieces in BNW, but it brims with evocative prose and some truly Weird structural conceits. What informed this piece? (...yes this is a ‘where did you get the idea’ question; sorry ‘bout that).

I love Weird structures, playing with line breaks and odd punctuations, changing POV, and anything else. My first drafts tend to be poetry-prose at times rather than prose-prose, though I have tried to stop doing that. It means less editing on my second pass! Although, now I’m considering just leaning more into it; Baffling Magazine publishing this story and then having the honor of it being picked for BRAVE NEW WEIRD has given me confidence to continue being WEIRD.

“El Patio de la Casa del Callejón” started out as a prose poem and grew from there. I wanted to do mermaids in a different sort of scenario. I kept part of the more poem-like things too because I wanted something different. 

For the general story, I remembered that as a child I visited a house with a fountain in the patio, the foliage around it was dense and it was full of dead leaves. It is a very vivid childhood memory because the place frightened me. I was there again recently and it still evoked a lot of anxiety but also awe. It’s a beautiful and eerie place.

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?

Ideally? A coffee shop, although with the pandemic this is a rare occurrence. I wish I had a set time and place but really I’m just kind of chaotic. Although I do try to write once a day, even if it is just a scribbled sentence. 

My one other particular habit is that I use notebooks constantly; most of my stories are half-drafted on paper before I type them up. Aside from this, I need a lot of solitude to write but that doesn’t mean being alone. Sometimes it is sitting in a shared space with strangers drinking coffee; at others it is sitting at home on a Zoom call with fellow writers just vibing together.

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

I feel that “Weird” is a very broad definition; for me it is anything I am not expecting from a traditional narrative or style. It doesn’t seem to have a clear pattern but sometimes when I read something I just know it is pinging all my “Weird” buttons. 

When I was younger, E.E. Cummings was always interesting to me because of his use of grammar and punctuation. Later on, Annihilation was formative because of the prose lyricism. For unusual formats, House of Leaves made for such an interesting reading challenge. Cassandra Khaw’s Hammer on Bones is weird and beautiful and visceral. 

More recently, Joe Koch’s work has been very inspiring, “All the Rapes in the Museum” in the Stories of the Eye anthology haunts me. Also, Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas’ story in Nightmare—“Still Life with Vial of Blood”—has a very weird epistolary style which I love. I’m also a huge fan of Jordan Shively; he does Weird Weird so well, my jaw drops a lot when reading his work! 

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.

Alien x Florence and the Machine.

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

Maybe not too weird but last year I was using one of those apps to record sleep patterns. Some of those tend to record sounds during the night, and well…one of those playback recordings had a voice, a male voice whispering something. Not sure what, I saved the recording somewhere but I haven’t used the app since, whatever is in that room, I am not fucking with it. 

Congratulations on your acceptance into fellow Brave New Weirdo Jolie Toomajan’s upcoming anthology, Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, forthcoming from Cosmic Horror Monthly. What else is on your plate for 2023?

Thank you! That is also another Weird Weird story. I also have something cooking (ehehehe) for early January with Deathcap & Hemlock. Aside from that, I am hoping to revise my novella, and start either a new novella or a poetry collection—I’m putting it out here to hold myself accountable!

Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume One, is out February 6th. Preorder here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #12: Warren Benedetto

“I do most of my writing sitting outside by the pool whenever possible.” As I sit through another Portland winter, defined by incessant rain, gray skies, and the occasional ice storm, I hate Warren Benedetto thoroughly.

But only for that pool crack, mind; because in all other ways Warren seems like a pretty great guy. And we certainly can’t hate on “Blame”, his BRAVE NEW WEIRD contribution that puts a ghastly spin on workplace dynamics and communications.

I chatted with Warren about it before drowning him in his own pool, the fucker. Write about that, smart guy.

These responses have been edited for clarity.

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“Blame” is told in an epistolary style of interoffice communications, and I gotta say: it’s a little bit too convincing. I’m going out on a limb and guessing you’ve got some experience in this department?

Yeah, I’ve spent most of my non-writing career in various roles at the intersection between entertainment and technology, so I’m very familiar with the culture of tech companies, as well as with technology itself. With “Blame”, I wanted to write a “found footage” story that was more than just obvious stuff like emails and chat logs, so I leaned on my experience as a software developer to pull in things like code snippets, git commits, command line interfaces, and other forms of digital breadcrumbs that might make the story more interesting.

The idea for “Blame” actually came from a software command: git blame. Git is a version control system that tracks code changes, and git blame allows someone to see who modified a specific line of code. That made me wonder: what if you ran git blame and it told you the code was changed by someone who was dead…after they died? The final story ended up being a bit more complicated than that, but the seed of that original idea is still there.

This is speaking out of class a bit, but you and I recently spoke about short story collections; and specifically the theme of Revenge, particularly in your work. Why do you think this is so prevalent in what you write?

I wish I knew. I never even noticed it until I started compiling my collection. I had asked some other writers how they decided which stories to include in their own collections, and they suggested trying to find a common theme across all the stories. That was a distressing answer, because I didn’t think my stories had anything in common. However, when I examined them all together, I realized that many dealt either with the main character getting some kind of revenge, or a person getting some sort of comeuppance for something terrible they had done. 

I’m completely retconning this because you asked, but I think it may be because I have a pretty strong sense of right and wrong, and a powerful desire for moral justice. It makes me angry to see someone being treated unfairly or unequally. I hate bullies. I hate hypocrites. I hate liars. I hate bigots. And I really hate when those kinds of people get away with being awful. A lot of the stories I ended up choosing for the collection put power back in the hands of people who are abused, or marginalized, or diminished in some way. Either that, or “the universe” handles it for them, restoring the cosmic balance of right and wrong by making sure the bad people get what’s coming to them. If only real life could be so satisfying…

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?

Although I do have an office in my house, I’m fortunate enough to live in Southern California, where the weather is basically perfect all year round. Therefore, I do most of my writing sitting outside by the pool whenever possible. I’m nocturnal, so my routine is to work my day job until around 6:30 PM, eat dinner, then take a nap for about an hour. Then I chug a big glass of Diet Mountain Dew and write from 10 PM until 2 AM. On the weekends, I might squeeze in a few extra hours of writing in the afternoon, after a morning of yard work and, of course, a nap. 

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

For me, “Weird” means taking an ordinary situation and introducing an element of the unusual, the surprising, the unsettling, or even the absurd. I think what differentiates the Weird from other forms of horror fiction is that the world of a Weird story is just off, without any clear indication as to why. For example, in my story “The Salt Circle”, the main character turns into a slug every morning at 8 AM. Or in “The Man Who Ate the Road”, the main character encounters a man who is literally eating the road. The stories aren’t horror in a traditional sense, but the situations can certainly be horrifying. 

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 think I introduced myself as Rage Against The Machine x The Money Pit. 

What’s the Weirdest thing—capital W—that’s ever happened to you? You live in (or near?) Los Angeles; you’ve poked your head into a variety of creative industries. I’m sure you have stories.

I lived in Los Angeles for many years; now I live in Orange County, which is just south of L.A. The weirdest thing that ever happened to me happened when we first moved down to Orange County. We had just moved into a new rental house, and it was surprisingly cheap for the size and location. When I asked the real estate agent why, he explained that the previous owner had died in the house. I know, it’s the most cliché setup of all time, but it’s true. It was a peaceful death—the guy had died in his sleep—but it was still a little creepy. 

The place was a two-story house, a first for us. My son, who was three at the time, was prone to sleepwalking, so we were nervous that he would sleepwalk in the middle of the night and would fall down the stairs. One night, I had just dozed off when I heard footsteps running down the hall toward our bedroom, followed by someone rattling the handle of our bedroom door. Worried that my son was sleepwalking, I jumped out of bed, ran to the door, and saw…nothing. There was nobody there.

I called his name. No answer. I walked down the hall to his room. The door was fully closed. I quietly opened it and peeked in. He was in bed, under the covers, sound asleep. I called his name and even tried to shake him awake, but he was out cold. 

Maybe my daughter had been the one running down the hall? I checked her room. Same thing: door closed, sound asleep. I was starting to get freaked out, so I tip-toed downstairs and checked the rest of the house, inspecting doors and windows as I went. Everything was locked up. All was quiet.

Finally, I went back to bed. I decided that I must have dreamed the footsteps and the rattling door handle. There was no other logical explanation. Just as I rolled over to go back to sleep, the sound happened again. Heavy footsteps ran down the hall toward my bedroom door. This time, the door handle didn’t rattle. Instead, something full-on crashed into the door. It almost gave me a heart attack. I jumped up, sprinted to the door, tore it open, and…nothing. 

Despite being a horror writer, I don’t actually believe in the supernatural. But that night I truly started to think there was something otherworldly going on. After all, a guy had died in the house, in the exact room where I was now staying. What other explanation could there be?

I searched the house again, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Finally, I went back to bed and eventually I fell asleep. Nothing like that ever happened again. 

Until exactly one year later.

Literally one year to the day after the incident, the exact same thing happened again: heavy footsteps running down the hall, ending with something crashing into the bedroom doors. It happened two or three times over the course of a few minutes, then stopped. The next year, the same thing happened. And the year after that. Always during the middle of August.

Finally, I decided to post about the incident on Facebook to see if anyone knew what the hell could be going on. One of my work colleagues who had grown up in the area responded, “Oh, that’s just the bombing at Camp Pendleton.”

It turns out that every year in August, the Marines do test bombing runs at the military base about 40 miles south of where we lived. The shockwaves from the bombs travel up the coast through the canyons—they can be heard throughout Orange County. What I heard as heavy footsteps was actually the thudding of a series of bombs exploding in quick succession. The crashing into the bedroom doors was caused by the shockwave from the explosions changing the air pressure in the house, which caused the doors to slam in and out. It turned out to be a perfectly normal explanation. Nothing supernatural at all.

Now, if only someone could explain the blood running from the faucets in the bathroom.

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BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror Volume One is out February 6th. Preorder it here.

Meet the BRAVE NEW WEIRDOS #11: Sloane Leong

Sloane Leong first crossed my radar with her interior art on the collaborative comic From the Mountains; her bold flat color palette told the fantastic story as effectively as any other single element of that book. (Eight years later, I don’t actually remember what From the Mountains is about, but the violet-and-flame blood sacrifice/demon summoning scene from the first issue is etched into my brain.)

A couple years later, Sloane wore all the creative hats for her phantasmagoric Sci-fi comics series Prism Stalker and then in 2021-22 decided to take Horror anthology editing under her purview as well with Death in the Mouth: An Anthology of Original Horror by People of Color, one of Alex’s and my favorite collections we’ve read in…ever?

Two of Death in the Mouth'‘s stories made the BRAVE NEW WEIRD table of contents—Jolie Toomajan’s, and Sloane’s own, “Paradise”. I chatted with Sloane recently, about a little of this, a little of that.

These responses have been edited for clarity.

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You work in both comics and prose. What does your typical “creating” routine look like?

Depends on the medium! I use an iPad often for illustration and comics which lets me move around alot. I like to sit in various weenie dog-infested couches and chairs so I'm frozen in one particular pose. When I'm writing I have a floor chair and a tiny tray table that lets me hunker down and get in the writing zone. When I'm doing traditional art, I use my office which has a thoroughly ergonomic setup since traditional work usually demands more of me physically, like holding my posture and moving my body in an exacting way.

Your bio describes how you “engage with visceral futurities and fantasies through a radical, kaleidoscopic lens”, and yeah that’s true and all; but like, Prism Stalker is just fucking cool to melt into. There’s a melding of the cerebral and “fuck yeah comics rulz” in your work. Do comics still rule, or are you burned out on the internal politicking and exploitation of creators? 

Thank you so much, I'm happy you felt it was meltable! Exactly what I was going for. And yes, comics DO rule; it's a medium that embraces one's creative expression in a uniquely, holistic way, where time, space, language, and art intertwines. I will never get tired of seeing how cartoonists sublimate their thoughts and emotions into comics. 

But I'm also absolutely jaded by the comics industry and the entire concept of commercializing my own creative expression, experience, suffering and joy. Which I suppose is not limited to the comics industry, but it's the one I've been the most exposed to. I'm not burned out quite yet, just cautious and a little tired.

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

A Weird story defies easy digestion, embraces transgression and the unexpected, and conveys the hyperspecificity of its author's mind. It's rebellious but in a deeper, less obvious way, reacting both to the external world but also the internal. Some Weirdos that come to mind that shape my idea of Weird are Brian Evenson, Porpentine, K-Ming Chang, Gary J Shipley, Blake Butler, and Samuel R. Delaney.

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.

eXistenZ x The Mars Volta!

You’re also an editor; both your own and Jolie Toomajan’s BRAVE NEW WEIRD stories came from your anthology, Death in the Mouth. I understand you’ve got another volume of that in the works; anything you can share?

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! The tentative plan right now is to Kickstarter the second volume in Spring next year. You can keep up to date with that here.

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

When I was a teen living in my hometown of Maui, I remember waking from a dead sleep at about 7am and feeling this tingling in my chest, like a sense of building dread. Then an earthquake started. It was a 6.6 magnitude, an intensity of earthquake I'd never felt before. The timing of my reaction and the start of it I'm sure is coincidence but it felt like my body knew on some animal level it was going to happen!

What else is upcoming for you in 2023?

Besides Kickstarting the second volume of Death in the Mouth, the second volume of my psychedelic indigenous sci-fi series, Prism Stalker, comes out in July!

Cover art reveal: SOFT TARGETS by Carson Winter

Tenebrous Press’ first original release of 2023, SOFT TARGETS by Carson Winter, arrives March 22, 2023! Cover art and interior illustrations by the phenomenal Blacky Shepherd (IDW’s Transformers, Dynamite Comics’ Vampirella).

About Soft Targets:

You know that office bromance: two of a kind, always taking their lunch together, always wearing the same sly grin. Only ever a hair away from a cold joke about how spreadsheets are a living hell; about taking a bullet if it means going home early on Friday. Sometimes in these fantasies, they’re heroes being hauled out on a stretcher. 

Sometimes they’re the ones pulling the trigger. 

Now, say these guys discover a loophole that makes some days less real than others—less permanent—and start to act out their violent fantasies without fear of reprisal. Why shouldn’t they? Tomorrow, everything will go back to normal, with no one the wiser but them. 

They’ll always remember what it felt like to act on their basest impulses. They’ll know how it could feel to do it again. 

Maybe you don’t know these guys. Maybe you don’t want to.

SOFT TARGETS is a reality-bending novella about malignant malaise; the surrender to violence; and the addictive appeal of tragedy as entertainment. 

Contains graphic depictions of gun violence in the workplace; caution recommended.

Exclusive preorder packages will begin mid-February. Check back here, or sign up for our newsletter for updates.