Gwendolyn Kiste’s shivery tales of horror and suspense have appeared in a vast number of magazines and anthologies, including Nightmare Magazine, Shimmer, Interzone, LampLight, Black Static, Three-Lobed Burning Eye and Flame Tree Publishing’s Chilling Horror Short Stories anthology. Her debut collection, And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, is available from JournalStone, and her debut novella, Pretty Marys All In A Row will be out soon with Broken Eye Books.
———————–
Hi Gwendolyn, and welcome to SFFWorld. You’ve built a solid career as an author, writing suspense and horror. Have you always been drawn to this genre?
I’ve always loved horror. Both my parents are fans of the genre, so scary films and literature were a huge part of my childhood. I grew up reading ghost stories and consuming every kind of creepy media, including artwork and music. Anything strange and frightening has always had such thrall over me. I always like to recall how the very first book I learned to read was The Berenstain Bears’ The Spooky Old Tree. That definitely set the tone at an early age.
Your topics cover a huge variety of subjects, from ghosts to captive mermaid wives. What are your favorite sources for inspiration and research?
Fairy tales are a tremendous source of inspiration to me. There are so many terrifying elements to the stories we grew up with, and I love going back to those tales and extracting the horror elements from them. Plus, it’s fun to take something so familiar and make it feel distant and strange and terrifying.
Other than fairy tales, I also love looking to paintings and other fine art for inspiration. Some of my favorite artists include Charles Addams, Edward Gorey, Abigail Larson, Mark Ryden, Edward Hopper, and Leonora Carrington, among so many others.
You specialize in short stories, a writing format that sounds easy in theory but is incredibly hard to get right. What is it about short stories that appeals to you? And could you share some of your top ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ when it comes to crafting a short story?
I love how flexible the short story format is. You can do so much within it. I love using unusual and often sectioned narratives in my work (e.g. framing a story around a questionnaire or a playlist or a series of rules). Trying that technique in a novel might work, but it could become tiresome for the reader. However, with a short story, you can try a lot of ideas and approaches, and readers are more likely to go along with it, because it’s such a short, sweet foray into fiction in the first place. That’s allowed me the freedom to create so many different types of stories, which is always so exciting as a storyteller.
As for do’s and don’ts, I would say definitely do open in an interesting place. You want to intrigue the reader and make them eager to keep going. Don’t focus too much on backstory. Capture what needs to be there, but don’t bog down the story. Do create compelling characters. Not necessarily sympathetic characters, but at least people that readers want to follow and get to know better. Don’t worry—at least not in the early stages anyhow—about selling the story when it’s finished. I’ve fallen into this trap a lot; I’ll come up with an idea I really love, but then I worry that no editor will accept it when it’s done, because it’s too strange or somehow “not marketable.” That line of thinking has held me back from getting some ideas down, and I think that can create a really vicious cycle that can make writing a total slog. Now I tell myself to write the story that I want to write, and worry about having it published after it’s completely polished and done. At least having a finished story, even one that’s a hard sell, is better than having a bunch of half-finished ideas and nothing to show for hours and hours of work.
Tell us a little about your upcoming novella, Pretty Marys All In A Row.
Pretty Marys All in a Row is a blend of urban legend, dark fantasy, fairy tale, and horror. It’s all about the Marys of folklore: Resurrection Mary, Bloody Mary, Mari Lwyd, Mary Mack, and Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary. It’s part origin story—where did these legends come from, and why do they all share the same name?—and also part thriller, as it follows the Marys as they try to escape their fates as ghostly urban legends, even as something in the darkness wants to keep them for its own. This will be my first published work of long fiction, which is both daunting and thrilling. 2017 has been a year of changes in my career, with both my debut fiction collection and my debut novella making their premieres. I came into this year with no standalone works, and I’ll ring in 2018 with two books of my own. I just hope readers are as happy about this as I am!
Who are some of your favorite suspense and horror writers? Have you any new and upcoming names to recommend?
In terms of classic horror and suspense, I’m a huge fan of both Ray Bradbury and Shirley Jackson. I also love Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, and I count Jane Eyre in the gothic horror tradition (I truly hope to someday write a “woman in the attic” story in the style of a very dark fairy tale; it just seems like the type of piece that would help me exorcise some demons and pay homage to one of my favorite novels).
As for new and upcoming names, I probably have too many to count! I recently collaborated on a project with dark fantasy author Emily B. Cataneo, and that was such a fantastic experience; she’s so incredibly talented. While she’s been around a few years now and already has a number of incredible stories published in big outlets, she’s a name to watch, because I think it’s only the beginning for her writing.
Eden Royce is also one of my favorite modern authors. She crafts the most incredible stories, often with a Southern Gothic flair. While she certainly isn’t a complete newcomer to publishing, I predict over the next few years, her work is really going to explode and reach an even larger audience, so she’s definitely one to watch and to read too.
Brooke Warra is another horror and dark fantasy writer who is just getting started in her career. She’s already produced some standout work. In particular, her story, “Heirloom,” which recently appeared in Dim Shores’ anthology Looming Low, is a beautiful (and beautifully horrifying) example of how malleable the horror genre is.
And although I’m already running out of space for this answer, other authors I would highly recommend checking out include Julia Benally, Cecilia Dockins, Lori Titus, Lee Forman, Miracle Austin, Scarlett R. Algee, Farah Rose Smith, Sean Thompson, and Matt Andrew. Truly, I could go on and on and on. The horror and weird fiction genres have so much upcoming talent that it’s really bursting at the seams—in a very, very good way.
Is Halloween a big deal in your house? What are some of your favorite seasonal traditions?
Halloween is a huge deal in my house. Usually, I do a blog called 60 Days of Halloween, but I’ve been so busy with my fiction this year that I had to truncate it to fewer days. Still, we’re all very excited about the holiday. As for traditions, my husband and I go to a local orchard and pick apples every year. It’s a small tradition—and so painfully wholesome-sounding that it always makes me laugh—but we really love to do that together. It’s a really nice time to check in with ourselves and each other to see how far we’ve come over the previous twelve months and to celebrate another year together. There are also always a lot of local events in Pittsburgh that I love. We have the National Aviary in town, and they do several owl-themed events every October, which are just too fabulous for words. If all goes well, I’ll be brunching with owls in a couple weeks. To say I’m excited doesn’t even come close to describing it.
What’s the most memorable Halloween costume you’ve ever dressed up in? And why?
Growing up, I was always a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, and one of his purest horror films is The Birds, a perennial favorite in my house. At the height of my Hitchcock mania, which was when I was around fourteen, I dressed up as a victim from The Birds. It was an intense costume: vintage dress, fake blood all over me, and lots of random fake craft birds hanging off every seam. In retrospect, it was an insanely morbid getup, but it’s probably my proudest Halloween moment from childhood.
If you could be any spooky creature for one night, which would you choose, and why?
Probably a gargoyle. I’ve always thought they’re so beautiful and fearsome. Plus, from their vantage point high up on buildings, they see everything, and there’s something very special about that. Specifically, however, I’d want to be the type of gargoyle that could turn to stone at will but could also jump out and scare people too. After all, why be a spooky beastie if you can’t terrify a few innocent bystanders in the process?
What are you working on right now? What can we look forward to reading?
Right now, I’m finishing up my debut novel, The Rust Maidens, which is due out next year from Trepidatio Publishing, an imprint of JournalStone. The story is based in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1980, and deals with body horror, coming-of-age, and teenage girls turning into rust and rot. I’ve been describing it as a little bit like The Virgin Suicides meets David Cronenberg’s The Fly.
I’m also hoping to write another novella over the next six months, though that’s only in the planning stages at this point. Besides that, I’ve got several short stories in queue for publication as well as a few other tales halfway finished or out in the wilds of slush piles. In particular, I’m thrilled that my horror story, “An Elegy for Childhood Monsters,” is due out in the Suspended in Dusk 2 anthology from Grey Matter Press. That table of contents is out of this world, and it’s such an honor to be among the incredible authors in there. So be sure to look for that one very soon.
You can find more information about Gwendolyn Kiste’s work on her website, www.gwendolynkiste.com, as well as interviews with other authors, and a monthly submission roundup with information on magazines and anthologies with open submission calls. Keep an eye on her Twitter feed @GwendolynKiste for Halloween posts and owl brunch updates.
* * * * * * *
Interview by Juliana Spink Mills – SFFWorld.com © 2017
What a fun interview. It’s hard to imagine such enthusiasm and energy for such morbid and dark material, and yet there it is.
I look forward to Pretty Marys…
Randy M.
Great interview! And thank you for the mention. I’m honored!