Christina Henry Interview (New York Comic Con 2023)

This interview was conducted during New York Comic Con on October 14, 2023. Christina and I chatted about her work, horror, writing influences and more.

How are you enjoying New York and NYCC so far? This isn’t your first time at NYCC, is it?

I flew in from Germany after a 10-day book tour, so I’m a little tired. It’s good to be in NY and NYC. I was actually at NYCC for the first time 13 years ago promoting my first book, Black Wings. We had a panel on a Friday night at 10pm and Stan Lee was in the next room so there was a ton of noise coming through the wall.

You’ve written a variety of stories under the fantasy/speculative fiction umbrella, your recent output has leaned towards the darker branches of that tree and some of your earlier work has some darkness woven through the stories. What appeals to you about horror?

My “Chronicles of Alice” books are pretty dark. I think the Black Wings series, though it had lighthearted elements, was also dark, and obviously everything I’ve written recently as well – Near the Bone and The Ghost Tree and Good Girls Don’t Die. That is just where I want to write. Every book shows the influences of the author, all the things they take in subconsciously. I’ve always liked darker stories and films.

The bio on your website indicates you like Zombie movies. Do you have a favorite and why is it Return of the Living Dead?

It isn’t Return of the Living Dead. ? It depends if you are talking about traditional zombie films or something more adjacent with fast zombies. For traditional, Dawn of the Dead. I also really liked Fido, which came out In 2006, and of course Shaun of the Dead.

For “fast zombie” or “zombie adjacent” – 28 Days Later. It has such a gritty feel to it. The scariest line is when Christopher Eccleston’s character said, “I promised them women.” The zombies/infected are often not the worst threat. It is the people and their lack of humanity.

Are Zombies a trope you’d like to tackle in your fiction?

I’m not too sure. They can be challenging. All my books come from one question or image that I have in my head and then I write the book to find the answer. I would need the right question to answer for zombies. There’s a lot of work out there with zombies so I’d want to know I could add something good to the canon.

What’s your teaser for Good Girls Don’t Die?

It subverts expectations. The book is three different genres in one novel: mystery, horror, and dystopia and they all come together. I hope!

The question for this particular book came in the depths of the pandemic. The question is a bit of a spoiler, but let’s just say I wanted to write a cozy story for fun that takes a left turn. That happens a lot when I write.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Ghost Tree, especially having grown up in the 1980s. What inspired the setting for that one?

A few years before I wrote the book I wrote this phrase in one of my notebooks – “Meet me by the old ghost tree.” I didn’t do anything about it right away; I just waited until I was ready to find out who was saying that and why, and then I wrote the book. I was born in 1974 and grew up in the 1980s. It was a response to a lot of what I read (Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert R. McCammon’s Boys Life), stories always focused on boys coming of age and boyhood. There weren’t many girls coming of age stories. For men, going back to age 12-13-14 is nostalgic in many ways. They see it as a prime age of their life. I don’t think a lot of women would go back to that age. It’s a difficult time for girls, and they all develop mentally and physically at different rates so some are going into adulthood while some are still children.

Lauren (one of the protagonists) is a lot like me at that age, so I feel very close to her. ?

You’ve reimagined several fairy tales/early fantasies from Alice in Wonderland to Sleepy Hollow to Little Red Riding Hood to Peter Pan. Is there any fairy tale you’d still like to reinterpret?

I don’t think so. I say that some of those stories are me going through my “Haunted Forest” phase and now I’m going through my “Haunted Buildings” phase. Red Queen, Lost Boy, Horseman, The Girl in Red, even non-reimaginings like The Ghost Tree and Near the Bone all have predominately forest settings. I think I’ve worked out whatever I needed to work out about forests now, although Good Girls Don’t Die is a kind of transition book with multiple settings, including one forest.

Your Black Wings series is seven books long. How did that change from inception / initial ideas for the series and first book to the time you submitted the final manuscript of Black Spring?

I wrote the first one in late 2008 and it published in 2010, and the last book in 2014. It was originally meant to be nine books. When the seventh book was in process, the urban fantasy market took a nose dive, so I had to make a lot of changes quickly as they decided not to continue the series. I’d intended for books 7-9 to be one big overarching story but I had to abruptly wrap everything up.

I do still see some sales from the books which are available digitally and readers will still ask me about them, even overseas.

Because of the way I had to end Black Spring I’m reluctant to commit to series again.

I’m the same way with TV. I don’t usually get past a second or third season. I got really burned when Deadwood, the greatest show of all time, was abruptly cancelled. (This interviewer isn’t one to argue against the quality of that amazing television show!) I’m still not over Deadwood being cancelled.

So, standalones work better for me right now.

We’re in the heart of spooky season. Do you have any Hallowe’en traditions like stories/movies you like to revisit every year?

My son turns 18 next year so I think we’re doing our last pumpkin/apple picking, but there’s always horror movies. I liked to watch one every day during October, but that’s been a little tough with the book tour in Germany. (I’m not complaining at all!)

That said, I always watch the original Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney, Jr. and we always watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Last year, Criterion had a collection of 1980s movie including Road Games starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacy Keach. I remembered that one as a kid. There’s also the exhaustive Nightmare on Elm Street documentary, Never Sleep Again which is great.

I think you’d like In Search of Darkness which is all about 1980s Horror.

What books have caught your fancy as of late?

Mister Magic by Kiersten White in horror. Not horror, but more of a mystery: The Motion Picture Teller by Colin Cotteril.

What writers/books inspired you?

Stephen King, of course. I loved The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. One of the stories in that was the inspiration for Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves. I also loved Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and her short story “Don’t Look Now.” Shirley Jackson, too, of course and The Haunting of Hill House.

Lastly, I know you are from Chicago so I have to ask where is the pizza better? New York or that backwards Chicago pizza? (Both answers are wrong because it is New Jersey!)

I actually grew up in the Hudson Valley so I have to go with NY Style, but the thin crust in Chicago (not as famous as deep dish) is really good, too! It’s different from NY style, more of a cracker crust, but if you’re not a deep dish fan you should try it.