#authorspotlight — Public Fediverse posts

Stephanie Coontz: This Is Not a Self-Help Book

In this interview, author Stephanie Coontz discusses researching and writing about modern marriage in her new book, For Better and Worse.
The post Stephanie Coontz: This Is Not a Self-Help Book appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/stephanie-coontz-this-is-not-a-self-help-book

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Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery

In this interview, author Natalie Zina Walschots discusses the challenges she faced when writing her new speculative fiction novel, Villain.
The post Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/natalie-zina-walschots-ive-always-treated-writing-as-an-act-of-discovery

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Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery

In this interview, author Natalie Zina Walschots discusses the challenges she faced when writing her new speculative fiction novel, Villain.
The post Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/natalie-zina-walschots-ive-always-treated-writing-as-an-act-of-discovery

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Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery

In this interview, author Natalie Zina Walschots discusses the challenges she faced when writing her new speculative fiction novel, Villain.
The post Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/natalie-zina-walschots-ive-always-treated-writing-as-an-act-of-discovery

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Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery

In this interview, author Natalie Zina Walschots discusses the challenges she faced when writing her new speculative fiction novel, Villain.
The post Natalie Zina Walschots: I’ve Always Treated Writing as an Act of Discovery appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/natalie-zina-walschots-ive-always-treated-writing-as-an-act-of-discovery

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Keshe Chow: I Think I Went Into a Sort of Fugue State

In this interview, Keshe discusses what inspired her most recent novel, how fast the drafting process was (and possibly why), and much more.
The post Keshe Chow: I Think I Went Into a Sort of Fugue State appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/keshe-chow-i-think-i-went-into-a-sort-of-fugue-state

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Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic

In this interview, author Patrick Wyman discusses connecting with the people of the past in his new book, Lost Worlds.
The post Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/patrick-wyman-theres-no-substitute-for-deep-knowledge-of-your-topic

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Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic

In this interview, author Patrick Wyman discusses connecting with the people of the past in his new book, Lost Worlds.
The post Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/patrick-wyman-theres-no-substitute-for-deep-knowledge-of-your-topic

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Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic

In this interview, author Patrick Wyman discusses connecting with the people of the past in his new book, Lost Worlds.
The post Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/patrick-wyman-theres-no-substitute-for-deep-knowledge-of-your-topic

#BeInspired #HistoricalBooks #Interviews #WriteBetterNonfiction #AuthorSpotlight

Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic

In this interview, author Patrick Wyman discusses connecting with the people of the past in his new book, Lost Worlds.
The post Patrick Wyman: There’s No Substitute for Deep Knowledge of Your Topic appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/patrick-wyman-theres-no-substitute-for-deep-knowledge-of-your-topic

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Author Spotlight: Gothic Horror author Julie Lew

Julie Lew (she/they) loves all things fantasy and horror, the darker and queerer the better. They are the author of adult gothic horror novel, THE WIVES OF HERRICK HALL (May 2026), and the YA fantasy mystery, DEATH IN VERSE (Fall 2026). She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, and when she’s not writing books about the magical and the monstrous, she’s likely playing endless games of fetch with her chihuahua-terrier mix pup Kody.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website: www.julielew.com

Instagram: @julielew

Links to books: linktr.ee/julielew

BOOK PITCH:

Herrick Hall doesn’t let anything go without a fight. Least of all its masters’ dead wives…

After a dalliance with another woman leaves her reputation in shambles, Josephine Carter is banished to the isolated manor to serve as lady’s companion to Herrick’s mistress. Lady Nora Blake is a headstrong, capricious woman, who spends her days convalescing from a mysterious illness—and her nights witnessing her imminent death over and over. Shackled to her side, Josephine is certain life could not get worse. But then she meets the Herrick wives.

Ghosts veiled in shadow stalk the halls and trespass into Josephine’s dreams, trapped forever in the fury of their last dying wish: to destroy Herrick and everyone beneath its roof. Josephine determines to escape by any means necessary. Until she and Nora fall in love.

Together, Josephine and Nora must confront Herrick’s curse to battle their way to freedom. But Herrick has already claimed them as its next ghostly brides, and neither the house nor its vengeful wives will relinquish them without bloodshed…

The Wives of Herrick Hall is your Gothic Horror debut novel, released in May 2026 by Quill & Crow. Can you tell us where the seed for this novel came from, and what came first – setting, character, premise, or something else? 

The seed for The Wives of Herrick Hall was planted way back in 2019, while I was balancing working in the entertainment industry by day and attending film school at USC by night. Back then, I wrote screenplays during my free time (like literally everyone else in LA!), and after watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and then Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” I began toying around with an idea about two women falling in love in a cursed house.

I’ve always adored sweeping historical romances and eerie gothic tales (both as a reader and moviegoer), but as a queer person, it’s always been hard to find myself in those stories—that someone like me could conquer evil or find joy or deserve a happy ending. I knew I wanted to play in that sandbox and that my protagonists would be sapphic, but I struggled breaking that story out as a screenplay. I kept wanting to slip inside my protagonist Josephine’s mind and explore what she was thinking—something that’s more difficult to get away with in a visually-driven form like screenwriting. But when I decided to tinker with the idea as a novel instead of a screenplay, everything just fell into place and the story began to work at last.

Although it’s Gothic Horror, a major theme in this novel is Queer Joy, specifically a romance between the central characters Josephine and Nora. Can you share what you think about the importance of sapphic/queer stories in a genre like gothic horror/historical fiction, and especially in context of queer joy as a theme, rather than tragedy?

From the outset, I knew that while the book wouldn’t ignore the homophobia and discrimination queer people faced in the time period in which the book is set, it would never be solely *about* that.

Traditionally, mainstream media tends to tell queer stories (when it tells them at all) as ones predominantly steeped in trauma and tragedy. While these types of stories are absolutely valid and powerful, we deserve stories that are as diverse as we are.

Dark and horrible things can and certainly do happen in Wives, but I’ve always wanted Josephine and Nora’s romance to be the light at the heart of the book. We get to fight ghosts and the patriarchy AND win the girl at the end.

What other Gothic themes can readers expect within the book, and how does centering female characters and their experiences help to draw out these themes? (Mirroring/Doubling is a pretty Gothic thing, would you say that there is an element of this in their experiences too?)

The theme of doubling definitely appears in Wives! Josephine is well aware of her limitations as a woman in her time period, and as a newcomer to Herrick, she sees her own fate in both her mistress Nora and the ghosts who are trapped in the house.

The phantom wives and their undying fury show Josephine what she stands to lose if she remains at Herrick: she’ll be stripped of humanity, reduced to a single potent emotion, and lose complete control over herself for eternity.

Some of my other favorite gothic themes that make their way into Wives’ pages are curses and nightmares, as well as psychological stability and doubting your own and others’ minds. Josephine’s mistress and eventual love interest, Nora, has received the medical diagnosis of her female mind being unstable and untrustworthy, and so it’s easy for men (and even Josephine at first) to dismiss her—especially when she makes claims like she witnesses her death every night in her dreams.

Society tries to condition us to doubt people who are not straight, white men, and I wanted to explore this through the gothic lens of heightened emotions and the appearance of the supernatural.

Where did the concept for the ghosts come from, and what ghostly traditions were you drawing on to create/develop them?

The concept for the ghosts came about as I was thinking about the patriarchy and the entitlement men feel towards women’s bodies. What does that look like in this house that is a mirror to society?

For me, that meant the house holding onto them like property even after death. The previous wives of Herrick cannot pass or leave Herrick after dying, but are still shackled to it like the silverware in the cupboards or their portraits on the walls.

Women as victims is a common trope in classic gothic fiction, and I wanted to subvert that—yes, they find themselves trapped in a house and their circumstances don’t permit them to escape, but they are going to fight back and be their own saviors.

How did you develop Herrick Hall itself – is there a real place/places that it’s based on? How much detail did you go into to create it as a setting?

I love creating stories in isolated, contained settings like a sinister mansion or a remote boarding school. Setting becomes such a microcosm of the story’s world that puts a magnifying glass up to our own world and politics, and tension immediately becomes that much higher (how do you get out? how do you survive?).

With Herrick, I was inspired by the eerie mansions of gothic tales like Thornfield in Jane Eyre and High Place in Mexican Gothic. I wanted Herrick to feel like another character in the book, though the house remains inanimate (or does it??), another foe Josephine must contend with to win her happy ending.

I created a detailed look book for Herrick and the book’s characters, back when it was originally conceived of as a screenplay. Before every writing session, I’d listen to a few songs from my themed playlist (lots of eerie instrumental music) and revisit the look book while taking a walk. Then when I felt really immersed in the world and like I could envision the cinematic trailer in my mind, I’d hurry to my laptop to get more words on the page.

Do you have anything else to plug here that is currently out or coming soon? What should readers look out for?

I am so incredibly lucky to be publishing two debuts in 2026! My young adult debut comes out this fall, a dark fantasy murder mystery called Death in Verse.

Set in an alternate 1920s with a poetry-based magic system, it follows a nonmagical girl whose search for her missing mother leads her to an abandoned school where she and a group of kidnapped poets are tasked with finishing the final lines of a spell before the clock runs out. It’s a bit different from The Wives of Herrick Hall, but it is also steeped in a gothic sensibility and I hope readers enjoy it as well!

Like This? Try These:

Author Spotlight: Gothic Horror author Julie Lew

Julie Lew (she/they) loves all things fantasy and horror, the darker and queerer the better. They are the author of adult gothic horror novel, THE WIVES OF HERRICK HALL (May 2026), and the YA fantasy mystery, DEATH IN VERSE (Fall 2026). She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, and when she’s not writing books about the magical and the monstrous, she’s likely playing endless games of fetch with her chihuahua-terrier mix pup Kody.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website: www.julielew.com

Instagram: @julielew

Links to books: linktr.ee/julielew

BOOK PITCH:

Herrick Hall doesn’t let anything go without a fight. Least of all its masters’ dead wives…

After a dalliance with another woman leaves her reputation in shambles, Josephine Carter is banished to the isolated manor to serve as lady’s companion to Herrick’s mistress. Lady Nora Blake is a headstrong, capricious woman, who spends her days convalescing from a mysterious illness—and her nights witnessing her imminent death over and over. Shackled to her side, Josephine is certain life could not get worse. But then she meets the Herrick wives.

Ghosts veiled in shadow stalk the halls and trespass into Josephine’s dreams, trapped forever in the fury of their last dying wish: to destroy Herrick and everyone beneath its roof. Josephine determines to escape by any means necessary. Until she and Nora fall in love.

Together, Josephine and Nora must confront Herrick’s curse to battle their way to freedom. But Herrick has already claimed them as its next ghostly brides, and neither the house nor its vengeful wives will relinquish them without bloodshed…

The Wives of Herrick Hall is your Gothic Horror debut novel, released in May 2026 by Quill & Crow. Can you tell us where the seed for this novel came from, and what came first – setting, character, premise, or something else? 

The seed for The Wives of Herrick Hall was planted way back in 2019, while I was balancing working in the entertainment industry by day and attending film school at USC by night. Back then, I wrote screenplays during my free time (like literally everyone else in LA!), and after watching Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and then Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” I began toying around with an idea about two women falling in love in a cursed house.

I’ve always adored sweeping historical romances and eerie gothic tales (both as a reader and moviegoer), but as a queer person, it’s always been hard to find myself in those stories—that someone like me could conquer evil or find joy or deserve a happy ending. I knew I wanted to play in that sandbox and that my protagonists would be sapphic, but I struggled breaking that story out as a screenplay. I kept wanting to slip inside my protagonist Josephine’s mind and explore what she was thinking—something that’s more difficult to get away with in a visually-driven form like screenwriting. But when I decided to tinker with the idea as a novel instead of a screenplay, everything just fell into place and the story began to work at last.

Although it’s Gothic Horror, a major theme in this novel is Queer Joy, specifically a romance between the central characters Josephine and Nora. Can you share what you think about the importance of sapphic/queer stories in a genre like gothic horror/historical fiction, and especially in context of queer joy as a theme, rather than tragedy?

From the outset, I knew that while the book wouldn’t ignore the homophobia and discrimination queer people faced in the time period in which the book is set, it would never be solely *about* that.

Traditionally, mainstream media tends to tell queer stories (when it tells them at all) as ones predominantly steeped in trauma and tragedy. While these types of stories are absolutely valid and powerful, we deserve stories that are as diverse as we are.

Dark and horrible things can and certainly do happen in Wives, but I’ve always wanted Josephine and Nora’s romance to be the light at the heart of the book. We get to fight ghosts and the patriarchy AND win the girl at the end.

What other Gothic themes can readers expect within the book, and how does centering female characters and their experiences help to draw out these themes? (Mirroring/Doubling is a pretty Gothic thing, would you say that there is an element of this in their experiences too?)

The theme of doubling definitely appears in Wives! Josephine is well aware of her limitations as a woman in her time period, and as a newcomer to Herrick, she sees her own fate in both her mistress Nora and the ghosts who are trapped in the house.

The phantom wives and their undying fury show Josephine what she stands to lose if she remains at Herrick: she’ll be stripped of humanity, reduced to a single potent emotion, and lose complete control over herself for eternity.

Some of my other favorite gothic themes that make their way into Wives’ pages are curses and nightmares, as well as psychological stability and doubting your own and others’ minds. Josephine’s mistress and eventual love interest, Nora, has received the medical diagnosis of her female mind being unstable and untrustworthy, and so it’s easy for men (and even Josephine at first) to dismiss her—especially when she makes claims like she witnesses her death every night in her dreams.

Society tries to condition us to doubt people who are not straight, white men, and I wanted to explore this through the gothic lens of heightened emotions and the appearance of the supernatural.

Where did the concept for the ghosts come from, and what ghostly traditions were you drawing on to create/develop them?

The concept for the ghosts came about as I was thinking about the patriarchy and the entitlement men feel towards women’s bodies. What does that look like in this house that is a mirror to society?

For me, that meant the house holding onto them like property even after death. The previous wives of Herrick cannot pass or leave Herrick after dying, but are still shackled to it like the silverware in the cupboards or their portraits on the walls.

Women as victims is a common trope in classic gothic fiction, and I wanted to subvert that—yes, they find themselves trapped in a house and their circumstances don’t permit them to escape, but they are going to fight back and be their own saviors.

How did you develop Herrick Hall itself – is there a real place/places that it’s based on? How much detail did you go into to create it as a setting?

I love creating stories in isolated, contained settings like a sinister mansion or a remote boarding school. Setting becomes such a microcosm of the story’s world that puts a magnifying glass up to our own world and politics, and tension immediately becomes that much higher (how do you get out? how do you survive?).

With Herrick, I was inspired by the eerie mansions of gothic tales like Thornfield in Jane Eyre and High Place in Mexican Gothic. I wanted Herrick to feel like another character in the book, though the house remains inanimate (or does it??), another foe Josephine must contend with to win her happy ending.

I created a detailed look book for Herrick and the book’s characters, back when it was originally conceived of as a screenplay. Before every writing session, I’d listen to a few songs from my themed playlist (lots of eerie instrumental music) and revisit the look book while taking a walk. Then when I felt really immersed in the world and like I could envision the cinematic trailer in my mind, I’d hurry to my laptop to get more words on the page.

Do you have anything else to plug here that is currently out or coming soon? What should readers look out for?

I am so incredibly lucky to be publishing two debuts in 2026! My young adult debut comes out this fall, a dark fantasy murder mystery called Death in Verse.

Set in an alternate 1920s with a poetry-based magic system, it follows a nonmagical girl whose search for her missing mother leads her to an abandoned school where she and a group of kidnapped poets are tasked with finishing the final lines of a spell before the clock runs out. It’s a bit different from The Wives of Herrick Hall, but it is also steeped in a gothic sensibility and I hope readers enjoy it as well!

Like This? Try These:

Véronique Darwin: This Is My Dream, and I’m Living It

In this interview, author Véronique Darwin discusses the importance of connection with her interconnected short story collection, Mom Camp.
The post Véronique Darwin: This Is My Dream, and I’m Living It appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/veronique-darwin-this-is-my-dream-and-im-living-it

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Author Spotlight: Black Sapphic Vampire Romance author Liza Wemakor

Liza Wemakor (she/they) is a writer and a Ph.D. candidate in UC Riverside’s English Department. Her fiction has been published in Strange Horizons, Anathema Magazine, Baffling Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut novella, Loving Safoa, was published by Neon Hemlock Press in February 2024.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website: www.lizawemakor.com

Instagram: @lizawemakor
Bluesky: @lizawemakor.bsky.social

Book Link: Loving Safoa (Neon Hemlock)

Book Elevator Pitch for readers/book clubs

If you enjoy paranormal romance with literary stylings, you will enjoy Loving Safoa!

Your novella, Loving Safoa, is out now with Neon Hemlock. What were your main inspirations behind this sapphic vampire novella?

I wanted to write a vampire story that reflected underrepresented elements of my worldview. It seemed sensible to lean into Safoa’s experience of being an undocumented immigrant in the Western world across a long expanse of time, and to demonstrate how this extended period of uncertainty and precarity forces Safoa into survival mode. Meanwhile, she is also recovering from the trauma of being held captive by a sadistic colonizer for a number of years, as well as experiencing new kinds of freedom in New York, and eventually Maryland. 

Cynthia, on the other hand, feels orphaned — she is navigating adulthood without her mother or any other parent, yet becoming a maternal figure to her students. She also feels a level of insecurity about her connection to her motherland, as a Ghanaian-American woman, and faces this head-on in her relationship with Safoa, who she imagines as a pure embodiment of African identity. Safoa and Cynthia’s lives are quite complex, and together they tell a story of diasporic reunification. 

The novella features woven stories from different places and time periods, from 18th-19thC Ghana to a near-future Maryland. How did you decide what segments of these characters’ lives to include, and were there scenes and times that you played with but ultimately decided to cut?

I wanted to maintain a focus on Cynthia and Safoa’s romance, so I omitted some portions of their lives before they met; I may have explored more of those past moments in a longer project, like a novel, but a novella length felt right for this story. I wanted the passage of time to be a bit surreal, because it is surreal to have lives as long as Cynthia and Safoa’s. Time itself and the details of their lives are a blur.  

I was seriously toying with showing glimpses of Safoa’s life in London — her lovers, and her brief skirmishes with other European predators. I would’ve emphasized how she was simultaneously powerful and vulnerable to exploitative people, which motivated her departure to the U.S. after a few decades. I didn’t include these scenes because Cynthia may have been lost in the larger narrative — there wouldn’t have been as much of a balanced representation of their lives, and Safoa would have taken over the story. 

How does vampirism and the donor concept work in your novella, and is this based on any folklore? 

I was very inspired by Jewelle Gomez’s approach to vampire networks in The Gilda Stories — vampire communities that are explicitly political, and whose politics have been informed by their previous experiences of being hurt, exploited, and truly loved.

I was also inspired by Octavia Butler’s approaches to both community and feeding in Fledgling. Shori depends upon a host of human companions and vampires while navigating a white supremacist vampire hierarchy. Shori’s companions also gain a lot from her presence, in a symbiotic fashion.

Tamara Jerée wrote beautifully about these dynamics in her Strange Horizons essay, “How to Make a Family: Queer Blood Bonds in Black Feminist Vampire Novels“.

There was a hint of Ghanaian folklore in the novella, though I took creative liberties. Safoa and a character named Yaba occasionally refer to the first vampire they met as ‘ɔbonsam’ — or a demonic entity. In some Ghanaian folklore, there are vampiric, humanoid creatures called ɔbonsam or sasabonsam that have very long hair, like Safoa does at some point, and live / feed on people in the forest. I didn’t opt to include other details like sharp teeth and bat-like features in my depiction of vampires. Tongue feeding was more fun for a smutty sapphic story.

At some point in my life I encountered myths related to the obayifo (another West African vampire) as well, and I took liberties with the factoid that they are phosphorescent, i.e. when Cynthia noticed a blue aura around Safoa’s body.

Can you tell us more about Cynthia – where did she come from, and what made you set her as a schoolteacher in the early 1990s at the start of this novella? How did you develop her character, her voice, and her desires (e.g. to be an “everlasting elder”)?

I am one of those people who insists on a vaguely-defined, somewhat secretive spirituality that undergirds my writing practices. In the spring of 2021, Cynthia and Safoa appeared to me almost effortlessly, and I was compelled to write about them. Not long before that, I’d gotten into the Ph.D. program I am at the end of now, and I started writing feverishly before my time and energy became more limited. Cynthia and Safoa were fascinating to me, and their chemistry was palpable; at times I blushed when writing and editing their sex scenes, because it felt like an intrusion upon their privacy. 

Cynthia’s life resembles my life in some ways, but not all. I haven’t lost my mother, and she (Cynthia) has spent more of her life in New York City and Maryland than I have, but her anxieties about her authenticity as a Ghanaian diasporan and her interest in teaching certainly resonate with me. I am sure that some of my own subjectivity informed how I wrote Cynthia, though a lot of it was subconscious. 

I had a moodboard for both Cynthia and Safoa, and Cynthia’s moodboard included images of the actresses Nicole Beharie and Moses Ingram, and the model Dede Mansro. I was interested in channeling not only the softness of their appearances, but the moodiness and subdued seductiveness they are able to convey. 

Regarding the choice to begin in the 1990s: it was a perfect fit both aesthetically and politically. The 90s was a period of intense political maturation for educators, artists, and the general public. There was, especially for queer black people, queer people of color, a mingling of death and renewal — an increasing awareness of identity (and its constructedness) mingling with the optimism of entering a new millenium. The perfect setting for politically conscious vampires to come into themselves.

Can you tell us more about Safoa, the vampire, her Ghanaian roots, her relationship with tattoos and her place in her communities across time as a body artist, and how she came to be shaped on the page? What was the character development process like for her, and was there research involved to craft her journey from 1799 onwards – if so, what research did you do?

A pattern that is emerging in my answers to these questions is that I placed Cynthia and Safoa in historical moments that were hotbeds for social resistance. I wanted Safoa to live through multiple eras of Black and African resistance, and I wanted readers to see her putting in the work to pursue what she saw as her purpose in life, which was being a body artist from the beginning, and then evolved, through meeting Cynthia, to include more social pursuits. 

In writing Safoa, I revisited a few books from a class I took in college about pre-colonial African history, and I read a few books and articles about West African empires and West African mythology. I also made an effort to research some of the geography (landscapes and flora) of West Africa, and brushed up my knowledge of some Twi terms and phrases, which I grew up hearing from my maternal family. Ultimately, only some of these details made it onto the page, because making the world feel lived in required me to look at these landscapes through Safoa’s eyes.

What research did you do for the different settings in the novella, and what sociopolitical/ideological projections were you going with for the development of your near-future Maryland setting to avoid it being a utopia/dystopia?

I wanted each of the major settings of the novella, 19th century West Africa, 1990s New York City, and 1990s / 21st century Maryland, to reflect major political movements of their time. Safoa’s time in the part of West Africa we now know as Ghana was inflected with rising anticolonial sentiments. New York City is and was sensational for the community organizing within its boroughs, though it was not without the risk of violence (see: the 2003 murder of Sakia Gunn in the nearby Newark, New Jersey). Like New York City, the DMV is and was a major locus of queer arts organizing (especially literary arts) and queer political organizing, which I aimed to reflect in Cynthia and Safoa’s commune involvements. 

I wouldn’t say I was consciously avoiding the story being classified as a utopia or dystopia, and this defiance of categories came about because I had naturalistic inclinations in the writing of this novella. I wanted my writing to reflect how deeply traumatic and how stunningly gorgeous people can be. For the Maryland commune in particular, I wanted to hint at the fact that there were conflicts commune members had already worked through before Cynthia and Safoa arrived, and working through these conflicts laid the groundwork for Cynthia and Safoa to soar, as cooperative leaders in their new community.

Would you ever consider expanding upon the story of Cynthia and Safoa, perhaps in a connected story, and/or are you moving on to other projects (if so, what’s next?!)

I would love to write a short story or novelette focused on Safoa’s time in London / Europe, when the time seems right to do so. I’ve written several short stories that I’m proud of since Loving Safoa came out in 2024, and it’s just been a matter of finding the right magazine at the right time for the stories that haven’t been published yet. I also have a few short stories that are in partial states, that I am slowly finishing as my dissertation takes priority. 

I also have a novel project that is half-drafted! The novel project follows a polarizing, and potentially revolutionary, celebrity musician. 

Beyond my own fiction, I am a nonfiction editor and finance manager for Anathema Magazine, a venue dedicated to speculation fiction by and for queer people of color that is relaunching after a 3-year hiatus — yay!  

Like This? Try These:

Author Spotlight: Vampire Fiction Author Lucius Valiant

Meet Lucius Valiant, a Danish-British author, and learn more about his series, The Thornhill Vampire Chronicles.

Author Spotlight: Vampire Fiction Author Talia Wall

Meet Talia Wall and her dystopian vampire series, ‘Until Equinox’ trilogy! Books 1&2 are out now, and Book 3 is coming soon.

Author Spotlight: Vampire Fiction Author Eule Grey

Meet Eule Grey (she/they), a Sculpture artist, disability activist, and disabled author of queer, sparkly books. We talk about disability and sapphic elements in their work.

Author Spotlight: Horror & Vampire Fiction Author C. Lenz

C. Lenz is a Canadian author and scientist who lives with her wife Zoey in Hamilton, Ontario. In this spotlight interview, she discusses her monster-vampire slasher, Thyrst Festival.

Author Spotlight: Vampire Fiction Author Frankie Sutton

Frankie Sutton writes paranormal and urban fantasy, and talks to us about her novel, Vampiric Crush.

Author Spotlight: Queer SFF and Vampire Fiction Author H.S. Kallinger

Meet one of the authors from the Authors for Palestine event, H.S. Kallinger (he/they). Kallinger discusses his work, vampires, and what’s next for their queer Sci-Fi series.

Who the heck is this Rob Bignell guy anyway? And why is his business named “Inventing Reality”? Find out! #author #amwriting #authorsky #writersky #writingcommunity #AuthorSpotlight inventingrealityediting.com/a...

About

#IndieAuthor #author #AuthorSpotlight #LiteraryArt #WritersOfBluesky

#Indieauthor #Author #AuthorSpotlight #writesky #writingadvice

Author Spotlight: British Horror/Crime Thriller author WM Parslow

WM Parslow (he/him) is a horror writer based in Oxford, UK. He is inspired by his own experiences, folklore, and ghost stories. His dependents include two cats and a Venus fly trap called Steve. He can often be found walking Oxford’s streets, looking for a nice pub to sit in and write.

AUTHOR LINKS:

IG & Threads: @wmparslow

GoodReads: The Standing Dead
Amazon: The Standing Dead
Kobo: The Standing Dead

Book Sample:
Amazon Look Inside Feature

Book Pitch for Book Clubs/Readers:
If you were sent to prison, how would you cope? What if the prison you had been sent to was also chosen for the return of an otherworldly presence bent on chaos and violence? What would you do?

Your novel The Standing Dead is a hard-boiled British crime thriller/folk horror: can you tell us where your inspiration for this book came from and what led you to merge these genres?

I never set out to write a book that had elements of a crime thriller in it – this just developed from the setting of the novel really. In fact, I didn’t really see this myself until the first reviews started coming in.

The starting point for The Standing Dead was my finally deciding to sit down and write the book I felt was in me.

As I’ve always been a fan of supernatural and psychological fiction (I’m of the generation that were formed by reading Stephen King at too young an age!), it made perfect sense to write something dark and creepy. Like the cliche says, write what you know! The use of a prison as a setting also seemed ideal and I could draw on my own knowledge there to build a realistic and immersive world.

Did any of your real life experiences go into the book, or did you keep everything fictionalised? Were there things that didn’t make it into the book that you might save up for other books, or that you were sorry to leave out, and can you tell us what they were?

I started working for the UK Prison Service at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and wore the uniform for around three and a half years. As regards how much of my own experience has made it into the book versus fictionalising it all, it’s something of a hybrid. I have used some examples of incidents I witnessed or were told about and there are aspects of people I met mixed into the characters.

What I have not done though is base any one character on a particular person as that felt unfair to the people I worked with, both staff and prisoners.

One thing I was keen to do was to portray life inside a typical UK prison in a realistic fashion, which I knew would include use of the appropriate terminology. I wanted to make sure I was not revealing any information that was not already readily available, so every single piece of prison terminology, slang etc was run through Google first to see if it was already out in the world.

Thankfully, everything I wanted to include was, and it was immensely gratifying to see reviews from readers who had also worked in prisons saying how realistic the final book felt.

Introduce us to your protagonist, William Lees. How did you develop his character, and what made you decide he should be a prisoner, rather than a prison guard or police officer? 

I did initially consider making Lees an officer or a member of staff, but I quickly realised I could make him a more relatable and grounded character by putting him in prison, or rather by the way he ends up inside.

Lees is not a bad man, he’s someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up taking a life. Creating a character who starts out in a very low and dark place as a result of a situation he didn’t look for helped me build him into the man he is.

His status as a first-time prisoner means that he’s looking at this world through inexperienced eyes, and that allows the readers to learn about the world with him.

Finally, making Lees a prisoner meant I could maintain a tight and claustrophobic setting for the main story threads, which I think helped enhance the horror elements of The Standing Dead.

There are a lot of heavy themes, particularly around men’s mental health and trauma; can you talk a bit about why these themes were important to you to include, and what you wanted to express in The Standing Dead?

I have depression, and I’ve experienced some nasty crises in the past. In the last five or six years I’ve made a conscious effort to talk about my own issues more openly as this is how mental health issues need to be treated, with open, honest and constructive dialogue. It’s the only way that people who need help can be signposted to the sort of support that they need, whether that be talking therapies like CBT or counselling, medical support like antidepressants or a combination.

Sadly, this is still atypical in society, particularly amongst men. Between the ages of 18 and 50 (I think) the thing that is most likely to kill a man is himself and we have to change that. The rise of the ‘manosphere’ with mouthpieces like Andrew Tate is something I despise and I wanted to present a man who is struggling with his guilt, trauma and depression, but who is ultimately helped through it.

I should also say that these themes are not going away in the books: William Lees’ journey will run over three books and mental health will always be part of the story.

The setting for this novel is HMP Page [HMP = Her/His Majesty’s Prison], an old men’s prison in south-east England with buried secrets in its grounds, which is a really interesting twist on the folk horror/Gothic horror manor house setting. Was this a conscious take on the Gothic/folk horror Big House trope, and did you design this prison with floor plans or diagrams when you were planning the book, or did it stay in your imagination and get transferred to the page that way? 

If you want to see HMP Page on a map, you can’t as it’s fictional. However, I have located it in a similar place to the real HMP Bullingdon.

The interior layout of Page is made up – I used aspects of the prisons I spent time working in to build a map of the wings and other buildings within the walls of HMP Page.

As regards it being a twist on the haunted house trope, that wasn’t something at the forefront of my planning when it came to building the story. But, it absolutely became a new take on the setting and one I’m very proud of.

What’s next for William and his story – can you tell us anything about Book 2, The Black Dog?

I can’t say too much, but The Black Dog will reunite us with Lees after his release. He is now living in Oxford and building himself a new life. In The Standing Dead, Lees finds a friend and mentor in his cellmate Harris. In The Black Dog, Lees ends up taking on the mentor role, but he also finds himself drawn once again into a supernatural battle and quest for vengeance. Oh, and he gets a love interest!

Like This? Try These:

Classic 1980s British Folk Horror – West Country Tales Series

A reminder for some, an introduction for others: I just discovered the 1980s series West Country Tales on YouTube, and thought it deserved its own post! What’s your favourite episode?

BookFunnel Promo: LGBTQIA+ Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

Check out this group promo of 51 titles, all queer mystery, suspense, & thriller stories. This group promotion runs until 28 Feb 2026, so there’s plenty of time to share it & check it out!

All The Haunts Be Ours: Folk Horror Box Set Vol. 2

I’ve been gifted ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS for Christmas: let me take you through Vol. 2’s contents in this post!

All the Haunts Be Ours: Folk Horror Box Set Vol. 1

I’ve been gifted ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS for Christmas: let me take you through Vol. 1’s contents in this post!

Author Spotlight: SFFH Author Miranda Kate/MK Boers

Meet Miranda Kate/MK Boers, an indie author originally from Surrey, UK, and now based in the Netherlands. Miranda writes horror, dark fantasy, dystopian worlds, and psychological thrillers.

New Release! The Snow Child by C.M. Rosens

The freak June blizzard shrouded the scarecrow in white mist, but Jem Gregson wasn’t trudging out of the farmhouse with his rifle on Old Rusty’s account. He was out here for the snowmen. They were in a row, slender columns of tightly packed, brilliant crystals, glittering until his eyes ached. Each had a perfectly round…

Author Spotlight: British Horror/Crime Thriller author WM Parslow

WM Parslow (he/him) is a horror writer based in Oxford, UK. He is inspired by his own experiences, folklore, and ghost stories. His dependents include two cats and a Venus fly trap called Steve. He can often be found walking Oxford’s streets, looking for a nice pub to sit in and write.

AUTHOR LINKS:

IG & Threads: @wmparslow

GoodReads: The Standing Dead
Amazon: The Standing Dead
Kobo: The Standing Dead

Book Sample:
Amazon Look Inside Feature

Book Pitch for Book Clubs/Readers:
If you were sent to prison, how would you cope? What if the prison you had been sent to was also chosen for the return of an otherworldly presence bent on chaos and violence? What would you do?

Your novel The Standing Dead is a hard-boiled British crime thriller/folk horror: can you tell us where your inspiration for this book came from and what led you to merge these genres?

I never set out to write a book that had elements of a crime thriller in it – this just developed from the setting of the novel really. In fact, I didn’t really see this myself until the first reviews started coming in.

The starting point for The Standing Dead was my finally deciding to sit down and write the book I felt was in me.

As I’ve always been a fan of supernatural and psychological fiction (I’m of the generation that were formed by reading Stephen King at too young an age!), it made perfect sense to write something dark and creepy. Like the cliche says, write what you know! The use of a prison as a setting also seemed ideal and I could draw on my own knowledge there to build a realistic and immersive world.

Did any of your real life experiences go into the book, or did you keep everything fictionalised? Were there things that didn’t make it into the book that you might save up for other books, or that you were sorry to leave out, and can you tell us what they were?

I started working for the UK Prison Service at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and wore the uniform for around three and a half years. As regards how much of my own experience has made it into the book versus fictionalising it all, it’s something of a hybrid. I have used some examples of incidents I witnessed or were told about and there are aspects of people I met mixed into the characters.

What I have not done though is base any one character on a particular person as that felt unfair to the people I worked with, both staff and prisoners.

One thing I was keen to do was to portray life inside a typical UK prison in a realistic fashion, which I knew would include use of the appropriate terminology. I wanted to make sure I was not revealing any information that was not already readily available, so every single piece of prison terminology, slang etc was run through Google first to see if it was already out in the world.

Thankfully, everything I wanted to include was, and it was immensely gratifying to see reviews from readers who had also worked in prisons saying how realistic the final book felt.

Introduce us to your protagonist, William Lees. How did you develop his character, and what made you decide he should be a prisoner, rather than a prison guard or police officer? 

I did initially consider making Lees an officer or a member of staff, but I quickly realised I could make him a more relatable and grounded character by putting him in prison, or rather by the way he ends up inside.

Lees is not a bad man, he’s someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up taking a life. Creating a character who starts out in a very low and dark place as a result of a situation he didn’t look for helped me build him into the man he is.

His status as a first-time prisoner means that he’s looking at this world through inexperienced eyes, and that allows the readers to learn about the world with him.

Finally, making Lees a prisoner meant I could maintain a tight and claustrophobic setting for the main story threads, which I think helped enhance the horror elements of The Standing Dead.

There are a lot of heavy themes, particularly around men’s mental health and trauma; can you talk a bit about why these themes were important to you to include, and what you wanted to express in The Standing Dead?

I have depression, and I’ve experienced some nasty crises in the past. In the last five or six years I’ve made a conscious effort to talk about my own issues more openly as this is how mental health issues need to be treated, with open, honest and constructive dialogue. It’s the only way that people who need help can be signposted to the sort of support that they need, whether that be talking therapies like CBT or counselling, medical support like antidepressants or a combination.

Sadly, this is still atypical in society, particularly amongst men. Between the ages of 18 and 50 (I think) the thing that is most likely to kill a man is himself and we have to change that. The rise of the ‘manosphere’ with mouthpieces like Andrew Tate is something I despise and I wanted to present a man who is struggling with his guilt, trauma and depression, but who is ultimately helped through it.

I should also say that these themes are not going away in the books: William Lees’ journey will run over three books and mental health will always be part of the story.

The setting for this novel is HMP Page [HMP = Her/His Majesty’s Prison], an old men’s prison in south-east England with buried secrets in its grounds, which is a really interesting twist on the folk horror/Gothic horror manor house setting. Was this a conscious take on the Gothic/folk horror Big House trope, and did you design this prison with floor plans or diagrams when you were planning the book, or did it stay in your imagination and get transferred to the page that way? 

If you want to see HMP Page on a map, you can’t as it’s fictional. However, I have located it in a similar place to the real HMP Bullingdon.

The interior layout of Page is made up – I used aspects of the prisons I spent time working in to build a map of the wings and other buildings within the walls of HMP Page.

As regards it being a twist on the haunted house trope, that wasn’t something at the forefront of my planning when it came to building the story. But, it absolutely became a new take on the setting and one I’m very proud of.

What’s next for William and his story – can you tell us anything about Book 2, The Black Dog?

I can’t say too much, but The Black Dog will reunite us with Lees after his release. He is now living in Oxford and building himself a new life. In The Standing Dead, Lees finds a friend and mentor in his cellmate Harris. In The Black Dog, Lees ends up taking on the mentor role, but he also finds himself drawn once again into a supernatural battle and quest for vengeance. Oh, and he gets a love interest!

Like This? Try These:

Classic 1980s British Folk Horror – West Country Tales Series

A reminder for some, an introduction for others: I just discovered the 1980s series West Country Tales on YouTube, and thought it deserved its own post! What’s your favourite episode?

BookFunnel Promo: LGBTQIA+ Murder, Mystery, Suspense & Thrillers

Check out this group promo of 51 titles, all queer mystery, suspense, & thriller stories. This group promotion runs until 28 Feb 2026, so there’s plenty of time to share it & check it out!

All The Haunts Be Ours: Folk Horror Box Set Vol. 2

I’ve been gifted ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS for Christmas: let me take you through Vol. 2’s contents in this post!

All the Haunts Be Ours: Folk Horror Box Set Vol. 1

I’ve been gifted ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS for Christmas: let me take you through Vol. 1’s contents in this post!

Author Spotlight: SFFH Author Miranda Kate/MK Boers

Meet Miranda Kate/MK Boers, an indie author originally from Surrey, UK, and now based in the Netherlands. Miranda writes horror, dark fantasy, dystopian worlds, and psychological thrillers.

New Release! The Snow Child by C.M. Rosens

The freak June blizzard shrouded the scarecrow in white mist, but Jem Gregson wasn’t trudging out of the farmhouse with his rifle on Old Rusty’s account. He was out here for the snowmen. They were in a row, slender columns of tightly packed, brilliant crystals, glittering until his eyes ached. Each had a perfectly round…

Amanda Sellet: Stay Weird

In this interview, author Amanda Sellet discusses mixing cozy mystery and romance in her new YA novel, Flirting with Murder.
The post Amanda Sellet: Stay Weird appeared first on Writer's Digest.
https://www.writersdigest.com/amanda-sellet-stay-weird

#Genre #MysteryThriller #WriteBetterFiction #YoungAdult #AuthorSpotlight

Author Spotlight: Gothic Weird Fiction author Nikoline Kaiser

Nikoline Kaiser (she/her) resides in Denmark, and writes short stories, novels and poetry. She has published several pieces in both English and Danish, and been longlisted for the Lee Smith Novel Prize. She writes about grief, love, horror, sexuality and one time about a woman turning into a tree.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website: nikolinekaiser.dk
Social Media: @nikolinekaiser on Instagram, bluesky and reddit

Read a free sample:
The Dreaming of Man (Amazon Look Inside feature)

Book Club/Reader pitch for The Dreaming of Man:

A queer spin on Lovecraft meets Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a historical crime-turned-horror novella.

Your novella, The Dreaming of Man, was released in 2025. What was the writing journey like from first idea to query-ready?

I wrote the novella all the way back in 2019, and I actually wrote the first draft – which hasn’t changed a whole lot, aside from being cleaned up – all in one afternoon. I don’t think I took any breaks. It was one of those stories that had to come out all at once, or I feared I wouldn’t finish it.

It received a lot of rejections over the next couple of years, until it landed with dave at Neon Hemlock Press.

It sounds tacky, but I truly believe it found it’s right home with Neon, and the experience I had with the press has been wonderful. I had huge input in the final version, including getting to pick the artist to make the cover — J.J. Epping, a dear friend and someone I knew could nail the creepy feeling I wanted the cover to convey.

What are the pros and cons of being a Danish author writing in English, and what advice would you give others writing for an Anglophonic market?

The biggest con is definitely my own insecurities about playing with the language; I feel I can’t get away with as much, because publishers and readers might perceive it as a mistake instead of a deliberate bending of the language rules.

And then there’s the time differences for events, and not being as physically close to the market, particularly for events.

For anyone else in the same position, I would recommend familiarizing yourself as much as possible with both the Anglophonic and your local publishing world. Some works might fit better in one cultural context than the other.

What are your main Weird Fiction and Gothic Horror influences, and what are your favourite themes and elements from these genres? Which can readers expect to find in your novella (if you can let us know in a non-spoilery way)?

I am actually fairly new to these genres; I used to avoid horror at all costs, until I fell over some video essays on how much queer exploration there often is in horror. And then we started reading gothic fiction at university, and I fell in love with the genre.

Ann Radcliffe’s works – especially “The Italian” – are amazing and show so much of what still works in horror today. And for anyone writing in these genres, I recommend reading “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole, the first every Gothic horror. It reads as fairly silly now, but it is basically one long checklist of what to include in a classic Gothic story.

“The Dreaming of Man” contains a bit of body horror, which has always fascinated me. People’s relationship with their bodies, the things we think of as “horror” about bodies across history and cultures, can vary so much.

And then I’m just a big fan of the eerie, which is something Radcliffe nails, and which always unsettles me more than some big, scary monster. Not that a big, scary monster isn’t fun, too. I’m a big Godzilla fan.

How did the title come to be, and were there any alternatives you considered?

The title was inspired by a passage in Macbeth, which is also included as a prelude to the beginning of my book. The last part reads: “… Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse / The curtained sleep.”

There’s a lot of layers to this quote, starting from the top: nature is dead, and sleep often seems like death to the casual observer. And then of course we dream in our sleep, and that’s both an obscuring and a revelation of the real world. And then “curtained sleep” which can be taken quite literally as a bed curtained off, creating another barrier against the real world, even on top of the barrier of sleep.

Basically, the characters have done everything they can to cut themselves off from the horribleness of the real world, but it still comes back to haunt them in their dreams.

I think that’s ultimately what horror is: not just “what if your nightmares were real?” but also “and what if you couldn’t shield yourself from them?” Not physically or mentally. And then there’s also a double-layered meaning in the title, but I’ll let the text reveal that on its own.

The working title was “Lovecraft goes Queer, Shakespeare goes Queerer”. I’m not sure that would have gone down for publishing.

The town of Osmund has been compared with Innsmouth (The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft) and Dunsinane (Macbeth, Shakespeare) – were these conscious influences, and were there any others that inspired the setting?

Definitely very deliberate influences, especially Innsmouth. The style and feel of the town is one that permeates modern Weird Fiction and Gothic Horror, so even without reading Lovecraft, I think it can latch onto you. But there were a lot of inspirations from real life as well.

I’ve always lived in port cities, and I grew up sailing with my family, so sometimes you would arrive at some really small places, with old boats and older buildings. Thankfully never as scary as those places in fiction, but then again, we mostly went there during the summer. Things look very different in the dark, or during Fall and Winter when everything’s gray and only a few plants are still blooming.

What queer representation can readers expect in this novella, and also in your other available work?

There will almost always be at least one stray lesbian somewhere — though not always! And I try to be broad in my understanding and love for the whole queer community. I figure out myself a lot through the stories I write, even when the characters and settings have very little to do with my personal life. Fiction is both exploration and understanding, and like a dream, I think it can reflect both the reality we live in and the reality we hope to see one day. So, the answer is: mostly lesbians! Or bi women! I love women of all kinds, so I’m biased. There’s technically no lesbians confirmed in “The Dreaming of Man”, but just because I didn’t write it in the text doesn’t mean the women aren’t kissing behind-the-scenes!

Do you have anything else to plug here that is currently out or coming soon? What should readers look out for?

I have two short stories coming out, one called “Puppet Show” with Estrella Publishing, in their publication “Celestial Glossary”. It’s an introspective piece about re-defining yourself after an accident and following your stranger impulses despite what the world around you is telling you to do. It’s out January 30th.

And then later this year – date still unconfirmed – I am part of a sci-fi anthology, with a short story about people living in huge, moving, mechanical animals after the end of the world. I try to post more on my socials as we get closer to publication, so keep an eye out.

Like This? Try These:

Author Spotlight: Paranormal Ecohorror author S.M. Mack

Meet S.M. Mack (she/her), author of DEATH VALLEY BLOOMS. Find out more about this queer ecohorror novella and how it came about!

Author Spotlight: British Gothic Horror author Laura Clarke Walker

Discover a new seaside town of Gothic secrets – COLDHARBOUR, by Laura Clarke Walker (she/they). Meet this British author and find out more about her work.

Author Spotlight: Queer Cyberpunk author A.E. Bross

Meet A.E. Bross (they/them or xe/xem), a nonbinary author of queer cyberpunk Snow White retelling, CyberSnow. Find out more about their latest novella!

Author Spotlight: Queer Cyberpunk Author Stefanie Carter (AKA Wayward Sparx/Fox N. Locke)

Meet author Stefanie Carter (they/them) who writes as Fox N. Locke and Wayward Sparx. They are a UK-based English Sci-Fi author, working on a nonfiction book about cyberpunk, and here to talk about their Trans+ collection of stories, TRANS_LUCENT.

Author Spotlight: Gothic SFF Author Morgan Dante

Meet Morgan Dante (they/them) and their body of work – Gothic, queer, and deliciously unsettling.

Author Spotlight: Queer Dark Fantasy Author Ezra Arndt

Meet Ezra Arndt and their novel Awakened Darkness. We chat about queerness, monstrosity, and dark fantasy.

Author Spotlight: Gothic Weird Fiction author Nikoline Kaiser

Nikoline Kaiser (she/her) resides in Denmark, and writes short stories, novels and poetry. She has published several pieces in both English and Danish, and been longlisted for the Lee Smith Novel Prize. She writes about grief, love, horror, sexuality and one time about a woman turning into a tree.

AUTHOR LINKS:

Website: nikolinekaiser.dk
Social Media: @nikolinekaiser on Instagram, bluesky and reddit

Read a free sample:
The Dreaming of Man (Amazon Look Inside feature)

Book Club/Reader pitch for The Dreaming of Man:

A queer spin on Lovecraft meets Shakespeare’s Macbeth in a historical crime-turned-horror novella.

Your novella, The Dreaming of Man, was released in 2025. What was the writing journey like from first idea to query-ready?

I wrote the novella all the way back in 2019, and I actually wrote the first draft – which hasn’t changed a whole lot, aside from being cleaned up – all in one afternoon. I don’t think I took any breaks. It was one of those stories that had to come out all at once, or I feared I wouldn’t finish it.

It received a lot of rejections over the next couple of years, until it landed with dave at Neon Hemlock Press.

It sounds tacky, but I truly believe it found it’s right home with Neon, and the experience I had with the press has been wonderful. I had huge input in the final version, including getting to pick the artist to make the cover — J.J. Epping, a dear friend and someone I knew could nail the creepy feeling I wanted the cover to convey.

What are the pros and cons of being a Danish author writing in English, and what advice would you give others writing for an Anglophonic market?

The biggest con is definitely my own insecurities about playing with the language; I feel I can’t get away with as much, because publishers and readers might perceive it as a mistake instead of a deliberate bending of the language rules.

And then there’s the time differences for events, and not being as physically close to the market, particularly for events.

For anyone else in the same position, I would recommend familiarizing yourself as much as possible with both the Anglophonic and your local publishing world. Some works might fit better in one cultural context than the other.

What are your main Weird Fiction and Gothic Horror influences, and what are your favourite themes and elements from these genres? Which can readers expect to find in your novella (if you can let us know in a non-spoilery way)?

I am actually fairly new to these genres; I used to avoid horror at all costs, until I fell over some video essays on how much queer exploration there often is in horror. And then we started reading gothic fiction at university, and I fell in love with the genre.

Ann Radcliffe’s works – especially “The Italian” – are amazing and show so much of what still works in horror today. And for anyone writing in these genres, I recommend reading “The Castle of Otranto” by Horace Walpole, the first every Gothic horror. It reads as fairly silly now, but it is basically one long checklist of what to include in a classic Gothic story.

“The Dreaming of Man” contains a bit of body horror, which has always fascinated me. People’s relationship with their bodies, the things we think of as “horror” about bodies across history and cultures, can vary so much.

And then I’m just a big fan of the eerie, which is something Radcliffe nails, and which always unsettles me more than some big, scary monster. Not that a big, scary monster isn’t fun, too. I’m a big Godzilla fan.

How did the title come to be, and were there any alternatives you considered?

The title was inspired by a passage in Macbeth, which is also included as a prelude to the beginning of my book. The last part reads: “… Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse / The curtained sleep.”

There’s a lot of layers to this quote, starting from the top: nature is dead, and sleep often seems like death to the casual observer. And then of course we dream in our sleep, and that’s both an obscuring and a revelation of the real world. And then “curtained sleep” which can be taken quite literally as a bed curtained off, creating another barrier against the real world, even on top of the barrier of sleep.

Basically, the characters have done everything they can to cut themselves off from the horribleness of the real world, but it still comes back to haunt them in their dreams.

I think that’s ultimately what horror is: not just “what if your nightmares were real?” but also “and what if you couldn’t shield yourself from them?” Not physically or mentally. And then there’s also a double-layered meaning in the title, but I’ll let the text reveal that on its own.

The working title was “Lovecraft goes Queer, Shakespeare goes Queerer”. I’m not sure that would have gone down for publishing.

The town of Osmund has been compared with Innsmouth (The Shadow Over Innsmouth, H.P. Lovecraft) and Dunsinane (Macbeth, Shakespeare) – were these conscious influences, and were there any others that inspired the setting?

Definitely very deliberate influences, especially Innsmouth. The style and feel of the town is one that permeates modern Weird Fiction and Gothic Horror, so even without reading Lovecraft, I think it can latch onto you. But there were a lot of inspirations from real life as well.

I’ve always lived in port cities, and I grew up sailing with my family, so sometimes you would arrive at some really small places, with old boats and older buildings. Thankfully never as scary as those places in fiction, but then again, we mostly went there during the summer. Things look very different in the dark, or during Fall and Winter when everything’s gray and only a few plants are still blooming.

What queer representation can readers expect in this novella, and also in your other available work?

There will almost always be at least one stray lesbian somewhere — though not always! And I try to be broad in my understanding and love for the whole queer community. I figure out myself a lot through the stories I write, even when the characters and settings have very little to do with my personal life. Fiction is both exploration and understanding, and like a dream, I think it can reflect both the reality we live in and the reality we hope to see one day. So, the answer is: mostly lesbians! Or bi women! I love women of all kinds, so I’m biased. There’s technically no lesbians confirmed in “The Dreaming of Man”, but just because I didn’t write it in the text doesn’t mean the women aren’t kissing behind-the-scenes!

Do you have anything else to plug here that is currently out or coming soon? What should readers look out for?

I have two short stories coming out, one called “Puppet Show” with Estrella Publishing, in their publication “Celestial Glossary”. It’s an introspective piece about re-defining yourself after an accident and following your stranger impulses despite what the world around you is telling you to do. It’s out January 30th.

And then later this year – date still unconfirmed – I am part of a sci-fi anthology, with a short story about people living in huge, moving, mechanical animals after the end of the world. I try to post more on my socials as we get closer to publication, so keep an eye out.

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