Asian Heritage in Horror Month: An Interview with Mike Chen
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always just loved creating stories. When I was a child, I would draw my own comics based on things I was a fan of – mostly science fiction shows and movies (shoutout to anyone who remembers the anime epic Robotech). As I got older, I learned to refine this skill in prose, and the creative writing class I took at UC Davis during my senior year was transformational. I wound up writing in a number of different ways, including sports journalism, pop culture journalism, and corporate copy. All that kind of fed into the skill set that I needed to return to fiction, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.
What draws you to the horror genre?
I’m drawn to a very specific type of horror. First is gothic horror: like haunted houses, vampires, and anything like that. A big part of that is growing up reading a lot of Anne Rice. I also really love psychological horror. I’ve found that when this translates to films and TV, this is the type of horror where the shadows and lighting are more terrifying than the jump scares. I love the tension that lies in the dark, and I find it much more interesting from an engagement and storytelling perspective than the more grim stuff.
Do you include Asian and/or Pacific Islander characters and themes in your writing with purpose, and if so, what do you want to portray?
I absolutely do. I avoided it at first, but I think you’ll find a lot of authors from this background will tell you the same story. It’s a byproduct of the culture our parents were raised in and was passed down. Becoming comfortable with writing about it is a form of therapy in a way. Also, it acts as permission for readers from the same background to start thinking about it. It’s funny because, with Vampire Weekend, I often say that it’s the most autobiographical that I’m going to get despite the fact that it involves vampires. But it is very much about the experience of being a child of immigrants and the expectations passed along to them. In that book, the main character is a woman named Louise who finds her emotional connection through the power of punk rock. That was very much me. Between music and the Gothic horror in Anne Rice novels, that’s where I was finally able to find a vocabulary for my emotions that my parents couldn’t give me. So in that book, it’s very much about that despite the fact that you know, there are vampires everywhere in San Francisco.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
I definitely write more science fiction than horror but both have shown me how storytelling and the fantastical can act as an allegory for anything. But in a way where you can push or pull the metaphors for things. One of the subplots of Vampire Weekend is that there is a blood-bag shortage (since in this day and age of cameras everywhere, biting people is really impractical and risky) and I got this review that called the book “The Best Argument for universal basic income.” That was exactly the point of that subplot, and to be able to dress it up in these horror tropes makes them both more accessible and also more thought-provoking.
How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? How do you think it will continue to evolve?
Like every genre, it goes through cycles. So what’s popular shifts in and out, though hopefully, that brings in new fans each time. I’m really looking forward to the continued popularization of two things: first, Asian horror films from Korea, Japan, etc. that expand diversity of experience and creativity. And second, the use of horror to tell character-driven stories. I think Mike Flanagan’s work with his series like The Haunting of Hill House and The Fall of the House of Usher has really pushed this and I’m looking for more of this.
How do you feel the Asian and/or Pacific Islander communities have been represented thus far in the genre and what hopes do you have for representation in the genre going forward?
Horror is interesting because there’s a strong sub-genre for horror films and television that come from Asia. That’s great for creative diversity for the audience but it doesn’t quite capture the unique point of view of growing up Western. For representation, I think nearly all genres have seen much better diversity over the past ten or fifteen years, and there’s a huge push toward normalization.
Who are some of your favorite Asian and/or Pacific Islander characters in horror?
I will go back to the first time I felt like I saw myself represented on screen in a non-tropey way in horror: Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) in The Walking Dead. It was the first time I felt so many people in the fanbase loved an Asian man as their favorite character. I loved how he was the group’s moral center while being skilled and fearless. It’s fantastic that Yeun has gone on to a fantastic career after the show and that his skills are really being recognized throughout the industry.
What is your best advice for horror authors today?
Read and watch other genres! And see how that might fold into your own perspective with horror! I have often joked that Vampire Weekend is the “most wholesome vampire tale ever written” and others have called it “cozy horror” – the walls between genres are falling down and we can pick and choose what we bring into our stories.
And to the Asian and/or Pacific Islander writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
The publishing industry is much different now than it was ten, even five years ago. Different types of stories are being written, genre lines are being blurred, and minority writers have more agency over their identities. What I mean by that is that they can choose whether or not they want to integrate their perspective and experiences directly into their work or if they want to ignore it entirely – it feels like we have the freedom to choose now, as opposed to years ago when we had to tiptoe about how we presented such a thing.
Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, Vampire Weekend, and other novels, as well as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist and The Mary Sue, and in a different life, he’s covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals.
