Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Cynthia Gómez
What inspired you to start writing?
In my life, I often feel powerless against so many injustices. When I write, I have a power I can get nowhere else. It’s incredible.
Tell us about your work in 25 words or less.
Feminist, anti-capitalist, queer, Latine horror with dark fantasy streaks in her hair.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
I started with Roald Dahl and then Stephen King, and I think what got me were the wild limits of the imagination – witches, telekinesis, shape-shifting, fire-starting – combined with the adrenaline of the thrill and the sheer darkness of it.
Do you make a conscious effort to include LatinX characters and/or themes in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?
When I was growing up, I didn’t encounter Latine* characters in my horror fiction, and I barely found us in the literary fiction world either. And, when we were present, it was usually in terms of immigration/the border. When I started writing horror, I was still writing those kinds of stories and themes, even though I’m third-generation and grew up in the Bay Area. Now I write protagonists more like me: Latine, in various stages of queer, sometimes middle-aged, often outcasts, with a precarious toe in middle-class waters, and mostly second or third-generation. We exist, we’re interesting, and we get to see ourselves on the page.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
I’ve learned that I can have much more grace and empathy for my fictional characters than I can for myself. About the world … well, it’s a truism that one of the reasons we love horror is because it’s a way of telling the truth, but telling it slant, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. And with monsters.
How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? And how do you think it will continue to evolve?
When I was younger, the horror I saw was pretty much all straight, cis, white dudes. Now you could spend your entire horror life never again picking up a book by a straight, cis white dude, and you’d have a lifetime’s worth of fantastic, exquisitely written, ferocious, fearless shit to read. One way that I want the genre to evolve: I want cons and workshops to change. Have you ever seen a panel full of Latine writers unless it’s a panel about Latine identity? (This is true of any marginalized group, by the way.) Our genre should move past that. We can have a Gothic panel with Isabel Cañas, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Carolina Florez-Cherchiaro. Texas Horror with Agatha Andrews, Celso Hurtado, LP Hernandez. Etc, etc.
Time to daydream: what are some aspects of LatinX history or culture – stories from your childhood, historical events, etc — that you really want our genre to tackle? (Whether or not you’re the one to tackle them!)
The first one that popped into my head was the Zoot Suit Riots from 1943 when a bunch of white sailors went around beating up Mexican and Mexican-American youth who wore zoot suits (hella stylish suits commonly associated with Black jazz musicians.) The police and the press lined up against the Zooters (the victims, who wore zoot suits.) There’s so much potential there: Imagine ghost Zooters, or cursed zoot suits, or Zooters who become werewolves and turn on their oppressors.
Who are some of your favorite LatinX characters in horror?
Julian (from the forthcoming book Sundown in San Ojuela) is such a complex and dark character, with a very interesting redemption-related journey. I also love the full-throttle revenge goddess in La Reina de las Chicharras, and if I were in a room with Noemí Taboada (from Mexican Gothic) I would instantly be tongue-tied in admiration of her elegance and her courage.
Who are some LatinX horror authors you recommend our audience check out?
I’m going to die of paralysis and doubt because of everyone I should list here! So I’ll just pick the last three whose short stories or books I read: Pedro Iniguez tackles SF and horror and poetry (he has a speculative poetry collection out in September, called Mexicans on the Moon.) A.P. Thayer and M.M. Olivas both write about relationships and queerness and monstrosity; M.M.’s book, Sundown in San Ojuela, is out this November from Lanternfish Press, and A.P. wrote this story called Exploding Head Syndrome that will make your head explode when you read it.
What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?
If you do readings of your own work, remember that reading aloud is its own skill and it takes practice. That piece you’re going to perform? Read it ahead of time, as many times as you need to, until you can read it smoothly and you’re not stumbling over your words or staring down at the page. Reading aloud is absolutely a skill you can master, and it’s worth it.
What is one piece of craft advice you’ve gotten that has really worked for you? Alternatively, what’s one that you’ve happily rejected?
I went to a workshop where the presenter got into incredible depth talking about the difference between ending sentences on a stressed vs. an unstressed syllable, and I was hooked. I don’t end all of my sentences that way or anything, but I am very deliberate about when I do, and I also pay a lot of attention to the cadence of my sentences, and the music and pacing they bring.
And to the LatinX writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
To paraphrase the GOAT, Toni Morrison: write the stories that you want to read. Don’t worry if someone has written that premise before you can make it work if you make your characters real and human and indelible. Also: a lot of us marginalized writers grow up with an invisible imaginary white reader in our heads – that’s who I was writing for when I kept making stories about the immigrant experience because that’s what I thought I was supposed to write about. Try to notice when that reader has crept into your head, and then kick them out. (Or, because you’re a horror writer, do something much more interesting with the concept of an invisible imaginary reader stalking your sentences.)
Cynthia Gómez writes horror and other types of speculative fiction, set primarily in Oakland, where she makes her home. She has a particular love for themes of revenge, retribution, and resistance to oppression, and she loves to write dark and frightening things while cuddling with her shadow, aka her adorable little dog. Her work has appeared/will appear in Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, Luna Station Quarterly, Nightmare Magazine, and numerous anthologies. The Nightmare Box and Other Stories, her first collection, was released from Cursed Morsels Press in July 2024. You can find more of her work at cynthiasaysboo.wordpress.com.
