Latinx Heritage in Horror Month 2024: An Interview with Jennifer Givhan
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve been storytelling since I was a little girl and knew I wanted to be a published author from the time I could write. I’d cast my family and friends in productions I’d created and make everyone from family fiestas to block parties and watch all the kids put on my shows. Yes, I was a bit of a showboat, but that passion has carried me through the writing life of rejections and disappointments, deadlines, and poor sales or sunken platforms. I’m still crossing my fingers and writing my heart out every day that I can, despite a chronic illness that sometimes impedes my process but has also allowed me to adapt and transform. More than anything, I write because I’ve felt deep in my heart from a young age that Latinas and Indigenous women have been systemically overlooked and underappreciated in our society, and I’ve wanted to change that and empower other women and femmes of color to share their stories and voices.
Tell us about your work in 25 words or less.
Badass Latina and Indigenous mamas with surreal or magical outlooks—facing real family drama, social rot, haunted genes, and hearts and homes—kick ass, take names, and protect what they love.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
I didn’t know I was writing horror until readers told me—much like conversations I’ve had with fellow writers of color who were told we were writing magical realism or other speculative genres. I was writing my life, my experiences, my point of view, and the stories of my Ancestors. And yes, there are monsters within and without. Yes, there are demons.
As a chronically ill woman who’s faced infertility and miscarriages, I’m drawn to body horror and the abject for catharsis and to challenge the ableism and sexism rooted in our patriarchal, white supremacist society. Early in my writing life, Sylvia Plath’s work empowered me with the imperative to write The Blood Jet. Every clot and string, I’ve been spilling onto the page ever since. The same goes for mental health, stripping away taboos and switching on the flashlight to reveal what I hope is both uplifting and terrifying. Readers have called my work “humanist horror,” and I embrace that.
Horror is inherently intersectional, feminist, and humanist—it holds immense potential for this by embracing messy juxtapositions and allowing all these painful, ugly, horrifying, gorgeous, and wondrous truths to exist side by side without looking away.
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?
This is a major reason I write. Our voices and myriad ways of interpreting and understanding the world are vital—our stories hold immense potential to heal this broken place. We need to keep showing where it hurts, why it hurts, and what can be done about it. Horror is such a flexible container for all of this.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
We’re not alone. We weirdos and misfits and outcasts who’ve been bullied or maligned or misunderstood—we who wear our weird hearts on our sleeves or do terrible stuff we can’t take back or say and think and feel the most inappropriate or macabre things, exhausted from apologizing or trying to fit in. We monsters. We brujas. And double or triple all of this as a Latina and Indigenous woman and mother.
Horror reminds me this is all normal. We humans are strange. And often, it’s society that’s truly messed up. Horror reminds me why I love us.
How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? And how do you think it will continue to evolve?
After all this, I have to admit that I’m squeamish and tender. I’m no expert. What I do love is how Native and Latinx storytellers have been gaining recognition across the genres as our stories often bleed and shapeshift outside the bounds of Western/white supremacist delineations and categories.
I grew up on the Mexicali border by the Salton Sea, and the ecological horror that’s happening down there has been in my heart to write for a long, long time. I’m excited to say my novel Salt Bones tackles it and will be coming out from Mulholland next summer 2025!
Who are some of your favorite LatinX characters in horror?
La Llorona forever. She’s been haunting me since girlhood and the New River and Salton Sea where I grew up, as I said. And La Siguanaba keeps showing up. My daughter loves horses, and of course, I tend to see everything through a horror lens, so maybe that’s why. You’ll see how this takes shape in Salt Bones (I’m so excited!)!
Who are some LatinX horror authors you recommend our audience check out?
Some of my favorites are Gabino Iglesias, Isabel Cañas, and V. Castro.
What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?
The longer I write, the more fresh out of advice I feel. Maybe that’s the advice. Keep doing you, boo.
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?
The main advice I give myself all the time now is to write ugly. I don’t think I’d get anything on the page if I tried to write beautiful. Dig down into the underbelly and write what’s festering there.
I’ve happily rejected the advice that I write daily. I write in spurts. As often as I can, but physical and mental well-being matter. When the writing helps me feel better, I do it. If it’s making me worse, I take a break. It’s gotta be livable, this writing life.
And to the LatinX writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
Never, ever, ever give up. This world will make you want to. Don’t do it. Your stories are calling to you for a reason. Listen. Honor them. Don’t let go. We need your voice.
Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. Her honors include a Southwest Book Award and an International Latino Book Award in Rudolfo Anaya Latino-Focused Fiction. Her novel River Woman, River Demon was featured in Amazon’s Book Club, as a National Together We Read Library Pick, and on CBS Mornings. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Ploughshares, Salon, The Rumpus, The Kenyon Review, and many others. She was most recently the Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at The University of New Mexico. Her newest novel, Salt Bones, is forthcoming from Mulholland next summer 2025.
