A Point of Pride: Interview with Rin Chupeco
Rin Chupeco wrote obscure manuals for complicated computer programs, talked people out of their money at event shows, and did many other terrible things. They now write about ghosts and fairy tales but is still sometimes mistaken for a revenant. They were born and raised in the Philippines and, or so the legend goes, still haunts that place to this very day. They are the author of The Girl from the Well duology, The Bone Witch trilogy, The Never Tilting World duology, and the Hundred Names For Magic series, starting with Wicked As You Wish . Their short stories have also been in the food anthology, Hungry Hearts, the Edgar Allan Poe anthology, His Hideous Heart, and the Bram Stoker Award-winning horror anthology, Black Cranes. Find them at rinchupeco.com.
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer – ever since I was six years old. That was the one thing I’d always been certain about since, and it doesn’t help that I was something of a daydreamer – I would often zone out of conversations and instead reflect inward, and I wind up doodling randomly on pages and coming up with strange new worlds while I do homework or take notes in class (I learned to multitask fairly early). I’d started reading when I was two years old and got into adult books fairly quickly; I remember reading Stephen King at six years old alongside Nancy Drew and Babysitters’ Club books! My parents encouraged my reading habit, and were very supportive of my writing even then.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Horror books have always been a personal favorite of mine. I read every ghost story I could get my hands on, and collected volumes of it. The first book I remembered reading was a children’s ghost story called The Ghost in the Cupboard, and I’ve been hooked ever since. In many ways I think I found myself relating to a lot of the ghosts instead of the humans in them. Ghosts stories written by Asians tend to be a lot more sympathetic than in their portrayal in Western media, the latter having more emphasis on the scares than on the backstories. There are very good reasons for the Sadakos and Kayakos and Oiwas of the Asian ghost world to become terrifying beings – they were themselves abused and murdered, and their malice manifests as a desire for revenge, to assert their worth in death that they were unable to get in life – but not so much for say, Leatherface or Freddy Krueger. There’s a peculiar otherness in Asian ghosts that make me root for them, being someone who understands that feeling of being othered myself as – as someone who doesn’t quite conform to what society expects of me.
Do you make a conscious effort to include LGBTQ material in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?
Being queer is part and parcel of my identity, so when I come up with characters for my books the queerness tends to be baked in from the start, usually without consciously thinking much about it. They are who they are, just as I am who I am.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
I think that what a lot of people define as being monstrous just means being different from them, and this often stems from bigotry or prejudice. Most of the horror books that I’ve read growing up were about victims who were treated terribly simply for who they are (women relegated to second class citizens, prostitutes and sex workers not given agency, etc.), and then becoming their own monstrous vehicles for justice. I’m fascinated with stories where the real monsters are the humans who wind up creating the very demons they accuse others of being, often paying the price for it. When you shift your worldview and realize that the real demon in say, Frankenstein , is the monster’s creator instead of the creature itself, it opens up these new hidden layers to storytelling in horror that helps you explore the good and the bad sides of the human condition, work on that to make it more compelling to readers.
How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? And how do you think it will continue to evolve?
I’m glad to see more female and nonbinary creators making names for themselves in the horror scene, where it had once only been populated by cishet people. I love the different spins these authors contribute – how stories with similar themes and concepts are made unique and different by virtue of their varying experiences that are so different from the default that we were made to be accustomed to. It can only get better from here.
How do you feel the LGBTQ community has been represented thus far in the genre and what hopes do you have for representation in the genre going forward?
There’s always room for improvement. I think that our goal would ultimately be achieved when books no longer have to be marketed or promoted as queer or LGBTQ+ simply because they’ve become mainstream in bookstore sections and with readers. I want it normal for queerness to be in books without needing to bring attention to them.
Who are some of your favorite LGBTQ characters in horror?
Jane McKeene from Dread Nation is one of these kickass heroines that I would love to see more of in horror books. The series is a spin on zombie hunting in post-Civil War era United States where Black people are used as expendable soldiers to fight these monsters, and it’s such a well-crafted story and a novel spin on the genre!
And then of course there’s Frank N. Furter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I usually have very little knowledge of musicals in general, but this one was wild and fun and a huge influence on me as a pre-teen (I have a habit of watching / reading and enjoying age-inappropriate media), and Frank N. Furter was easily my favorite! It was one of the first instances where I realized how obvious antagonists didn’t need a reason to be antagonists as long as they were interesting to watch!
Who are some LGBTQ horror authors you recommend our audience check out?
Billy Martin (writing as Poppy Z Brite) is excellent. Lost Souls is one of the first books about vampires I’ve read that’s written as a much more raw and unfiltered depiction than Anne Rice’s Lestat would have been. There’s a lot of violence and sex in his books, so consider this a content warning! I’m also partial to Jewelle Gomez, mainly because it’s also the first book about (lesbian!) vampires I’ve read where they’re not necessarily violent and cruel, but are just trying to live their lives like everyone else however they can.
For the YA crowd, it’s Justina Ireland for the reasons I’ve already pointed out, and also authors I’ve talked about before, like Aidan Thomas (Cemetery Boys) and Hillary Monahan ( The Hollow Girl )!
What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?
Writing gore and some of the explicit violence that are often trademarks of horror isn’t as good if you don’t add any substance behind them. The horror that I love best strives to be atmospheric first before anything else, and the terror flows easier and more naturally after that. Sometimes what you don’t explicitly say can be more horrifying than hack-and-slash descriptions put down on paper.
And to the LGBTQ writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
Treat yourself kindly when you write your books. This will likely be hypocritical, coming from someone who winds up oversharing bits of themself in their own books without realizing it until after the book is done, but tell people only the parts that you are willing to share about yourself. Speak your truth, but never do it because you feel like you’re being forced to do so. Trust in your story above all else.
