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Tag archive: Latinx Heritage [ 32 ]
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Richard Z. Santos
Richard Z. Santos’ debut novel, Trust Me, was a finalist for the Writer’s League of Texas Book Awards and was named one of the best debuts of the year by CrimeReads. He’s the editor of the collection A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories. He is the Executive Director of Austin Bat Cave, an organization that provides creative writing workshops to students in under-resourced areas. He is a former Board Member of The National Book Critics Circle and has judged contests for The Kirkus Prize, The NEA, and many more. Recent work can be found in Austin Noir (Akashic Books), Lone Stars Rising (Harper Collins), Texas Monthly, CrimeReads, and more. In a previous career, he taught high school English and Social Studies.
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A. It feels like something I’ve more or less always done. I remember tapping out sentences on old typewriters as a kid in elementary school, and that went all the way through college, where I’d carry a notebook and add a line or two of some half-formed poem. But, it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I really committed myself to the hard work of writing and revising. I definitely still remember being totally transported by books, movies, TV shows as a kid. It still happens as an adult, but it’s different—still more weighted by the real world. So, to find a book as an adult where you’re just gone into its pages! That’s the feeling I’m chasing in my writing. Can you kind of forget where you’re at or what’s bothering you, even if only for a few minutes? That’s the good stuff.
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A. Some of my earliest loves were horror artifacts. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark turned into The Twilight Zone and Stephen King novels and then all the horror movie classics of the 80s and 90s. But, I also remember that endorphin rush of being a little, little kid convinced that something was outside my window or on the other side of my door. At one of the houses we lived in, my curtains or blinds didn’t quite cover all the window, and there was a light on the other side of the glass. So, I could see outside, and it was always lit up a little. I remember just KNOWING that something was watching me, and that if I looked then I’d see its weird face pressed against the glass. Of course, I had to look.
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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Luis Paredes
Luis Paredes photo credit Becky Yee
Luis Paredes is the author of the horror / urban fantasy novella, Out On a Limb. Other work includes the mob-inspired short story, Forgive Us Our Debts in Tangled Web’s latest issue and The Ammuntadore on Tall Tale TV.
Luis lives in Westchester, New York where you can find him training for marathons or chatting up strangers about a platypus’s life cycle.
Find Luis on Instagram @luisparedeswrites or on Twitter @Luis_Writes
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A. I’ve joked that my writing career started when I was seven. That’s when I plagiarized Mark Twain’s The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. I typed out the story on my mom’s electric typewriter and passed it off as my own creation. She loved it (even though she saw me copying it) and encouraged me to write some more. I’ve been typing ever since, earning my first paycheck as a writer when I was a teenager as a freelance journalist for the Virginian-Pilot in Virginia Beach way back in the mid-90s.
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A. I remember having disturbing visions and vivid nightmares as a young child. Growing up, I learned that when I was a baby in El Salvador, I was exposed to the civil war that racked that country in the 80s. How much of that is family lore, I don’t know, but I wonder if that was the cause of those strange dreams and visions and my affinity for dark themes.
But what made me love the horror genre were the slasher and sci-fi films of the 80s. I’m lucky that my parents let me watch films movies like Alien, A Nightmare On Elm Street, and Critters.
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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Carmen Baca
Carmen Baca taught high school and college English for thirty-six years before retiring in 2014. As a Chicana, a Norteña native to New Mexico, Carmen Baca keeps her culture’s traditions alive through regionalism to prevent them from dying completely. She is the author of six books and over 70 short publications in a variety of genres from prose to poetry.
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A. When our rural community’s religious brotherhood disbanded in the mid-’80s, the brothers entrusted the relics from the prayer house, including a locked wooden box, into my care. The box revealed answers to suspicions I’d had for most of my life and confirmed that information already published didn’t provide the whole story. I knew I had to write my father’s story from his initiation into the brotherhood to his becoming the leader like his paternal ancestors before him.
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A. After publishing my debut novel (my father’s story), I discovered I love writing quiet horror, folk horror, and magical realism most. I don’t write explicit horror, gore, or slasher-type stories. Rather, I enjoy leaving what happens most often to readers’ imaginations, since our minds supply the worst images. I love the challenge of setting the tone of terror through sensual responses from characters to stimulation, whether internal or external. I can spend hours choosing the right words to build anticipation in the reader of what’s lurking around the corner or leave them wondering whether that noise the character heard before he disappeared was really a monster on the prowl. The best satisfaction for me comes from hearing from readers who tell me my regional cuentos strike a nostalgic chord in them from reading about the monsters of our childhoods.
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Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Sandra Becerril
Considered one of the most important writers of the horror genre in Latin America. Member of the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, Mexican writer and screenwriter, nominated for the Ariel 2015 and 2020 for Best Adapted Screenplay, Doctor Honoris Causa by the Ibero-American Congress of Education in Peru, member of the HBO scriptwriting team and the Horror Writers Association.
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Karlo Yeager Rodriguez
Karlo Yeager Rodriguez is from the enchanted isle of Puerto Rico, but moved to Balitmore, Maryland some years ago. He lives there with his partner and one very odd dog.
His work has appeared in Clowns: the Unlikely Coulrophobia Remix, Galaxy’s Edge #32 and Nature Magazine.
Connect with Karlo via his blog, alineofink.com or through Facebook at facebook.com/unalineanegra
What inspired you to start writing?
Reading. Really – I was an early reader, and was drawn from an early age to old fairy tales (Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen), which in their original forms always managed to contain elements of horror. I remember reading an illustrated version of The Tinderbox and being both frightened but unable to look away from the drawings of the three magical dogs in the story. However, I didn’t start writing fiction for publication until a decade ago. In a way, I feel lucky because with age I have more to say with my fiction.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Ángel Isián
Ángel Isián is the Puerto Rican author of El cuco te va a comer (The Cuco’s going to eat you, 2020), a collection of horror short stories that received an honorable mention in the International Latino Book Awards, 2021. Together with Melvin Rodríguez, he helped edit the first anthology of contemporary horror stories from Puerto Rico, No cierres los ojos (Don’t close your eyes, 2016). He has published horror stories and poetry in various anthologies and magazines. He works as an English teacher and is coeditor of Libros Eikon, a small independent publisher of Puerto Rican horror, fantasy, and sci-fi.
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Kevin M. Casin
Kevin (he/they) is a gay, Latine fiction writer, and cardiovascular research scientist. His fiction work appears (or forthcoming) in Idle Ink, Medusa Tales Magazine, Pyre Magazine, and more. He is Editor/Publisher of Tree and Stone Magazine, an HWA/SFWA/Codex member, and First Reader for Interstellar Flight Press. For more about him, please see his website: https://kevinmcasin.wordpress.com/. Please follow his Twitter: @kevinthedruid.
Latine Statement
I fully and completely respect my fellow latine who identify as latinX. This is statement is about my choice to use latine and shed light on this very important and vibrant debate around the term “LatinX”. I think this discourse is beautifully expressed in a wonderful essay published in the New York Times by Evan Odegard Pereira.
I most identify with the terms “hispanic” or “latino”, but I have recently adopted the term LatinE (“e” capitalized for emphasis). “Latine” is gender-inclusive and honors our language and culture, while–I believe–respecting the work of those who fought for Latino/Latina. For more information about using the term “latine”, please visit the website of Call me Latine.
What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always loved coming up with stories. My favorite thing to do as a kid was play as a villain when I played pretend with my cousins. It wasn’t until high school, when I read the allegorical novel “Out of the Silent Planet” by C.S. Lewis, and I was so fascinated by the story I wondered if I could do the same. So I came up with characters, made them walk down a road—similar to the Lewis story—and had them interact with people or things with meaning behind them, like my teacher had told me allegories did. I shared it with my best friend, at the time, and she said she liked it. So, my life as a writer began.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Horror was my introduction into secondary world-building. I loved the fantasy aspect, where you could invent a magical character to evoke fear from someone, like Freddy Kruger, who could come into dreams and terrorize children, or Pennywise–a murderous, demon clown. Of course, this could never happen, but it was removed from reality enough that seemed plausible. And again, I tried to copy Wes Craven and Stephen King. I let my imagination run wild, created a town like Derry–I called mine Blackwood–developed characters who had pretty graphic and gruesome deaths (I don’t know how I got away with it because it was not at all okay). But that I could invent an entire town, with people, lore, history, a whole world where near impossible things could happen was so enticing and I fell in love.
Do you make a conscious effort to include LatinX characters and themes in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?
Always! I make sure to write, in some explicit way, that the character’s skin is brown or tanned, use Spanish words, or try to depict a setting I get from my few visits to my family in Colombia. Even if I’m describing an elf or an android, I make sure they represent the Latine or Latinx community in some way. I’m always looking for other more inventive ways too.
AND my characters are always queer–rare exceptions do exist. All of my stories come from some experience I’ve had as a queer, Latine cis-gendered man, who grew up in Miami, FL, and Baltimore, MD.
What has writing horror taught you about the world and yourself?
Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors. I read in a book called “Murakami’s Interviews: Collections of Haruki Murakami’s interviews, Studies and Thoughts” by Richard Cooper–which I can’t find anymore–he once said, “stories–effective stories, that is–can pinpoint where a wound lies, define its boundaries…and work to heal it”.
Horror writing taught me where those boundaries lie. Like many queer kids, high school was very hard, especially in a conservative christian school, where students frequently expelled for being queer. I managed, somehow, to get away with hiding my sexuality. In that dark place, the lonely quiet, my writing helped me imagine worlds where I could express my frustration. As I got older, I put those memories into the stories, unpacked them, and got the chance to heal. In horor–the type I like–there’s always hope and all it takes is a few brave little choices, like putting words on paper and sending them to a magazine. It’s scary at first, but when you look back, you might be glad you did it.
How have you seen the horror genre change over the years? And how do you think it will continue to evolve?
Growing up, like so many, the only horror author I knew was Stephen King. I read some of his stories and watched the film adaptations. I would also watch classic horror movies, like Nightmare on Elm Street Friday the 13th. I’m not an expert on, or a historian of, horror, but I do think the genre is becoming more inclusive. Diverse characters and perspectives are flourishing and many are recognizing problematic comments in the classic works. It’s very important to acknowledge the problems. We don’t need to cancel them, but we should point to them and let others know, “this is not okay.” I’m excited to see what the future holds.
How do you feel the LatinX community has been represented thus far in the genre and what hopes do you have for representation in the genre going forward?
I think representation is increasing and that it terrific. I think we can always do more, especially to represent the queer LatinX experience. I always try to center my stories around my own experiences growing up in Miami. I’d love to read more of these stories.
Brief plug, a Tree and Stone Magazine I am planning a special issue (maybe series) for Latine literary and speculative fiction writers. Details coming soon, so follow us on Twitter/Instagram @treeandstonemag or our website https://www.tree-and-stone.com/!
Who are some of your favorite LatinX characters in horror?
None right now, but I’m open to reading more stories with wonderful LatinX characters! Please recommend and I’ll add them to my reading list!
Who are some LatinX horror authors you recommend our audience check out?
On my to-read list are Gabino Iglesias and Pedro Iniguez.
What is one piece of advice you would give horror authors today?
Rejection is very hard! It’s okay to step away from submitting, writing, querying, and to take care of yourself, but I encourage you to come back and keep trying, keep coming up with new stories, and keep learning your craft. Stories and even writers have to find their people. Trust the stories will find their people and they will love it.
And to the LatinX writers out there who are just getting started, what advice would you give them?
I spent so much time following rules, because I believe we are taught, in all aspects of our life, to follow rules. Rules and laws are important! Of course! But in writing, I believe its essential to remember there are no rules, only tools and guidelines. I encourage new writers (I still consider myself one) to learn the pros, cons, and the whys of “the rule”. Maybe even break them in a story. Try writing an entire story of pure exposition (telling), you may find you can tell it in a really compelling way. Just try it! Turn the rules into guidelines, and you’ll be okay.
One more, if I may, find fellow writers who genuinely want to support you. I’m always hoping to help and support a fellow writer, so you’re welcome to reach out and I’ll do my best.
Links cited above:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/learning/for-most-latinos-latinx-does-not-mark-the-spot.html
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Diana Rodriguez Wallach is a multi-published author of young adult novels. Her most recent, Small Town Monsters, is a YA Latinx horror novel that published in September 2021 through Random House. Her next YA Latinx Horror, Hatchet Girls, comes out Fall 2023 through Delacorte. Additionally, Diana is the author of the Anastasia Phoenix Series (Entangled Publishing). The first book in the series, Proof of Lies, has been optioned for film and was chosen as a finalist for the 2018 International Thriller Awards for Best Young Adult Novel. Additionally, Bustle listed Diana as one of the “Top Nine Latinx Authors to Read for Women’s History Month.” In 2011, she published a highly regarded essay in Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperCollins). It was the only essay chosen from the anthology by Scholastic to be used in its classroom materials. Diana also is featured in the anthology, Latina Authors and Their Muses (Twilight Times Books, 2015). She has previously penned YA contemporary Latina novels, as well as a YA short-story collection. She lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband, two children, and two cats.
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with André Schuck
ADVERTISING
More than 20 years in the advertising market, Andre has edited over 8,000 TV ads for major brands in Brazil, such as Nike, Unilever, Peugeot, Ford, and Via Varejo.. He also edited TV shows for Discovery Channel, GNT, and Bandeirantes Channel.
Nowadays he also works as a Post Production Director attending accounts which are the biggest ones in South America.
FEATURE FILMS
In 2012, Andre was invited to be the Associate Producer and Editor of the North American documentary “Making Light in Terezin”, shot in Prague, New York, and Los Angeles.
In 2016, he edited the feature film “Attachments”, shot in Los Angeles. Two Oscar nominees are in the film, Katharine Ross and Joseph Bologna.
SHORT FILMS
He is a scene director and screenwriter of many horror and thriller short films. His last two shorts Red and Sadness were finalists in several international film festivals, such as NYC Horror Film Festival, Buried Alive Film Fest, Freak Show Film Fest, and Shriekfest, the most important horror festival in Los Angeles according to LA’s Weekly.
BOOKS
Read all about Andre Schuck’s books on his website.
What inspired you to start writing?
Since I was a child, I have been in love with stories. During my adolescence, I began to feel the need to put ideas on paper. And as my favorite genre has always been horror, I believe the choice for this genre was a continuity of what I was already consuming. Nowadays, I realize that through horror and suspense, I also write to deal with and put out some feelings and apprehensions. Some articles about my stories have pointed out a great connection with the theme of fatherhood. What I believe had happened in a non-conscious way to deal with the fact that I am the father of two girls.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with K. Garcia Ley
K. Garcia Ley was born in the Dominican Republic, and moved from NYC, to northern New Jersey, to the Derwood, MD, graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice and specialized in why good people do bad things, a topic she frequently questions in my stories. She participated in VONA in 2020 with Tananarive Due, and A World of Black Writers/Hurston workshop with Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Her dark science fantasy, Long Live Anacaona Guey, was nominated for Pushcart Prize, and another piece placed second in the Voyage YA First Chapters contest.
Currently, she has five short stories published, the most recent in Fantasy magazine titled “How to Make Love to La Ciguapa,” an atmospheric folktale that centers on colonialism and the body. As of right now, she is drafting a YA thriller about a Dominican socialite who must collect her dead sister’s body— located at a creepy abbey in Washington, D.C.—if she wants to keep her trust fund.
What inspired you to start writing?
It took me years to take the plunge to actually start writing fiction. Like pen to paper, butt-in-chair, ‘I’m going to do this,’ type of writing. Over the years, I did everything but write fiction. Social media posts, newsletters, academic manuscripts, political white papers—you name it. I wrote it. I wrote everything except what I wanted to write. I can’t pinpoint a moment, but I can direct you to a book that inspired me to start my writing journey. The famous one by Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird. I used to beta-read for self-published authors, and there was one author who I had become close with. I emailed her that I was legit scared to write fiction, and I didn’t know how. I’m a mom of three. With a house. A small business. I had just lost a baby. Will people even like my writing? And then lo and behold, she sent me the book and it changed my life. Lamott taught me about the shitty first draft, the perils of perfectionism, and that I didn’t have time to waste to be afraid of writing. I still am afraid sometimes, very afraid, and sad, and filled with doubt, but that’s okay. For me, it’s okay to have all the feelings so long as I make progress, however tiny those steps might be. I haven’t looked back since.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
When I was a kid, I felt like horror was the most honest of all the genres. I could relate to the fears of the characters in the horror books I read.
Yes. I am drawn to atmospheric, moody places. Give me all the dim castles, creepy-looking or seemingly innocent villains, messy characters plunged into frightening, violent settings…But on a deeper level, I was drawn to the mystery, to the uncertain incoming dread, to the fear of the unknown. There’s something titillating about the genre. It’s both mesmerizing and frightening. Skin-crawling and exciting.
I was also drawn to dark fantasy and horror’s villains and was so intrigued by their back stories. I think that’s one of the reasons I majored in Criminology and Criminal Justice in college. I studied why good people do bad things (hello General Strain Theory). Combine my Criminology degree with my love of Edgar Allen Poe and Dominican monsters? Of course I would be drawn to horror’s nature, and naturally worked it into my stories.
Do you make a conscious effort to include LatinX characters and themes in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Greg McWhorter
Dr. Greg McWhorter is a Latinx (half-Colombian) writer who resides in Southern California. Since the 1980s, he has written for newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and film. McWhorter has been a guest speaker at several universities, TV shows, film documentaries, and the San Diego Comic-Con. Both his nonfiction and fiction have appeared in many newspapers, magazines, journals, and anthologies. He currently has two published books of his horror fiction available. He is an active member of the Horror Writers Association. He enjoys traveling and sharing his love of writing with writers around the world.
What inspired you to start writing?
My whole life I felt like an outsider. I felt like an alien trying to live within a world I could not understand. I always sought to communicate with others through many forms when I was younger; art, music, performance art, and writing. I think I really became a writer during my adolescence and early teen years as I created music and gaming fanzines, poems, song lyrics, and some short stories. All of these things I was doing as a means to find like-minded people and find connections with others. In my early adult years, I worked for newspapers and magazines writing feature stories on a diverse range of people and various aspects of cultural interest. As an adult, I have never given up on trying to communicate with others and decided to become more disciplined with my writing, which enabled me to get two books published and many appearances in anthologies. I still feel like an outsider and writing helps me connect to others and provides a creative outlet for the many demons lurking in my mind. Writing eases the pressure of living in my head.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Juan Manuel Pérez
Juan Manuel Pérez, a Mexican-American poet of Indigenous descent and the Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020), is the author of numerous poetry books including Another Menudo Sunday (2007), O’ Dark Heaven: A Response to Suzette Haden Elgin’s Definition of Horror (2009), WUI: Written Under the Influence of Trinidad Sanchez, Jr. (2011), Live From La Pryor: The Poetry of Juan Manuel Perez: A Zavala Country Native Son, Volume I (2014), Sex, Lies, and Chupacabras (2015), Space In Pieces (2020), Screw The Wall! And Other Brown People Poems (2020), Planet Of The Zombie Zonnets: Seasons One And Two (2021), Casual Haiku (2022), Christian Haiku For The Daily You (2022), Terror Of The Zombie Zonnets: Planet Of The Zombie Zonnets Season Three (2022), and Live From La Pryor: The Poetry of Juan Manuel Perez: A Zavala Country Native Son, Volume II: The Early Chapbooks (2022), as well as, the co-editor of the speculative poetry anthologies, Unleash Your Inner Chupacabra (2012, Archive Edition 2022) and The Call Of The Chupacabra (2018).
Both “Space in Pieces” and “Planet Of The Zombie Zonnets: Seasons One And Two” are Elgin Award Nominated Books through the Science Fiction And Fantasy Poetry Association.
Juan is also The 2021 Horror Authors Guild’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award winner and a recipient of a 2021 Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant.
He is the 2011-2012 San Antonio Poets Association Poet Laureate and the Lone Star State’s only El Chupacabras Poet Laureate (For Life), as well as a Zombie Texas Poet Of The Year.
The former Gourd Dancer for the Memphis Tia Piah Big River Clan Warrior Society is also a Pushcart Prize Nominee as well as a SEATTAH Scholar (Striving For Excellence And Accountability In The Teaching Of Traditional American History) through the University Of Dallas.
Juan is a ten-year Navy Corpsman/Combat Marine Medic (1987-1997) with experience in the 1991 Persian Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Desert Calm) attached to the 2nd Marines out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and was also a part of the 1992 Hurricane Andrew Relief Marine Air Group Task Force that went down to provide medical support to a devastated Homestead, Florida.
This two-time Teacher of the Year, along with his wife, Malia (a three-time Teacher of the Year and now Librarian), is a co-founder of The House of the Fighting Chupacabras Press.
The former migrant field worker previously from La Pryor, Texas currently worships his Creator, writes as well as conducts poetry and history workshops, and chases chupacabras in the Texas Coastal Bend Area.
To learn more about him got to https://www.juanmperez.com/
What inspired you to start writing?
My desire to express myself at a very young age just fresh from learning English as a second language, inspired me to read anything, to feel the emotion of inescapable love and then the hellish heartache of heartbreak, then to fall in love again but with science fiction, controversial alien theories (wrote a research paper on the Ancient Astronaut Theory in high school; got a 95 for it), horror (via my TV girlfriend: Elvira, Mistress Of The Macabre; she loved that younger me. I just know she did), Mexican digest-sized comic, American illustrated horror magazines (Warren Publishing), and the standard comic books (from which I learned English; Batman was my first English word around 2nd grade). Back to the horror of love poetry: yeah, my “love poems” weren’t strong enough juju to keep my girlfriend. So… speculative poetry became a natural and easy thing for that young me. “Damn the darkness! It’s so inspiring” [said me in a Mexican-accented Vincent Price voice]. Nowadays, among the fourth season of my Planet Of The Zombie Zonnets series, it’s not hard to be inspired by this beautiful decaying world and all its issues.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Robert Perez
Robert Perez sleeps at the bottom of the ocean. Urban legend whispers that the writer can be summoned into your dreams if you read his work to a jack-o-lantern. You can find his poems and stories in the Horror Writers Association Poetry Showcase Volumes II, III, IV (Special Mention), and V, The Literary Hatchet #13 & #14, Deadlights Magazine #1, Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove, and Community of Magic Pens. He is currently working on obtaining a master’s degree in counseling psychology at the University of Colorado Denver. Follow @_TheLeader on twitter to keep up with future projects.
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Amparo Ortiz
Amparo Ortiz is the author of the BLAZEWRATH GAMES duology. She was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently lives on the island’s northeastern coast. She’s published short story comics in MARVEL’S VOICES: COMUNIDADES #1 and in the Eisner-award winning PUERTO RICO STRONG. She’s also co-editor of OUR SHADOWS HAVE CLAWS, a horror anthology featuring myths and monsters from Latin America. When she’s not writing, she teaches ESL as a college professor and watches a lot of Kpop videos. Learn more about her projects at www.amparoortiz.com
What inspired you to start writing?
Horror and fantasy movies! I watched so many films as a child and wrote bits and pieces of short stories long before I ever read a single book. My imagination ran wild with visuals alone. I just didn’t know I could actually finish anything I started.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with Rosemary Thorne
Rosemary Thorne (she/her) is a bilingual Spanish writer, researcher, and translator living in Madrid, Spain. She was born in 1968, year of shocking revolutions, beautiful women and great wine. Due to the fact that in the 90s Spanish publishing companies would not consider Horror, her first stories in her mother tongue are abominable entities that want to terrify but can’t. Her first novel, El Pacto de las 12 uvas, took her twenty years to finish, and she finally published it in December 2021. In 2019 she became an HWA member and began to write horror in English, setting free her imagination at long last. She translated Edward Lee’s The Bighead into Spanish for Dimensiones Ocultas Press. Her immediate dream is to populate the English market with her dreadful monsters and then not to write anymore.
Find out more at: linktr.ee/Rosemary_thorne and Twitter at twitter.com/rosemarythorne
What inspired you to start writing?
Latinx Heritage in Horror: Interview with María Pilar Conn
My name is María Pilar Conn and I am an established writer of gothic mystery and poetry in the Spanish language. I live in Spain, in the region of Murcia in a small fishing town, Cabo de Palos. My mother was born here, in Sevilla, and I grew up between both countries, though I am still a US citizen. I have two published mystery novels, La Casa del Marqués, and my new novel, La Canción del Baladre, two poetry books, La Almendra y el Maíz and Paseando con Schopenhauer, plus a book on cake sculpture. I am translating at this time both of the novels to the English language and hope to have them published by the beginning of next year.
Latinx in Horror: Interview with Nathan Castellanos
I was born and raised in Highland Park, CA. My mother came to California in the 80s after my Abuelo had worked the fields here in LA county, saving money to bring his family from Guadalajara. She married my father, who came from an Anglo/Jewish background. Cultural differences instigated their divorce when I was fairly young, which led to me developing a very independent (and sometimes rebellious) nature early on. This sparked my interest in things such as punk rock music, existentialist philosophy, Buddhism, comic books, sci and horror novels, and alternative subcultures of various sorts.
Essentially, having a mother who was busy working, and a father whom I hardly saw, I actively sought my own answers to life, a habit that grew into my tendency to always question everything, to always look for the most abstract (and sometimes subversive) answers to things.
In my early twenties, I developed a semi-severe spinal issue. This led to my desire to study kinesiology and dietetics, along with yoga, Taoist alchemy, Tarot, Zen meditation, Kabbalah, Curandisimo, and all manner of subjects related to alternative healing.
It was around 2010 that I began to develop a keen awareness of the growth of gentrification in Los Angeles. Rents began to rise, and new businesses came to Highland Park that many long-time locals could not afford. My initial reaction was panic; I was not living in a rent-controlled apartment; money was tight, and between my health issue, going to night school, and work, the idea of an impending growth in the cost of living scared me to death.
The day eventually came when the landlord raised the rent and I had to leave, take on extra work and give up school. I was devasted, frustrated and at a loss for how to let these feelings out. I was severely broke, and I had a birthday coming up in a few weeks, so I made an executive decision to do something to ease the emotional pain I was going through. I’d heard from a friend that it wasn’t hard to self-publish these days, so I spent the next few weeks tirelessly writing and editing the first installment of Salted Plastic: Tales of Gentrification. I just barely finished and uploaded it to the publisher about an hour or two before midnight on my birthday; the feeling of elation and catharsis was beautiful; I broke down crying, popped open a beer, and gave myself a hug. And that essentially was the advent of my desire to write.
What inspired you to start writing?
I began writing Salted Plastic as a positive outlet for the pain and upset I felt in the face of gentrification in Los Angeles. I had lost my affordable apartment, and due to the rising cost of living I also had to put aside college and work several jobs to survive. That said, I wanted to find a more constructive way to let my feelings out; I could have very well taken the political route via protest, getting involved legally, or worse yet, ending up in a verbal debate with every and any advocate of gentrification everywhere I went, but I knew that this would just end in trouble. In a very real way the stories in Salted Plastic are a kind of catharsis for the sadness and anger I felt in the face of seeing my friends, family and myself being displaced/priced out of our neighborhoods.
What was it about the horror genre that drew you to it?
To be honest I had no intention of writing a horror story, it just sort of evolved that way; I had originally intended my story to be more along the lines of a social critique in the vain of Cintra Wilson or Chuck Palahniuk, both of whom I highly admire. That said, something in my unconscious just sort of led me to this realization that my feelings on gentrification would translate better if I personified them as a sort of inhuman force with tortuously demonic power. This lead to my creation of Salted Plastic’s Barons, a sort of spin on the vampire mythos, a group of undead pseudo humans who orchestrate human culture, using it as a sort of psychic food source while they buy up as much real estate as possible in Los Angeles.
Do you make a conscious effort to include LatinX characters and themes in your writing and if so, what do you want to portray?