Black Heritage in Horror: An Interview with Nikki Woolfolk

A latchkey kid of film noir, cozy mysteries, and gritty detective novels, Nikki Woolfolk writes humorous mysteries with a bite.

What inspired you to start writing?

I wanted to travel the world, but my family didn’t travel during my childhood besides occasional visits to grandparents. So, I created stories as a means to research places I wanted to visit and all it cost me was paper, pencils, and a library card.

I needed to write about my grief of a loss that happened when I was kid. I wrote horror, a revenge piece that allowed me to speak loudly about …