The Seers’ Table March 2024
Kate Maruyama, Member of the Diverse Works Inclusion Community
March is blooming with all kinds of marvelous reading! Here’s a delectable array of spooky stories for you to choose from!
Linda Addison Recommends:
From Carmen Baca: “A locked wooden box which held the secrets to the Brotherhood known as los Hermanos Penitentes inspired my debut novel, El Hermano. It published in 2017, and I haven’t stopped writing. Today, I have six books and over 80 short works published from poetry to prose in a variety of genres.
I’m proud to say some are award winners. I’ve been recognized by a local and state organization for preserving my Norteño Chicano culture through story telling. The monsters and ghouls of our region inhabit many of my cuentos as do my ancestors and people like them. Together, they tell their terrifying tales of their encounters. And Santa Muerte usually has the last word.
I invite you to visit and follow my Facebook author page where I update upcoming publications, share short articles about what I’ve learned about writing, publishing, or marketing, and where I promote authors who have become friends and whose works I enjoy reading.”
Baca’s latest book is her first YA, Bella Collector of Cuentos. She likes to call it a reimagined folk horror since it features the boogeymen and boogeywomen of her childhood from Baca’s parents’ terrifying bedtime stories.
Recommended Reading: Bella Collector of Cuentos.
Excerpt:
Taken from early in the book when Bella finds herself in an unfamiliar forest. Ignorant of her regional and cultural folklore, she doesn’t know what dangers lurk or who might stalk her—the only human amongst them. Her scent lures predators; her presence tempts them into action.
Rounding a bend brought [a] surprise. A woman with long black hair and wearing a white dress soaked to the knees was walking in the center of the shallow water up to her calves. Her shoulders were slumped, and she was shaking her head slowly back and forth as though pondering something heavy on her heart. A small sob followed …
“Excuse me, dispénseme,” Bella asked as she approached the lady. “Is there something I can do for you?”
The woman stopped sobbing and began moving her head in a slow but deliberate turn toward Bella. Her hair hung in tangled waves down her back. The strands framing her face were white, however, and concealed some of her features. The part Bella could see showed a great sadness had befallen the poor woman and left the one eye without hope and a mouth with the crease of a frown as though she had forgotten how to smile.
“I have lost my children.” She spoke almost too soft to hear … “My babies disappeared into the water.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Bella cried …
“I am doomed to look for them forever,” the woman moaned…
“How do you know they are in this stream? Did you see them slip in?”
The woman stopped walking and turned her face toward Bella once more. “I know they are in the water,” she said. “I do not know that they are in this particular stream, and so I search every body of water I find.”
“But how d—”
“Because I drowned them!” the woman roared. She turned all the way then, her fists clenched at her sides. She tossed her long hair away from her face, and Bella saw the other eye, clouded with a white film as though blinded. The cheek over the mouth and to its side was open in a ragged-edged wound. It left her gums and teeth exposed in a caricature of a spectral smile.
Follow Baca at: Web site: https://cbaca55.wixsite.com/books; Facebook: hermano1928.
Rob Costello recommends:
Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee citizen) is an acclaimed, New York Times best-selling author, the 2024 Southern Mississippi Medallion Winner, and the 2021 NSK Neustadt Laureate. Reading Rockets named her to its list of 100 Children’s Authors and Illustrators Everyone Should Know.
She is the New York Times and Publishers Weekly best-selling YA author of the Gothic fantasy Feral trilogy and Tantalize series. Her debut picture book, Jingle Dancer, is widely considered a modern classic, and her chapter book Indian Shoes was among the first children’s titles to represent urban Native life. Her debut tween novel Rain Is Not My Indian Name was named one of the 30 Most Influential Children’s Books of All Time by Book Riot, which also listed her among 10 Must-Read Native American Authors. In addition, Cynthia was named Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers in recognition of Rain Is Not My Indian Name.
More recent titles include Hearts Unbroken, winner of both an American Indian Youth Literature Award and a Foreword Reviews Book Award Silver Medal; the anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids, which was an ALA Notable Book and winner of the Reading of the West Book Award; an Indigenous Peter Pan retelling titled Sisters of the Neversea, which received six starred reviews.
Cynthia is also the author-curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint of HarperCollins and was the inaugural Katherine Paterson Chair at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program.
Her latest YA ghost mystery Harvest House was called by Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, “a spine-tingling, edge-of-the-seat chiller.”
Recommended Reading:
Excerpt from Harvest House, pages 4-5:
“Less … less,” The Bad Man whispers. He’s on my side of the road now. The last thing I said to him was “Hvtvm cehecares.” I warned him—him wearing a rounder face and thinner form, but still and always him—that he wasn’t rid of me, that I would remain vigilant.
The girl with red streaks in her hair glances over her shoulder. Does she hear him approaching? She reaches to open the driver’s door of a compact yellow car, rusty around the fenders. A fresh bumper sticker reads CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS.
Mother Mourning Dove welcomes my presence, trusts that I won’t stay too long. She doesn’t want to lose her life like I did.
“Less … less,” The Bad Man hisses. “Less …” The voice comes from behind a minivan parked next to the girl. His faded bumper sticker reads SUPER BOWL CHAMPS. I remember place names better than people names. Maybe because people come and go but land endures. This is currently called Kansas, named for the Kaw or the Kanza. The Bad Man is a fan of the Kansas City football team. “Less …”
The girl’s spine goes stiff, her chin lifts. One hand is on her boxy, beaded leather purse. The fingers of her other hand are threaded with keys like claws. “Who’s there?”
He’s gaining on her, his eyes full of blood and stars. “Less …”
Find out more about Cynthia at https://cynthialeitichsmith.com/ and follow her on X @CynLeitichSmith and on Instagram @cynthialeitichsmith.
Author photo credit: Christopher T. Assaf.
Tish Jackson Recommends:
Being the curator of fine art can be challenging. However, Desiree S. Evans is clearly up to the task, bringing us a horror anthology for young adults with major impact. The set of Black stories by Black authors in The Black Girl Survives In This One is a seamless stream of Final Girl badassery that doesn’t disappoint! Werewolves, ghosts, and demons are among the fantastical horrors that await the heroines in these pages. Although they may flinch and they may fall, these girls do not give up and they live. They survive. And if only in this anthology, that is enough.
There has been a dearth of YA horror fiction up until recently. Authors like Justina Ireland and Eden Royce, both of whom have stories in this collection, have reaffirmed that young adult horror stories are in demand. Bringing the scary for a teen audience is the new Black and luckily publishers are on board. Desiree also has an interest in creating worlds for young adults to explore within horror. Meeting up with her co-editor Saraciea J. Fennell through a mutual agent, they decided to expand on the Final Girl idea and add diversity to the concept. Gathering some of the best writers out now and adding new talent to the soup, this anthology is guaranteed to have something for everyone.
Desiree herself is a gifted writer. She started writing at age four, and, with the topic being ghosts, her love of horror was an expected outcome. Like so many of us, she started with this genre by reading R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike before graduating to the Stephen Kings of horror. After obtaining her MFA from University of Texas Austin, she received the Walter Dean Myers grant award for children’s fiction in 2020. Ms. Evans has stated, “Horror has a way of touching on all our fears, taboos, and cultural histories in a way we can’t hide from.” She also has a story in the anthology titled “The Brides of Devil’s Bayou.” Think missing women plus swamp demons for a rollicking good read. The story is so good that even though I knew the premise of the anthology, I was still worried about the protagonist surviving to the end! All the stories included are so immersive that you might forget the reality around you. So relax, kick back, and enjoy this horror set—then pass it to a teenager near you for good luck.
Recommended Reading:
The Black Girl Survives In This One, published by FlatIron Books, scheduled for release on April 2, 2024.
Excerpt:
“Find the bone. Send it home,” Aja recites.
“Miss Louisa said it came to her as she read your palm, right?” Letricia asks. “It can’t be a coincidence you dreamed it, too.”
“But we’ve searched the house all morning, no ‘bone’ to be found,” Aja says. She looks up at the sun’s position in the noon-day sky. The night is coming much too fast. She can admit she’s really scared now. If this is real, if that thing comes for her tonight…
“Let’s get to work on the back up plan, then. We have rituals to perform,” Letricia says, picking up the printout called “Banishing Evil: A Starter Kit.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Aja says. “My birthday…”
Letricia reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “The party’s just begun. We have a demon to banish and a cake to cut. It’s not over until it’s over.”
Aja stands and gives Letricia a tight hug, a gesture she hopes says: Thank you for being here. Thank you for battling demons with me.
You can find more about Desiree S. Evans, her work, and the upcoming anthology on her Web site http://www.desiree-evans.com and on Instagram/Twitter at @literarydesiree.
Kate Maruyama Recommends:
Julya Oui is an author, a screenwriter, and a playwright. She has published four short horror story collections, written numerous feature films and TV movie scripts, and a few stage plays. Her second book Here be Nightmares, the third in her Nightmares, Monsters, and Horrors Triptych, was longlisted in the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2015 and won the third prize for Popular-The Star Readers’ Choice 2016.
Originally from Taiping Perak in her youth, Oui taught herself poetry and fiction writing, as her family did not have the money to access creative writing courses. After a number of years self-publishing short stories, her first book, Bedtime Stories From The Dead Of Night, was published in 2011.
In an interview with Regina Ibrahim on Queer Lapis, Julya said, “If I could say it candidly, I would say horror chose me. But since we’re in serious business, I love horror stories. I love the idea of telling a ghost story by the candlelight and not knowing where the story goes and eagerly preparing for the twist at the end. That is the intrigue and suspense I live for. And the great revelation, after everything is peeled off layer by layer until we see the ugly truth that started it all, is the plus point. The mother of all titillations.”
Recommended Reading: Taiping Tales of Terror (Penguin Random House SEA, 2023).
Excerpt from short “The Haunting of the Headless Trishaw Man:”
She walked out of the bedroom and listened intently to the sound, following it from the side of the house to the front gate. It was odd. The sound seemed to be coming from within their compound. The eight-foot fence was a formidable and insurmountable barrier to discourage intruders. She stared out through the window to see if she could locate the origin of the annoying squeak.
There were too many shadows to give her a good view until lightning struck up like a match. The headless man appeared to be cycling his trishaw around the garden. His bloody neck made a loud drip-dripping sound that was accompanied by the infernal squeaking of the trishaw’s rusty wheel.
When the headless man noticed her, he got off his trishaw and pointed to the empty space above his neck as though asking for his head.
You can follow Julya Oui on Instagram @JulyaOui.
