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Closing Movie Theaters and the Loss of Independence
I found out today that one of my favorite local theaters, E Street Cinema, will be closing in the spring. I hadn’t been in a while because I don’t live near the metro anymore and, to be frank, it’d lost a bit of its appeal to make the trek out there when they started using a lot of their limited screen space to show blockbusters instead of the indie movies I believe most of its faithful audience went there to see. Despite that, though, I see it as a staggering loss not just for the cinephile community, but the community as a whole.
Movie theaters have been struggling for years. Many things have contributed to this: rising costs of a ticket, the quality of movies shown, streaming on-demand making it more desirable to stay home and watch a film instead of sharing an overpriced seat with an audience that in all likelihood will be rude in some way: talking, using their cell phone, making out next to you while you try to watch Identity in peace (maybe that one’s just me).
Geez Sonora, you kind of sound like a movie theater curmudgeon — are you sure you’re mourning the loss of this theater? Yes. Very much so. I started with the grievances because they’re the lowest in number to dedicate space to.
I grew up going to the movies. I came of age in independent movie theaters. Indie movie theaters are more than just places to see a foreign film or an art flick (an actual art flick, not “an art film,” though I have seen those in indie theaters as well). They’re spaces that show the movies large conglomerate chains will not show. They’re the mom-and-pop video store people love to give lip service to, but on the big screen.
An example: for many years, major movie chains, like Regal and AMC, wouldn’t show NC-17 films in their theaters (much like Blockbuster wouldn’t stock NC-17 movies in their stores). This was solely due to money, not morals: NC-17 restricted the age group that spent the most money at the movies in a way that an R rating didn’t, since adults could not bring their children to NC-17 movies (and let’s be real, no one checks ID for R-rated films even if you look like you’re under 17). Independent theaters (usually) had no such scruples. I remember driving to the Chelsea Theater at age 17 feeling like hot shit because I was going to go see Thirteen and no one could stop me. A small victory in hindsight, but a big deal to a teenager who was growing up and starting to not only learn new ideas apart from her upbringing, but was able to pursue that learning. I could drive myself, I could learn about these movies myself (thanks to a daily habit of checking every hot movie site from 2000 — 2004 to see what was coming out and learning about these indie films), and I could buy a ticket myself. I was fortunate to live near three such theaters about equidistant from each other: the Chelsea, Varsity Theater, and Carolina Theatre; all in Chapel Hill (the latter of which was connected to the art museum near UNC’s campus).
This continued into college and young adulthood. Our campus cinema was a second-run theater where we showed both blockbusters and indie movies, a formula that worked better for a cinema funded by the Union Activities Board (and for which I was films chair for two years). We showed movies like Bad Education and Paradise Now alongside blockbusters like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Borat. Like many college towns, there were also plenty of independent theaters, including The Rialto, which hosted weekly Rocky Horror nights and was my first Rocky theater experience; and Galaxy Cinema, where I saw my first Bollywood film. I also saw hosts of indie movies at both of those theaters. Graduate school in Georgetown proved ample as well, since I was a bus and later, metro ride away from E Street Cinema. I was a regular for their midnight movies (including Birdemic and the first two Human Centipede movies). They were the first theater I was able to see the Oscar-nominated animated shorts in, an annual tradition I still do with my husband. You could always count on them to have a small, foreign, quiet, and/or artistic film that you likely couldn’t see anywhere else.
Sadly though, these spaces are dying. E Street Cinema is only one example. The Carolina Theatre is closed. Galaxy Cinema is closed. The Rialto shows older movies and special events (along with Rocky Horror). The Varsity Theater mostly shows blockbusters now.
Having a space for movies you can’t see anywhere else is especially important as we find ourselves surrounded by people, social media sites, corporations, and a government that want to streamline our media to control the messages and ideas distributed en masse. The narrowing of spaces to receive art results in the narrowing of our collective minds. I don’t think this is hyperbole. If it were, people in power wouldn’t be so determined to restrict the stories we see, listen to, read, or otherwise consume. This was true 20, 30, 100 years ago. Indie theaters, though–like other independent sources of art–were lighthouses in the murky shores of corporate and/or state-sanctioned entertainment. Each closure leads to another dimmed light in these troubled waters.
It’s Not That Bad: On Accountability, Forgiveness, and Why Men Need the Former Far More Than the Latter
CW/TW: rape, sexual assault
I’ve been reading Vulture’s article on the sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman. The allegations are not recent news–they were first broken by Tortoise Media in the summer of 2024. This appears to be the first major U.S. publication, though, that is not only sharing the allegations, but taking a deep, terrible dive into how bad they are. They are so awful that I have yet to see anyone saying “Well, actually” or “Was it really that bad” or any of the other lines I’m used to hearing when men are accused of hurting women. It pisses me off, though, that it took this many times, this level of detail, and this much exposure of his victims’ personal pain to get this level of unconditional sympathy.
Being a women who exists and is aware of the world around her, I know how often and how quickly men are forgiven for their transgressions, including–and, I’d argue, especially–the ones against women. They range from rape and murder to calling women ugly names because they assert themselves. They have lies spread about them when they dare to speak up. The moment a man is accused of doing anything against a woman, there is a small army–and not just other men–who come to defend the man. “Hey, we don’t know if it’s true.” “She’s lying.” “It’s not that bad–he shouldn’t get cancelled over this.” (Reminder that experiencing a consequence is not getting cancelled)
“It’s not that bad” would carry much more weight if it were only applied to something that literally isn’t that bad, meaning something that doesn’t harm someone physically or emotionally. I feel this way about all levels of harm, not just the most extreme ones. Is being murdered worse than my colleagues calling me a bitch? Absolutely. Is it still disingenuous to tell me it’s “not that bad” when I tell someone I’m being called a bitch by people I expect to respect me, even if they don’t like me? Absolutely. Yet I and other women will constantly, incessantly, repeatedly get told that the ways we’re hurt are not that bad. It’s so common that Roxane Gay named her wonderful nonfiction anthology on rape culture Not That Bad. How many women read that phrase and immediately recall many, many instances we heard that when we worked up the courage to confide in someone about our feelings?
More often than not, “not that bad” is meant to protect the feelings of the accused, not the person hurt. It’s meant to maintain their reputation, their jobs, and the level of accountability they should face–which, as implied by “not that bad,” is usually seen as none. I’ve seen more calls to forgive bad actors than to hold them accountable. Not only do I think this is nonsense–in no small part because forgiveness means you’re at least holding them responsible for what they’re being forgiven for–it’s also a perversion of what forgiveness is supposed to be. Forgiveness isn’t acting like nothing happened. It’s not allowing the person who hurt you to re-enter your spaces or be welcomed with loving arms. “Forgive and forget” means letting go of the pain and anger they gave you so that you can move forward–and in many cases, it means moving forward and away from them. It’s leaving them and their nonsense behind so that they cannot keep hurting you.
“But they didn’t hurt me,” you might say. Sure, and the level you want to disassociate with someone who has hurt others is entirely up to you. Personally, I want people to feel safe around me and that I am trustworthy. I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. But I also don’t talk a big game about safety, trust, and progress and then intentionally keep bad actors in my circle. I once read a great phrase: “You’re only as trustworthy as your least trustworthy friend.”
I think about this professionally as well as personally. It’s important to me that people know I don’t tolerate bad actors in my spaces, especially bad actors that my peers feel unsafe to be around. The moment murmurs start, I take it seriously. If someone confides in me about a way they were harmed and try to say, “It’s not that bad, maybe I’m overreacting,” I tell them that all that matters is how they feel, and if they’re uncomfortable, that is valid. Maybe we wouldn’t feel the need to explain away our discomfort, though, if society at large took women’s feelings as seriously as they take a man’s reputation.
The next time a woman comes to you, be you man or otherwise (though I’m especially writing this post for men), I ask you kindly to do the following: when a woman tells you that someone has hurt her or made her uncomfortable, keep “That’s not that bad” or any phrase of its ilk out of your mouth. If you don’t understand why this is so bad, ask her why she feels that way. Listen to her before you immediately start defending the person she’s saying hurt her–especially if it’s a man and even more especially if it’s a man you know and like. You may not agree that it was that bad, but that’s a choice you should keep to yourself and your own assessments for how to move forward depending on the context. Dismissing a woman’s concerns outright is how things get as bad as they did with Neil Gaiman. Nip it in the bud before it gets there.
For Your Consideration: Sonora Taylor’s Awards-Eligible Work for 2024
This year, I’ve published two books, eight short stories, two poems, and one nonfiction essay. Below are my awards-eligible works for 2024, separated by category. If you are a member of an awards jury and wish to receive a copy of any of the works below to read for awards consideration, you can either contact me directly or contact the individuals listed beside each work. Thank you for your time and your consideration.
Novella/Long Fiction
Errant Roots — released October 15, 2024 from Raw Dog Screaming Press. Contact: books (at) rawdogscreaming (dot) com.
Short Story Collection
Recreational Panic: Stories — released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
Short Story
“Recreational Panic: A Guided Meditation” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Harvey Carver” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Per My Last Email” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“The Untended Field” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Little Dirty Birdy Feet” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Knee-Deep” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“If You Don’t Want a Cat, Don’t Get a Kitten” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Write Drunk, Edit Sober” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
Poem
“I Already Know How You’ll Haunt Me” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
“Bones Into Blood” — from Recreational Panic: Stories. Released March 5, 2024 from Cemetery Gates Media. Contact: cemeterygatesmedia (at) gmail (dot) com.
Short Nonfiction/Essay
Like a Knife in the Dark: Stephen King’s “The Man Who Loved Flowers” and The Power of Brevity (Nightmare Magazine, April 2024, Issue 139) (free to read online)
Remembering George Winston: Thoughts, and a Poem
In addition to all the music George Winston previously released, it turns out he made some gifts for us before he left. Dancing Cat Studios–which Winston founded–announced the first in a series of posthumous albums yesterday. Eastern Montana will be out August 30, and the first single, “Dusk at the Fork in the Road,” is out now.
I’m a huge George Winston fan. I chanced upon him at the now-closed Record Exchange on Hillsborough Street, NC State’s main drag. I saw his album Forest and picked it up because it had compositions from “The Snowman,” one of my favorite Christmas specials. I later picked up “Linus and Lucy: The Music of Vince Guaraldi” for the same reason, this time for various Peanuts compositions. I believe my next pick-up was “All the Seasons of George Winston,” which was a greatest hits album. (All of these albums came from Record Exchange, and I’ll forever mourn the dying culture of used record shops; but that’s for another blog post)
As you can see, I started to fall in love with his own compositions, not just the covers I initially bought the CDs for. “All the Seasons” cemented this love. It primarily featured tracks from his seasonal albums, Summer, Autumn, December, and Winter Into Spring (my personal favorite). I quickly started to add those full albums to my collection. I bought Plains, and remember crying to “Before Barbed Wire” on a bad day in my dorm room.
I saw George Winston at least seven times before he died. He’s the artist I’ve seen the most in concert. I had tickets to see him again in January 2023, which got moved to May 2023 before being canceled altogether. George had previously battled lymphoma and beaten it, but when they announced the cancellation of his show, I had a feeling it had come back and his time was short. Sure enough, he passed away on June 4, 2023.
Because I knew he’d been sick, the news didn’t hit me as a devastating blow. I was sad, and I mourned, but I wasn’t buckled over. As time has gone on, though, I’ve realized my grief over his loss is not a burst of wave, but a river trickling through the canyon of my heart that slowly creates a chasm. When I listen to him play, I remember that that’s how he lives on now, that I won’t see him in concert again or hear new music, and I grow sad. The last album released before he died, Night, seems especially prescient now, and I wonder if in addition to him playing tribute to the time of day he most treasured, he was hinting at his own departure to all of us.
I feel grateful that we’ll have new music from George, music that appears to be released based on his own wishes, since he owned Dancing Cat Records. I imagine he began recording when he realized his own nightfall was coming. I’m grateful also that his albums have been preserved both digitally and on physical media, so that they’ll be harder to lose as the years without him grow longer.
It’s rare that a complete stranger can touch another complete stranger so fully. Even though the experience is sometimes bittersweet, I still love listening to his music. I’ll play his seasons albums during their respective seasons and feel like they’ve been truly rung in. I’ll hear the first chords of “Tamarack Pines” when I walk through forests, and I’ll always think of him when the state of Montana gets mentioned.
I wrote a small poem for George as a means of thanks, one I felt compelled to write while listening to his music. It’s below. I hope anyone reading this who isn’t familiar with his music looks him up–he’s on pretty much every digital streaming service and on YouTube. I recommend “Forest” or “All the Seasons of George Winston.”
Rest easy, George.
Hum
When I hear you play your music,
I see you standing over fields of wheat
And trees of green,
Rivers flowing,
Flowers growing,
Every moment shining in your fingertips
As they alight the keys beneath you.
And now that you are gone,
I hope that you became the music that you played,
A gentle hum reverberating through the chords of nature.
For George Winston (2.11.49 — 6.4.23)
Women in Horror Month ’23: Erika T. Wurth
The final interview in my WIHM series this year is with Erika T. Wurth! You can check out our conversation below. Be sure to also check out my interviews with S.C. Parris and Gretchen Felker-Martin!
Sonora: Tell us a little about yourself. How long have you been writing? Have you always gravitated towards horror and dark fiction?
Erika: I was a big reader as a kid, as long as it involved ghosts, spaceships or elves. But once I got to college, and then did my PhD, they ironed that out of me, and I started writing what some folks call literary fiction, and I would say is better labeled realism. But it was still dark. And eventually, I missed the ghosts.
Sonora: You recently released your third novel, White Horse. What was your inspiration for the story? What was it like writing it? Anything you want to share from the behind-the-scenes of getting it published?
Erika: It is my debut big five novel. I have two books of poetry, two novels and a collection of short stories ending in a novella out. In many ways, the novel is a love song to a dying Denver, where I’m from. And in other ways it’s a celebration of coming back to speculative literature. And it’s also about my grandmother who either suicided or was murdered by her husband, and the chaos that that caused in my family. I think this round it was a bit more joyful, because even though the subject matter is dark, I really loved returning to some of the things that I was passionate about as a kid. I also cared a lot more about structure and plot.
Publishing with a big five doesn’t necessarily mean you get everything you want, though I think that’s the perception that people have when they don’t. It means that IF your book starts to get a little bit of attention, then you get a bit more in the way of resources. But I had someone say pull out that Macmillan credit card! Let me assure you, there is no Macmillan credit card. Not for me. Additionally, on a completely separate note, it’s important to lift your peers up. If you’re continually only trying to get the attention of the big names in your field, or you’re pushing your peers actively down out of envy, it won’t serve you. The best thing you can do is pick a peer group who is writing in the genre and form you’re writing in, folks you really admire—and write articles about that work or at minimum uplift them on social media. Something that their editors might notice once it’s time for you to put that novel out in the world.
Sonora: Indigenous horror is a growing market, with stories from Stephen Graham Jones, Shane Hawk, and the speculative fiction of Louise Erdrich a few examples. What do you think indigenous authors bring to horror that’s unique from other stories?
Erika: I suppose I could see Erdrich in this camp, but I would add Jessica Johns BAD CREE, and V. Castro—she’s a Mexican Indigenous writer who is knocking it out of the park, and I think that THE HAUNTING OF ALEJANDRA is going to blow up. In general, I feel like this is a great time for Indigenous voices. There are those who want it to be only one, or those who want it to be all realism, but I think that Native American Science Fiction and fantasy and horror (and crime!) allows native people to get out of the box that fetishizes us. Horror specifically allows us to process some of the darker parts of our history. And it’s fun. We are allowed to have fun. We should be able to talk about darker subject matter in a speculative way, and we should be able to talk about the bogeyman from our own backgrounds.
Sonora: While many have done better to highlight diverse voices in literature, at least from what I’ve seen, they’ve often fallen short when highlighting Indigenous voices. What are your thoughts on the current state of Indigenous literature in the U.S.? What has gotten better with publishers, booksellers, and readers? What still needs to be improved?
Erika: I think there are those in the Native community and outside of the Native community that like I said, would prefer there to be one Native voice—with a creepy, pseudo-objective agenda as how to measure which one of us is the most authentic and the most tragic. It’s especially nauseating, because it plays right into the way in which Native people have been placed in this fetishistic space where everything has been done to crush our existence, physically and culturally. There needs to be a stronger sense of how complicated our history is, each one of us, each different nation—an understanding that many of us are urban, and have been for generations, and anyone who denies this, regardless of where they’re coming from—has an agenda, and that agenda is completely self-interested.
I have been a part of the movement in making it clear that it’s a much more spiritually and artistically healthy world when different Natives from completely different backgrounds are writing—and thriving— at the same time. And that is what’s happening. There are so many diverse voices writing right now, despite oppression from within and outside of our communities. Also, I would love it if more people would read books by Native Authors not to get a lesson in Native American culture, which you can get from a non-fiction, scholarly source, but because the book sounds fun and smart. It’s cool if you’re educated along the way, but we need to not allow ourselves to be fetish objects, but artists in our own right.
Sonora: Who are some of your favorite writers? What are some of your favorite books?
Erika: In horror, I love Grady Hendrix. Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Victor LaValle. My Indigenous brother from another mother, Stephen Graham Jones. And, of course, my partner in lifeL and in crime writing, David Heska Wanbli Weiden. I’m reading RF Kuang now, and I think she’s a genius. BABEL was groundbreaking in so many ways. And BL Blanchard, a Sci-Fi Anishinabee writer is KILLING IT. And Rebecca Roanhorse has change Native American fiction—in the best ways—forever.
Sonora: What are you currently working on?
Erika: I just signed the next contract with Flatiron for another literary horror novel, ROOM 904. It’s about a woman who finished her PhD in psychology, and just as she was about to go on the job market, her sister suicided, “turning on” the main character’s paranormal abilities. She becomes a paranormal investigator—and when The Brown Palace calls her to investigate a series of paranormal murders, where women check in every nine years and die three weeks later, she realizes it’s her sister who is now haunting the Brown. And then her mother checks in—and has three weeks to live if she doesn’t solve the murders.
Erika T. Wurth’s novel WHITE HORSE is a New York Times editors pick, a Good Morning America buzz pick, and an Indie Next, Target book of the Month, and BOTM Pick. She is both a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, has published in The Kenyon Review, Buzzfeed, and The Writer’s Chronicle, and is a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation. She is an urban Native of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent. She is represented by Rebecca Friedman for books, and Dana Spector for film. She lives in Denver with her partner, step-kids and two incredibly fluffy dogs.
Women in Horror Month ’23: Gretchen Felker-Martin
My Women in Horror Month interview series continues with a conversation with Gretchen Felker-Martin! You can find our conversation below. And in case you missed it, be sure sure to check out last week’s interview with S.C. Parris!
Sonora: How long have you been writing? Have you always been drawn to horror and dark speculative fiction?
Gretchen: I’ve been writing since I was about 14, and yeah, as a kid I was drawn to things that scared me and disgusted me. There was a sympathy there, I think, because as a fat and obviously queer child I disgusted and frightened many of the people around me.
Sonora: I loved your debut novel, Manhunt. What was it like writing it and then publishing it?
Gretchen: Exhilarating, weird, frightening. From the second I shared the premise I started catching flak from anyone and everyone. TERFs, trans people who didn’t like the kind of story I wanted to tell, polite liberals who thought I was a wrecker trying to disenfranchise the trans rights movement. The best thing to come of it, though, has been the response from trans people after publication, which is strong and varied and vehement. My favorites are people saying “wow, this really makes me feel seen, it puts a voice to these thoughts I don’t feel allowed to speak out loud.” That’s why I wrote it.
Sonora: Horror has had many issues with transphobia and trans erasure. While these issues still exist, there is growing and better representation in both the stories and the authors writing those stories. What do the genre, publishers, and readers do well in terms of trans representation and treatment? How can the treatment and representation of trans people in horror still be improved?
Gretchen: I think in some ways we’re moving ahead and in others we’re falling back. With increased trans visibility comes increased pressure from both cis and trans people to be a model minority, to not “give ammunition” as it were to our ideological and material enemies. You wind up seeing a lot of trans artists voluntarily defang themselves in the hopes of appealing to a more mainstream audience, and you see a lot of anger and vitriol directed at trans artists who refuse to pander.
Trans people are exploding into horror fiction in a really exciting way right now. Alison Rumfit, Eric LaRocca, Eve Harms, Hailey Piper, Briar Ripley Page — and into literature more broadly. Jackie Ess, Torrey Peters, Shola von Reinhold, Davey Davis; all these artists who are bringing their own unique experiences to the field. So, cis publishers and readers are learning to embrace these voices, and trans people are connecting through our art, enriching our shared culture. I think where we still have a lot of room to grow is in getting away from writing everything to cater to and educate a cis audience; I want to see more trans artists write for themselves and their fellow trans people.
Sonora: What unique perspectives do you think trans authors bring to the horror genre?
Gretchen: There’s a tremendously intense consciousness of the body inherent to being trans, a prolonged contact with really fundamental questions of what organs and musculature and skeletal structure mean to yourself and then to the world around you. It lends itself well to body horror, and to any horror about alienation and otherness. I think also a lot of us lead very hunted, vigilant lives, and that dovetails very neatly with capturing the feelings of helplessness and terror that make for great horror writing.
Sonora: In addition to writing fiction, you are a film critic. What draws you to film critique and analysis? Do you have a favorite genre? Favorite era?
Gretchen: I got into film criticism after finding the work of Sean T. Collins, who’s now a good friend of mine, and it just really spurred something in me. I’d always been kind of a casual cinephile, but at that time in my life, in my early 20s, I was so depressed and miserable, it wasn’t much of a challenge to sit down and watch two or three movies in a night, plow through contemporary critical work and books on film theory, and just sort of give myself an ad hoc education on the subject. When I finally started to get my life together, I was lucky enough to catch a series of breaks and start writing film crit professionally.
I love horror, unsurprisingly. It’s definitely my favorite, though film noir and period dramas are close seconds. I’m a big fan of the 70s. Barry Lyndon, The Devils, News from Home, Jaws — it’s an incredibly rich decade for film. You have the birth of the blockbuster, the modern action film is taking shape in the wake of Hong Kong’s martial arts boom, Kubrick is at the height of his career. Exciting stuff.
Sonora: Who are some of your favorite authors? What are some of your favorite books?
Gretchen: George R. R. Martin, Porpentine, Umberto Eco, Alison Rumfit, Torrey Peters, Ursula K. Le Guin, Melanie Tem, Shirley Jackson, Octavia Butler, Borges, John le Carré, Nabokov, Patrick Suskind, Otessa Mossfegh, Pär Lagerkvist, Arundhati Roy, Clive Barker, Stephen King, Dorothy Allison, Cormac McCarthy. Some favorite books: Perfume, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Moby Dick, The Name of the Rose, The Virgin Suicides, The Devils of Loudun, A Feast for Crows, Lolita, Trash, Wilding, Lapvona, A Universal History of Iniquity, Ulysses, Kalpa Imperial. Honestly I could go all day, but that’s a good start.
Sonora: What are you currently working on?
Gretchen: I’m waiting for edits on my second novel, Cuckoo, which is a body snatcher story about queer teens at a conversion therapy camp in the mid nineties, and writing a screenplay adaptation of Manhunt, which has been a fun challenge for me, learning a whole new way of writing. I’m also drafting my third horror novel, Mommy, which is about cannibal witches and intergenerational lesbian relationships — the dreaded “age gap”. Past that you’ll have to wait and see!
Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt, is a Massachusetts-based horror author and film critic. You can follow her work on Twitter and read her fiction and film criticism on Patreon, Nylon Magazine, The Outline, and more.
Women in Horror Month ’23: S.C. Parris
I’m bringing back my Women in Horror Month (WIHM) interview series for 2023! I’ve got conversations with three amazing women lighting up the horror scene, and I’m excited to share our conversations with you.
First up is author S.C. Parris, author of The Dark World series. Check out her website here, and check out our conversation below!
Sonora: How long have you been writing? Have you always been drawn to horror?
S.C.: I’ve been writing for all my life. My first published work was poetry that got published in a collection whilst I was in middle school.
I have always been drawn to horror–my mother would watch all the Universal Monster movies while I was in her stomach. I blame my love of horror–and vampires–on her.
Sonora: Tell us about your series, The Dark World. When did you first think of it? What’s it been like writing a series of stories that has spanned 6 books and (hopefully) counting?
S.C.: When Dracula’s secrets are uncovered, The Dark World will never be the same.
Welcome To The Dark World.
A World kept from the eyes of humans where all manner of Dark Creature live, war, and thrive.
But certain Creatures are about to find that there is more to the dark than blood and bite…. The Dark World holds secrets…and the greatest of all are about to be revealed.
The Dark World was an ambitious attempt at writing my first longform prose.
In retrospect I should’ve started with a standalone book and left a series to my second or third writing attempt. I first thought of it after reading a then well-known children’s series and wanted the…special feeling I felt at the time to remain. I sat at my computer and began writing Book 1.
It’s been challenging, exciting, and above-all, a learning experience but the series is done, and there will be no more books from me in that world (knocks on wood). It’s been part of my life for 14 or so years and I was quite relieved to send DRACULA, Book 6, to my editor and close that chapter of my life. I’m super excited to work on new work and I’ve grown so much as a writer from where I started writing The Dark World (at 14!). It’s beyond time for me to put my talents into other work!
Sonora: Vampires are one of horror’s most popular and alluring monsters. What draws you to them? What are some of your favorite things about their lore, and what do you think needs to change?
S.C.: Quite simply, they speak to me. I’m pulled to them for all the things they can represent in the writer’s work, and there’s so many things one can do with them. I, personally, like to explore the foreboding, darkly haunted vampire. They enrapture me, and I find their need for blood (as that’s what I choose to focus on for my vampires) compelling.
It’s in their suaveness, their depiction across books and film, their brutality, their innocence, their need, their resistance. The sheer dichotomy of what makes a vampire, for lack of a better word, tick, is what will always fascinate me. And I love seeing how different authors and directors and game developers create their own takes on these fascinating monsters.
About what needs to change, I believe there needs to be an acknowledgement of the numerous ethnic and wide-reaching vampire stories that are being made all across the world. A focus on the vampire legends that have been told through spoken word and that live in the cultures of many should be explored.
Sonora: Black vampires have also been growing in popularity and representation, from Wesley Snipes in Blade and Aaliyah in Queen of the Damned to Jacob Anderson in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire. How do you feel about the ways Black vampires have been treated in horror? What would you like to see more of?
S.C.: I feel Black vampires can be given deeper stories both in spite of and due to their Blackness. TV shows, movies, and stories don’t exist in a vacuum. These stories, despite when they’re being made, can always find an audience provided said stories are marketed, distributed, and preserved well-enough for audiences to find them. Up ‘till now, they’ve been treated as the bad-ass, infallible, often too-cool-for-school characters white audiences love to see Black people as (Blade, Maximillian from Vampire in Brooklyn). However, these characters have also had their comedic moments that have become iconic moments for Black vampire movies (“Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.” And “Evil is good and ass is good, and if you find you a piece of evil ass: woo!).
I, however, would love to see more Black vampires just as we have white vampires–emotional, lost, making mistakes, losing important things, making difficult choices. It just comes down to them being well-written characters which is what I feel is the mark of any good story, whatever the format, being well-written.
Sonora: What have been your experiences writing horror and dark fantasy as a Black woman? What does the publishing world do well in terms of representing Black women, and what do you think needs to change?
S.C.: My experiences have been that I’ve had my work reduced to less-than right to my face by, I’m sure, well-meaning white women, and I’ve had to constantly assure readers who would ask that my books are indeed Fantasy and not capital ‘R’ romance. In my experience, as a Black woman, the expectation is that 1. I don’t write and 2. If I do write, it’s only going to be Romance or ‘Urban.’
I have to introduce myself and my work to everyone I meet (if they even want to know that I write at all), and that’s fine, it’s part of the job, however, I’ve noticed I’ve had to also defend my work’s legitimacy in that I’ve written a well-thought out, lengthy, vampiric gothic fantasy series. There’s always the unspoken “It can’t really be good,” when I speak about my work only for the person to read a chapter or two and come back and go “Wow, you actually can write!”
It’s upsetting and demoralizing.
What needs to change is more Black horror writers, writing. The pride I felt when a young girl met me at a bookstore and her eyes widened when I showed her my series (that her father, rightfully, wouldn’t let her read) was indescribable. I always say if I inspire anyone to do the thing they think they can’t do, I’m happy. But I’d love to inspire more young Black women, nonbinary individuals, and men to write their weird, dark, scary stories with as much daring and belief in themselves as any white man. Nothing will change unless we continue to share our art, publish, flood agents with queries, and show our work demands just as much attention as any white persons.
Sonora: Who are some of your favorite authors? What are some of your favorite books?
S.C.: Some of my favorite authors right now are Rhiannon Frater and her Pretty When She Dies series, Glen Cook and his The Black Company series. Colin Harker’s The Feast of the Innocents has recently warmed my gothic heart, and I’ve just started Nicole Eigener’s Beguiled by Night which I’m sure will join this list.
Sonora: What are you currently working on?
S.C.: I’m currently writing THE TALES OF SINNER SHARPE: DARK WATERS, my gothic dark fantasy adventure novel about a Black Caribbean mercenary on the last assignment of his life.
I’m also working on my gothic literary novel, VANESSA, a depressing, gothic tale about a Haitian servant who comes into her own as a vampire in 17th-century London, England.
Lastly, I’m working on an urban fantasy Romance featuring a powerful Black witch and the Italian/Mexican lawyer she drags into the darker side of New York City, currently titled SYLVIA.
S.C. Parris is the author of The Dark World series, streams on Twitch during the week, and enjoys a good steaming cup of tea when she’s not working part-time in an academic library.
How to Respond to Bad Reviews
It’s simple, really:
Tongue-in-cheek simplicity aside, authors responding poorly to reviews and reviewers is something that’s been going on far too long; tends to target independent reviewers who read and review on their own time and dime; is unnecessary; is unkind; and in all likelihood is worse for your book than any review will ever be.
When an author disparages a reviewer, I notice that reviewers tend to do the legwork of making the simple plea to be treated like human beings. They should not be the only ones speaking up or writing lengthy posts. I wanted to write in support of reviewers and to let my fellow authors know that being cruel to someone who didn’t shower your book with stars is unacceptable and a surefire way to get me to never read your stuff.
The latest instance that prompted this post is Lauren Hough’s mean and unnecessary tweets attacking a Goodreads reviewer for giving her book 4 stars instead of 5. Yes, a 4-star review. She also responded by calling Goodreads reviewers who round down a 4.5 review to 4 stars (since Goodreads doesn’t allow half-star ratings) as “assholes” and said, “No one likes you.” I purposefully use “attacking” without hyperbole because she is in a position of power and tried to use it to draw attention to a Goodreads reviewer who does not have her following nor her celebrity. It backfired spectacularly, but people put on blast by celebrity Twitter presences aren’t always so lucky.
But celebrities using their power to get their followers to bully someone is for another essay. Hough thought it was acceptable to say these things because of a book review. She thought a book reviewer doing their job warranted calling that reviewer an asshole. A lot of authors act like Hough.
These authors may not flame out as spectacularly as Hough did on Twitter, but they’re out there all the same. They search their name, find poor reviews of their books, then play victim on Twitter because someone didn’t like their book. They call reviewers arrogant, entitled, wrong, children, whiny, bad readers, a multitude of names. They say reviews and reviewers are a scourge ruining books and ruining reading. I think the bigger scourge is authors acting like dicks.
Further, these attacks are usually on reviewers who are: 1) women/women-identifying (especially women of color), 2) independent, and 3) doing the reviews for free as opposed to working for a paying publication. These authors aren’t writing screeds of their suffering against the book reviewer equivalent of Anton Ego in Ratatouille. They’re focusing on book bloggers, bookstagrammers, Goodreads influencers, and other grassroots reviewers that are, in their eyes, an easier target.
It’s always wrong to be cruel. Someone not liking your book, or not liking your book as much as you do, or not worshiping your book at the altar of the #shelfie, is not an open invite to be an asshole. Someone took the time to read your book and write their thoughts on it. Be grateful! As someone who writes for a (side) living, I can barely write more than two sentences about a book I read because reviewing books is hard! These reviewers are working their ass off for something they love. They don’t deserve to be treated like garbage because you can’t handle critique.
Look, no one likes a bad review or even a mediocre review of their work. I don’t look at low-star reviews of my work with a smile and hands clasped saying, “Thank you.” But you know what else I don’t do? Screenshot those reviews and act like a giant asshole on Twitter about it. I brush it off, move on, and keep writing. If it’s particularly harsh, I maybe talk about my hurt feelings with my husband or my editor. But then I move on! Because reviews aren’t personal–but attacking reviewers is, and it’s shitty and needs to stop.
So fellow authors: if you see a review of your work that displeases you, and you’re thinking about calling out the reviewer or even making passive complaints about reviewers in general, I have one piece of advice:
Sonora Taylor