Fiction Fragments: Andrew Robertson

April 9, 2021April 8, 2021Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, I spoke with the Darque Bard, James Matthew Byers about his passion for epic poetry.

This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes horror writer Andrew Robertson.

Andrew Robertson is an award-winning queer horror writer and former journalist. In October 2021, his short story “Sick is the New Black” will appear in the gay-themed multi-genre anthology Pink Triangle Rhapsody: Volume 1 from Lycan Valley Press. He is currently working on a novelization of the same story, exploring themes of queerness, addiction, fame, anti-vaxxers and the toxic nature of post-pandemic life in a culture locked in the thrall of social media. He will also be introducing the Mythimals this month by launching his first monstrous children’s book, And Then The Fart Happened, on the Great Lakes Horror Company Kids imprint with illustrations by LizzDom and colour and layout by Dinis Freitas.

Also scheduled for 2021, his short story Sundowning in Klarissa Dreams Redux is headed to space! The charity anthology will be flying to the moon in July via the United Launch of a Vulcan Centaur rocket as part of Peregrine Mission One – Manifest 9: #WritersOnTheMoon. This book will be part of the largest single collection of contemporary artwork ever put on the Moon, and it will fly there on the first commercial lunar flight in history.

Andrew’s fiction has appeared in literary magazines and quarterlies such as Stitched Smile Publications Magazine, Deadman’s Tome, Undertow, and katalogue. He has also appeared in anthologies including Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland, A Tribute Anthology to Deadworld, Group Hex Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. He is the editor of Dark Rainbow: Queer Erotic Horror, which explores the darker urges we all face.

A lifelong fan of horror, he is the founder of The Great Lakes Horror Company podcast and indie press and a member of the Horror Writer’s Association.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Andrew. Back in August 2020, I interviewed horror writer Hailey Piper. Her Twitter profile encourages people to “Make horror gay AF.” What does that statement mean to you as writer? How has your identity shaped your writing over time? Has it evolved, and how? How do you define queer horror, and what sets it apart from other flavors of the genre?

AR: First, I wanted to say thanks for having me on GMM! I’ve been reading all the interviews and excerpts and they’ve been great.

For me, being queer has always meant feeling like an outsider, and when you feel that way, you have a choice of embracing your queerness or hiding it away. When people are othered, it comes from a place of fear in the dominant society, and with fear comes ignorance, and both lead to violence, in words and actions. For most of us, I think that feeling of otherness comes from societies fear of what queerness is, this great unknown, often characterized by over the top characterizations of masculinity and femininity along with a lot of really damaging stereotypes that come from those. Growing up in the 80s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and seeing how vilified queer people were as scapegoats for a disease that knew no sexualities, it was really difficult to come to terms with being queer when that seemed to be a death sentence one way or another. You internalize a duality that informs how you act in a given situation, and what you can or should do or say. It’s awful…horrific in fact.

The media did a great job of turning gay men in particular into total pariahs and then the gay community further segmented their own population by favouring the healthy muscular look as opposed to those who could look ‘sick’. You had to fit into the cookie cutter mold or you were stigmatized and rejected. You tend to internalize that feeling of ugliness, along with a lot of the hate that spreads in society, especially when you can be easily clocked as queer. I may have been closeted, but I still dyed my hair blue, wore pigtails and dog collars, and loved Tina Turner and Siouxsie Sioux more than you would expect from a straight man.

The way queerness comes into my writing is through a lot of the themes I write about, like the desire to be seen, to be accepted, or in my recent work in progress, to do things that you would never normally do just to break through to the mainstream and get those ‘likes’ at any cost. There are also themes of hidden identities, duality, self-destruction, transformation, anger, resentment, and revenge which can be pretty common in queer horror. It’s not always at the forefront, but it’s always there however it becomes refined over time.

GMM: When did you begin writing horror, and who were some of your favorite writers who influenced you? Has that list changed over time? Have your tastes in horror changed? What are your favorite subgenres in fiction and film?

AR: I always enjoyed writing, and would scribble up short stories in high school that were pretty well informed by my goth interests, but in university I headed in the direction of journalism, telling other peoples stories instead of my own. That always preyed on my thoughts. It wasn’t until I met Sephera Giron a few years back that I got serious about it again, joined the HWA Ontario Chapter and got published. She’s a great cheerleader. Like the Demon Aunt I’ve always wanted.

For writers, one of my favourites has always been Anne Rice. She created a very queer universe for her characters in the Vampire Chronicles and beyond. Louis and Lestat are very clearly in a bromance turned romance, going as far as to create a small vampire family as poor Louis struggles with what and who he is. You can really relate to that as a gay man raised in the 80s. The Witching Hour made me want to create a universe, so that’s probably my turning point.

I think you can find horror in anything really, like the writing of Harry Crews. That’s a real trip, and I guess the genre is grit lit.

I also absolutely love the confrontational writing of Lydia Lunch, in particular, her classic Paradoxia: A Predator’s Diary. That would likely fall under non-fiction, it’s so very autobiographical, but entirely literary. She really controls her own narrative and I’ve been lucky enough to meet her a few times.

Clive Barker’s body of work is also incredible, The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks was an eye-opener, and I’ve loved recent work by Indigenous writers like Cherie Dimaline, and Waubgeshig Rice. As a genre hopping reader, right now I’m also enjoying the Diary of Anais Nin and a few works by Tama Janowitz.

For film, my go to is always, always horror, with a particular love for the Hellraiser franchise, classic monsters, 80s slashers, and found footage films.

GMM: I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that “Hamburger Lady” falls under the category of body horror. Tell me about the story and what about body horror appeals to you as a writer? As a reader?

AR: Haha, yes that story is definitely body horror. So much of my work is!

I think that it comes from my fascination with perceived or actual self-destruction, or the wilful destruction of another, and what we are willing to do to survive or succeed. Body horror has always been particularly triggering for me, however I’ve found that rather than pushing me away, it held me rapt. There are so many ways the body can betray us, and so many ways it can disgust us.

That fascination led me to writing in that genre. For example, The Fly was such a landmark film for me in many ways, as was Hellraiser. I love Pinhead! I watched them through my fingers the first time, but couldn’t stop, you know that feeling? We all do! That’s why we slow down near a car crash, to see what could have happened to us. Both films can be read as very queer, and both deal with pushing the limits of the human body and mortality.

There are also so many ways we can transform our bodies. I used to go on body modification sites to see what people were up to, with a sense of morbid fascination and respect for what an individual would do to live their truth. When I discovered what subtraction is I was gobsmacked! I also was obsessed with the artist Orlan and her work in plastic surgery using her own body as the canvas.

The title of my excerpt, Hamburger Lady, is a reference to the song by Throbbing Gristle. I recommend everyone listen to it. The lyrics are actually from a real letter penned by a doctor describing a woman who was a burn victim in a hospital ward, and it’s one of those things you never forget. You wonder at what point keeping someone alive is a punishment meant to exercise the might of science over mercy. My story deals with a future where a disease ravages the skin of those who contract it, leading to the market for skin dealers and donors. I’ll leave it at that for now, but if anyone wants to add the full text to their anthology, I’m game.

Excerpt from “Hamburger Lady”
“My client doesn’t want the whole cheek. She won’t need that much for what’s…well, I’ll say for what’s wrong with her. I mean, we’re friends here at this point, you know the drill. She just wants this part,” Dr. Sawney the Plastician says to Kate, indicating the area by running his damp index finger along what the industry calls the apple of the cheek.
The apple: where women like Kate are meant to put a simple highlight or blush before they go out with men who want to look at them adoringly and see absolutely no flaws at all. Even a light rash or pimple is a bonerkiller. Flaws mean the men aren’t flush enough to pay for the best, and their financial peacocking is what gets them hard. The men want to be envied by all the other bucks and stags at the chosen restaurant, bar or fast food joint, and then with all the chivalry absent from this new world, pay for everything before the two of them have what any of these men are sure is incredible sex fueled by their show of chauvinist financial superiority. It will be better for him. Every time. All these men benefitted for the fallout of the most recent of many pandemics. Women were shoved right back down to where they had been over a century earlier- the second choice for any good job, any decent benefits, any rights at all really. And if you weren’t perfect, you were invisible.
The type of man Kate meets hopes and probably believes he isn’t directly paying for this great sex with all his other nice efforts. He wants to be enough of an attraction all by his handsome self even if he leaves a few hundred on the nightstand afterward. And aside from this beau’s assumptions and assertions, no one wants to bring a bruised produce to his lips if there are better options.
She resists the urge to wipe the moisture off when the Plastician is done. And regardless of the circumstances, imaginary or otherwise, in this case, the apple is still quite attached to the tree.
She can’t believe she’s back at the Sawney clinic in Room Three. The minute she passed through the front door, she felt trapped by her own circumstance. The receptionist with the awful makeup sat there looking surprised as always that anyone would come into this terrible place to give away parts of themselves. The door between reception and the treatment rooms stood in its menacing steel frame, locked until the receptionist hit her button and the mechanism snapped the door open so she could begin what always felt like the longest walk ever to Room Three. They might as well name this Kate’s Room.
As his finger returns to again run across her apparently perfect apple, Kate can smell the onions he had with lunch on his fingers and breath even through his surgical mask. She doesn’t move. She knows her rank. A high-end skin-dealer as skilled as he is means that he can be a bit gross and never hear a complaint from a client or well-compensated vendor. Donors he calls them, like it’s a charity for the poor rich folks.
She can see the sauce from his lunch at the top of his mask, which he wears constantly to remind everyone that he is the surgeon and that it’s his name on the door. Unfortunately, the majority of his skill is used on the end consumer, not so much on ‘donors’ such as herself who make do with whatever they have left after they are harvested and paid. Either way, right now, she can’t even afford an onion or an apple, and can’t be picky about who is cutting off what. But she doesn’t want to give away anything above her neck if she doesn’t have to. Her own clients choose her because, unlike many of the other girls, she is mostly intact. She is, however, terrified of how broke she’s become, and what could happen if she stops paying for her mothers’ treatments at the community hospital.
When she left their apartment for this appointment, her mother looked up through eyelids covered in weeping sores and told Kate that her smile was enough to get her through any day, no matter how bad they became. She said Kate was born with a perfect smile, one that made the sun shine, and that it was her greatest achievement as a mother. Kate’s heart broke but it got her moving. One day they could leave this country and find somewhere to live out their days where things weren’t so bad. But right now, this man in a dirty mask reeking of onions wanted to cut off a piece of her face.
“How’s that going to look, man?” She asks incredulous, thinking of the quivering torso in a wheelchair she had noticed when she had entered the clinic. The torso had been rolling into the neighbouring chamber, Room Two, assisted by one of the Plastician’s assistants. It had been almost entirely covered in a tacky sheet. There was no way that…torso was a complete person, she thought. It had no legs for one thing. And where the sheet didn’t cover the face, it looked like a meatloaf had exploded, with one bulging left eye like a hyper grape darting around a fleshy socket. Its gaze had landed on Kate long enough to freak her out.
She didn’t know if it was a ‘donor’ or someone being treated, but things were so bad it could have very well been someone making the ultimate sacrifice to feed a family or stay out of the mines. The sheet looked sticky, and the torso seemed to be struggling to get one arm with stumpy fingers up to its’ awful face past what could have been the remains of a breast while the assistant kept slapping the hand away. It held something wet and bloody. What was it trying to look at? Was it chewing a hangnail?

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Sonora Taylor

September 25, 2020September 22, 2020Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, Paul Tremblay stopped by Girl Meets Monster and we talked about impostor syndrome and how he deals with it, and he shared an excellent fragment from his short story, “We Will Never Live in the Castle.”

This week, I have the pleasure of speaking with Sonora Taylor. I haven’t had an opportunity to meet her in person, but I’m hoping to change that soon.

Sonora Taylor is the author of Little Paranoias: Stories, Without Condition, The Crow’s Gift and Other Tales, Please Give, and Wither and Other Stories. Her short story, “Hearts are Just ‘Likes,’” was published in Camden Park Press’s Quoth the Raven, an anthology of stories and poems that put a contemporary twist on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Taylor’s short stories frequently appear in The Sirens Call. Her work has also appeared in Frozen Wavelets, Mercurial Stories, Tales to Terrify, and the Ladies of Horror fiction podcast. Her latest book, Seeing Things, is now available on Amazon. She lives in Arlington, Virginia, with her husband.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Sonora. I really enjoyed your fragment, because I love when horror/science fiction blends with humor in a story. There’s something about the humor that makes the horror a bit more unsettling while simultaneously more palatable. Like a cup of tea you drink while watching an alien invasion. Where did this story come from? What inspired it, and do you often include humor in your horror/science fiction?

ST: Thank you! I wrote this in 2016, which was when I’d gotten back into writing short stories and was seeing what forms, themes, and genres stuck with me. I’d been reading Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett around this time and was definitely influenced by their style of writing. I love absurdist and humorous horror, and I found myself thinking it’d be funny to write in the style of one of those self-care articles, but for how to relax during one of the least relaxing experiences I could think of. I originally considered writing a book of these sorts of essays called Consider This, but I didn’t have enough ideas. Then I started writing my first novel, Please Give; and all my attention went to that.

GMM: You mention the importance of self-care rather ironically in your fragment, but the idea of self-care has become a cultural phenomenon that has social, political and economic relevance, especially at this moment in our history. We obviously aren’t facing an alien invasion (not yet, but 2020 isn’t over), but we are facing a pandemic and an outcry for social change. How do you view self-care in this time of uncertainty, and what do you do to look after yourself on the darker days?

ST: I see self-care as a way to step back and focus your attention on taking care of you, especially in a time where we feel an even more pressing need to look out for each other and be caretakers–for loved ones, for marginalized people, for the greater good. Many of us, especially women, are taught to put ourselves last after we’ve taken care of the kids, the spouse, the world. But to me, this is all backwards because you can’t do those things if you haven’t been tending to yourself! I find I’m a better wife, daughter, dog mom, friend, writer, and activist when I’ve taken a breather and set aside time to reset myself.

I like to decompress with simple beauty rituals, which I can fortunately do at home since I still don’t feel comfortable going to a salon (though I do miss getting pedicures and massages). I love taking baths with nice bath bombs and music. I also like to use face masks and sheet masks to give myself a boost. Drinking tea is one of my self-care practices, but that’s more a daily habit than anything special. I also like to plan and prepare really nice meals. I made a pasta last week with chanterelles and I felt so good serving it and eating it.

GMM: What can we expect from you next? What are you currently working on? Have the events of 2020 had an impact on your writing, either your process or what you’re writing about?

ST: Right now I’m working on my next short story collection. It’s called Someone to Share My Nightmares and will focus on romantic/erotic horror. I’m also formulating my fourth novel, an apocalyptic nature novel called Errant Roots.

I do find that it’s harder to sit and write this year than in previous years. My mind is in a lot of places and it can feel exhausting to sit down and write a whole other reality. I’ve written, but it’s been slower than normal. When I finish a piece, though, it feels fantastic.

Tea Time by Sonora Taylor
You should always take the time to make yourself a cup of tea.
With the stress of the day-to-day, it can often be difficult to remember simple acts of self-care. Or we remember, but choose not to partake because they seem selfish, or mundane, or useless. This could not be farther from the truth. Any act of self-care is worthwhile, and this includes the pouring of hot water onto cold tea leaves.
Consider the practice itself. You take a mug, you choose your tea, you warm the water, you pour the water, then await the allotted time for your tea to steep. The preparation itself is meditative. To make yourself a cup of tea is to close yourself off from the stress around you, be it an obnoxious co-worker or a troublesome spaceship landing outside of your building.
The relaxation does not end with preparation. The act of sipping tea is one of the most relaxing things you can do. Each sip delights the tongue with flavor, steam, and comfort. Picture yourself sipping tea. Notice how the noises around you, like phones ringing or people screaming, just seem to disappear as readily as the tea in your cup.
Once the cup is gone, the sense of ease remains with you, warming your hands like the sun or an errant laser. Tea transports us to worlds we never knew, worlds where we are alone and comfortable, not visited or invaded. To make yourself a cup of tea is to grant you an escape from everything.
Many have shared their wondrous experiences with tea. Consider Martha, an accountant who never missed her morning tea. Each morning after breakfast, no matter what she was doing or who was in her presence, she’d stop and make herself a cup of tea in the company kitchen. She found the ritual conducive to her work. One morning, Martha heard her phone ring and several emails ping in her inbox. But alas, it was 9 o’clock – tea time! She ignored the shouts from her office and went to the kitchen to make her tea. She was not gone for five minutes, yet when she returned with her mug, she found not her office, but a smoldering crater where her desk and wall had been. Had she not held to her morning ritual, she too would have been blown to smithereens! Thankfully her morning tea that day was soothing chamomile, otherwise the sight might have scared her dead.
Tea is much valued for its life-saving properties. Green tea is often seen as the healthiest, with its antioxidant power. But all teas have some sort of health benefit to them. Black tea improves your breath. Peppermint tea aids in digestion. Hibiscus tea seems to frighten off the invaders, seeing how they recoiled in fear from Mrs. Thompson’s hibiscus plants when stomping through her garden. All tea has something special to offer.
But perhaps what is most special about tea is what it can do for you. Even when you are most alone, a cup of tea is there for you, warming your hands as you stare out your window and watch your neighborhood, city, and state burn to ash. The skies have turned red and the ships have grown in number, but your reliable kettle burns on the stove and whistles to you, calling from the rabble and chaos, “Time for tea!”

Do you have a fiction fragment? How about your friends? Would you like to recommend someone to me aside from yourself? Drop me a line at chellane@gmail.com. See you next week!

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Gabriela Vargas

March 27, 2020March 26, 2020Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, I had the pleasure of talking with Bracken MacLeod about secular horror and imposter syndrome. If you missed it, check it out. This week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes the vibrant young poet, Gariela Vargas, who I met back in October when we shared a table at the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival, in Haverhill, MA. If you haven’t read of her poetry collection, THE RHYMES OF MY TIMES, you can pick up a copy from Haverhill House Publishing.

Gabriela Vargas is a 16-year-old Dominican-American Junior at Haverhill High School in Haverhill, Massachusetts. She loves community service, dancing, and her family. She gets her writing skills and love for community service from her father, and from her mother and grandmothers, she gets ambition, strength, and hard work.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Gabriela. You had your first collection of poetry published last year. Can you tell me about your book and what that process was like for you? You and a friend collaborated on the project, what did she contribute and how did you decide what to include in the collection?

GV: The book is a concoction of love, pain, angst, racism, life changes, social justice, equality, and lessons learned, as seen through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old high school student in this trying twenty-first century. It’s very personal for me and this book is just things I have experienced my whole life up until the sophomore year of high school.

The process I guess was sort of weird and unusual, I started writing a while ago but then I stopped. Once I got into high school I tried to start again but I just had nothing. Then suddenly I was overflowing with poems, that just came out of me. I liked some of my poems and I showed some of my friends to make sure I wasn’t just liking them because I wrote them. My friends encouraged me to do a coffee house which is a low key show where people do poems, sing, comedy and whatever else anyone wanted to do at the school’s coffee house. So I went up and I said my poem and people were clapping and cheering and yelling “preach”. Then after the whole show ended people came up to me and were like “Wow your poems are so powerful!” and one even said it made her cry. So in my head, I was like what if I write a book? I kept that to myself until my brother said he wanted to write a book. My brother and I made a bet on who could get their book published first. As you can see I won. Then I sent all my work, what I had so far on my poems to my publisher John Mcllveen and he actually liked it! I was amazed and so scared, however, later I would cry on my vacation because of all of the edits and I wanted to hurt my editor but I did the edits. As we were editing I kept adding more poems and I didn’t really pick and choose them I just put them all in.

I did this book with Krystal Rampersaud a senior at Haverhill high at the time and an amazing artist! We didn’t know each other, I got her name from a teacher. I had her read my poems and she just understood them so well, she made my poems come alive with her drawings, she made this book 100 times better with her artwork. She is the best illustrator I could have asked for!

GMM: Your poetry has strong political and feminist messages. What inspired your work, and what do you hope your readers learn or think about when reading your words?

GV: My work has strong political and feminist messages because that’s how I was raised. I guess with discussions around the dinner table, we were always doing something in the community to help in some way. Now my feminist messages, that’s because I have been around A LOT of strong women in my life and just experiencing situations in life that just pissed me off quite frankly.

My work was inspired by situations I have experienced or witnessed in life, like right when they would happen I would pull out my phone or my trusted journal and start writing, so watch out I might write about you!

I hope my readers learn from this book what it’s like to be a fifteen, now a sixteen-year-old girl and I just want them to think and feel my poems in their own perspective and just relate to them because that’s all I can ask from them.

GMM: Having a collection of poetry at such a young age is quite an achievement. You should be proud of your accomplishment. What advice would you give other young writers and artists like yourself who might not believe their work is worth notice, or might be too afraid to submit their work for publication?

GV: Thank you. My message to young writers is JUST SEND IT, it can only get better from there. Even if you get rejected that just tells you, you have to work on it or find someone else. It brings you one step closer to publishing it and trust me you’re going to cry because of the edits. It’s scary because well at least for me I felt very vulnerable, I was putting my whole life experiences out there. Sometimes as writers, we try to find perfection and that can often lead to being too hard on ourselves which makes us think our work is not worth notice but everyone’s work is worth notice, everyone’s voice should be heard. So Just Send It!

Future v Young People
Fear of the future is what our country sings
Holding back change but not the chains
The chains are tighter and tighter as the young ones sing
as the young ones bloom
yet society is doomed
Because of mixed generation thoughts
one wanting progress one not
The Young ones breaking these chains
the old ones tightening them
Everyone’s fear for the future is just the fear for the young that they can’t carry on the legacy but every generation has said that
Every person has said that
We still prove them wrong
So although we fear the future now
Just know that the future is here, the future is now and the legacy is going
it rowing young people are changing and creating and fighting
for
the
future.

I,———-, do solemnly swear to help myself
“I, ———-, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Most come saying they want to serve but all they end up doing is serving themselves
We have created a culture in politics of scandal, corruption, blackmail.
Politics was made and was first what is the right thing to do
Now it’s what can I do to benefit myself?

The First and Last
You should know that you were the first to challenge me
You were the first to change my mind
You were the first person I would base my decisions off of
You were the first to understand
You were the first to make me laugh
You were the first to make me feel care yet didn’t have to give everything up
You were the first person I wanted to tell everything
You were the first man
however, you were the last to give me time
You were the last to say I’m right

Bang and Gone
Bang! Bang!
Another one is gone in our city,
Yet we don’t care or respond
Until someone close to us is gone.
We send our thoughts and prayers,
But that has already been done

Bang! Bang!
Yet another one is gone, and we don’t respond.
We complain about what has happened,
But we don’t stand together strong.
We’re all talk, we don’t walk, march, or run
Until we are the ones
Running away from the gun.

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT OF A HOE
I don’t get it.
These social norms be crazy.
You call me a hoe
Because of what I did with a guy.
But if it was one time that is fine,
But multiple!
Oh, that’s where we cross the line.
Welcome to Hoeville,
Where you get shamed all your life.
But if you’re a guy,
Welcome to your glory days,
Your time to ride or die,
Your time to be praised like a god.
But girls, it’s your time to think about suicide.
Some survive, others don’t…
Welcome to the social contract of a hoe.

Do you have a fragment you’d love to share here at Girl Meets Monster? If so, send it my way at: chellane@gmail.com.

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

Fiction Fragments: Bracken MacLeod

March 20, 2020March 19, 2020Michelle R. Lane 4 Comments

Last week, I talked with Todd Sullivan about anime, writing YA fantasy, and cultural differences while living abroad. And this week, Girl Meets Monster welcomes Bracken MacLeod. I think I first met Bracken at StokerCon in Providence, but I’ve had the pleasure of bumping into him at other events and hope to eventually have time to just sit and talk one of these days. In the meantime, enjoy his fragment and interview.

Bracken MacLeod is the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award nominated author of the novels, Mountain Home, Come to Dust, Stranded, and Closing Costs, coming in 2021 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He’s also published two collections of short fiction, 13 Views of the Suicide Woods and White Knight and Other Pawns. Before devoting himself to full time writing, he worked as a civil and criminal litigator, a university philosophy instructor, and a martial arts teacher. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and son, where he is at work on his next novel.

Three Questions

GMM: Welcome to Girl Meets Monster, Bracken. I’m so glad you could join me today. Thank you for taking time to stop by and talk about your writing. I enjoyed your fragment. There’s a lot going on in Harlow’s world, internally and externally. And, a boring train ride through New York City becomes an opportunity for you to highlight several aspects of the human condition, including: feelings of loneliness and isolation even though we are usually surrounded by people, the way our communication has changed over time, and the very serious subject of suicide. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired this story? Or at the very least, this scene?

BM: Thank you. I am so glad you liked it. This is a selection from the beginning of a new novel I’m working on we’ll call Moral Panic (not my real title, but I’m going to be a little protective here of a turn of phrase I think is pretty boss). I wanted to introduce the character of Harlow in a way that depicts someone trying to get back on their feet emotionally after a significant trauma. But reminders of that ordeal intrude in her life periodically, threatening to drag her back down. In the case of this piece, she’s feeling surprise at her own disappointment in not winning an award, and is heading home, when the world around her stops and points out in stark detail exactly how painful things can get. The details of the piece are drawn from my own experience in several different ways, but specifically, and most obviously, being on a train delayed by a person who’d jumped. It’s one thing to hear the driver tell you something’s happened, and quite another to ride by slowly, watching workers spreading sawdust on the tracks to soak up blood. Despite not being a first responder, I’ve seen considerably more than my share of public tragedy. A lot of Harlow’s interiority here is my own.

GMM: Many writers struggle with the concept of imposter syndrome even after they’ve had their work published and had some success with their writing. As a writer who has been nominated for some prestigious awards within your genre, does that kind of recognition make it easier or more difficult to approach your craft? Personally, I suffer from a fear of success, because success often means there are greater expectations for your next effort, and that also means more work on your part. Has success in your writing been helpful or a hindrance?

BM: Being nominated for awards is nice, and with few exceptions, I wouldn’t turn one down that was given to me, but there is an odd feeling of competition with yourself that creeps into the aftermath of being recognized like that. It’s less about not winning (PRO-TIP: you don’t LOSE awards, because how can you lose something you’ve never had?), than it is about what I think of the quality of my work. Why did this book get nominated and not that one? What was it about the story that resounded with people so much, and can I do it again? Imposter syndrome never goes away, but it does lessen. Still, while I was writing Closing Costs (coming in early 2021 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), I had considerable anxiety about the book and whether it lived up to what people might expect from a “Bracken MacLeod Novel” (whatever THAT is—how arrogant to think there even is such a thing). You have to sublimate those feelings and just go on. I know how to do what I do, and ideally, I’ve learned lessons about what lands right and what doesn’t from prior work. A little bit of anxiousness is good, though; it keeps you working hard.

In all honesty, I think I’d worry a little about someone who says they have no imposter syndrome. It sounds to me like admitting to Dunning-Krueger.

GMM: The overall feeling of your fragment is one of either despair or a sense of not feeling connected to the world around you. Disorientation. Genre wise, this feels like suspense or horror, but your use of language and detailed observation of what’s happening around Harlow gives your writing a literary feel as well. Where do you fall on the spectrum of the literary vs. genre fiction debate? How do you classify your own writing? Has your work ever been criticized for being too literary or too genre driven?

BM: I feel like my work firmly falls in the categories of horror and, more often, thriller, but I strive for literary style. My temptation is to say “literary quality” here, but I think there’s tremendous quality in stripped down, no frills prose as well as “literary.” I don’t like this rivalry we have with each other over genre v. Literary Fiction. Lit Fic is a genre with its own reader expectations and tropes, and there’s no reason why good genre fiction can’t also be literary. Read Paul Tremblay and Priya Sharma and John Langan and tell me those aren’t amazing literary writers working in genre. Colson Whitehead and Victor LaValle are two other examples of wonderful writers who I think of as literary first, but who clearly enjoy writing genre and are great at it. Anyway, I’d like to think of myself as a “slipstream” thriller writer falling somewhere in between traditional thriller/horror writing and Lit Fic.

I think I’ve had more pushback with crossing horror and thriller lines than literary. People have told me while they like this story of mine, it isn’t horror, as if there’s a bright line distinction with no overlap. But then, I tend to prefer what I call “secular horror” over supernatural most of the time. If given the choice between something like IT and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, I’ll more often than not pick the more human monsters.

GMM: Secular horror. I like the sound of that. I think I know what you mean, but could you explain it a bit for a layperson?

BM: “Secular Horror” is a term I coined for my work. It’s kind of like the opposite of supernatural horror, PLUS. The plus is a matter of representation. While I try to do my best writing characters of all backgrounds and beliefs, my protagonists are always atheists and hard skeptics. Part of it is to make a point, perhaps, but a larger part is to give readers in that audience someone to identify with. So, when I say I write secular horror, it usually means that I’m writing non-supernatural work (though I have done supernatural in both novels and short stories) with a point of view coming from a position of skepticism and incredulity. Jack Ketchum, I’d say, wrote that also. Scooby Doo falls into the category as well, ALL the ghosts and spirits in those shows were normal people performing fraudulent supernaturalism! Scooby Doo is secular horror for children.

Fragment, by Bracken MacLeod

The operator’s crackling voice came on the public address speaker and said, “I’m sorry. We’re experiencing a delay.” The train operator sounded tired. It was late, but there seemed to be more weighing on her than the hour. “There’s a… a medical… a passenger just jumped in front of a train at the stop ahead of us. We’re been held here until cleared to resume. I’m very sorry.” The train car was silent. Those kinds of announcements used to be made by euphemism—there was a “police investigation” or “a passenger seeking medical attention.” These days, if you were on the affected train, they told you how it was. Matter of fact. In a sad kind of way, the passengers took it better. While any delay was frustrating, a kind of hushed patience came with the news of someone’s death on the tracks. People from elsewhere could believe all they wanted that New Yorkers were cold and aloof, but people in the city understood that tragedy outweighed inconvenience. They were the same kind of human beings as everyone else, whatever politicians had to say about “coastal elites.”

Harlow closed her eyes and visions of blood and chaos swirled in her alcohol-loosened thoughts. She realized she was better off with her eyes wide open. Perhaps all night. A couple at the other end of her car spoke to each other in hushed tones, leaning into one another. Other riders kept to themselves, typing on their phones or with wireless earbuds in their ears while they played Candy Crush. One woman quietly wiped tears from her eyes and stared straight ahead at her own reflection in the dark glass of the subway car window.

Harlow checked her phone. There were a couple of texts from people inviting her up to room parties, not realizing she’d left the con, and one from her mother asking whether she’d won. She closed her texts and opened Kindle instead. She tried to pick up her book where she’d left off, but the first paragraph seemed impervious to interpretation; she read it again and again, trying to discern meaning from the collection of words she knew had to make sense together but couldn’t force into clarity. She closed the app and instead opened Snapchat, using a filter to look at herself with cat ears and whiskers, then in grainy sepia, then as a biker complete with black five o’clock shadow and a skull-cap bandana. It was a stupid waste of time, and while she would’ve normally found it oddly narcissistic to stare at herself in digital costumes for a half an hour, it kept her from focusing on what had happened on the tracks ahead.

Sitting in a stationary subway car in a tunnel felt different than a delay at the station. Looking through the windows at people on the platform, moving from the gates to the exits, arriving and seeing a train waiting, was of a separate character than sitting in a car with black windows with only one’s own reflection looking back. A car one couldn’t easily exit and return to the world as it was. This felt like being lost. The tunnels weren’t made for lingering; they were intended to be sped through, viewed at a blur. This was a place of motion, not hesitation. And sitting still felt like being lost in time. Like being dead.

Like the person ahead of them on the tracks.

After nearly forty minutes, the train operator came back on the P.A. and told them they were clear to move; however, theirs would be an express train through the next stop. Buses would be waiting at the following station to shuttle riders back. A couple of people on the car softly groaned, but no one made more out of it than that exhaled utterance.

The car began to move again, and the riders slipped from their pocket of stilled time into the continuity of life in the city.

As they emerged from the tunnel and passed through the station, Harlow tried to keep her eyes fixed on her smart phone, but she’d been through all the filters in her app, checked her e-mail and texts. There was nothing unseen to draw her eyes from the bright hardhats of the workmen visible through the window across from her, and she looked up. Two of the them spread what looked like sawdust onto a darkened patch of track on the opposite side of the center divider, separating inbound and outbound trains, while a third looked on. He stood stoically, having already done his job, or waiting to take his turn, so no one would ever know death had come to that small space in their underground world. But he knew it had. His co-workers knew. And so did Harlow. He looked up, eyes meeting hers and in that moment she thought of Gentileschi’s Judith slaying Holofernes—figures standing in the dark, captured in a golden ratio of elemental violence too far complete to be stilled, yet frozen. She hovered in that instant unable to look away, confronted by the workman’s face, his impassivity, but seeing deeper in his eyes a sense that blood was not unfamiliar, and despondence infected him. Had changed him. She understood, and felt pass between them a kind of grieving kinship. Harlow blinked and when she opened her eyes the man had looked away and she couldn’t be certain he’d ever looked at her. The train continued to move and another wave of bleary drunkenness washed over her, bringing Harlow fully back into her body.

A teary woman across from her stifled a sob. Harlow turned her head and tried to catch her gaze, and convey solace to her. She tried to be the presence in between violence and death for this other human being who was about to be overtaken. The way she did. The woman gave her a weak half-smile and turned her eyes toward her hands in her lap.

Harlow leaned back in her seat and for the next two stops, stared at the advertisement next to the door. A size zero woman with a heavy-lidded expression stood stiffly in a yellow bikini next to the legend,

ARE YOU
BEACH BODY
READY?

The scars over Harlow’s ribs itched.

The operator announced her stop and she snapped out of her trance. Harlow didn’t recollect walking home, but waking up the next morning in her bed, had found her way.

Do you have a fragment you’d love to share here at Girl Meets Monster? If so, send it my way at: chellane@gmail.com.

Guidelines: Submit 500-1000 words of fiction, up to 5 poems, a short bio, and a recent author photo to the e-mail above.

An Open Letter to Men on Dating Sites

April 24, 2019April 24, 2019Michelle R. Lane Leave a comment

As some of you know, I decided to dip my toes into the dating pool once again back in December. This isn’t my first foray into the wilds of online dating, and given the nature of my experiences, it probably won’t be my last.

In the time I have spent using dating apps to meet new people, I have noticed certain behaviors that either make me laugh, want to cry, or burn down the entire Internet depending on my emotional state.

Before I launch into a psychotic tirade about the bizarre mating rituals of human males, I’d like to take a moment to address the men I am dating, have dated, and potentially will date. First, and foremost, thank you for being decent human beings (this is not true for some of you, and you know who you are…if you don’t, it isn’t my responsibility to enlighten you). If I have gone on more than one date with you and continue to maintain contact with you after we are no longer dating, that’s a good sign that you are “one of the good ones.” At some point in time, you have added something positive to my life and I have learned and grown from knowing you. If you are reading this and you haven’t heard from me in quite some time, it’s probably because you are dead to me.

Now, on with the tirade…

I’ve been thinking about writing this blog post for quite a while and in the process of thinking about what to cover and the tone I should use, I’ve spoken to a few friends who have also tried online dating. A close friend of mine is also currently wading through the dating pool, and on a regular basis we compare notes. This is especially true if the same man is interested in both of us. We laugh about it because our tastes are so different that we’d never need to worry about being in competition for the same dude.

A few months ago, when I began this process of meeting new people, another friend of mine joked about needing a dating resume after I expressed some of my frustrations about how difficult it is to find what I’m looking for in potential partners. At the time, it seemed like an absurd idea but the more I think about it, your dating profile is essentially a resume. And, first dates aren’t that different from job interviews. Except, you don’t usually get drunk during a job interview. And, I’m not suggesting that you should get drunk on a first date, but it happens sometimes.

If, after getting drunk on your first date, you get the chance at a second date, hopefully that person has enough of a sense of humor to accept that you don’t remember everything you talked about at that first meeting. Which will help you decide if you’d like a third date with this person.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t a tirade. But, stick around. I promise one is coming.

Dear Men on Dating Sites,

Hello! Thank you for your interest. Here are a few things I think you should know about me and why I’m swiping left on your profile.

First, I’m a bit cynical and have a rather dark sense of humor.

My response to the following question should clue you into these facts about me.

What I’m actually looking for…? A handsome alpha werewolf who owns his own home and business.

Yes. That exact sentence appears on one of my dating profiles. Clearly, this is meant in jest. However, several men have asked me to explain my response and have gone so far as to view the fact that they are not a werewolf as a strike against them. They aren’t wrong. I mean, who doesn’t want to date a handsome werewolf?

When I’m not fantasizing about sexy fictional characters, I’m actually looking for kind people who are able to appreciate my weirdness and hopefully recognize the kindness in me. Along with kindness, I’m looking for intelligent people who have something interesting to talk about. If you are actively pursuing your goals, creating something with your hands or mind (or both), and having a positive influence on the world around you, then even better.

I’m seeking comfortable intimacy. I want to talk about things that matter. I want to be held and kissed. I want to go on dates that become the inspiration for stories I’ll write in the future. I want someone to push my boundaries and encourage me to accomplish my goals. I want someone who will allow me to explore their body and mind without fear or the need to constantly be in control. I am seeking someone who thinks vanilla sex can be nice but doesn’t want it to be the norm.

Before we go any further, I need you to understand that the last statement in the paragraph above is not an open invitation for you to send me pictures of your favorite kink. Nor is it a thumbs up for you to send me dick pics. I’m not opposed to you sharing these educational materials with me, but only if you have my permission.

Thank you. Please continue.

Here’s who I am NOT looking for…

Conservative Christians. Do I really need to explain why I’m not interested in dating a conservative Christian? If you aren’t sure, here’s one of my older blog posts that might help you figure that out. Praise Satan!
Collectors. Ultimately, I am seeking my person. A partner who is committed to building a life with me. Someone who takes a liking to me and decides to stay in my life for the foreseeable future. But, while I’m looking for that person, I’m not opposed to various flavors of non-monogamous relationships. However, if you are dating so many people that you need to refer to a spreadsheet to figure out when you can see me, I’m not interested. I do not wish to be part of your harem, and I am not part of the expansion package for your marriage.
Racists. If you include the following statement in your profile, don’t be surprised if women aren’t dying to meet you: Willing to date outside my race. I also recommend avoiding any language that fetishizes women of color. Telling me you’ve always wanted to have sex with a (insert racist comment) isn’t a compliment. We’re now in the realm of microaggressions and straight up racism.
Perverts. If your profile picture resembles a glory hole, you aren’t looking to meet people for meaningful connections. And, I’m not sure if a dating app is really the most appropriate place for you to meet people. I recommend hanging out in the parking lots of truck stops and deserted rest areas.
Serial Killers. I realize this seems like a crazy thing to mention, but some of the profile pictures men choose to share on dating apps leads me to believe they are comfortable with their lifestyle of meeting people, murdering them, and whatever else they do with the corpses before holding a quick roadside funeral. For example, if you pose for a photo while wearing your best suit and holding an assault rifle, after I’m done laughing hysterically, I’m going to swipe left. I understand the need for anonymity at times but if your profile picture is you wearing a clown mask, we won’t be meeting. And, thanks for the nightmares.
Actual profile picture from OKCupid.
Hipster Know-It-Alls. If you’re in your 20s or 30s and your list of interests matches mine or possibly my grandfather’s, please don’t presume to know more than me about something we share in common. I mean, you’re cute and your beard is glorious but please don’t attempt to school me on the history of American music and how it influenced the British Invasion. I may not know everything, but I was raised on a steady diet of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, the Mersyside Sound, Al Green, Little Richard, Otis Redding, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, Robert Gordon, The Stray Cats and the Rockabilly gods that influenced them. I grew up in the 70s listening to radio stations that played entire album sides. On vinyl. I owned a rather extensive collection of music on vinyl that ranged from New Romantics to Punk to Post Modern and proto-Goth, with a healthy dose of British bands popular in the 80s. Please don’t speak to me like I’m stupid.
Trophy Hunters. If you have a picture in your profile where you’re wearing camouflage that isn’t government-issued or holding a dead animal, I’m swiping left. There’s only one kind of hunter I’m interested in.
The Tragically Boring. If your profile pictures consist of staged shots of you and your bros playing golf, drinking beer, hanging out with skinny white women, running a marathon, or getting pumped at the gym, I’m sorry to say that your profile is no different from the last 20 I swiped left on. Please make yourself sound interesting even if you don’t think you are. Everyone has at least one skill, experience, or goal that makes them stand out from the crowd. Tell me that story.

As many of my friends (and people I have dated) can attest, not all of my dating experiences have been bad. I’ve met some interesting people who I genuinely like and care about. But finding them often feels like looking for a needle in a pile of needles. I’m going to keep meeting people until hopefully, I find my person. I’m not sure I believe that there is only one person out there waiting for me to find them, but I’d like to think there are people out there who are interested in building something more meaningful that lasts longer than a few dates.

Eventually, I will add to this list of what I’m NOT looking for as I continue my journey through the realm of unknown expectations and vague statements about personality traits. So, wish me luck. And wish all the weirdos out there on dating apps luck. I’m rooting for them, but I’m not meeting them for drinks.

Fiction Fragments: David X. Wiggin

October 19, 2018October 25, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Last week, David Day visited Girl Meets Monster and talked about genre as a means of choosing what to read as opposed to what to write. This week, I’m joined by David X. Wiggin. David and I have never met face to face, but we belong to Facebook group of weirdos who enjoy dark humor and laughing at our own shortcomings. I’m thrilled to have David as my guest today.

David X. Wiggin barely escaped Brooklyn with his life, though he still occupies New York City. You can find his most recent fiction on Pseudopod and in Black Treacle Magazine.

Three Questions

GMM: Tell me about this “mechanical manbody”. It’s sounds intriguing and creepy. What is it and where did you come up with the idea?

DXD: So, to answer the question a little bit of background first: the idea for this story came from a photo-collage I once saw that depicted a furious dog in a military uniform (it was in an issue of the Paris Review iirc.) That image really stuck with me (as well as some dog-men that appeared in a hallucination scene in an early episode of the TV show “Millennium”) and I wanted to write a story about this furious dog-man (this is usually how a story starts for me, by the way: a particular image or song or mood germinates in me like a seed until it starts to grow branches.) As I worked on the story other ideas started sprouting about this world of anthropomorphic animals and out of that came ideas for two more races: one that was a species of humanoids that managed to be beautiful in unconventional ways (the “Ill-Mades”) and the other was birds (the “Avians.”) I’ve always been fascinated by birds in general and in trying to dream up visualizations of humanoid birds I hit on the idea of them being normal, but highly intelligent and articulate, birds that walked around using cleverly contrived puppet bodies that gave them hands, legs, etc. Think like giant robots with pilots, but clockwork and, well, human sized.

Anyway, there was something kind of decadent about that idea and birds are almost always floating above the rest of the world so I thought it made sense to make them the rulers of this world. It’s also a nice metaphor for how they’re manipulating everyone else and making others do all the work for them

GMM: Based on the strangeness of the characters, my assumption is that your story is either set somewhere in outer space on another planet. But, I don’t know what the time period is in relation to our own past. present, or future. When is this story set? Do you prefer writing about invented times and places, or do you also write about alternative Earths?

DXD: It’s another dimension, more specifically, like Narnia or any number of fantasy worlds. I was messing around with an idea that it’s a world specifically hidden within our language, but unfortunately that idea was both too complicated and pretentious for me to pull off in the end… part of the reason this remains a fragment. As for when it’s set… well one character’s name is a pretty clumsy distortion of a historical figure from our world so I’ll leave it at that.

I’m a huge fantasy nerd so I love world building, but I’m not necessarily married to stories set in made up worlds. I published an alternative earth story a while back called “The Apollo Mission” about the ancient Romans developing space travel, but I haven’t done much with alternative earths otherwise. Maybe worth considering though!

GMM: There’s clearly a political or caste structure in your story. Is it primarily between species, or is it a bit more complicated than that? The dog-like creature is a decorated military man, so I assume that there is a hierarchy within that system, and I assume that there have been wars. Do you draw any parallels between what’s happening in this SFF story and what’s currently happening in our own time on Earth?

DXD: The hierarchy is pretty basic: the Avians have tricked the rest of the world through the power of their eloquence into letting them run it. The Bestials –which the dog-like creature belongs to, and all more or less look like humanoid versions of earth animals- are the “middle class” of the world (which is called Lexis.) They do all the dirty work for the Avians. Finally, at the bottom of society are the “Ill-Mades” who are unclassifiable but come in any sort of shape and size. The Ill-Mades are the serfs and the slaves and are considered to be no more than beasts. None of this hierarchy is legitimate or based on reality, mind you. It’s all a great big trick the Avians have pulled, pitting races against each other and making them think they’re inferior. Thilter, the dog-creature, is the only one to see through this big lie and, being a power-hungry megalomaniac uses this knowledge to lead a revolt of Ill-Mades against the Avians. Which, as we can see from the opening paragraph of the story, has obviously failed.

Does this story have any parallels with what’s currently happening on our own Earth? Well, I started this story a long time ago (maybe 10 years?) so obviously it’s not based on anything specific happening right now, but yeah I’d say there are a lot of echoes with a lot of hierarchy-heavy societies throughout history — where some people are given greater power and influence than others for basically arbitrary reasons. Some people live in mansions and eat caviar for breakfast because they can move numbers on a screen around while others starve and suffer because they can’t. Or even worse some people are better off than the color of their skin. That seems no crazier to me than a world where birds are in charge because they’re birds! So yeah, obviously this story reflects a lot of my feelings about the world, but it’s not in reference to anything specific. “The world is just awful, usually for stupid reasons” is about the gist of it — whether it be our world or a world run by birds and beasts.

Lexis, by David X. Wiggin

He wanted her to kill him.

Galatea understood what he was asking –demanding-, though they’d bound his muzzle shut with thin bands of steel fused together in a flawless web of metal. That hadn’t stopped him from trying to reason with, beg from, and curse her every one of the countless miles they had traversed. He struggled, but despite his seven feet of height and the hundreds of jangling medals on his chest that proclaimed his martial prowess, with his arms and legs manacled and chained he was no match for her. His furred face was a froth of frozen snot, spit, blood, and mud and his yellow eyes burned with a heat that had in the past had typically preceded the death of thousands. He frightened her, broken and bound as he was, as he had always frightened her. Still, she would not surrender to his will as she had in the past. For his crimes, he didn’t deserve death. He deserved far worse. They both did.

On the icy slopes of Mount Tattaghata, twenty thousand feet above the earth, whipped and nipped by the spirits of cold and wind, the two figures struggled against the elements and against each other. One was a Bestial –a giant dog-man dressed in the rags of what had once been a beautifully tailored military uniform and fifty pounds of thick chain- the other an Ill-Formed-Woman. Though most of them were hidden beneath her heavy coat, thousands of arms of every size grew from her back and her neck like the tendrils of an anemone. Under her spider-fur hat, a head of thin hair-arms squirmed. Had there been anyone to see them in this desolate corner of Lexis they would have been flabbergasted by the sight of a low caste Ill-Formed treating a decorated Bestial general like a prisoner. No doubt it would have looked like a sick joke. And there was no question, Galatea reflected, that was precisely what it was intended to be. Prince Owlbert was known for his cruel ironies.

It had been her first time to see the inside of the Court (she’d been in the Castle of the Moon where the Avians held their winter sessions, but that had been after Thiltre’s Phoenix Brigade had purified it with flames) and after years of black jungles and scorched earth, the jade fountains, gilded floors, and occidental perfumes drifting through the air were almost unbearable. Though Thiltre had had to be forced to his knees, Galatea had prostrated herself with an instinctual ease that terrified her.

They had conditioned her well. She had experienced for herself the cruelty with which the Avians had repressed other races, stripping away their freedoms of mind and body to make pliant servants. They had built their empire upon the bloodied backs of her people. She knew all about their petty natures and pathetic hypocrisies. She had seen first-hand just how mortal they were. And yet… she had entered the court shaking, not from fear of the punishment that awaited her, but of being in the presence of her masters. They had taken so many things from her. Things she had never had to begin with.

Prince Owlbert had leaned down from his perch atop the neck of his mechanical manbody and studied them with blinking black eyes. Followed by the faint whistle of spinning gears and winding strings the manbody raised a jeweled hand in an elegant gesture of greeting.

“Salutations. Be welcome to the Court of the Sun, General Thiltre,” the prince murmured sleepily. He spoke so quietly everyone in the hall had to lean in to hear. “It is a glory to be presented with such a stimulating novelty in our paradigmatically dull chamber. It has been unrelenting eons since we have had a suitable divertissement. Is that not unequivocal?” He looked to his courtiers: cardinals, parrots, ravens, peacocks, chickens, and blue jays; a brilliant mosaic of colored heads bobbing eagerly. Then he turned back to the prisoners.

“You have given us sufficient of provocation over the past few turnings of the sun, General,” he mused. “Karxxango, Dell-Where, and Tompiq conquered in a fortnight. Approaching half a million Bestials and Ill-Mades aggregated from every corner of Lexis to stand beneath your tangerine banners. You collected victory after victory over our Silver Legions. Those squadrons of child soldiers- Nursery Killers, I think they were called-, were they of your own inspiration? Delightful. Your resolution to depart the court to lead this rebellion was a veritable disappointment. You could have ascended higher than your father. He hung himself from shame when he heard that it was you leading the rebellion you know.”

Thitlre had snickered from behind his muzzle. His cunning yellow eyes scanned the court. Even then he had still considered himself undefeated, imagining that his devoted followers would come rescue him, and was taking catalogue of what precious things here he would claim for himself and who he would keep alive to torture on dull afternoons. To his credit, he had returned from worse defeats. This time, however, he had not counted on the extent of his second-in-command’s betrayal.

Next week, writer and climbing enthusiast, Ryan DeMoss, joins Girl Meets Monster. Do you have a story you’re dying to share with the world (or at least the few people who read my blog)? Send it my way at chellane@gmail.com.

Fuckable Fictional Characters: Simon Bellamy

March 18, 2017August 22, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

So, you know how yesterday I mentioned that whole feeling of pastiche I experienced while watching Misfits (or something to that effect), well, if you know me at all (or bothered to read my blog), you know I have a special place in my heart for the mentally disturbed, the outsiders, the creepy kids, weirdos, the unstable…well, you get the idea. Some of my favorite fictional characters are monsters who have a sad, or at the very least pitiable backstory. This didn’t happen by chance. I’m not going to delve too deeply into this personality quirk of mine, but I will say three things:

My father was a mental health professional and I respected the work he did.
As a child, I was led to believe that my differences would make me difficult to love.
I fell in love with a schizophrenic punk rock music journalist and human rights activist while studying abroad in the UK as a college student (who, by the way, didn’t find me difficult to love).

I couldn’t help but be drawn to the attractive, overtly-nerdy, somewhat off-putting, yet well-meaning young man with the creepy stare. Simon Bellamy, played by Welsh actor Iwan Rheon, is a first-class weirdo of the most endearing kind. Yes, he has the potential of becoming a psychopath, but instead he uses his knowledge of Science Fiction and Fantasy films and comics, his understanding of how to cover up a murder, and his geeky sex appeal to win the love of a girl. I mean, look at him, he is super-fucking-adorkable.

ATTENTION: UNADULTERATED #FANGIRLING AHEAD

OH, AND SPOILERS

LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS

SO MANY SPOILERS

At the beginning of the series, when we slowly get to know each character and why they have been assigned community service, the strange quiet boy appears to have the most depth. Nathan Young, the self-centered prick who has some of the best lines of dialog, has an almost psychopathic preoccupation with making fun of Simon. Nathan is so self-absorbed that he often forgets other people’s names, including the people he spends every day with doing community service.

I mean, honestly, nothing is sacred to Nathan, but he seems to zero in on Simon, which eventually, I believe, is one of the reasons he steps out of his comfort zone of shyness. He has no choice but to defend himself against the onslaught of name calling.

We soon discover that Simon is very smart. To be fair, his nerdy tendencies lead us to assume that about him, and like most weird kids, his intellect has led him down some culturally-specific paths. He’s well versed in genre fiction (Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy) in the form of films and comic books. When weird things start happening, he usually has an answer that he pulls from one of these areas of interest.

Simon is not only a great resource for fun facts about monsters and super heroes, but he also has an uncanny ability to figure out how to get away with murder. As if, he’s been planning quite a few. I mean, he did attempt arson which is why he’s doing community service, and you get the sense that he’s been picked on a lot. So much so, that he really has a hard time trusting people.

He not only provides insight into how to dispose of the first probation worker and the kid with the cap, but he also ends up killing the second probation worker in order to protect himself and his fellow Misfits, who he considers his only friends in the world, from being connected to the first murders.

The second probation worker, Sally, was engaged to the first probation worker, Tony. She’s convinced that the weird kids doing community service have something to do with his disappearance. But, she has no proof. She observes them individually, and then focuses on Simon, whom she believes will rat out the others. She begins by stalking/befriending him online under an alias, and then seduces him in an attempt to learn more about Tony’s whereabouts.

She manipulates an awkward lonely boy with promises of affection and then is surprised that he gets upset when he learns the truth.

Not only does he end up killing her accidentally while fighting to get his cell phone with incriminating evidence from her, but he conceals the crime by hiding her body in a freezer at the community center.

He visits the freezer almost daily to spend time with her dead body. You know, to touch her, and look at her, and eat pizza while hanging out alone with her corpse. Now we’re in potential necrophilia territory. I told you he was weird. Without his true calling, Simon could have easily become a serial killer.

At this point in the series, Simon is still a virgin, so we know very little about his sexual preferences beyond very weird things that come up at inopportune moments. Like, when we discover Alisha’s power, which as I mentioned yesterday, is really more of a curse. When people touch her they have an uncontrollable desire to have sex with her, and most people say extremely disturbing things in reference to what they’d like to do to her.

Okay, he had me at “I tried to burn someone’s house down,” but he lost me at golden showers. Of course, he won me back when he was actually in the shower.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, we can stay right here for another moment or two.

A…N…D…moving on.

Before we can get back to that super sexy shower scene (and I promise you, we will), Simon has to go through some other harrowing adventures that would probably make a normal person lose their mind. But, since Simon is already at the questionable end of the sanity spectrum, he’s able to find humor in really dark situations and uses kindness and intellect more often than force to win out over terrible circumstances. And, he seems to have better control over his ability than anyone else. Which makes the superhero name Nathan assigns him really unfair.

Aside from the fact that Simon’s destiny is leading him to become a hero, there are lots of reason to like him even if creepy cute guys aren’t your cup of tea. Here’s a short list:

He likes to dance, but especially after someone spikes his beer with MDMA.

His eyes are big and dreamy and somewhat reminiscent of Peter Lorre‘s.

Even Nathan thinks he has…something.

He’s kind to the mentally ill. Even when they’re scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers. (That sentence right there, that makes you want to watch the show. Right?)

Scary-as-fuck shape-shifting stalkers seems like a good place to jump back into Simon’s character arc. As to be expected with well-developed shows that slowly unveil their secrets to us, each episode we get to know Simon a little better and begin to understand where his darkness is coming from. For instance, in the first episode he blurts out why he’s been assigned community service. He tried to burn someone’s house down. Later, he confides to Sally the probation worker that it was his neighbor’s house. He was upset because the boy who lived in the house stopped being friends with Simon once they got to school. This boy not only denounced their friendship, but participated in the cruelty Simon experienced at school for being an outsider. Simon’s last straw was being humiliated after turning up at a club thinking he’d been invited by his neighbor, but soon learns he received the text message by mistake. With no apology from his ex-friend, Simon leaves the club, and apparently decided arson would solve his problems. A few episodes later, we learn that after committing arson, (which he didn’t actually succeed in doing), he was sent to a hospital for psychiatric observation. While at the hospital Simon acquires an admirer.

As it turns out, Lucy was also effected by the storm, and now she’s a shapeshifter. When she sees Simon at the community center she’s disappointed that he doesn’t wish to rekindle their friendship. She becomes jealous of his new friends and tries to sabotage his relationships, going so far as to threaten to turn him into the police for killing his probation worker(s). One of the first things Lucy does to disrupt the circle of friends is to transform into Alisha who is dating Curtis, and give Simon a surprise blowjob. Simon’s O-face is adorable.

Of course, Simon doesn’t know it’s Lucy pretending to be Alisha, and he assumes Alisha is interested in him. Later, when he approaches the real Alisha and awkwardly asks her out on a date, she laughs in his face. Confused and hurt, he demands to know why she’s toying with his emotions.

Soon, the group realizes something is wrong. Of course, Simon immediately guesses that Lucy is a shapeshifter, so they have to devise a way of knowing if they’re talking to her or each other.

After Simon is violated and mislead to believe that Alisha finds him sexually attractive, she ends up meeting a future version of him and can’t help falling in love. Okay, at first she falls in lust.

See? I promised we’d get back to that shower scene. It is here when things get confusing for Alisha. I mean, the Simon that she knows is hands down one hell of an adorable guy, but this Simon? Hot damn! This Simon is sexy, cool, and mysterious. He can travel through time, and he dresses and acts like a super hero. When you find out why he does all of this, it may just break your heart.

Alisha isn’t immediately smitten, but she is intrigued by the fact that he can touch her without being effected by her power. No one has touched her since the storm without wanting to have sex with her. So, even though she’s been dating Curtis, it hasn’t been the most satisfying relationship. She begins to wonder if she’ll ever be able to have a normal relationship. I’m not gonna lie, I really wanted Alisha to get together with Future Simon. If only to live vicariously through her amazingly good stroke of luck.

When she meets Future Simon, he makes her swear not to tell anyone his secret. And, he tells her that eventually they will fall in love with each other. But, she’ll have to be patient with Present Simon, because he’s not quite ready.

While she’s trying to figure out how to deal with the secret, she realizes that she does have feelings for Future Simon and since he already has feelings for her, things heat up pretty quickly.

It’s amazing what a little confidence and a slightly different hairstyle can do for a guy. Not to mention a little sexual experience.

And, he knows the way to a girl’s heart.

So, while Alisha is dating Future Simon, Present Simon meets a nice girl with an overly protective father. She’s immediately attracted to him and they decide to lose their virginity to each other.

But, they don’t have any dates after that night, because it turns out Jessica’s dad has been killing everyone who shows an interest in his little girl. It’s a classic love story. Invisible boy meets pretty girl, and pretty girl’s homicidal maniac father tries to stab him to death. Oddly enough, Alisha is jealous of Jessica, especially when she realizes Present Simon has lost his virginity to her. But, she’s still seeing this guy.

Who tells her to fall in love with this guy (who’s listening to The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen in case you were wondering).

So that he can become this guy.

Confused? Don’t be.

All you need to know is that these two make a beautiful couple. Even when he has feelings of inadequacy compared to his future self who is apparently better in bed. But, as we all know, practice makes perfect.

Lots and lots of practice.

And, they have some pretty great dates as well, it doesn’t take long before they are in love. Sweet, sweet interracial love.

And, they continue to have some dangerous adventures along the way.

This image may only be used for publicity purposes in connection with the broadcast of the programme as licensed by BBC Worldwide Ltd & must carry the shown copyright legend. It may not be used for any commercial purpose without a licence from the rights holder. © Clerkenwell Films 2009

I’m not going to tell you how their story ends, but I will show you how their story begins.

More than one girl (and a few older women) fell in love with Simon Bellamy after watching Misfits. I think you will too.

Save Me, Barry!: A Review of Misfits

March 17, 2017August 20, 2018Michelle R. Lane 1 Comment

Sometimes the stories we feel closest to and enjoy the most are the ones that create a feeling of pastiche in our hearts and minds. A cluster of false memories in which we long for an imagined past that reminds us of who we wished we’d become. Who we wished we had known, friends and lovers that well-developed fictional characters make us crave. Through them we revisit our own feelings — real or imagined — of the highs and lows in life. And, if those characters happen to have supernatural abilities they can inspire feelings of longing we can’t even explain. Alongside the lust, love, pity, fear, and loss we feel for them, there’s this added dimension of wishing we could become invisible, immortal, turn back time, or simply read other people’s thoughts. Any of us who have had the experience of being an outsider can relate to the overwhelming desire to be accepted, even if it’s by a group of misfits like you.

MISFITS Titles from MOMOCO Film Titles on Vimeo.

I’ve been dying to talk about the BBC television show, Misfits, which is currently streaming on Hulu. My desire to talk about the show is two-fold: First, the show itself is a wonderful SFF dark comedy about young adults facing unexpected complications in an already complicated time of their lives. And second, I’m going to discuss a very fuckable fictional character, Simon Bellamy (stay tuned, post coming tomorrow).

If you haven’t watched the show, I highly recommend it, because it has a lot going for it. It’s darkly funny and chock full of dick jokes, and oddly enough commentary on the spectrum of sexuality and gender politics. It’s necessarily violent, and people die. Violently. It has a wonderfully diverse cast of young actors you will grow to love. At the heart of this SFF show about young adults gaining superpowers from a freak storm, there’s a love story. Several love stories. And most importantly, an interracial love story.

ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD

The show opens with a group of young people showing up for their first day of community service. They don’t know each other, and at first glance, you can tell that they all lead very different lives. Obviously, none of them want to be there, but each of them has committed some offense and now must work off their sentences by picking up trash, scrubbing graffiti off the walls of the community center that acts as their home base, painting benches, and participating in other community events like dances for the elderly, and art therapy for the mentally ill, while wearing orange jumpsuits.

We begin to get a picture of their personalities as they complain about being forced to do community service, show disrespect for their parole worker and each other. Curtis, an athletic dark-skinned guy complains about having to work with the other people, saying over and over that he shouldn’t even be there. He thinks he’s better than the rest of them. Kelly is a Class-A Chav with an attitude and a taste for violence. Initially, she doesn’t seem especially smart, but turns out to be an excellent problem solver and survivor. And, aside from Simon, she ended up being my favorite character.

Alisha is a pretty light-skinned black girl who uses her good looks to manipulate people and get what she wants. However, she was unable to talk her way out of a drink driving stop when she fails the breathalyzer. She is desperate for attention and uses sexuality in place of personality until people start treating her with kindness and respect. Nathan is a hysterically funny and morally corrupt prick who ends up making us feel a lot of sympathy and pity. He’s a wanker with a heart of gold. And then there’s Simon. A painfully shy, comic book reading nerdy boy with his shirts buttoned all the way up to the neck. He’s cute and delightfully creepy in his social awkwardness that borders of psychopathic behavior. Initially, we don’t know why any of them is there, but slowly, their stories unfold.

On their first day, a freak storm comes out of nowhere, dropping hailstones the size of soccer balls that are heavy enough to cave in a car roof and break through pavement. Their probation worker, Tony, yells for them to take cover and they run toward the community center for shelter. Before he can unlock the door, each of them is hit by lightning and knocked silly. At least, five of the young people and Tony are hit. Another young offender misses the storm, because he’s hiding out in the men’s room smoking a joint. He stomped off after getting paint on his cap, and never came back to finish his assigned task.

Kelly is the first to notice that she’s developed a power. A few weird things happened the night before, but now she’s certain something is different. She can overhear what people are thinking. And, like Sookie Stackhouse, she realizes that people are twisted and disgusting, and you really don’t want to know what most of them are thinking. Especially their thoughts about you.

The next day they show up at the community center and the kid with the cap isn’t there. Their all a bit too self-absorbed and freaked out by the storm to even really notice that he’s missing. While getting ready for the day, Simon discovers his ability in the locker room. Ironically, the one that everyone tends to ignore is able to turn invisible. No one notices him disappear and we get our first peek at the anger and frustration bubbling beneath Simon’s quiet surface.

Tony gives them their assignment for the day. No one notices that Simon is missing, but he eventually becomes visible again and joins the others outside. While cleaning graffiti off a wall, Kelly asks if anyone else is experiencing anything weird since the storm. Nathan makes fun of her, but Simon speaks up and says that he was able to turn invisible. No one believes him either.

At some point, someone thinks the wrong thing about Kelly and she storms off, overwhelmed by her feelings and her fears about this new ability. Whiles she’s off having a smoke and a good cry, we soon realize that the parole worker has also been affected by the storm. He developed an uncontrollable need for violence that looks a lot more like the Rage Virus in 28 Days Later rather than the Hulk wanting to smash. Running for her life, Kelly seeks the safety of the community center and tries to warn the others. She’s terrified and locks the door behind her, but none of them believe her. Nathan is a smart ass know-it-all, and opens the door just as Tony approaches and he kills Kelly by hitting her over the head with a sharp-edged piece of metal.

That’s when Curtis discovers his power. The emotional overload of seeing Kelly murdered triggers his power, and he is able to turn back time and warn them about Tony. He still gets in the building, but Kelly has enough time to hit him over the head with a paint bucket. Repeatedly. Tony’s murder was admittedly self-defense, but Kelly knows that no one will believe them based on their records. In the process of figuring out what to do, they find the kid with the cap stuffed into one of the lockers. Now they have two dead bodies to deal with, and while everyone is freaking out, Simon calmly says, “No body, no crime.”

Bound together by a freak supernatural event and murder, they hide the bodies and prepare for whatever happens next. Amazingly enough, they deal with the unusual circumstances pretty well, and even manage to laugh at themselves and each other. Of course, we soon discover that their problems are only just beginning. Alisha’s power is more of a curse than an ability, and we don’t discover Nathan’s until we’re well into the first season.

After burying Tony, their new probation worker, Sally, arrives and suspects them of killing her co-worker and fiance. It is through this character’s interactions with Simon that we begin to see the darker sides of him, but also develop an emotional connection with him that makes him one of the most interesting characters. Despite his creepy good looks and spooky intelligence, he has the best character arc in the series. He goes through a personality transformation that made me want to pay closer attention to the beautiful Welsh actor who plays Simon Bellamy, Iwan Rheon. Apparently, I need to start watching Game of Thrones again.

As the series progresses, we get to see how these supernatural abilities change each character and the society around them. The characters experience a variety of outcomes at the extreme end of the consequences spectrum based on the choices they make out of selfishness, for the sake of love, or the belief that they’re helping others. The show is a lot of fun to watch, but the it also gives you some tasty food for thought. I dare you to watch only one episode. I bet you can’t.