In conversation with Christa Carmen
As a response to COVID-19, the Horror Writers Association pivoted and offered StokerCon 2021 in an online format. At the time, I was helping out with sponsorships and trying to get my bearings in this new virtual world. Even though I missed the connection that is so vital to a convention experience, this new format offered numerous opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible at an in-person event. Not only did an online conference open up possibilities to horror writers in countries outside of the United States, but it also created a forum where participants could attend more panels, both live and recorded. Once of those panels that I went to was on the American Female Gothic, which was moderated by Christa Carmen. I was immediately struck by her confidence and knowledge about the subject. Naturally, I began following her work and celebrated her first foray into long fiction with the recent release of her debut novel The Daughters of Block Island (2023), which is currently a finalist for the Bram Stoker Awards® for Superior Achievement in A First Novel. Although I haven’t yet had the opportunity to meet Carmen in person, she graciously took time out of her schedule to share her plans for what promises to be a bright future. —Carina Bissett
About Christa Carmen
Christa Carmen is the two-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Daughters of Block Island, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, and the forthcoming Beneath the Poet’s House. Additional work can be found in Vastarien, Nightmare, Orphans of Bliss, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, and the Stoker-nominated anthologies, Not All Monsters and The Streaming of Hill House. She has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from Boston College, and an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Christa lives in Rhode Island with her husband, daughter, and bloodhound-golden retriever mix.
Interview with Christa Carmen
BISSETT: What was your first experience with horror?
CARMEN: I’ve enjoyed horror for as long as I can remember. Counted among my favorite books as a child were Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, the Goosebumps and Fear Street Series, the vampire novels of Christopher Pike, the harrowing mysteries and narrow escapes of Caroline Keene’s Nancy Drew, and James Howe’s Bunnicula, The Celery Stalks at Midnight, and Howliday Inn. The love of the unknown, of things that go bump in the night, only increased as I got older.
I remember lying in bed following my first ever horror film, John Carpenters Halloween, certain that Michael Myers was in my backyard, making his way up the trellis to my bedroom window. That there was no trellis alongside my house didn’t matter; the beguiling, paralyzing feeling of fear wound through me all the same. I can also recall darting across my room to retrieve a crucifix from my jewelry box after reading the scene in ‘Salem’s Lot in which Danny Glick floats outside of Mark Petrie’s window, tap-tap-tapping, hoping to be invited in, and I refused to venture into my bathroom at night for weeks after reading the ‘Inside 217’ chapter of The Shining, certain that Danny Torrence’s vision of the hideous dead woman would become my own.
Today, the horror that interests me most is a different kind than the vampires or ghosts that inducted me into the genre. That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy these types of stories; I love a great creature-feature or supernatural-horror novel, short story, or film as much as the next fan. But horror, in my opinion, is the best genre for reflecting the hideous and appalling parts of life—addiction, mental illness, the death of a loved one, difficult marriage, dangerous childbirth, the future, dead-end jobs, not being good enough, being forgotten—back at us through a carnivalesque filter that makes the suffering more bearable.
BISSETT: Who or what terrifies you?
CARMEN: The short list?
- Something terrible happening to my daughter or another loved one…
- Being attacked while defenseless…
- Being buried alive, stuck under a bed, or confined to any other claustrophobia-inducing, horizontally-oriented space…
The more nuanced answer? While the catalyst, for me, for writing a piece of short horror fiction used to be anything from an interest in playing with overdone tropes to the desire to write an entire piece around a particularly macabre or striking image, today, the formula is to muse on who or what terrifies me and go from there. In 2024, there are no shortage of horrifying headlines from which to pluck, and as a still-new mother, the micro-level fears are just as abundant.
Another topic that’s able to worm its way into my heart like a maggot into an apple no matter how much time passes is the horror of substance abuse and addiction, and today, more specifically, the horror of relapse. I explored this fear pretty explicitly in my contribution to Wicked Run Press’s Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror, edited by Mark Matthews. “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” doesn’t ask, “What would happen if you relapsed after so much time being clean?” but, “What if everything you think you’ve accomplished since getting clean never happened at all?” It’s probably my most personal story to date, and that it was a Bram Stoker nominee for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction was an absolute dream come true, not so much because it was an honor, which, of course, it was, but because it meant that people had read the story and connected with it on some level, that my fear was perhaps their fear, or at least a fear they’d considered with regards to a friend or a loved one. There’s no greater feat, in my opinion, that a writer can achieve, than having the window they held up for the reader—a window into something that terrifies them personally—turn into a mirror.
As for what scares me in the fiction I consume, a story will get beneath my skin me any time a character I’m made to care for is put into a situation that makes me second guess my reality. There’s a scene in The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters, in which the protagonist is experiencing an eerie sound, a sound with no earthly origin or rational explanation, and it caught me so off guard, I felt genuine chills (it also helped—or hurt?—that I was listening to the audio version of the novel). On the nonfiction front, The Stranger Beside Me, by Ann Rule, detailed the moments before Ted Bundy kidnapped young women with such realism and vivid description, I found myself pinned to the front seat of my car at work one morning, too scared to get out and walk into my building.
On the film front, The Autopsy of Jane Doe scared me because autopsies are a big enough unknown to feel the even greater uncanniness of an autopsy gone (very, very) wrong. One of the scariest films I’ve seen in recent memory is Lake Mungo; the idea of being haunted by your own ghost (for another fantastic example of this, see Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House series, a great example, as well, of the modern Gothic. He cites Lake Mungo as his inspiration for the utterly horrifying Bent Neck Lady, a ghost that will rent space in my head for the rest of my days).
BISSETT: What authors or works would you recommend to readers?
CARMEN: Some contemporary women in horror that I love reading are Gwendolyn Kiste, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Nadia Bulkin, Ania Ahlborn, Jac Jemc, Alma Katsu, Christina Sng, Elizabeth Hand, Nancy Holder, Anya Martin, Erin Sweet Al-Mehari, Renee Miller, Theresa Braun, Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, EV Knight, Laurel Hightower, Belicia Rhea, Marisca Pichette, Damien Angelica Walters, Lauren Groff, Caroline Kepnes, Ruth Ware, Sarah Pinborough, K.P. Kulski, Jessica McHugh, Annie Neugebauer, Hailey Piper, Kathe Koja, Claire C. Holland, Laurel Hightower, Victoria Dalpe, Tamika Thompson, Rebecca Allred, Leanna Renee Hieber, Faye Ringel, Mary Robles, H.Y. Hsu, Lee Murray, Gene Flynn, and L.E. Daniels.
I’m probably forgetting at least a hundred amazing women, but I try to post regularly in support of women, trans, and nonbinary writers whose work I admire. As far as recent works I’d recommend, the best books I’ve read in 2024 thus far are Gwendolyn Kiste’s The Haunting of Velkwood and Cynthia Pelayo’s Forgotten Sisters. On the woman-penned thriller front, Luanne Rice’s Last Night, Lucinda Berry’s One of Our Own, Jessa Maxwell’s The Golden Spoon, and Vanessa Lillie’s Blood Sisters are all utterly fantastic.
BISSETT: What are you currently working on?
CARMEN: I’m currently working on a novel that I can’t say too much about quite yet. I recently taught my almost-four-year-old-daughter about the “ingredients” for a gothic ghost story, so let’s just say that my new book will have, in her words, “a girl in danger, a haunted mansion, buried secrets, a spooky ghost, and a villain.”
As far as what’s coming out in the near future, my second novel with Thomas & Mercer, Beneath the Poet’s House, will release this December and, like The Daughters of Block Island, takes place in Rhode Island… on Benefit Street in Providence, to be exact, and features just as much gothic gloom and literary influence as my debut.
Beneath the Poet’s House is based in part on the real-life romance between Sarah Helen Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe and set in the actual house at which Poe first spotted Whitman tending her rose garden under a midnight moon in 1845. The novel sees protagonist Saoirse White navigate both a personal haunting and the lingering ghosts of much-revered public figures, as well as the ramifications of men who treat women as stepping-stones on their way to artistic greatness.
Additionally, I’ll have a short story, “Until the Moss had Reached Our Lips,” in a Weird House Press anthology, 13 Possessions, that’s available now for preorder, and a story entitled, “Guess How Much I Love You?” in Why Didn’t You Just Leave?, edited by Nadia Bulkin and Julia Rios and published by Cursed Morsels Press, out sometime this year. I have a few more short stories poised for publication with different anthologies that I can’t announce quite yet, and I’m hoping to release my first children’s picture book in the very near future as well!
BISSETT: In addition to being an author, you are also a mother. Do you have any advice for other women trying to juggle their career along with the demands of family?
CARMEN: My writing time has changed more significantly since having my daughter than with regards to my day job, to be honest. I certainly can’t write at the same time each day; I can’t even write daily. To put it simply, I make the time to write when I have an ongoing project I need/want to work on, or if the idea for a new project or short story strikes me. Once I’m working on a project, especially a big one, I’ll get into a routine of hitting a daily page or word count, but I have to take advantage of the time during which I can write whenever it presents itself. That might be for twenty minutes in bed with my daughter while waiting for her to fall asleep or four hours straight on a weekend when my husband is at work and my daughter is with her grandparents or cousins.
In a way, it’s a more productive schedule than the one I had four years ago, prior to my daughter being born; I can’t waste time picking out ambient coffee shop sounds on YouTube or reheating endless cups of tea or screwing around on the internet. When I have an hour to write, I HAVE TO WRITE. So, I guess that’s my advice for other women trying to juggle everything: if it’s the difference between cleaning the house one afternoon, or, sometimes, even taking a nap (though, self-care is important too!), just drop all the little stuff and get the writing time in!
BISSETT: What are the challenges that come with working with historical material? What is the most surprising thing you learned in your research?
CARMEN: I love making connections to historical places and figures and find that these connections often to lead to passions, obsessions, and story ideas. My interest in the “Last New England Vampire” led me to writing a (currently unpublished) novel about Mercy Brown. My interest in the 100-mile wilderness in Maine led me to writing a (never-to-be-published!) gothic addiction horror novel—my first novel ever—in 2014. My interest in murder ballads and, eventually, in White Hall—a historical mansion on Block Island built in 1890 and lost to a fire in 1963—led me to writing The Daughters of Block Island. My interest in Sarah Helen Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe let me to writing Beneath the Poet’s House. I find that writing novels with some sort of connection to the past or to an actual place fulfills me in a way that writing more free-floating stories ever could.
The challenges of course, are balancing research with writing. Sometimes I realize I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole of Victorian Gothic wallpaper patterns for forty-five minutes in order to insert one little descriptive detail into a manuscript, and I have to actively pull myself out of said rabbit hole. Ultimately, I do feel like all the research I’ve done for various projects over the last ten years have made me a more observant, curious human and, subsequently, a more thoughtful, deliberate writer. While this may not be all that surprising to hear, it is delightful to consider that every exploration of a museum or historic landmark with my daughter, every dip into a Smithsonian article, nonfiction title, or blog, may be the kickoff point for the research that will eventually result in another novel.
AboutThe Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen (Thomas & Mercer, 2023)
In this ingenious and subversive twist on the classic gothic novel, the mysterious past of an island mansion lures two sisters into a spiderweb of scandal, secrets, and murder.
Two sisters, strangers since birth yet bound by family secrets, are caught up in a century-old mystery on an isolated island.
After arriving on Block Island to find her birth mother, Blake Bronson becomes convinced she’s the heroine of a gothic novel—the kind that allowed her intermittent escape from a traumatic childhood. How else to explain the torrential rain, the salt-worn mansion known as White Hall, and the restless ghost purported to haunt its halls? But before Blake can discern the novel’s ending, she’s found dead, murdered in a claw-foot tub. The proprietress of White Hall stands accused.
Summoned by a letter sent from Blake before she died, Thalia Mills returns to the island she swore she’d left for good. She finds that Blake wasn’t the first to die at White Hall under suspicious circumstances. Thalia must uncover the real reason for Blake’s demise before the forces conspiring to keep Block Island’s secrets dead and buried rise up to consume her too.
“This compelling and atmospheric thriller pays homage to classic gothic novels while still adding something fresh to the beloved genre. An easy sell to fans of the Brontës but also those who enjoy the creepy, psychological suspense of Simone St. James.” —Booklist
Read our review of The Daughters of Block Island here
Carina Bissett
Carina Bissett is a writer and poet working primarily in the fields of dark fiction and fabulism. She is the author of numerous shorts stories, which are featured in her debut collection Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations (Trepidatio Publishing, 2024), and she is the co-editor of the award-winning anthology Shadow Atlas: Dark Landscapes of the Americas. She is currently a Bram Stoker finalist for her essay “Words Wielded by Women” (Apex Magazine, 2023), a comprehensive retrospective of women in horror. Links to her work can be found at http://carinabissett.com.
Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations
In this powerful debut, Carina Bissett explores the liminal spaces between the magical and the mundane, horror and humor, fairy tales and fabulism. A young woman discovers apotheosis at the intersection of her cross-cultural heritage. A simulacrum rebels against her coding to create a new universe of her own making. A poison assassin tears the world apart in the relentless pursuit of her true love—the one person alive who can destroy her. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations erases expectations, forging new trails on the map of contemporary fiction. Includes an introduction by Julie C. Day, author of Uncommon Miracles and The Rampant.
Praise for Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations
Check out Steve Stred’s Review of Dead Girl Driving here
“Carina Bissett is one of my favorite speculative authors writing today—magic and myth, horror and revenge, wonder and hope. Her stories are original, lyrical, and haunting—Shirley Jackson mixed with Ursula LeGuin and a dash of Neil Gaiman. An amazing collection of stories.—Richard Thomas, author of Spontaneous Human Combustion, a Bram Stoker Award finalist
“Carina Bissett’s collection is a thing of wonder and beauty. It is a true representation of Carina herself: whimsical, visceral, lovely, and fierce. You can hear women’s voices screaming while roses fall from their lips. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations is a triumph.”—Mercedes M. Yardley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Little Dead Red
“From fairy tale revisions to fresh takes on monstrous transitions and the absolute horrors of being female, no one knows how to write a story like Carina Bissett. Fierce yet fragile.”—Lindy Ryan, author of Bless Your Heart
“In a debut collection weaving folklore and fairy tale and told in magical, lyrical, irresistible prose, Carina Bissett inveigles readers with the breadth of her skill. A feat of woven wonder, with spells sketched in the air and strands stretched taut, Dead Girl Driving and Other Devastations is an enchanting tapestry of silken stories, the collection establishing Bissett as a world-class author of fabulism, fantasy, and horror. A must-read for lovers of Neil Gaiman, Angela Slatter, and Carmen Maria Machado.” —Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Awards-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories
“Ravishing flights of fantasy.”—Priya Sharma, Shirley Jackson award-winning author of All the Fabulous Beasts and Ormeshadow
“Dark, often violent, Dead Girl, Driving & Other Devastations doesn’t lie to you about the nature of its stories. Between the title page and the Afterword lies a harrowing alliance of nightmare and fairytale. The pages are full of strange birds, resurrections, second chances, monstrous women, enchantments, and inventions. These stories explore a dark and permissive imagination, unafraid to disturb the monster at the back of the cave. It is a collection for the brave and forlorn, for those seeking escape, vengeance, transformation, or grace. There is wonder here, and freedom from shackles—for those fierce enough to wrench loose of them.”—C. S. E. Cooney, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Saint Death’s Daughter
“Carina’s short stories are absolutely luminous and deeply unsettling. Savour this collection like a fine blood-red wine. It’s absolute perfection and will linger long after the pages are closed.”—KT Wagner
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