In conversation with Julie C. Day
Sometimes, the most important connections you make are happy accidents. After I graduated with my MFA from Stonecoast, I lucked into an invite to join an online critique group. That’s where I first met Julie C. Day. I watched and learned. As a result, these early interactions with Julie completely changed the way I approached storytelling, and she continues to be a major influence to this day. Over the years, we became friends and then co-conspirators, working together to create charity anthologies in the fight for social justice. In 2022, Day created the imprint Essential Dreams Press, and she is currently deep in the process of yet another project—Storyteller, a Tanith Lee tribute anthology. But even though Day excels in the role of publisher and editor, first and foremost she’s a writer. And a damn good one at that. Day moves beyond genre conventions in stories that defy easy definition. She writes fantastical tales that haunt the borderlands between the known and unknown. When her debut collection Uncommon Miracles came out in 2018, I devoured it, and I still return to it often. As far as I’m concerned, this book is a master class when it comes to writing short stories in the vein of other fabulist fiction by such writers as Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Aimee Bender. Yet at the same time, stories by Julie C. Day are distinctly her own. There is no one who sounds quite like her, and it’s a wonder to behold. Even though Day juggles her publishing efforts with her own writing, she excels at the art of staying true to herself. In fact, she’s currently in the midst of several personal projects, and I’m lucky enough to be one of her early readers. Just wait until you see the glorious worlds she’s been building. You’re in for a treat! –Carina Bissett
About Julie C. Day
Julie C. Day (she/her) is a writer, editor, and publisher. Her novella The Rampant is a Lambda Award finalist and her genre-bending collection Uncommon Miracles was praised by John Crowley and Kelly Link. Julie is currently working on her novella Mx. Meissen’s Eyes. She is the series editor of the Weird Dream Society and Dreams for a Broken World anthologies and co-editor of the upcoming anthology Storyteller, all published under Day’s Essential Dreams Press. In addition to her books, she’s published numerous stories in magazines such as Podcastle, The Dark, and the Cincinnati Review. You can find her @thisjulieday or stillwingingit.com.
Interview with Julie C. Day
BISSETT: What was your first experience with horror?
DAY: The first story to unsettle me was a short story that I read when I was nine or ten. While Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt” is considered a science fiction story, I’d argue that it is also a psychological horror story. The arc of the story is propelled by dread and the ending, patricide, was a total mindf**k for my nine- or ten-year-old brain.
BISSETT: What attracts you to horror as a genre?
DAY: I like, and sometimes need, that feeling of catharsis that comes with carrying the dark emotions within a story. It’s a safe way to release some of my own demons, or at least destroy the destructive energy they’re throwing my way. I know it’s not true of all those who write and read horror but there are certainly many of us who see the dark caverns beneath our personal and societal surfaces. There are many of us who have experienced those caverns firsthand. Horror and stories with dark or horror elements provide a specific kind of validation and relief. It’s compelling.
BISSETT: Who or what terrifies you?
DAY: I have easy access internally to all sorts of dark emotions. My antennae are almost constantly up. Which means, I can’t consume too much dark content, especially media, without that certain energy scratching beneath my skin. I’m uncomfortable picking up spiders or facing a growling dog. But that is a different sort of fear. Visceral fear of the type that won’t let go, having to sit with that feeling for an unknown length of time, that is terrifying. I can bear it—clearly, but in the moment it’s pretty rough.
BISSETT: What are the challenges you’ve faced as a woman working in horror?
DAY: I’m a genre bending, if not genre breaking, sort of writer. Editors who only want a certain “type” of story are likely going to find I don’t fit within those confines, but I think my issues finding a home for my work have been exacerbated by the strangely persistent idea, though that seems to have changed in recent years, that a woman writing horror is somehow off—women don’t do that sort of thing, especially women who are pleasant and smiling and keep their edges to themselves. Of course, those partially submerged edges are the very reason why writing horrific, or creepy, or disquieting stories feels so necessary.
And people can’t help themselves. There are all sorts of unconscious biases that play into how someone reads a story and whether they find it compelling. Horror has historically had a preponderance of cis white male gatekeepers. There was a default state, and that default state was too often unaware of the narrow lines they’d drawn.
BISSETT: What advice do you have to women working in the field?
DAY: There are so many more avenues and gatekeepers now, including self-publishing, which has its own gatekeeper, social media algorithms. Aim for the work you want to create and find the places that will connect with what you are trying to do. Unless that is truly your writing purpose, don’t just keep knocking on the same damn doors. And if all that isn’t enough, carve out your own openings. Remember your writing is your power writ large. And remember why you write. I’m not sure it’s same answer for every author, in fact I’m sure it’s not, but I lose my way when I forget why I’m still pushing forward. For me at least, turning outward and worrying whether my work will “fit” is the death knell of both my creativity and my drive.
BISSETT: What are you currently working on?
DAY: I’m currently revising a novella titled Mx. Meissen’s Eyes, which is a near future ecological horror story—sort of. I’m also revising, a second-world fantasy, again sort of, novelette called “The Waterhoarder and the Drought Lily.” As always there are other stories sitting around partially done, but I recently remembered I need to work on what holds my interest. A linear approach to writing fiction, for me, is stultifying
BISSETT: You balance numerous roles in your life as an author, an editor, and a publisher. You are also a mother, a wife, and the adult child of aging parents, and you have a day job. How do you do it all?
DAY: Let’s be honest. I don’t. Doing it all is one of those patriarchal traps: as though women just have to do more than men to fulfill all their roles and personal expectations. Doing more than feels manageable is a long-term plan for failure, disappointment, and bitterness. Instead, I try to do enough, and I rely on the help and goodwill of friends and family, especially my partner, Tom. I’m going to offer further honestly: All those roles mean sometimes my bandwidth for new creative work is nonexistent, and I bleed frustration with what I’m putting down on the page. I’m an introvert by nature and training, and yet writing, connected-with-myself writing, is far more settling than time alone. Perhaps there should be a word for people who want to spend time in conversation with themselves. Neural network listener, perhaps?
BISSETT: You are currently working on the Tanith Lee tribute anthology Storyteller at Essential Dreams Press. How has this process been different from the other anthologies you’ve published?
DAY: The STORYTELLER project definitely builds on the publishing skills I’ve gained publishing my Dreams anthologies. The nuts-and-bolts of book production is sorted and my editorial approach has been tested and refined. I’ll be running my first Kickstarter to fund a publishing project which has been quite a learning curve. The core difference, though, is that this is a tribute anthology for a specific author, Tanith Lee, and I feel a vast responsibility to get it right. Tanith Lee was important to myself, my co-editors Carina Bissett and Craig Laurance Gidney and to a vast swath of other authors including all of those who will be contributing to the anthology (C.S.E. Cooney, Maya Deane, Andy Duncan, Theodora Goss, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Nisi Shawl, Martha Wells, and Terri Windling, plus our open call authors). To add to the pressure, Tanith’s widower will be writing a foreword and Ann VanderMeer, who was a friend and editor of Tanith’s, will be writing an afterword.
It is going to be an amazing book and an amazing tribute to a multi-genre-defining author on the tenth anniversary of her passing. She was an award-winning author who published over ninety novels and three hundred short stories, many during a time when few women were published in genre. Decades before it was generally accepted, she regularly, if not compulsively, shattered genre boundaries while also embracing gender nonconforming and queer characters. She is also considered the first to write in the subgenres of adult fairytale retellings and fantasy romance. To me and a surprising number of others she is canon. I’m hoping we can introduce her work and her impact on genre to a new generation of readers and writers.
About One Eye Opened in That Other Place by Julie C. Day (PS Publishing, October 2018)
“If Julie C. Day was a singer she’d have a five-octave range. This is a collection of astonishing variety and power. She is one of those alchemists of the short story who offers uncomplicated engagement, while provoking knotty thoughts and mutable responses. This is not merely a promising debut, it is simply astonishing.” —Interzone
A grieving man travels through time via car crash. A family of matriarchs collects recipes for the dead. A woman gains an unexpected child in the midst of a bunny apocalypse. An outcast finds work in a magical slaughterhouse. Julie C. Day’s debut collection is rife with dark and twisted tales made beautiful by her gorgeous prose and wonderfully idiosyncratic imagination. Melding aspects of Southern Gothic and fabulism, and utilizing the author s own scientific background, Day’s carefully rendered settings are both delightful and unexpected. Whether set in a uniquely altered version of Florida’s Space Coast or a haunted island off the coast of Maine, each story in this collection carries its own brand of meticulous and captivating weirdness. Yet in the end, it is the desperation of the characters that drives these stories forward and their wild obsessions that carry them through to the end. It is Day’s clear-eyed compassion for the dark recesses of the human heart and her dream-like vision of the physical world that make this collection a standout.
About Storyteller (Essential Dreams Press, Forthcoming)
With eight invited authors and an open call for at least six more after the Kickstarter successfully funds, Storyteller is a celebration of Tanith Lee’s work–and an object lesson in the breadth of authors she influenced.
Join in this celebration of Tanith Lee on the 10th anniversary of her passing.
Though she wrote nearly 90 novels, Tanith Lee was also a master of short fiction. The thematic range of her work—from pulp to adventure stories, to science fiction, to gothic, and finally, to queer fiction—astounds as much as the volume of work—over 300 separate pieces. Tanith Lee’s influence on contemporary fiction is an often-hidden strand of DNA that connects writers of fantasy, science fiction, romance, horror, and YA.
Join the Discussion for Updates: https://tanithleestoryteller.com/
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
