Stephanie M. Wytovich Women in Horror

In conversation with Stephanie M. Wytovich

Stephanie M. Wytovich is a model powerhouse. She does it all, and she does it with a grace that seems almost magical. She is a poet, an author, an editor, and an educator. On top of that, she is also a mentor and a mother. In 2016, Wytovich garnered her first Bram Stoker Award® with her poetry collection Brothel (Raw Dog Screaming Press). But this is only the beginning. Over the years, she has received eight additional nominations for this prestigious award in three different categories. The Eighth (2016) received a nomination for Superior Achievement in a First Novel and Writing Poetry in the Dark (2022) received a nomination for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction. The other six nominations were for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection: Hysteria: A Collection of Madness (2013), Mourning Jewelry (2014), An Exorcism of Angels (2015), Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare (2017), The Apocalyptic Mannequin (2019), and her most recent collection, On the Subject of Blackberries (2023). 

When I decided I wanted to make my own attempts at writing poetry, it was Wytovich that I turned to for inspiration and instruction. So, many years later, imagine my excited surprise when she invited me to contribute an essay on fairy tale poetry to Writing Poetry in the Dark (2022). For so many of us, Wytovich leads by example, encouraging writers to explore their voices regardless of the form it takes. “With everything going on politically—and I do mean everything—readers and publishers alike are demanding and seeking out new writers and voices who have been silenced and/or looked over,” says Wytovich (“Words Wielded by Women,” Apex Magazine #138, May 2024). 

In fact, her most recent poetry collection, On the Subjects of Blackberries, speaks out in a on a topic that is often overlooked and dismissed by polite society: postpartum depression. “I was a ghost existing in the corner of my house. I had been locked away writing poems while covered in vomit, the scent of sour milk strong on my skin,” Wytovich writes in her Author’s Note. “There were days when writing seemed impossible, and yet other days, it fell out of me, desperate, hungry, begging. This collection became a portrait of postpartum writing, a mirror held up against a new mother struggling with PPD, newly diagnosed with OCD, and someone attempting to love themselves the same way they loved, and continue to love (maybe even more), their perfect cherub of a daughter: Evelyn.” 

Wytovich turned to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle for comfort and inspiration, spending her endless days and nights with the Blackwood Sisters, especially Merricat. “She’s always spoken to me, a girl who never felt like people took her seriously, who even after giving birth, still felt treated like a child,” writes Wytovich. “Yes, on the subject of blackberries, I am quite familiar.”  

And what could be more perfect than that? –Carina Bissett

About Stephanie Wytovich

Stephanie M. Wytovich is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her work has been showcased in numerous magazines and anthologies such as Weird Tales, Nightmare Magazine, Southwest Review, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror: Volume 2, The Best Horror of the Year: Volume 8 & 15, as well as many others.

Wytovich is the Poetry Editor for Raw Dog Screaming Press, and an adjunct at Western Connecticut State University, Southern New Hampshire University, and Point Park University. She is a recipient of the Elizabeth Matchett Stover Memorial Award, the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Writers Grant, and has received the Rocky Wood Memorial Scholarship for non-fiction writing.

Wytovich is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and a graduate of Seton Hill University’s MFA program for Writing Popular Fiction. Her Bram Stoker Award-winning poetry collection, Brothel, earned a home with Raw Dog Screaming Press alongside Hysteria: A Collection of Madness, Mourning Jewelry, An Exorcism of Angels, Sheet Music to My Acoustic Nightmare, and The Apocalyptic Mannequin. Her debut novel, The Eighth, is published with Dark Regions Press, and her nonfiction craft book for speculative poetry, Writing Poetry in the Dark, is available now from Raw Dog Screaming Press.

Her 2023 poetry collection, On the Subject of Blackberries, is out now.

Follow Wytovich at https://www.stephaniemwytovich.com/ and on Twitter and Instagram @SWytovich​ and @thehauntedbookshelf. You can also sign up for her newsletter at https://stephaniemwytovich.substack.com/.

Interview with Stephanie M. Wytovich

BISSETT: What was your first experience with horror?

WYTOVICH: My mom loves horror movies, so I definitely snuck a few in way before I should have, and my dad used to make a game out of everything for us growing up. He’d turn our basement into a series of forts and challenge us to find the treasure he hid within them; the catch, of course, was that he played a variety of monsters and ornery characters that we’d have to escape and trick to move forward. For the longest time, I was terrified to do laundry because I thought a gorilla would jump out of the crawl space or a reaper would descend from the ceiling. Talk about typical childhood fears, am I right?

We also had something called the Wytovich Scare War, where we would all try to outdo one another in terms of who could come up with the greatest scare. Fun fact: I almost ran over my mom, who was dressed like Ghostface, one year while I was on my quad, and then I’m still traumatized by the clown my dad put in my car, but that’s a story for another day…

BISSETT: What attracts you to horror as a genre?

WYTOVICH: As someone with crushing anxiety, horror allows me to hit pause on things. It gives me a safe place to work out my fears, challenge my rage, and survive what plagues me, and for that, I’m forever grateful. Plus, I just love the adrenaline rush of being scared (and of course, scaring others!).

BISSETT: What advice do you have to women working in the field?

WYTOVICH: Write what you want to write, not what you think others want you to write. 

BISSETT: Do you feel there are unique challenges faced by women in horror?

WYTOVICH: I do. Something that I notice in my classes is that students are still quick to list men when I ask them who they’re reading in the horror genre (or who they’re familiar with). I don’t think this is their fault necessarily because so much of the study of literature still surrounds the classics and not everyone is as accepting when it comes to putting genre on their syllabus. That said, I make it a point in my courses to really focus on reading women and I try to be as diverse and inclusive as possible. I think we need to keep supporting one another and giving space to each other’s work whenever we can because as we all know, word of mouth is what sells books.

BISSETT: In addition to being a poet, an author, an editor, and an educator, you are also a mother. Do you have any advice for other women trying to juggle their career along with the demands of family?

WYTOVICH: I’m still very much trying to figure this out for myself, but something that I’m learning is that it’s okay to take time for yourself—even if it’s 20 minutes. If we don’t allow ourselves to reset, recharge, and relax, we’re not doing anyone any good so it’s important that we take care of ourselves in order to take care of others. 

When it comes to making art, specifically, I’m a big fan of carrying a notebook around with me everywhere I go. This has gotten to be a necessity because sometimes it’s days before I find myself back in my office with some concrete time to write (and my memory is still a bit foggy these days). I’m forever taking notes, jotting down ideas, and reading novels on my Kindle App or through Audible. I’ve come to realize that the best thing we can do is remember our goals but be gentle with ourselves as we go about achieving them. 

BISSETT: What changes have you seen in the representation of speculative poetry, especially within the horror genre? Where do you think we are going from here?

WYTOVICH: I’ve mostly seen an embrace of speculative poetry, which is really exciting because that means we get more of it (not to mention more of it in places we might not originally expect!). I’ve also seen a movement toward widening the definition of horror, which I personally appreciate because horror isn’t going to mean the same thing to everyone, so this lets us challenge of bias and preconceptions of the genre and see it evolve and grow…and mutate!

BISSETT: What authors or works would you recommend to readers?

WYTOVICH: Women in Horror: Poetry Edition

Linda Addison, Marge Simon, Lucy Snyder, Jessica McHugh, Donna Lynch, Erin Slaughter, Christina Sng, Saba Syed Razvi, Colleen Anderson, Jessica Drake-Thomas, Sara Tantlinger, Holly Walrath, Kailey Tedesco, Carina Bissett, Tiffany Morris, Maureen O’Leary, Emily Ruth Verona, Sarah Grey, Helen Marshall, Juliet Escoria, Stephanie Valente, Lee Murray, Cynthia Pelayo, Ann K. Schwader, Grace R. Reynolds, Avra Margariti, Marisca Pinchette, Octavia Cade, Claire C. Holland, E.F. Schraeder, Jezzy Wolfe, Annah Browning, Chloe N. Clark, Eleanor Hooker, Emily Skaja, Stephanie Ellis, Cindy O’Quinn, Savannah Slone, Tracy K. Smith, Taisia Kitaiskaia, Angela Yuriko Smith, and so so many more! Too many more to count! Just read all the women. 

BISSETT: What are you currently working on? 

WYTOVICH: I have my hands in a couple different projects at the moment—none that I can really talk to much about at the moment. However, I will say that I’ve been wonderfully inspired by fairy tales as of late, so perhaps we will see something along those lines in the future!

About On the Subject of Blackberries by Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2023)

“What witchcraft is this? These poems are somehow delicate as lace yet razor sharp. Lovely yet venomous. Visceral and emotional, eerie and honest. This collection is essential and in perfect conversation with Shirley Jackson’s Blackwood Sisters.”—Rachel Harrison, national bestselling author of Cackle and Black Sheep

Welcome to the garden. Here we poison our fruits, pierce ourselves with thorns, and transform under the light of the full moon. Mad and unhinged, we fall through rabbit holes, walk willingly into fairy rings, and dance in the song of witchcraft, two snakes around our ankles, the juice of berries on our tongues. Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, these poems are meditations on female rage, postpartum depression, compulsion, and intrusive thoughts. They pull from periods of sleep deprivation, soul exhaustion, and nightmarish delusions, and each is left untitled, a nod to the stream-of-conscious mind of a new mother.

Using found poetry and under the influence of bibliomancy, Wytovich harnesses the occult power of her imagery and words and aligns it with a new, more vulnerable, darkness. These pieces are not only visions of the madwoman in the attic, but ghostly visitations that explore the raw mental torture women sometimes experience after giving birth.

This collection heals as much as it scars, and is an honest look at how trauma seeps into the soil of our bodies. Her poems are imagined horrors, fictional fears, and all the unspoken murmurs of a mind lost between reality and dream. What she leaves in her wake is nothing short of horror-the children lost, the garden dead, the women feral, ready to pounce.

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

“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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