This month - KL Grady
Interviewer : Aigner Loren Wilson (she/her) is a 2023 double Ignyte Finalist for best novelette and best critic. She is a senior fiction editor for Strange Horizons, and her writing has appeared in F&SF, Lightspeed Magazine, Monstrous Futures, and more. You can follow her on her website, newsletter, or on Facebook.
Horror Author: KL writes, reads, collects hobbies, drinks tea, and architects clouds from Everett.
This interview is a part of the HWA Seattle Member Blog Interview Series. HWA Seattle members who would like to be interviewed for the blog, reach out here.
Aigner Loren Wilson: Many writers have unique rituals or settings that help them get into the right mindset for writing. Can you describe your writing process and any specific habits or environments that help you write?
KL Grady: I've tried for years to come up with a ritual, but the best I have is really just setting a timer and sprinting. If I can manage to vomit on the page for thirty minutes, I'll be productive (especially if that initial vomit is bound for the trash). I don't have a specific time of day or location. I'll do it wherever I can manage. It means I don't have a regular writing schedule, and I might not write any one particular thing for weeks at a time, but that seems to work best for my brain and my schedule.
ALW: I love that! I feel like a lot of aspiring writers feel discouraged if they can't set a ritual but not having a ritual is always an option if that's what works for your brain and schedule. Thanks for sharing that!
KLG: Yeah, I totally believe sometimes no ritual is the best ritual of all. Pants your way through life if you need to.
ALW: What subgenre of horror do you enjoy writing the most, and why does it resonate with you?
KLG: I really like writing and reading supernatural horror, whether it's non-corporeal monsters or supernaturally driven monsters. I'm not sure why I pull that direction, but it could be from living in a series of haunty/spooky situations as a kid. I loved all those wacky movies on Saturday afternoon TV in the 80s, where nuclear accidents led to giant ants or solar flares made dogs get violent, but when The Fog came on, I was sucked in. Ghost pirates murdering people from the mist? Oh, yeah. That's just been a trend ever since.
ALW: Horror often thrives on the unknown and the unexplained. How do you balance providing enough information to engage readers while maintaining an aura of mystery and dread?
KLG: I'm a fan of keeping secrets until the bitter end. I think the horror you create in your own mind is scarier than the horror someone shows you. The minute you can classify it, name it, define it, etc., it loses a lot of its power over you, and the fear you felt before morphs into ass-kicking focus. I feel like if the reader doesn't know what the characters are actually up against, even if they're in the midst of the boss battle portion of the story, there will continue to be a thread of dread or straight up fear for the reader.
I guess the balance comes in providing other details so the reader is still rooted in the story, engaged with the characters, etc. Just, the horror part remains a mystery.
ALW: How do you delve into the minds of your characters, exploring their fears and vulnerabilities, and what techniques do you use to make readers empathize with their dread?
KLG: This is a hard question. I don't feel like I do this well unless I'm at that point in writing where you kind of zen out, and the world goes away. When I am in the character's head, seeing the world through their eyes, it feels natural to translate all of those experiences better. When I edit, I'll see I overdid it like crazy and need to cut or move things around to balance it better for the reader. I try to make sure there's a little bit of that internal monologue/thought process, but that I also use visceral reactions to things they experience, and how much information (and what) they reveal to other characters to get across who they are and where their heads are. Even what they're willing to think about says a lot about who they are. If you build up a character's layers, give them good and bad sides, whether they're an anti-hero and merely understandable or an empathetic protagonist, it's so much easier for their dread to be contagious to the reader.
ALW: If a reader was unfamiliar with your work, what’s the story you’d suggest they start with?
KLG: The one I'd recommend is "Her Mother's Daughter". I was told by a romance author I edited that she can't eat cheese anymore after reading it, which I've taken as a badge of honor, and I'm extra satisfied with that story because it had an effect.
ALW: Do you have any upcoming releases or projects you’re working on that you’d like to talk about?
KLG: I have a poem in Under Her Eye, the domestic horror collection from Black Spot Books.
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Thanks for reading. I hope you’ve found a new author or a deeper love for an author you already know.
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