In this interview, debut author and publicist Lauren Morrow discusses what inspired her debut novel, the copyediting process, and more. The post Lauren Morrow: On Starting Over to Move Forward With Writing appeared first on Writer's Digest.| Writer's Digest
In this interview, bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan discusses the fear of writing personal experiences and feelings in her new thriller novel, All This Could Be Yours. The post Hank Phillippi Ryan: On Real Experiences and Mistakes Inspiring a Thriller Novel appeared first on Writer's Digest.| Writer's Digest
People really don’t like confronting the unknown and they really don’t like conflict. So much of this brief window into this couple’s relationship is about avoidance, distance, observation from far away but with no real knowledge gained. And they both know it’s wrong; the Magic 8 Ball didn’t appear for no reason.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
Zan being biracial, nonbinary, and working to get by paycheck to paycheck is, frankly, a relatable existence that’s also an infuriating one. I wrote this back in 2024, prior to the election in the U.S. and other events related to CEOs that transpired, so this story feels eerily relevant in a way I never intended.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I knew wanted to write a series character, so I took inspiration from the many, many characters in fantasy which appear over multiple pieces in general, and I guess a little bit from C.L. Moore’s great swordswoman, Jirel of Joiry.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
In this interview, author Daphne Fama discusses writing a love letter to Filipino history with her debut horror novel, House of Monstrous Women.| Writer's Digest
What strikes me about Hannah is she’s not afraid of the bunny-ear kids, by all appearances the most fearsome thing at Colden Hills Music Camp. Instead, her anxieties are laser-focused on walking around in her swimsuit, and having to be social at the ice cream social, and not getting picked up at week’s end.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
I’m always thinking about real-life stereotypes and tropes, and how I can subvert them in the space of fiction. I wanted to write a story where the dad didn’t disappear but perhaps was neglectful of his family in other ways. He gets the milk, but is that the point?| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
Author Catherine Dang discusses the shocking true story that helped inspire her new coming-of-age horror novel, What Hunger.| Writer's Digest
The biggest influence was my own encounters with unhoused children on the streets of Karachi. Either on the way to school myself or coming to and from places in the city. There is no childhood for them, and no organised resource or infrastructure to resort to.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
The first version of the story I wrote for a friendly contest in a writing group. I used a pair of prompts---a set of words to use---from which I picked joint, monolith, stole, Jeep, and perhaps one more; and the idea of something that has lost its symmetry. A flat tire on a Jeep in the desert came to me almost right away.| Lightspeed Magazine
I think fantasy and science fiction have always been opposed to oppression. There’s always an evil man standing in a tower somewhere, a great all-seeing eye peering out at his domain, and there’s always band of men (or hobbits) rising up to meet him.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
We all have a role in this world, but largely our role is not to be the hero. Tomas is a guy who grew up on some little hick planet, dreamed of getting off, and did in fact succeed in escaping.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
In the Yoruba translation of the Holy Bible, the devil is sometimes called Satani which is just an adjustment of the English word Satan. However, where the English version uses the word “devil” then the Yoruba translation is Éshu.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
We’re so used to thinking of exploring other planets as a dream or even a privilege. But if all these wild dreams come true, going into space will become someone’s job. What is our dream for those jobs?| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I feel like one of the mistakes we see a lot of historically is “oh, there’s plenty of that, you don’t need to worry about that.” On a space station there isn’t plenty of anything. You have to worry about all of it. But on a planet . . . we make the mistake of thinking that we’re basically different from a space station.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
The setting is such a big part of the story, and I really wanted to lead readers into it, to convey the idea that this is a refuge, its own world. Envelop the reader in that sense of calm and magic, to make them feel a part of this community.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I wanted to write about what the Faerie King means to her, why she’s so drawn to him. And by extension, I was writing about the fandom itself, why all these people are so wrapped up in him. This is really a story about the very human need to feel part of a story that’s bigger than oneself.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
This story is very much rooted in the aspirational goals behind actual tech. (In fact, the company behind the Hogan Bridges was explicitly named Neuralink in early drafts, until I decided that I didn’t want to get sued by Neuralink.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
A couple of winters ago, trudging up an icy hill, I realized I could revisit elements I loved from one of my first trunked novels. I could come at it fresh and make the fundamentals into short stories. That meant I could junk all the characters, setting, and plot---and still feel like the years I spent writing it were good for something beyond skill growth.| Lightspeed MagazineRSS - Lightspeed Magazine
I think a lot of people live their lives very small. We internalize barriers that don’t exist. I think this is heightened by tech, which would have us sit in chairs all day, reacting to nonsense. The human mind can expend only so much energy, and we sap a lot of it scrolling pointlessly.| Lightspeed Magazine
The title came to me first, and I built the story around that concept of asking for it. How I might subvert it. Because that phrase, to me, has always been how someone’s wants are placed on another person. The justification they hunt for to allay any guilt or anxiety or sense of culpability.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
In this interview, author Emily Buchanan discusses the balancing act of speculative fiction and realism in her debut novel, Send Flowers.| Writer's Digest
Buddhism teaches that life is a cycle of suffering and rebirth, and the only way to escape it is to achieve enlightenment. I’ve always found that theme interesting, especially in how it plays into creating Buddhist characters in wuxia/xianxia stories.| Lightspeed Magazine
It seems to me if you can afford to abuse people, flout social rules, and treat people like garbage, you will. I wasn’t really trying to say anything about social hierarchy, just presenting it as is, as it takes place around us.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
The bedbug bite is unlike any insect bite I’ve experienced before. You’re covered in these welts, and the cumulative effect of their itching is the inability to concentrate on anything other than that sensation. If horror is about extremity, then this story is about extremity of sensation.| Nightmare Magazine
In the original ABBA song, the singer dramatically bemoans her inability to stay away from her lover. “Here I go again” is a sigh of resignation for an outcome that the singer considers predetermined due to her inability to escape the cycle.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
Growing up listening to folktales about reanimated corpses made this aspect of horror a pretty normal one for me, and in this story, their presence made sense with the location being the former cursed burial ground.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
This is an Ecuadorian tradition, to burn a poppet doll on New Year’s Eve and leave the bad year behind as you jump across the burning effigy. We burn a body that represents el año viejo---the old year---so we can leave behind all that negative energy and welcome a new year full of hope and possibilities. I wanted to examine this celebration by emphasizing its violence and the borrowing of faces to do so.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine
“Glory Hole” is a horrific, although incredibly intimate, look into the ways in which we punish ourselves in ways we think we deserve. What was your inspiration for this story? What was the writing process like, and was it any different from the ways you’ve written other stories? I wrote “Glory Hole” shortly after suffering […]| Nightmare Magazine
I think this is a story about thinking too much. Stop thinking and you become less human, more like an animal; that involves scars, and predators, and living outdoors, and for certain animals it sometimes involves eating garbage.| Nightmare MagazineRSS - Nightmare Magazine