Shane (they/them) is a disabled nonbinary author of dark queer fiction. They have been writing since they were seven years old, and they haven’t stopped since. They live in Ohio with their two cats.
They took part in the Authors for Palestine event in June 2024 and the GoFundMes of the families the event supported are linked again here in this interview. Please help if you can.
Author Links:
Instagram: @shaneblackheart
Threads: @shaneblackheart
Bluesky: @shaneblackheart.com
X/Twitter: @ShaneBlkheart
Website: shaneblackheart.com
Link for It’s Only A Little Death: little-death.carrd.co
Operation Olive Branch: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch
GoFundMe’s Highlighted by Authors for Palestine Event: https://afp.ju.mp/#info
For the AfP event we have selected the following 3 families to help boost their fundraisers. The details below were taken from the OOB spreadsheet.
Mohammed’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Mohammed’s Instagram: @mohammedalbaredei
Ibrahim’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Ibrahim’s Instagram: @ibrahimwithi
Rula’s fundraiser: GoFundMe
Rula’s Instagram: @rula_mohammed
You were one of the authors involved with the Authors for Palestine event – can you tell us why you chose to get involved with this, and which of your works you put up as raffle prizes?
I just wanted to do something, but I can’t really afford to donate money and protests are out of reach for me because of my disabilities. What’s happening in Gaza is horrific, and this was the least I could do, although I’ll be doing more for sure if any other events pop up. I donated most of my current published work: Everything Is Wonderful Now and Open Wound, which are books one and two in The Requiem Series, and two short stories, What Lies Beyond and 3 AM, which are both gothic stories.
Do you find your sense of social justice and activism informs the philosophy of your writing, in terms of narrative and character arcs? If so, how?
Definitely. My biggest things are mental health awareness and bringing more visibility to trans masculine and nonbinary people. I’m really passionate about challenging harmful stigmas people often place on diagnoses I personally have, and at least in my first two books, I focus on that and how painful it can be to have to live with this stuff.
I don’t sugarcoat anything and I use blunt language because it’s important to, and the stories are based heavily on my own life. I also know how isolating and lonely it can get when you’re in really dark places or confused, so I hope some of my books can be relatable, like a friend to those who need one.
I just want to help change the narrative in any way that I can. I also include resources in the back of some of my books to encourage people to get help.
If you had to pick 3 words that sum up what your novel means to you, as the author, what would they be and why?
‘Liberating’ would be the first. Not only was it a much-needed change from writing about real-life trauma, it was just fun and validating to explore a different side of my sexual identity as a neurodivergent person, which is something I haven’t really gotten to do. ‘Nostalgic’ would be another because the vibes are close to my heart. I have a longtime love of Tim Burton films and campy, cheesy horror (including stuff like Rocky Horror Picture Show!), so this book is like comfort food to me.
It brought me a lot of happiness, and it reminded me of better times I sometimes forget. Also ‘hope,’ I think? I often worry, with my chronic illnesses and my mental health worsening over the years, that I’m slowly losing the ability to write fun stories, or to just be purely imaginative with my work, because of brain fog and just being tired a lot. This book reminded me that I haven’t lost that ability at all, which definitely gave me hope for my future as an author.
What role does memory play in your novel, and why is this an important theme?
It’s a theme I end up writing often because of my own issues with memory, rather it be forgetting things a lot or getting stuck in the past because of my mental health diagnoses, specifically the dissociative disorders I have. For the main character in the book, Silver, recovering memories, with the help of someone there for support, leads to them becoming a stronger person and being able to heal from some rough stuff.
Since they start out in the book with a fresh mind, having forgotten pretty much everything about their life, it’s a chance to view it all from a new perspective. They also have to keep a journal, so it’s very reminiscent of the kind of healing journey you’d go through while dealing with grief, trauma, or anything like that. Although it’s not good to focus too much on the bad memories, they’re really important because that’s how we grow and learn or do better. So, besides the fun and spicy parts of the story, it’s really a lot to do with learning from past mistakes, healing, and moving on from them.
What about campy b-movies & early Tim Burton led you to choose these vibes as the vehicle for your story and themes?
They were both my escape from reality for as long as I can remember, and they were a huge part of who I was growing up. Even recently, I re-watched the first Beetlejuice movie, which influenced the underworld in the book a lot, and I could watch it a hundred more times and not get sick of it. There’s just something about spending time in these morbid, weird worlds that feels like home to me, so I wanted to write something like it myself. My writing style is also kind of weird, as am I, so those vibes just fit.
Which part of the writing process did you most enjoy?
I always love writing the first draft, but especially for this one. This story just flowed from the minute I started it, and since I don’t do a lot of planning before writing, this was such a fun journey to go on and discover. There was just a constant stream of inspiration, and I finished writing this in a little over a week. I wrote for hours every day, which did not do my back or neck any favors, but I was just so excited about this one.
What made you want to merge sexual awakening with memory loss and memory construction? How does this interplay work in the book (if you can share without spoilers) and at what point in the writing/drafting process did this become a strong plot point for your book?
To get a bit personal, my relationship with sex and having a sexual identity of any kind is really complicated due to past trauma. Over the years, I’ve struggled with my own sexual identity, and since certain trauma memories related to that resurfaced, and I worked through some of them in therapy, I’ve had to sort of ‘reconstruct’ a sexual identity.
The main character, Silver, also has to work through some complicated issues with their sexual identity because of their past. This is why the monsters they confront, which hold their memories, also give them a way to explore their sexuality, even if it’s scary to them at first. The two things are intertwined, they can’t do one without the other.
The biggest reason why, without spoilers, has to do with how they died, which is a memory that had the strongest influence on pretty much everything. At the start of the book, I didn’t actually plan for any of this, haha. I wanted to write a smutty monster book, but by the time I got to Silver’s first monster, which is in chapter four, I got really invested in making it something deeper and more complex.
I wanted the sexual component to have a meaning to it, rather than just existing for smut (not to say there’s anything wrong with just writing smut, I’ve written plenty of it myself just for fun!). The journey to recover their memories was already a plot point, so I just intertwined the two.
What do you hope readers will take away from your book and why?
Although It’s Only A Little Death is categorized as erotica, I hope people can appreciate it’s overall story, and not just read it for the naughty monster scenes. I often mix erotic themes with more serious and emotional ones, mostly because sex is such a complicated subject for a lot of people. As the main character is neurodivergent, I also hope it shows that ND adults deserve to be sexually liberated too, if they want to and can be. The world infantilizes us too much.
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