AUTHOR LINKS:
Instagram & TikTok: @madeleineswannsurreal
Bluesky: @madeleineswann.bsky.social
AUTHOR BIO:
Madeleine Swann’s most recent novella, Reality But More Fun (Nictitating Books), was nominated for a Wonderland Award as was Fortune Box in 2018 (Eraserhead Press). Her stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies including the Splatterpunk nominated The New Flesh.
INTERVIEW
What got you into horror to begin with – what’s your core Horror memory?
My older sister didn’t want to watch It on her own and made me watch it with her. I’ve seen it since and it’s pretty terrible, but at the time I was terrified. I think it unlocked something in me though, and at about 12/13 I became obsessed with books on the supernatural (which I don’t believe in now) and short stories like Round The Twist, and would read them late into the night, school or not. The picture accompanying the short story Santa Claws gave me the horrors, so good.
Do you have a favourite horror subgenre (or more than one) and if so, what is it? What/Who are your favourite books/films/podcasts/artists/creatives working in that subgenre?
I do enjoy weird things, so any kind of surreal or trippy horror is my favourite, but I’m open to most genres.
A good ghost story or gothic tale on a Winter’s night is perfect, especially audio I can listen to with my husband.
I Am In Eskew, Nightlight, Drabblecast and Pseudopod are good podcasts, and there’s usually something on BBC Sounds.
As for books I recently discovered Greye La Spina, a Weird Tales author from the 1920s, The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung and A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper.
What is the horror project of your heart – perhaps something you’ve already got out there, something you’re working on now, or something you’d like to do?
I think it’s the novella I’m currently writing. It’s a kind of bizarro, weird story of a woman who wants to do well in life but finds herself disappearing. She sends her articles on time to the magazine she works for but they aren’t received, and the subjects she interviews say she didn’t turn up. I’m enjoying it and I like to think it speaks to a fear most of us have of not mattering.
Which 5 horror books can you not stop thinking about, or have influenced you most in some way? (If not books, you can pick 5 films, 5 pieces of art, 5 songs… or mix & match!)
I think all of HG Wells’ writing counts, it feels like you’re right there in the story, I don’t know how he does it.
It might be obvious but The House on Haunted Hill by Shirley Jackson. You only get the main character’s perspective and you’re not sure you can trust her.
Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryünosuke Akutagawa might not technically all be horror, but he was a master of surprise and switching perspectives, and a huge cynic.
The ending of Hollow Tongue by Eden Royce is very squirmy and unsettling, gave me the heebie jeebies.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones, was one of my favourite recent books, really inventive, involving and clever.
If you had to describe the tones and themes of your own work in terms of movies, books, songs, or art, what would you choose and why?
I’d probably say something daft like Yellow Submarine mixed with Eraserhead
Introduce us to something you’ve created, and pitch it to the audience!
Letters From Our Dreams is an upcoming collection of flash fictions, twenty by me and twenty by my husband, published by Ex Parrot Press and with pictures by Stephen Waring.
The stories cover every facet of my brain, from the nightmarish, to the uncanny and to the silly. I think you’ll like them.