In this interview, we chat with Nour Abi-Nakhoul about copy editing, creative nonfiction, feverish creations, and so much more.
Nour Abi-Nakhoul is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning quarterly Maisonneuve Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Hazlitt and The Walrus. Her debut novel, Supplication, was released by Penguin Random House in 2024.
“The Charlotte Street Arts Centre and the Fredericton Public Library are teaming up for a unique evening of storytelling inspired by our collective love for literature, libraries, and books of all shapes and sizes.
This special evening event will feature personal stories from a cast of New Brunswick writers including Ambrose Albert, Joce Anderson, Chuck Bowie, Ryan Griffith, Jordan Thretheway, Joanne LeBlanc-Haley, Eric Hill, Philip Lee, Paul McAllister, Thandiwe McCarthy, Fawn Parker, Mike Thorn, Jacques Poitras, and Sue Sinclair with all proceeds going to support both the Charlotte Street Arts Centre and the Fredericton Public Library.”
In this interview, we chat with Kathe Koja about balancing simultaneous projects, resisting online distractions, raising the literary dead, and so much more.
Kathe Koja writes novels and short fiction, and creates and produces live and virtual events. Her award-winning books include The Cipher, Skin, Buddha Boy, Under The Poppy and Velocities, and she is currently at work on the Dark Factory immersive fiction project including Dark Factory, Dark Park and Dark Matter. Catherine the Ghost is her newest novel.
Submissions are now open for Monstrum 8.2, a special issue devoted to horror and ecohorror’s engagements with veganism and animal liberation. We seek proposals for essays (5,000-7,000 words) devoted to horror texts, modalities, and philosophies with a focus on veganism or animal rights.
I am continuing a new annual tradition. I’ve organized my choices chronologically, with externally and/or posthumously edited collections/anthologies at the end.
Vathek, an Arabian Tale; or, the History of the Caliph Vatek, by William Beckford (1786) The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe (1794) The Monk: A Romance, by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1796) Wieland; or, The Transformation: An American Tale, by Charles Brockden Brown (1798) Zofloya; or, the Moor, by Charlotte Dacre (1806) Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley (1818) Melmoth the Wanderer, by Charles Robert Maturin (1820) The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg (1824) Twice-Told Tales, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1837) The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851) Carmilla, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872) Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (1890) The Damned, by Joris-Karl Huysmans (1891) The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers (1895) The Beetle, by Richard Marsh (1897) Dracula, by Bram Stoker (1897) The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells (1897) Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, by M. R. James (1904) The Listener and Other Stories, by Algernon Blackwood (1907) The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson (1908) Pan’s Garden: A Volume of Nature Stories, by Algernon Blackwood (1912) The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka (1915) Ghosts, by Edith Wharton (1937) The Subjugated Beast, by R. R. Ryan (1938) Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber (1943) The Hounds of Tindalos, by Frank Belknap Long (1946) This Mortal Coil, by Cynthia Asquith (1947) The Scarf, by Robert Bloch (1947 / 1966) Hangsaman, by Shirley Jackson (1951) The Bird’s Nest, by Shirley Jackson (1954) I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson (1954) The Sundial, by Shirley Jackson (1958) The Breaking Point, by Daphne Du Maurier (1959) The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (1959) Shock!, by Richard Matheson (1961) Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury (1962) We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson (1962) The Collector, by John Fowles (1963) The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, by Yukio Mishima (1963) Dark Entries, by Robert Aickman (1964) New Stories from the Twilight Zone, by Rod Serling (1965) I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream, by Harlan Ellison (1967) Rosemary’s Baby, by Ira Levin (1967) Last Summer, by Evan Hunter (1968) The Obscene Bird of Night, by José Donoso (1970) The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty (1971) The Room, by Hubert Selby Jr. (1971) The Other, by Thomas Tryon (1971) Burnt Offerings, by Robert Marasco (1973) Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy (1973) Carrie, by Stephen King (1974) ‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King (1975) Julia, by Peter Straub (1975) The Demon, by Hubert Selby Jr. (1976) Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice (1976) Long After Midnight, by Ray Bradbury (1976) The Shining, by Stephen King (1977) The House Next Door, by Anne Rivers Siddons (1978) Blood Secrets, by Craig Jones (1978) Strange Seed, by T. M. Wright (1978) Ghost Story, by Peter Straub (1979) Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris (1981) The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill (1983) Books of Blood: Volume One, by Clive Barker (1984) The Ceremonies, by T. E. D. Klein (1984) Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd (1985) The Damnation Game, by Clive Barker (1985) The Juniper Tree, by Barbara Comyns (1985) Songs of a Dead Dreamer, by Thomas Ligotti (1985) Toplin, by Michael McDowell, (1985) The Hungry Moon, by Ramsey Campbell (1986) Beloved, by Toni Morrison (1987) Why Not You and I?, by Karl Edward Wagner (1987) The Fifth Child, by Doris Lessing (1988) The Girl Next Door, by Jack Ketchum (1989) The Pines, by Robert Dunbar (1989) American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis (1991) The Cipher, by Kathe Koja (1991) Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, by Thomas Ligotti (1991) Something Stirs, by Charles L. Grant (1991) Bad Brains, by Kathe Koja (1992) Skin, by Kathe Koja (1993) The Between, by Tananarive Due (1995) Zombie, by Joyce Carol Oates (1995) Traplines, by Eden Robinson (1996) Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis (2005) The Red Tree, by Caitlín R. Kiernan (2009) Jack of Spades, by Joyce Carol Oates (2015) Heartbreaker, by Maryse Meijer (2016) Tender is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica (2017) And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, by Gwendolyn Kiste (2017) Strange is the Night, by S. P. Miskowski (2017) The Seventh Mansion, by Maryse Meijer (2020) We Are Here to Hurt Each Other, by Paula D. Ashe (2022) Supplication, by Nour Abi-Nakhoul (2024) Selected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe (1956) [edited by Edward H. Davidson] Tales of H. P. Lovecraft, by H. P. Lovecraft (2007) [edited by Joyce Carol Oates] Ghost Stories of Henry James, by Henry James (2008) [edited by Martin Schofield] The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies, by Clark Ashton Smith (2014) [edited by S. T. Joshi]
In this interview, we chat with Paula D. Ashe about writer’s block, narrative movement, urban legends, and so much more.
Paula D. Ashe (she/her) is an author of dark fiction. Her debut collection We Are Here to Hurt Each Other (Nictitating Books) was a Shirley Jackson Award winner for Single Author Collection and a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection. Recently, she received the Joseph S. Pulver Sr. Weird Fiction Award at NecronomiCon Providence. Paula was also an associate editor for Vastarien: A Literary Journal. She lives in the Midwest with her family.
Books and stories mentioned in this episode:
Supplication – Nour Abi-Nakhoul
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Books of Blood; The Damnation Game; The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker
Midnight Rooms – Donyae Coles
Blood from the Air – Gemma Files
“each thing i show you is a piece of my death” – Gemma Files & Stephen J. Barringer
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke – Eric LaRocca
Mike Thorn 