Hello Monsters! Our Halloween special, DUEL, was decidedly different this year, especially with its context of an established hierarchy in which cruelty is presented as a structural default. Looking to get to know the ambitious author behind the truly massive “Shadow of a Knife?” Why don’t you and your shadow pull up a seat for this interview with C. M. DiGirolamo?
What inspired "Shadow of a Knife?"
A while ago, when I saw the anthology call for the Broken Metropolis anthology, I realized I hadn't ever written urban fantasy, and ideas just started coming to me. The first was the image of a city on which it rained parts of an exploded god. I knew I wanted it to have a noir vibe, and of course, ninjas. But even though it involved children murdering other children, I didn't realize it was a horror piece until about two years after I wrote the first draft.
How do you connect with the idea of DUEL/DUAL?
I feel like there is an inherent sense of violence included in the concept of duality, particularly in a hierarchical duality, and yet there doesn't have to be. As a former fencer, the ability to acknowledge your rival with honor and respect is very important. That was one thing I wanted to explore with Dixon and Ava, the idea that the violence between them could become an alliance without erasing the differences between them.
So much of your piece is driven by the ties that bind characters together - particularly the concept of Aichmi. How did you develop these character dynamics?
Weird families are one of my favorite things. And I also love found families. But somehow I can't write positive found families, so instead you get the Aichmi--dark found family extraordinaire--where the people you love most become a subjugated part of you. In the end, in "Shadow" the most important tie that binds characters together is love, and even though love doesn't prevent you from harming someone, it can be the force that drives you to try to heal them.
In "Shadow" we see Dixon grappling with so many facets of his identity - as a man, a brother, a son, a lover, a killer...Do you draw on any of your own identities when writing?
I'm glad that killer isn't one of my identities! But there are moments in Dixon's story that did come directly from my past or my feelings. Being in Dixon's head felt cathartic for a lot of the shame that I carried and still carry--both body shame and shame about actions I made when I was too young to comprehend the harm of them. I also connected deeply with his struggle to be someone that Dad could be proud of.
How did you get into horror? What do you enjoy in the genre? What scares you?
As mentioned in question one, my interest in horror keeps on surprising me! I was always deeply against watching horror movies and didn't read any Stephen King until 2015. But in 2015, during the Odyssey Writing Workshop, we read some articles about what horror fiction is, and I was like, "oh, I do that. I love doing that." I recalled particularly thinking of a scene I'd written where a curse in the shape of a giant slug enters my main character's body via her mouth, and going, "OH. The emotion I'm trying to evoke in that scene is horror. How could I have missed that?" Now I have two horror publications and the first draft of a horror novel. My favorite thing about horror is the visceral description. It's not about seeing horrible things, it's about being overwhelmed by sensation and emotion. Perhaps in some ways it's about forbidden knowledge, which is on the excitement end of fear.
What’s your writing process like?
I tend to wait until I really have a sense of the voice and the trajectory of the story, and then I write it all down as fast as I can. After that comes the hard part, where I am in an endless push and pull of 'is this a good idea?' 'how did this story get so long?' 'wait, maybe I should cut the last 8000 words and make it a flash piece.' Even when I think it's done and is ready to go out, there's still room for a revelation about the one thing that will make the story exactly what it was meant to be--which usually comes in the shower.
What role do you think horror plays in the LGBTQ community?
One of the primary emotions triggered in horror--or used to trigger horror--is disgust, and I have often felt that the experience of queer is about the process of finding a way to transform disgust into something beautiful. Disgust shapes so much negative discourse and fallacious naturalistic reasoning about the LGBTQ community, and it even sparks intracommunity hate. I think one of the goals of living as an LGBTQ person is to keep learning to open yourself up to the new and strange and unexpected, to break boundaries, challenge dualities, and understand the difference between unfamiliar and harmful. I think horror is one of the ways we can do that, and practice doing that.
What’s next for you, creatively?
I'm always in the middle of a hundred projects at once, but I have some short stories in the pipeline, and I'm working on revisions of a queer, poly, eco-horror YA novel. Check out some of my other work HERE.
Any great horror recommendations?
If you haven't read my friend Erin Robert's Sour Milk Girls, go do it, it's a great read!