Seanan
McGuire is one of the most prolific voices in dark and urban fantasy.
Her skills extend not just to her successful and popular October Daye
series (see review of book 2, A Local Habitation, out March 2, 2010)
but also to short stories (many available at her website,
www.seananmcguire.com) and her music—McGuire is known for her sultry
singing style and horror-tinged lyrics. Soon, she will take on the
horror genre with a series about zombies, written under the pen name
Mira Grant; the first book is due out [date]. McGuire is always happy
to talk about her writing and her thoughts on every subject from
influences to yoga. Enjoy the interview, then go out and buy her
books—you will not be disappointed.
Q & A with SeananMcGuire
By Penny Dreadful (Dawn Nikithser)
HorrorWeb: When did you first start writing? Can you remember the first thing you actually committed to paper?
SeananMcGuire: I started writing, like, crazy-early. †I can't say that most of what I was writing was very GOOD, but I was writing things down as early as five. The first thing I really remember writing was a fairly lengthy essay about why my mother needed to allow me to read Stephen King. †I was nine at the time.
HW: Where did Toby come from? Did she arrive fully-formed, like Athena from Zeus' skull, or was it more bits and pieces until you found her?
SM: Toby pulled an Athena. †I was visiting the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, and she just sort of introduced herself to me. †By the time I got home, I knew who she was and where she'd come from. †Everything else just fell into place from there.
HW: Your fae world is much more akin to the old myths than any children's story or Disney film. Can you tell me a bit about the darkness of that world and why you find it so easy to move in that darkness?
SM: My fae are very much drawn from the older myths and folk tales, the ones where you didn't decorate the nursery in happy pixies, because those same happy pixies would take that as an invitation to steal the baby. †Faerie is a real place, with real consequences, and it follows rules that are sometimes very alien to the human way of looking at things.
I find the specific darkness of my Faerie to be easy to work with largely because it's so dependible. †Kelpies will always kill you if you get on their backs near water. †Daoine Sidhe will always hold you to your word. I just learn the rules of every shadow, and then they're just as clear as day.
HW: Urban fantasy has a lot of horror elements. What are some of your favorites to work with, in your own series? What other horror elements do you like to write or read?
SM: I love horror! †My favorite aspects to work with in Toby are pretty classic monster movie stuff: the creature in the darkness, the strange noise in the yard, the question of whether or not that's Johnny. †(Hint: It's never Johnny.) †I actually write horror, under the name Mira Grant, and there I get to have my happy zombie party, complete with mad science, lots of explosions, and general carnage.
I think my favorite thing about horror is the unknown. †What is it? †What does it want? †Can we survive? †Playing with those building blocks makes everything more fun.
HW: Can we talk a bit about your influences? Seems appropriate, since today is Poe's 201st birthday. You wanted to read King when you were nine -- what did you think when you finally did read him?
SM: I thought he was wonderful. †I found some of his books a little dry, but again, I was nine. †When I went back and re-read those same books as an adult, they were amazing. †I think I just needed to get the context to fully appreciate them. †I really adore his work in every possible way.
HW: For your money, who is writing the best horror out there? Most underrated/overrated?
SM: Oh, wow. †The best? †Oh, wow. †I'm going to cheat a little: I think Garth Ennis, who works mostly in comic books, is doing some of the best, most horrific stuff out there today. †Ditto Warren Ellis. †In the realm of actual print, I'm clearly a King girl, but I also adore Joe Hill, David Wellington, and Jonathan Maberry.
I really passionately love the stuff that's been coming out from Permuted Press. †They've had incredible luck finding great horror from previously unknown authors, and now that they've got more mainstream distribution, I'm expecting some pretty awesome things from them.
HW: Let's talk A Local Habitation a little more. Toby's darkness has a lot of forms, both external and internal. Will you offer some clues to what awaits her - and the readers -- in the darkness?
SM: Well, in the first book, we had a lot of "shock to the system" issues to deal with -- back to Faerie, back to work, back to the real world. †In A Local Habitation, it's a lot more closed rooms, dark hallways, and things not being what they appear to be. †It's about knowing who to trust. †I think the darkness is a lot scarier this time, because it's so much less familiar.
HW: Speaking of darkness, what bumps in the night scare you and what ones will send you racing forward, looking to investigate?
SM: I don't like strange noises inside the house when I'm alone. †I will, however, walk blithely toward the sound of a chainsaw, because my survival instincts are very, very broken. †Just about anything involving a cornfield is like my catnip. †I plunge into cornfields without a moment's sane hesitation.
HW: Vampires vs zombies. Who wins and why?
SM: It depends entirely on the type of vampire and the type of zombie. †I'm sorry! †But like, the Deadites from The Evil Dead would just munch the Twilight kids, while the vampires from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer would treat the zombies in Night of the Living Dead like rotten meat whack-a-moles. †I'm primarily a zombie girl, but sometimes, the vampires win.
HW: Which classic monster do you think deserves the next comeback?
SM: The time has come for the return of the shapeless ooze! †The Blob will rise again!
HW: Has the time come for a horror reality TV show?
SM: We already had one – Scream Queens on VH1. †James Gunn was one of the judges, which made me very happy. †Now, Survivor: Haunted Corn Maze, there's a show whose time has come.
HW: Is the liquid mercury the strangest thing you've ever bought at a garage sale? How about a thrift store?
SM: Strangest, no, most toxic, almost. †The award for "strangest" AND "most toxic" goes to the box of black widow spiders. †Although technically, I didn't buy it, since I was paid to take it away. †At a thrift store, the strangest thing I've ever purchased was a human skull. †It was very yellow.
HW: Why is yoga better with Rob Zombie?
SM: I don't usually find rhythmic chanting and chimes very soothing, which is what my old yoga instructor always used to play. †Rob Zombie, on the other hand, is familiar and comfortable, and when I'm focusing on the beat, I can sink a lot deeper into stretches. †I think it's a personal comfort zone thing. †You can love yoga and be a horror girl without needing to compromise and listen to the "One, two, Freddy's coming for you" chant on endless repeat.
HW: Who is your dream duet partner? What will you sing with them or what song of yours would you want to hear them sing?
SM: If I could sing with anyone, through some crazy twist of who-knows-what, it would be Adam from the Counting Crows, and we'd sing a mash-up of "Rain King" and "My Story Is Not Done" (his and mine, respectively).
HW: Tell me how you think urban fantasy fits with horror.
SM: I think the divide between fantasy and horror is largely artificial. Something with monsters that isn't scary isn't horror. †Something with unicorns that kill you is. †A lot of urban fantasy fits just as well into the horror genre, it just isn't called that because it wouldn't appeal to parts of the target audience. †I think horror fans are more willing to risk "fantasy" than the other way around.
HW: Who else is writing good urban fantasy?
SM: Kelley Armstrong; Lilith Saintcrow; Tanya Huff; Margaret Ronald.
HW: Do you think there is a difference between urban fantasy and dark fantasy?
SM: I think that dark fantasy is more focused on the fantasy worlds, and less on the cities, whereas urban fantasy really needs that modern "real world" setting to be complete. †Some series may pass in and out of the two, while others will be firmly one or the other.
HW: All your recommended authors are women -- for a long time, there was an
attitude that women "couldn't" write horror. How -- and by whom -- do you
think the tradition got bucked?
SM: There are some amazing women who write or have written straight horror, rather than the urban fantasy hybrid genre, but I think they're definitely in the minority; look in the horror section of your local bookstore and the numbers will be very skewed toward the male. †That said, Kathe Koje did some amazing horror before she moved on to other projects, and there's been a rise in female-written horror movies lately. †Urban fantasy is a very female-dominated genre, possibly because of the romance/fantasy aspects that tend to creep in.
HW: Do you think those romance aspects tend to make horror fans take the genre less seriously? How do you suggest combatting that?
SM: I think that the romantic aspects may turn off some fans of "straight horror," but I don't know that it's something to be combatted; I think that good books will find their audience through word-of-mouth, if nothing else, and that as the urban fantasy and paranormal romance genres mature, they'll develop into whatever it is they're meant to be.
