Alright, y'all, we have another interview on our hands and this time with the inimitable Taylor Grothe! Taylor is a nonbinary author of both YA and adult horror, so I thought it would be great to chat with them about their upcoming release Lethal Kiss, which you should DEFINITELY BE READING when it releases October 20! Grab a Snickers and strap in!
Hahaha thank you so much! I am very partial to Marcella myself!
The seed ofĀ Lethal KissĀ came from my experience at university and in academia generally. I am who I am (i.e. a glutton for punishment and an overachiever) I decided to design my own major and focus on fairytales and folkloreāand ended up focusing on the intersection between Nordic saga tradition and continental Arthurian romance. I went to Duke University, a school with a very fine Medieval Renaissance department, and spent a lot of time in the Rare Book Room researching old texts and holding medieval manuscripts in my hands.Ā
And yet, even though I really loved the work I was doing, I often felt roundly dismissed by the white cis male academic establishment. There was a sense that what I was doing was āgirlyā or unserious in scope. I had a particularly bad experience with a professor who ended up as the MedRen department dean. So you could say that this book comes from both a place of passion in medieval studies as well as absolute spite. I wanted to critique academic culture through a queer, hyper-femme lens.
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Cassie from Hollow was working through her autism diagnosis and how to be a person with it. Lacie seems to have a far better management system as an assistant professor. I know you've mentioned your own ASD before. When it comes to writing your characters, how do you determine how much of yourself you want to share in them?
Itās so important to me to have my characters be neurodivergent in general and autistic in particular. I donāt know, really, if I could write my characters as neurotypical. But, to your question: characters often come to me fully realized, so itās not really a conscious choice. Their ASD is absolutely nonnegotiable in editsāall my editors are on notice from the outset! And while I like to think my characters all have parts of me in them, they really are just themselves. Weāre all in a Venn diagram with ASD at the center.
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Let me be so real with you: I was like, what is the hottest I can make a character and get away with it, without making her feel like a pastiche?Ā Lethal KissĀ is satirical and campy, but I wanted Marcella to feel like she was the strongest, most aggressive, zero bullshit character I couldāat least on the surface. I was really keeping my eye onĀ Jenniferās BodyĀ though; I love Megan Foxās unhinged portrayal of Jennifer.Ā
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So your official debut was Hollow, a YA horror novel featuring autistic rep as well as LGBTQIA+ rep!āØWhich did you actually write first, Lethal Kiss or Hollow? If Hollow came first, did you know you wanted to break into the adult genre with horror as well?
I wroteĀ HollowĀ first! But it had long been my goal to have a career both in YA and adult books, and the markets are very different, especially in horror.Ā
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An impossible question! I would sayĀ I Am Not a Woman, Iām a GodĀ by Halsey.
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ThereĀ areĀ but I can only hint at one: my next Nightfire book! Think a grief horror in a haunted house plus mushrooms. ItāsĀ alsoĀ a horror romance, but more literary.
LITERARY HAUNTED HOUSE HORROR PLUS MUSHROOMS???? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Anyway, I sincerely hope you'll pick up all of Taylor book's because they are all amazing. I devoured Hollow in one sitting! Plus the rep in their books is incredible, and ahem that scene in Lethal Kiss...so good! I'm reading their next book Monstrous Beautiful Things on my Kindle now and y'all aren't ready!
Till next time!
Ryn
