Rebecca Gransden lives on an island. She is published at X-R-A-Y, Burning House Press, Expat Press, Bruiser, BULL, and Ligeia, among others. A new edition of the novella Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group is released May 2025 at Tangerine Press.
I grew up surrounded by woods, fields, an old mill, a Lutheran church, a cemetery just down the road, a local “party store” in the other direction, and farmland for miles and miles. It was glorious, really. And thank God for that party store.
Writers who seem to want to write a commercial screenplay in prose strike me as the least interesting sort. The same goes for all attempts at translating cinematic terminology to prose.
Have fun. Be yourself. All that live free Target store bullshit. But it’s true.
Growing up surrounded by people constantly quoting the latest gross-out comedy or something like Star Wars it makes me feel a little dirty whenever I say a line from a movie.
Remember, writing is about self-expression and emotional communication, so just focus on yourself and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.
If anyone can be considered a psychonaut of literature it is Kathe Koja, a writer who utilizes prose to explore every altered state the page has to offer. With her latest project, Dark Factory, Koja enters the club scene, a place where mind-bending as old as licking a frog meets speed freak technology, and pagan archetypes dance with virtual avatars. I spoke with Koja about the sweet delirium of the project. * What attracted you to club culture for the world of Dark Factory? Everything I write starts with a character, and for Dark Factory, it’s Ari Regon—smiling, hyper-alive, throwing…
My sister had taken a bunch of us kids to the drive-in to see a scary movie, and we started out shrieking and giggling; by the end, we were jammed together in the front seat, silent, or crying. But the feeling I remember most deeply wasn’t fear, it was outrage.
Horror is the genre I associate most immediately with transgression and secrecy, which is part of the reason I adore it so much.
Growing up I was taught that sacrificing oneself for another was the highest form of love. Who wouldn’t want to prove their love for the person they love most?
That’s the best thing about film, or novels, that soup of experience that swamps you, that isn’t your usual, or known experience, your lived experience.