by E.D. Walker
I take things that I’m scared of . . . and then I write that into the book. If other people are scared of it too, then I’m not alone.
T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher is the pen name of Hugo Award-winning author Ursula Vernon. As T. Kingfisher, she’s known for fantasy novels with kind and practical protagonists. While her books usually contain some elements of horror, The Twisted Ones (Gallery/Saga Press, 2019) is her first horror novel.
Interstellar Flight Press: Your previous adult books have been fantasy novels (usually with some horror elements creeping in). Was writing a full-on horror novel like The Twisted Ones a different experience for you? Did you encounter any challenges writing The Twisted Ones that you didn’t have with your fantasy works?
T. KINGFISHER: I did! The problem with writing anything contemporary is . . . well . . . cell phones and the Internet. You have to find a reason that the heroine can’t just call 911 or look up the answer to her problems. Fortunately, there’s still a lot of spots in rural NC with very spotty cell coverage.
IFP: The Twisted Ones is loosely based on an old story by Arthur Machen that provides the inspiration in your novel for “The Green Book,” a notebook which kicks off part of the plot of The Twisted Ones. What made you want to build a story around Machen’s work? Did using his book as a jumping-off point cause you any problems?
TK: To a certain extent, the book was inspired by my long-standing problem with found manuscript stories. Machen’s “The White People” (1904) is probably the ur-Found Manuscript—it’s all this long, strange narrative that wanders between dreamlike and “Dear God, I want a copyeditor.” Some gorgeous turns of phrase, but a lot of . . . stuff. So the story [in The Twisted Ones] became partly about an editor reacting to this strange rambling manuscript that’s both creepy and just very strangely written. But the line about the twisted ones is one of the most beautiful and weird in the book, and I used it as a jumping-off point to get into the strange happenings in the woods.
Then I made faces like the faces on the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twisted ones, and I lay down flat on the ground like the dead ones, and I went up to one that was grinning, and put my arms round him and hugged him.
Arthur Machen, “The White People” (1904)
IFP: I believe I saw somewhere that you’ve mentioned writing a horror novel as being an ambition of yours for a long time. Do you have any horror authors who inspired you?
TK: Oh goodness! Lots, more than I could probably fit in one page, and probably which are familiar to nearly every other writer out there. But one of my great inspirations that doesn’t get mentioned a lot is the SCP website [hosted on a collaborative, community-based wiki], which is this wonderful sprawling shared universe, where a government agency is trying to contain all these horrible paranormal things. Some of the most creepy, effective writing I’ve ever read has been from there.
IFP: Are you planning to continue writing adult horror for the foreseeable future?
TK: I definitely think I’ll be writing more horror—well, I mean, I already sold another novel, so that’s a good sign!—but I’d definitely like to write more after that. I get told that my fantasy has a lot of horror elements, so I suspect I don’t have much choice.
IFP: I wanted to mention Bongo, the heroine’s dog in the book. He was one of my favorite parts and often provided heart and humor during some of the darkest moments of The Twisted Ones. Was he always a character in the book? Or did you add him later? Is he based on one of your own dogs?
TK: He was always a character, right from the beginning. I didn’t quite know what I was going to do with him, but a friendly animal companion is a recurring theme in my books. I do own a pair of coonhounds, and he’s pretty solidly based on one of them. They are lovely dogs, good-natured, not particularly bright, and absolutely single-minded once they get on a scent.
IFP: I have to tell you, The Twisted Ones scared the hell out of me.
TK: Oh man, I never know whether to gloat or apologize when people say that!
Thank you and I’m sorry?
IFP: How did you craft the horror elements when you were writing this? Did you manage to freak yourself out while writing the creepy stuff, or are you immune to your own scary writing by now?
TK: Ah . . . I’m not exactly immune, but writing it helps immunize me, if that makes any sense. I take things that I’m scared of—I have a longstanding nervousness of looking out windows in the dark, in case there’s something pressed against them, for example—and then I write that into the book. If other people are scared of it too, then I’m not alone!
Once I’ve written it, I am sometimes less frightened of it myself. Not in this one, so much . . . there’s too many potential things outside the window . . . but I once did a comic about a monster under the bed, and afterwards, I wasn’t as frightened of things grabbing my ankles in the dark, because I had created a heroic dustbunny patrolling the underside of the bed, and I knew he was on the case.
Generally, though, I think horror authors are scared of a lot of things. We just know that misery loves company.
IFP: You just released a charming fantasy novella called Minor Mage (Red Wombat Studio, 2019) about a preteen magician trying to save his town from a drought. What’s up next for you after that? Do you have any more self-published works close to completion?
TK: I do! A longer book called Paladin’s Grace should be coming out for the holidays, assuming all the ducks line themselves into a row. And I’ve got three or four books in various stages of completion at two different publishers, so there’s a lot more to come!
T. Kingfisher is the vaguely absurd pen-name of Ursula Vernon. In another life, she writes children’s books and weird comics and has won the Hugo, Sequoyah, and Ursa Major awards, as well as a half-dozen Junior Library Guild selections. In addition to her writing, T. Kingfisher is an artist, a gardener, and the owner of a collection of cats, hound dogs, and incorrigible chickens. The Twisted Ones is available wherever books are sold.