The Nightmare Box & Other Stories with Cynthia Gomez

In this episode, Alan talks to writer Cynthia Gomez about La Llarona, Poltergeist. The Shining, horror and social justice, story inspiration, racism, working in education, covid and cons, unions, and much more.

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:01):
If this goes on, don't panic, bringing hope to The
world through speculativefiction.

Alan Bailey (00:22):
You Hello and welcome to If this goes on,

(00:43):
don't panic. Today, we haveauthor Cynthia Gomez with us. As
of right now, Diane has not beenable to make the podcast,
hopefully she will be making itin a little while. So I am going
to skip ahead to a fewannouncements, and then we're
going to bring our guests on. Weare continuing to work on the
website. Hopefully by the newyear, we'll have a website

(01:06):
together for you all, includinga new logo. So we're pretty
excited about that, and a goodplace for our transcripts,
because right now, we're reallystruggling to get our
transcripts in an obvious placeon our site. Kind of a long
story, but transcriptions arebeing edited as we speak. So
that continues to move forward,and we do have some ideas for

(01:28):
some new Patreon stuff. Soexpect some new Patreon stuff to
be going up. I don't want to gettoo specific about that quite
yet. When we start gettinggetting some material together,
then I'll be a little morespecific about that, but, uh, I
guess that's it for right now.When we come back, we are going

(01:50):
to have Cynthia Gomez with us,and we are back. Cynthia Gomez
writes horror and other types ofspeculative fiction set
primarily in Oakland, where shemakes her home. She has a
particular love for themes ofrevenge, retribution and
resistance to oppression, andshe loves to write dark and
frightening things whilecuddling with her shadow, aka

(02:13):
her adorable little dog. Herwork has appeared, slash will
appear. And fantasy magazine,strange horizons, Luna station,
quarterly nightmare magazine andnumerous anthologies. Nightmare
box in other stories. Her firstcollection was released from
cursed morsels press in july2024 you can find more of her
work at Cynthia Saysboo.wordpress.com and we will

(02:37):
definitely be talking aboutnightmare box a little bit
today. Welcome Cynthia,

Unknown (02:43):
hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking
forward to this absolutely,absolutely.

Alan Bailey (02:47):
We are very excited to have you on you have written
some very interesting things. Ican't wait to dive in and talk
about all of them. I want totalk about your contribution to
split scream as well. So. Butbefore we get to that, I want to
hear your origin story. Tell usabout how you got into writing,

(03:10):
why you're interested inwriting, you know, all of that
sort of thing.

Unknown (03:14):
So I sometimes say that my my loves in order, I think
were reading writing andhistory, and you know, then you
had music in there somewhere,and horror, I think, came on
right around the time ofhistory, or a little later. So

(03:34):
by the time I was 10, I knew allthe things that I loved. And
like a lot of people who appear,not just on your pod, but just
the horror podcasts, guests ingeneral, will say how we'll
always talk about the movie thatwe watched way too young. And in
my case, that was the shining Ilove that movie. It's a it's a

(03:56):
great movie, but a terribleadaptation, is how I would
describe it. And there's a wholeother conversation to be had
about the problems with StephenKing and the problems with
Stanley Kubrick, etc, but it wasa game changer for me, because I
discovered that it was reallyfun to be scared, and so that I
kept going, I went into RoaldDahl when I was younger, and

(04:16):
Roald Dahl was pretty, prettywild when you start to get into
some of his stuff, yeah, andjust a lot of them add into fun.
Were you also a raw adult kid?Um,

Alan Bailey (04:27):
I read a few of his things when I was a kid, but
more recently, I have read someof his work to my my children,
so I have a little bit of afresher approach on some of that
stuff. You know? Yeah, he reallygets pretty wild. Sometimes I
didn't remember, or maybe Iwasn't aware of some of it,
like, what was the one about thethree witches, or something like

(04:50):
that? Um, there's, well, there's

Unknown (04:53):
the his book, The witches, which some problematic
anti semitic tropes, you mightsay. And you know that, look,
there's plenty of stuff there.We're all doll is problematic.
And I taught his books when Itaught fourth grade, I wouldn't
do that now, I would findsomething else. But, you know,
welcome to both being aconscious person and also,

(05:15):
especially, you know, people ofcolor, people of marginalized
groups. We have to do this allthe time. Yeah, we love books,
and sometimes they don't love usback. So yeah, that was
definitely my, my own, my ownorigin. But yeah, I've always
loved starry and spooky stuff. Iwatched way too many horror
movies when I was I think, like10 and 11. I actually made a

(05:35):
list a couple years ago in everyhorror movie I've ever watched,
and I stopped counting at 200Wow. So you get the idea, yeah,
yeah, yeah,

Alan Bailey (05:43):
that's awesome. The movie that I watched way too
early was poltergeist. Oh, myGod,

Unknown (05:49):
I know, right. Well, so I watched, I think all three of
them kind of around the sametime, and they blur into each
other. But so I don't know ifthe first one, the one that
you're talking about, is the onewhere the kid has braces. Think

Alan Bailey (06:01):
so. It's the one with the pool. She falls into
the pool of skeletons and stuff,yeah, and the tea, she goes into
TV, I think, yeah, pool is whatscarred into my mind for all of
eternity. It's pretty scarring,

Unknown (06:13):
right? That just the idea and, you know, and then,
and that's the thing is, it's,you know, some of us are going
to watch that, and very rightlyfeel very differently about
pools. Some of us are gonna goback whatever, but we just, you
know, it, we can separate it,and some of us can't, and some
of us can, don't want to, youknow, although the human brain
is fascinating in that way,yeah. And for me, what I

(06:35):
remember about Poltergeist, andagain, it might have been
poltergeist too, but there'sthis one sequence, slash scene,
where the boy has bracing, andthe metal of his braces starts
growing and growing out of hismouth and starts like looping

(06:56):
together and is Coming out ofthe walls. It is absolutely
terrifying.

Alan Bailey (07:03):
The idea, oh, because this is something that's
in his body and it's and it'sbeing pulled out of it's just,
yeah, like, I get goosebumpseven now just thinking about it.
And I remember watching it whenthe head breaks, so you can
imagine just the visceralterror. And yet, you know, now
it's, it's fun to recall. Sothere we are with how we
discovered we don't work. Yeah,that's so funny. I probably

(07:26):
watched poltergeist when I was,like, six or something, like,
incredibly, way too young. I hada question, are you? Are you
Generation X, by any chance?Yes, yes. Okay, I'm like, I'm on
that zennial edge right there.And I swear everybody that's
Generation X has this exactstory with a different movie. It
is so funny. Yeah. I mean, Ithink you could walk up to any

(07:47):
Zen you'll be like, which, whichhorror movie did you watch when
you were like, between the agesof six and 10 that you should
not have watched?

Unknown (07:53):
And they'll have a different answer. And mine was
the shining and then I'm surethere's other shit that I
watched Bay to you too. There'sanother that my sister could
tell you all about that whosename escapes me, but there's
this one sequence where it's afamily moves into a house with a
ghost in it, the ghost of a girlwho died there, I think, or
lived there and then died. Buteither way, and the ghost is, of

(08:14):
course, haunting the house. Andone, one time, the kid puts her
feet over the edge of the bed,the way you do every morning
when you get out of the goddamnbed and the ghost underneath
reaches out and grabs her ankle.I'm not even going to tell you
how many years it took beforeeither my sister or I would put
our feet on the floor withoutfirst leaning over and checking

(08:36):
under the bed.

Alan Bailey (08:37):
Oh, I believe it. I believe it. The problem with me
is my imagination is just sooverwhelming sometimes that if I
watched one scary movie when Iwas a kid, it would take me
months and months to get overit, you know, like, so after,
after, like, poltergeist. Myparents were like, Okay, nope,

(08:58):
nope. We're done with you inscary movies. Never again,
because I would wake upscreaming for like weeks, and it
was just, it was it was bad.Yeah, yeah. I'm curious. Going
to the shining. Now, I havenever read the shining, believe
it or not, it's actually on myTBR, but I have watched the
movie, and I really enjoyed themovie. What is it about the

(09:19):
movie that makes you think it'sa bad adaptation. That's the
word I'm looking for.

Unknown (09:24):
So the book is pretty enjoyable, and it is genuinely
scary, even for me, who had seenthe movie, and a lot of the plot
is different. But I think themain reasons why it's not a good
adaptation and why I really wishsomebody would make an
adaptation, is that thecharacter of Jack Torrance, the

(09:47):
main character, is strugglingwith notions of contemporary,
post war American masculinity,and I'm not being pretentious
when I say that like that'sexactly what said in the. Would
say. And he has this idea thathe was supposed to be his
provider, and he is analcoholic, and she's struggling

(10:09):
in other ways too, and so hecan't provide. And when he moves
into this hotel, the hoteloffers it seeks out the
weaknesses in his own soul andoffers him up this Devil's
bargain. And those themes oftoxic masculinity, the way in
which Jack both thinks he'srejecting it and then kind of is

(10:31):
not all. The movie barely getsinto those. And also the books,
Jack really does see himself asa loving father, and in many
ways he is, in other ways, he'sstill a piece of shit, but he
really does come from a wish tolove his child. And so the arc
is terrifying, because he startsout as a guy who is kind of an

(10:55):
ass and has some seriousproblems, but would never hurt
his family, and he goes to beingthis absolutely terrifying
force. And again, the moviebarely gives you any sense of
that arc. He doesn't have muchof an arc. He starts out as, you
know, creepy Jack Nicholson, andhe finishes as creepy Jack
Nicholson with an ax. So yeah,you lose that. And then the

(11:18):
other thing too is that thecharacter of Jack is going
through the history of thehotel, and he really talks about
the hotel as kind of emblematicof the whole post World War Two
American character. And there'sall this sense of US imperialism
on the rise. The movie does giveyou these but like, a lot of

(11:41):
that is lost, and so a lot, alot of the stakes are just
lowered. And also, you know,Stanley Kubrick is he makes
visually beautiful films, but Idon't think he actually
understands human beings, and itshows in his

Alan Bailey (11:54):
poems. Yeah, your description reminds me a lot of
your story, red brick, so forthe audience in this story, we
have a guy who's on borderpatrol. And I don't think you
ever actually explicitly sayhe's on border patrol, but it's
pretty clear, and he startsimagining that he sees this

(12:16):
Latino guy like aggressivelywalking towards his family and
on all these weird situations,and he kind of just like, starts
losing it, right? And startsseeing this guy around
everywhere until, until hestarts freaking out and doing
wildly inappropriate things,right? I mean, I mean that story
really, there's a couple of yourstories, including this one that

(12:37):
really hit the target. For me, Ifeel like, as a white guy, you
know, you're really hitting thetarget on on some toxic
masculinity stuff that's goingon, not to mention the whole
racism and at the border and allof this added on top of this,
what inspired you to to to writethis story and like, where do

(12:59):
you think this is all comingfrom culturally, or is it
there's always been hereculturally? I think you partly
answered that question to somedegree briefly, but let's tie it
together. Yeah, it's,

Unknown (13:10):
it's a really good question. And it's, I mean,
those of us who are writers, weknow like we're never gonna get
tired of when someone holds up amirror to our story, because
it's a different mirror. It'snot our own. So whatever you
know, it's always going to bedifferent, whatever someone else
picks up on and and notices andwhat meaning someone makes. So I

(13:33):
will never, ever get tired ofhearing someone say, Well, when
I read your story, I thought ofthis, thank you, and I to answer
some of your questions, not in awhole lot of border when I first
started writing that story,let's see, was it sometime in
2020 maybe early 2021, and itwas when I was starting to get

(13:55):
really furious at Trump'srounding up of and separating of
families at the border. And Iwas thinking about Kirsten
Nielsen, who was at that time, Ithink she was Director of
Homeland Security, and I wantedto imagine that she was going to
be haunted wherever she went bythe spirits of the children

(14:19):
whose lives she grew throughactual ending of their lives, or
just the trauma of separatingthem from their parents, and
that quickly got lessinteresting than a different
question, which is not someonelike her who's the leader in the
public face, but what about justpeople who are a More quote,

(14:40):
unquote, ordinary people and Bwho actually think of themselves
as good people. That isfascinating to me is how all the
different ways in which peoplewho think of themselves as good
people, how they justify doingterrible things and so that made
me want to write inside thehead. Of someone who is just,

(15:02):
you know, a cog in a machine. Heis an ice age, as you picked up
on I never hopefully say that,but he is, and he he thinks of
himself as a loving family man,a good provider. He thinks that
there is a very natural order,and that it's natural that he's
going to be on top and his wifeis going to be subservient to

(15:23):
him, and so he doesn't evennotice things like how, Oh,
she's just doing everything shetries to do too much. She's
trying to take out the trash andcall my kids school and check
the weeds in the garden all onthe phone at the same time. And
it doesn't ever occur to him tothink that the reason why she's
doing all that is because he'snot and so it was, it was a fun

(15:49):
challenge to try to. I describedit as kind of like I was
reaching around the character asthe writer, directly to the
reader, and having a characterthink things that we the reader
are going to make sense of, andthat our narrator is too
clueless to understand, like thedetails about what the wife is

(16:10):
doing. And, you know, like hedoesn't, he never figures out
that it's because he's left allthis shit for her to do. Yeah,

Alan Bailey (16:17):
I thought that was a very powerful story. I have a
friend who went to BorderPatrol. I don't talk to him
anymore because he went rightwing. He didn't used to be, oh
yeah, yeah, yeah. He joinedBorder Patrol and went hard,
hard right as soon as he joined.And I'm sorry, yeah, it's a
really weird thing, like, in alot of ways, he's one of the

(16:39):
people who taught me to be alefty and to think in radical
ways, which so it was verystrange to see this happen, but,
uh, but it did.

Unknown (16:52):
Weirdly enough, it did. And I think you know, when you
were talking what I was thinkingof is a thought that I carry
around a lot, which is, I'm sureyou've heard of this notion of
playing the race card, right?And it emerged from the idea
that it's, it's people of colorwho play the race card. But the
truth is, is that white men aregiven this race card from the

(17:13):
time they're born, and theycan't lose it. They can lose
some of it, five or two of,being disabled or having a
different sexuality or adifferent gender identity, or
any of those things that doesn'tcancel out being queer, for
example, but it's a card thatany white man knows he can just

(17:36):
play whatever he needs to. Andthe problem is it's a devil's
card, and to play it is to makea bargain with the devil,
because it's to claim this placein this order that doesn't exist
without oppression. And soyou're a friend, you know, and I
have family members who arecops. I have a distant cousin
who, I guess he's a cousin in mymarriage, who's a Trump
supporter, and He is a lovingfamily with three children. And

(18:01):
you know, we've spentChristmases together before he
went Trump's supporter, and heplayed that card because Trump
waved it in front of them andsaid, there, there's an order,
and there's a place that you getto claim, and it has been
denied, and I'm going to give itback to you, God damn it. And
you know, it, it resonates witha lot of people. And, yeah, you
know, some people, we may beable to pull back from that

(18:22):
brink, but a lot of them, wewon't. But the race card is
something that that white menget to play, and they're playing
it, yeah,

Alan Bailey (18:30):
yeah, it's, it's been very this whole last, I
don't know, gosh, I guess wehave to say, almost 10 years.
What? Eight years have been veryinteresting and enlightening.
And it's, there's, there'speople who I saw and expected to
play the card that did, you knowwhat I mean? And then, of

(18:52):
course, there's the surprisingones who you're like, Oh, I
really thought that personwasn't like that. And they are.
It's kind of, it can be veryastonishing, you know, yeah,
yeah. And I've even seen, I evenhave some friends, um, had a,
have a black friend who wentright wing, which was pretty
shocking, too, you know, like,Huh? I just feel like, and he's

(19:16):
a smart guy, you know what? Imean, it's,

Unknown (19:18):
it's just who, it's just, and he played the male
card, yes, yes. And for forpeople who are in a position of
having, like, one marginalizedidentity and then a bunch of
others that aren't, I always, Ifind that fascinating, because
it's, it's a it's a reallytwisted position to occupy it,

(19:39):
because it requires beingcompletely okay with the fact
that there is this hierarchy, aslong as you're not in the
bottom. And I wrote a whateverwe're going to call it, a long
development or short novel, isto be determined, because I I
sold this story and got toannounce the deal with. Couple

(20:00):
weeks ago, but it's set in 68and it's called munica, and it's
about a bunch of things, butamong among them is it's this
family who has their wealth andsome of their land, descended
from Spanish colonial times.They were white Spaniards. They
came here. They were given landby the Spanish colonial

(20:21):
governor, and they held on tothat land until all of a sudden,
the land changed under theirfeet. And all of a sudden they
were not citizens of Spainanymore, and they were not
citizens of New Spain either.All of a sudden, they were they
were Californias, they wereMexicans, and they started to
lose that land that they hadonly been given because they

(20:43):
were white, because it wasstolen from the Native Americans
and put into their domain. Andso these, you know, colonial,
former colonial Spanish colonialfolks were perfectly okay with
the existence of a racialhierarchy, as long as they were
on top of it, and you know,Native Americans were below
them, and then all of a sudden,that hierarchy got shuffled, and

(21:04):
they found themselves a coupleof rows down, and the iron
seemed to be lost on some ofthem. And so that shit is just
fascinating to me. Yeah,

Alan Bailey (21:13):
it absolutely is. It absolutely is. This is so
funny. I recorded anotherpodcast earlier today, it was a
shorter one, and I was talkingto the person who's African. We
were discussing how Americanprivilege works, and how, even

(21:34):
from his perspective, AfricanAmerican people were more
privileged than people fromAfrica. You know what I mean,
and those different ways, whichis a nuance that I'm not used to
hearing much, you know, notknowing very many people from
Africa, you know what I mean. Soit was, it was very interesting,
and it's interesting to see allthese levels of privilege, kind

(21:58):
of, it's almost like, it'salmost like, when you look at
the side of a hill, you know, inthe outside of it's been kind of
scraped away for whateverreason. You can just see the
different layers of sediment,right? It used to be a lot less
obvious, at least to me, but nowI feel like it's just so
obvious. You can look down thestreet, and I could point at

(22:18):
every house on my street andtell you, you know what I mean,
this person votes for thisperson because of this reason.
You know what I mean, just fromknowing a little bit about them,

Unknown (22:28):
yeah, and that's Yeah, and that kind of divisions have
got to be like, really, to saythey're cumbersome is probably
understating the point,especially when your kids might
play with their kids, etc, but,you know, that's your metaphor
of, like, sort of, if we couldpull back a curtain and see the
layers of the L and thestratification. It's a really,

(22:50):
it's a great one. And I thinkthere's a lot to be to play with
there in in writing, because,you know, this, this has always
been a white supremacistcountry, and it's just becoming
a little bit more and a lot moreby the day, open and howling and
vicious. But it's always, it'salways been there, and you know,

(23:13):
now we're seeing kind of the theugliness of it. And it's really
it's a challenge even for horrorwriters who play with the ugly
and the terrible all day long.How do you capture an ugliness
that is this vicious and thishungry and yet at the same time

(23:34):
that wears a normal face? Yeah,I feel like I'm talking about
the movie they live, which is afantastic fucking movie. And I
encourage everyone to go watchthey live, if you haven't
already. And I feel like hetapped into something that
clearly it still resonates,because people are still
watching that

Alan Bailey (23:49):
movie. Yeah, yeah. So that ties perfectly with a
question I have for you, andthat is, why? Why does horror
lend itself to discussingsocietal issues or social
justice issues? So

Unknown (24:00):
what's funny is, you mentioned the recording of
podcast. I also was a guest on apodcast just this morning, too,
because I had to rearrange mylife, like I rescheduled this
one with you, for example, fromwhatever day we had it, because
my work schedule has changed.And the reason my work schedule
has changed is because I workfor a labor union, and we are on

(24:20):
strike. And so my normal job,which involves sitting at a desk
doing research, is now working astrike supply headquarters. And
so I'm getting up every morningat 4am to deliver people their
coffee and their their, youknow, rain ponchos, if it gets
rainy, and their bullhornbatteries and all the things
that people need to be on thepicket line. And so I mentioned

(24:44):
partly, just to give you alittle window into me, but also
talking about politics, right?That's what we're doing, is
we're engaging in politics bywithholding our labor, or our
members are absolutely and sothe the question that we talked
about a little bit this morning.In the other podcast interview
was exactly this one, why horrorand politic? I think that part

(25:06):
of it is that horror is aboutfear. It's about lots of other
things, but it's about fear. Andso the next question that gets
posed is, okay, whose fear andtheir fear of what? And so those
of us who are used to seeingkind of the to keep up with your
metaphor of the hill, those ofus who are used to kind of

(25:26):
peeling that layer back on thathill, which would be that would,
that would, that would be ahorrific thing if someone could
do that, peel back the layer ofthe hill without disturbing it.
But you know, we are used toseeing the things that even the
makers of the horror movie don'tknow are there. So for example,

(25:46):
Poltergeist, right? Poltergeistis a wonderful example of how
there's all this politics inthere that I don't even think
all the filmmakers knew theywere putting in there. So I'll
explain the premise ofpoltergeist is it's this white,
middle class family and theirheterosexual family, and again,

(26:08):
in 82 that was the only kind offamily that ever got depicted
anywhere was a heterosexualfamily. So they're a white
middle class heterosexualfamily, and they are trying to
claim their right as that familyand as an American version of
that family by moving into thesuburbs, and that's their right,
and they are innocent. And sothis horror film does what a lot

(26:33):
of horror films still do, anddefinitely in the 80s did, which
is they can't work without thepresumption of white innocence.
This family didn't do anything.They don't have any connection
to anything. They're not thethey're they are not the
beneficiaries of any unearnedadvantages, oh no, like they are
just trying to live their livesand rave their children put
braces on their kids feet. Andso we, those of us who either

(26:57):
are used to analyzing thesethings, or those of us who are
not in the group that I justnamed, we have to get good at
seeing all those hiddenpresumptions and so, you know,
not only does the movie not workif the Freeling family isn't
innocent, but it requires you toto not ask questions such as,

(27:19):
where Did that land come fromwho was living on it, and Never
mind who built the house andwhat kind of horrors were
endured by the people who builtthat house, and what kind of
horrors were endured by thepeople who build the cars that
took them to the house and whobuilt the material that went
into the roads. So part of thereason why I think horror is so

(27:41):
great for politics is becausethose are all stories that I
just said, right. What didhappen to the people who built
the railroads that builtCalifornia? What did happen to
that land? Who was there first?Who was there next? How did they
get pushed down, and what kindof horrible violence was
enacted? And when you thinkabout it, what kind of horrible
violence was enacted to createwhite suburbia so we could hear

(28:04):
all those stories if we listenedto them. And that, I think, is
why horror is particularly rich,because it's such a metaphorical
genre, and it's a genre thatreally lends itself to hearing
what these ghosts are trying tosay, and to kind of taking the
the logical conclusion of thelogic and teasing out that

(28:26):
metaphor, like, what wouldhappen if we really did hear all
those stories of all the peoplewho I just talked about, and if
those stories haunted us andwouldn't let us alone? Well,
that would make a fascinatinghorror story, for example. And
then there you are, and thenyou're off to the races and
you're running, and that's Ifind it tremendously fun. And,

(28:48):
you know, doesn't always makefor an actual fun movie if
you're making it or fun story,sometimes it's dark and
terrifying, but still, it's funto be scared.

Alan Bailey (28:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dark and terrifying can be fun
too, right, for sure.

Unknown (28:59):
And I mean, it can be fun, you know, I don't know
about you, but I love rollercoasters and amusement parks and
haunted houses, and it's becauseit is a it's the illusion of
danger. And I'm quoting a JohnTaylor movie called limbo. You
know, what do we get when we geta roller coaster? We get the
illusion of danger. We get takento the precipice knowing that

(29:22):
we're never going to cross it.And so I think it's similar. I
think there's a reason why wetell scary stories around the
fireplace. All humans do. Allhumans, I think, have scary
stories. All humans have storieswith monsters in them, and
boogeymen and bad guys. And Ican't think of a culture that
doesn't have a boogeyman,although I'm happy to be

(29:42):
corrected if there are peoplewho actually know what they're
talking about. But I've neverknown, I should say it that way.
I have never known of a culturethat didn't have boogie man. And
I think that part is universal.It's universally human. I think
the part that is fascinatingthat's not universal. Going back
to the question of like, whosefear and of what is when, when

(30:05):
you get past the everybodytelling their stories, and you
get into whose stories get givenmoney to get told, especially
movie money, which is, you know,movies are a very expensive
medium. So you know, when youhave movie money, whose stories
get movie money and moviedistribution, and who gets the
power of having their storiestold on the screen, and who gets

(30:29):
to see their own veryparticular, specific situational
fears and biases, like a whitefamily's suburban fear of the
dark skinned other? Who is itthat gets that specific fear?
Who gets to get that fear castinto something that's universal,
like we're actually not allafraid of the same thing, in

(30:50):
some cases, in some ways we are.But you know, we do not all have
the white, suburban, middleclass family fear of the dark
other. And yet, if you watched abunch of movies in the 80s, you
would think that that waseveryone's fear, or at least you
would know perfectly well thatit wasn't, but you would
constantly be having to put thatasterisk on there, and where I

(31:14):
write and where a lot of peopleare writing these days, and it's
wonderful we are that asterisk.

Alan Bailey (31:18):
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. You
mentioned boogeymen in everysingle culture, and it's making
me think of your story. Andplease forgive me if I
mispronounce this and correctme. It's the one about la corona
I forgot to write down the

Unknown (31:34):
title of it. The story is the Shivering world. And yes,
you have la eurona basicallycorrect the

Alan Bailey (31:38):
Shivering world, yes, and that's in Split Screen
volume two. Lagorona. So afterreading that, I'm just I was
flipping around on the TV, and Isaw, I saw an actual movie
called La irona. I mean, it wasokay. It was not mind blowing by
any means whatsoever. But I'mreally curious about this, this

(32:03):
creature or character. Can youtell me about it? Like, where
does it come from? And, youknow, what is your interest in
this creature? So first,

Unknown (32:13):
a couple things. First, thank you for giving me a chance
to talk about the Shiveringworld, because it was out almost
two years ago now. And so, youknow, there's a natural
progression to stories, and it'sless common to be asked about
the older ones. So thank you.Yeah. And the other is, I'm
curious, did you watch theAmerican movie called The Curse
of La Llorona, or did you watchthe Guatemalan movie called La

(32:34):
Llorona? Hmm, I don't know. Wasit in English or in Spanish? It
was mostly in English, but therewere parts in Spanish. Okay,
then you watch the curse of Laeurona, about which I will say
no more, except that we did notspeak of that movie,

Alan Bailey (32:50):
and there was less than great.

Unknown (32:52):
Yeah, that's that, yeah, we don't say anything
about that. There is a moviefrom 2019 it might have been
released in the US a year or twooff from that in Spanish. It's
set in Guatemala, called simplyLa Llorona, and it's by
Guatemala Guatemalan filmmakernamed Haider Bustamante. And I

(33:14):
cannot say enough wonderfulthings about that movie. It's
about guilt and atrocity and theinteresting chickens coming home
to roost is to flip intometaphor for what's actually
happening. But it really isabout the very long, long shadow
that someone's misdeeds cast.And I think if you dug, for
example, red brick, you wouldvery much dig La Llorona. And I

(33:37):
will say very little about theplot, because it's it's fun to
just kind of go into it open,but it's a brilliant, brilliant
movie, and it will hopefullywash out the the taste in the
other movie out of your brain,so to speak. But in terms of
your question about why laeuronas? So I grew up I'm mixed
race, right? My My mother'sfamily is white. My father's

(33:57):
family, his parents came fromMexico, and they were very
young, so they're basicallyAmericanized. And then he was
and I am, and so that's a veryparticular angle on Latina
culture and Mexican Americanculture. And so I, for example,
was not, I didn't grow up withmy parents telling me stories
of, don't, don't stray too far,or La Llorona is going to come

(34:17):
get you the way other kids did.But I did grow up hearing about
it more as like ananthropological as an
interesting anthropologicalmoment, that there was La
Llorona, the origin that Iheard, which is gonna vary,
right? But what I heard was thatLa Llorona came from Spanish
colonial times, and that she waseither a mixed race woman or an

(34:41):
Indian woman, depending on whosebirthing you're hearing. And she
fell in love with a lighterskinned man, but she already had
two children, and they were darkchildren because she herself was
darker than he was, and shekilled her children in order to
be with him. And then, ofcourse, he was horrified. And.
Have nothing to do with her, andshe was cursed to wander day and

(35:05):
night for the rest of herexistence crying out me see
who's busy, who's and you know,she's, she's the boogeyman or
woman that appears in lots andlots of different cultures. But
what's interesting is how, atleast in the version that I just
talked about how racism andcolorism and misogyny and all
kind of sprinkled through there,right? And, you know, there's,

(35:31):
there's the idea that it istruly monstrous for a woman to
kill her children in a way thatdoesn't get talked about in the
same way. If it's a dude killingits children, yeah, even though
I'm pretty sure that familyAnnihilation is way more often

(35:53):
practiced by dudes, the abuserwho does the you know, if I
can't have you, no one can. Andpart of the reason why I say
that is because I could close myeyes and think of at least five
different examples that I'veheard of in the news over the
past, you know, few years,right? Two or three years of
exactly that pattern of a dudewho is an abuser, whose wife is

(36:16):
leaving him, or his partner isleaving him, and he kills her
and the children. And I cannotthink of any where the
perpetrator is a woman.

Alan Bailey (36:27):
You remember the spear gun guy? No, who's the
spear gun guy? Oh, man, I'mpretty sure this camp, this
happened out in California, andmaybe, and I'm pretty sure it
was out west. I don't know therewas this guy. He was like a
surfing teacher, and he got intosome kind of cult or something,
and he thought his kids and hiswife were like possessed, so he

(36:48):
had a spear gun, and he shotthem all with a spear gun, like,
this is real life. This is notlike a horror story, yeah, but
yeah, exactly Jesus Christanyway. I mean, that's the one
that just popped right into mymind when you were into my mind
when you were talking about it.I didn't mean to

Unknown (37:06):
derail you. Go ahead. Well, no, no. Well, I mean, I'll
look them up later, but exactlylike we don't have, and yet we
have, in our culture, theconcept of the monstrous
feminine. We have Medea, we haveLa Llorona, we have other
versions of it. And so that waswhy I thought it was
interesting. But really, evenbefore I decided that La Llorona
was going to figure into thestory, what I wanted was a story

(37:31):
of a person who doesn't have alot of power, getting an
opportunity, kind of a Fauci anopportunity to get access to
that power, and then having tomake all kinds of to say ethical
compromises, would beunderplaying it a little bit.
But definitely has has somemajor Crossroads to navigate in

(37:53):
terms of what to do with thatpower and who to use it against
or not. And also, what does itdo to us if we ordinary people,
all of a sudden get access toextraordinary power. And so I
knew that I wanted that that asa premise. And so then the first
question became, all right,well, who gets access to this
power? And I decided it wasgoing to be someone who was

(38:13):
young, because they still have alot of plasticity of character,
someone who was brown skinned,someone who was poor, someone
who didn't come from a lot ofeducation. And then I had to
decide, what does she want?Well, she wants. She doesn't
just want to not be poor, butshe also wants to be an
intellectual and to be takenseriously as an intellectual,

(38:35):
because she is, because she'sbrilliant, and she wants to
occupy that role which manypeople who are more powerful
than she, lens doesn't see whenthey see her, they see young
brown skin woman, and that's it,and they don't see an
intellectual and so she wantsthose things, and she encounters
all your honor, and she's kindof dangled an opportunity to get
those things, but then at whatcost? And so that was really, it

(39:02):
was very fun and satisfying towrite. It was also and learning
a little bit every year as Iwrite. But I'm not even going to
tell you, it's new revisionsthat story went through before I
finally saw the light of day. Istopped counting at like,

Alan Bailey (39:13):
15. Oh, wow, oh, wow. I love that story. It's one
of my favorite things thatyou've written, that I read and
thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.You're welcome. I gotta say, I
came away from that story beinglike, I don't blame her for
killing any of

Unknown (39:32):
those people, and there's actually a threat of
that. Yeah,

Alan Bailey (39:34):
right, yeah, yeah. I felt like she was a hero by
the end. I mean, I don't know,maybe that says something about
me, but I

Unknown (39:44):
was like, Yeah, I mean, it's, it's art, right? It's not
the same thing as if you had,say, an actual neighbor on your
street for real, who really didsome of what Alan, your main
character did in the book,right? I'm gonna. Assume that
your reaction may be differentif it were real, but it's a
story, it's a metaphor, right?And so I'm gonna say as little

(40:07):
as I can about the, you know,what Naomi does with her power,
but I'm kind of glad that theway it was set up, that there's
definitely room for for theinterpretation of good for her,
right? And I, myself actually goback and forth on, you know,
like it means different thingsto me at different times.
Frankly, yeah,

Alan Bailey (40:26):
yeah. And I will say to our audience to
definitely check out the splitscreen series. They're awesome.
Yes, super awesome. It's funny.They're wonderful, yeah, yeah,
oh, they're so good. They're sogood. You mentioned the you
mentioned Stoker con, was thatbefore we were we were
recording. It might have been wewere chatting about Stoker con

(40:48):
in Pittsburgh before we startedrecording. And that's where I
picked up my first split screen.And I bought, I think I bought
the one that you were in VolumeTwo, in volume three, and then I
went and read them, and I wasjust like, oh my gosh, these are
so awesome. So then I went back,and I've bought all of them now
at this point, you know, just sogood in horror. Do you feel like

(41:13):
there's a lot of innovationgoing on right now? I mean,
aside from diversity, becausethere's definitely a lot of
diversity in horror, I mean,arguably more than science
fiction or fantasy. But do youfeel like there's other
innovations happening in horrorright now? So

Unknown (41:32):
I was thinking about innovation in terms of stylistic
innovation, for example. Sothere's this book that I have
not read yet that is having awonderful time. It's called coup
de grace. You're probablysupposed to pronounce it coup de
grace, but I don't have enough.Yeah, I'm not even going to try
the French. But by the writer,Sophia Aram, that from what I

(41:56):
have read and heard I listenedto Sophia on a podcast, is just
stylistically and structurallyvery unusual. It's a guy who is
going to commit suicide. He'sgoing to take the train to this
place where he's going to commitsuicide, and then he finds
himself stuck in a station hecan't get out. And from what I

(42:19):
have understood about it. It's avery different stylistic and
structural form than a lot of ofhorror and speculative fiction
that I've read anyway has takenand so, yeah, I'm glad that it's
getting all kind of attention.It's only it's third printing or
barely out, which is justawesome. So clearly, clearly,
there's a lot of hunger forstylistic innovation and

(42:42):
unusualness, which is a word Ijust invented. But in terms of
your question about innovationgenerally, I mean, I feel like
there's the stuff that I tend towrite and tend to read is a
little bit more structurally, Iguess traditional to use a
loaded word, and part of thatfor me is in terms of the stuff

(43:05):
that I write, is purely becauseI feel like it takes a lot more
chops, at least for me anyway,and a lot more skill to play
around with structure and toplay around with different
forms. Like I think it takes alot more chops to write an
epistolary novel than a moretraditionally structured one,
and I think it takes more chopsto play around with timing, for

(43:27):
example, and unusual structureslike lists. I think other
writers will go, What are youtalking about? That's easy for
me, right? So all this to say,the stuff that's really
innovative, I haven't read somuch of but in terms of the
diversity point, I read morehorror than I do science fiction
and fantasy, but I I feel likeall those fields are actually

(43:48):
seeing all kinds of writers takeup way more space than they ever
used to. And I got to do the Hwahorror Writers Association
Hispanic heritage, Latinaheritage, I'm sure it used to be
called Hispanic heritage, whichis another loaded ball of wax
there, but I got to do theirinterview. And one of the things

(44:10):
that I said there was, you know,now you could spend your entire
reading life, never again,reading a story written by a
cis, straight, white dude, andyou would never run out of
beautifully written, fierce,fearless, amazing shit to read.
You would never run out. Youwould still have books that

(44:32):
would sit on your TBI or pilefor years like begging you to
read them, and that would neverget read because more stuff
would keep getting added. Andyou know, the talent was always
there. It just wasn't gettingpaid any attention to and giving
money. So it was harder for itto be seen by enough people. And
so that's a little bit changing,yeah, and I think there's going
to be a reaction to that, right?Because, you know, reactionary

(44:55):
politics is a thing, but wedon't seem to be in that phase.
We seem to be in a flat. Alanphase, which I love and I'm
having so much fun with, andwhich is responsible for the
fact that I write at all. Sothere are two books that are a
reason why I write speculativefiction. And in turn, I wouldn't
be writing if I weren't writingspeculative fiction, because I

(45:17):
tried literate fiction and Iwasn't good at it. And so I read
by her body and other parties,by Carmen Ray Machado, which
was, I think, foundational for alot of people. And then I read
The Ballad of black Tom byVictor Laval. And it's not just
that those are awesome books,which they are, but it's also

(45:39):
that I really needed to seemultiple bits of evidence that
it wasn't just straight whitedudes writing horror. And that's
what I thought, because that'swhat I had always been exposed
to when I was a kid. And yeah,I, you know, I needed to see
that there were other examples.And so those two books, you

(46:00):
know, there are lots of otherpeople will find the other books
were their door. Those were mydoors, and I got to open them,
and they were fucking wonderful.

Alan Bailey (46:07):
Yeah, yeah. You said so much there, and I'm over
here thinking about how I wantto take this. Yeah, there. There
are so many good writers now,you're right. I mean, any of
those genres you could easilyread for the rest of your life
non CIS, white stories. And I dofeel like there is innovation

(46:29):
going on, especially in sciencefiction, in in horror, I feel
like it's less in fantasy,because fantasy is like the of
the three. It's kind of like topdog right now, with the
romanticy and all that going on,right? But maybe I'm wrong, but
maybe I'm wrong, I ought to behonest. Of the three, horror is
the one I read the least. Okay,it tends to be in the fall part

(46:53):
of the year. You know? I mean, Iread a little bit scattered
throughout, of course, but Igenerally do read science
fiction, fantasy, and maybe it'sjust the authors I've been
reading, but I do feel like themajority of innovation has been
in science fiction and horror,particularly

Unknown (47:08):
when you say innovation, do you mean, like
stylistic innovation, or whatkind of what topics or themes
get explored? What do you meanwhen you say

Alan Bailey (47:14):
that? I think, I think everything, I think
everything definitelystylistically like so things
that pop into mind like anythingTodd a Thompson does, and he
does a lot of horror, sciencefiction crossover kind of stuff.
What was that? What was the nameof his generation ship story?
Now I'm gonna look that up. Ican't remember what it's called

(47:35):
off the top of my head, but hedescribed it as he described the
pacing as throwing a stone intothe air, right, slow, you know,
it starts out really slow, andthen gets to the halfway point,
and then it speeds up and justgets quicker. Ooh, that is a
very good description. I likethat. Yeah, yeah. Or if you've
read Jack DAW, I haven't, youshould read Jack

Unknown (47:57):
okay, I'm looking up Jack DAW. It's um,

Alan Bailey (48:01):
meta horror, I guess. And he is literally
today. Thompson is the maincharacter. And so I forget what
they call that auto fiction, orsomething like that, right?
Well, tell us about, right,yeah, yeah. And it's about how
he's, like, slowly goes insane.And, like, a lot of the
characters in the book arepeople he actually knows, you
know, and like, Oh, my God, it'scrazy. It's very short. It's

(48:24):
like, 120 pages

Unknown (48:25):
or something. Yeah, it looks like it's a novella. And I
was looking at the description,you know, he's hired to write a
short piece on Francis Bacon,which is already Fascinating,
right? And I was thinking aboutthis short story. Think it's
called the house sitter, or justhouse sitter, by Bennett Sims.
And I know about that becauseCarmen Ray Machado mentioned it.

(48:47):
And so you know that that's partof what's fun about about
reading and writing, is we getall these little breadcrumb
trails to follow, and all of ourdifferent authors that we love
reading, they leave their ownlittle breadcrumb trails, and
then we get to follow them andget lost, and sometimes we find
our way back to the same trailand find out that someone else
also loved that piece. Butapparently it's called house
sitting, not house sitter, butwhatever. And it is this

(49:13):
incredibly claustrophobic storyof an unnamed narrator. It's all
told in second person, and so wedon't know very much at all
about the narrator, but thenarrator, but the narrator has
answered an ad for a positionhouse sitting in the middle of
nowhere, and they arrive andthings are already weird, and
then they just get weirder, andwe, the reader, are watching the

(49:37):
house sitter slowly lose theirgrip on reality, and we can
totally understand why they arebecause they are indeed isolated
and stuck, and I'm not giving itanywhere near the do that it
deserves. But like I love astory where we can watch.

(50:00):
Someone's, someone's mentalstate, deteriorate slowly and in
pieces, and especially whenthere's other stuff, but like
that stuff's always kept it,yeah,

Alan Bailey (50:11):
no, 100% agree. And, and there are so many
examples, none of which I'mprepared to share at the moment,
because I can't think of them,

Unknown (50:21):
right? Because, because, instantly, the second
you're trying to think of anexample, they all go and square
you in the corner. And some ofthem are even mocking you right
now. Yes, they're like, Hey, youremember me. Yes,

Alan Bailey (50:34):
100% okay, I'll just go from guests that I've
had to Nan Reeve do, and, youknow, I put her in the same
category as Jordan Peele andtalking about race and stuff
through horror, right? Who didwe just have that? Alex
Jennings, okay, now he's afantasy guy, so I'm kind of
shooting myself here by bringinghim up. But Tov, i My God, His

(50:55):
book is like, almost nothingI've ever read. It's just all
over the place, and it's likemagical realism, with a little
bit of science fiction and alittle bit of horror thrown in,
sort of, but in Superdefinitely, okay, lots of
superhero. It's in alternatehistory, sort of, I can't even

(51:19):
it's just okay. It's wild. It'swild. Which

Unknown (51:22):
Which book you're playing? All of my songs, it's
crazy.

Alan Bailey (51:27):
It reminds me a lot of zigzag Claiborne. Have you
ever read any of zig zags books?

Unknown (51:32):
I know. But here's another that is on that list
that like is always kind of atthe periphery. Yeah. Okay,

Alan Bailey (51:37):
so it is called The Ballad of perilous graves.
Perilous

Unknown (51:42):
graves. Yeah, I've heard about that. I remember
hearing about when it came out,and just the title alone, it's
so cool. And I'm very glad thatthat, oh yeah, out, and that you
got a chance to talk to himabout it, and I am going to put
it on my TBR list, just from allthe things you just said. And
that's one of the other coolthings about having not just I

(52:03):
imagine it must be like aconstant challenge for you is
all the wonderful books that youhear about from hosting a
podcast, and your TBR pile justgrows and goes and grows and
grows, which is not a badproblem to have, but it is a
problem because there's only oneof us.

Alan Bailey (52:17):
Oh, it is. It is. I do reviews too, so people send
me stuff, and it's a it's alittle ridiculous. Sometimes I
get, I get, oh, just earlierthis week, I went to visit Paul
Jessup, fellow horror writer,and he was doing, what's

Unknown (52:38):
that? Oh, I was just say he has a book out too. But
yes, you were about to

Alan Bailey (52:42):
talk, yes. Yes, he does. He does. I went up to
visit him because we're pals. SoI go up there. I go up there to
visit him. You know what I mean,of course, I get his new book,
but he has it in the bookstore.And I'm like, Oh, look at this.
You know what I mean, they havethis whole series here. I'm
like, Oh, wow, I love thisauthor. I'm just gonna pick them
up because they're like, twobucks apiece. You know, like, I
bring those home, and I comehome and I have got like, two

(53:05):
packages sitting at the door,and there's books in there, and
so it's just like, Oh, good. Butso yes, it's all drowning. Yes,
yes, yes. Fortunately, my mywife is tolerant and okay with
that stuff. So it's

Unknown (53:19):
a really good ocean to be drowning. It is the ocean of
books. It is,

Alan Bailey (53:23):
it is, I just have to keep it slightly under
control. And by that, I justmean in my office. It is allowed
to trickle out to my my bedroom,night stand. But beyond that, I
have to keep it in my office.Otherwise it's fine,

Unknown (53:38):
as long as they don't rearrange themselves overnight
and reshuffle themselves so thatsomeone else is now on top and
you're good.

Alan Bailey (53:44):
That does happen. I probably my kids

Unknown (53:49):
messing with you.

Alan Bailey (53:50):
Yeah, probably really, really, oh, my oldest is
a big reader too, so he'll belike, what's this one about?
What's this one about? Gonna gothrough them all. Not quite old
enough to read most of them yet,but he's getting there. Okay.
Anyway, we're a little offtrack. I want to go back to your
collection, and we're startingto run out of time too. One
story I really wanted to hit onreally, really badly, because I

(54:13):
also was a former teacher, andyeah, your one story took place
in a school, right? I related somuch to it, the teacher
association. I related so much,yeah, the teacher association.
So what's your you know, wheredid this story come from? I have
to ask. I know that you were ateacher, but tell, tell me how

(54:35):
your teaching experience led tothis story and and also, I'm
interested to hear your viewsaround education quickly. I will
give a summary to the audience.In this story, the main
characters a teacher. They go tothis new school to teach. But
you know, there's like,something a little bit off with
the other teachers. We'll leaveit at

Unknown (54:55):
that. This is there's something very, very wrong, and
it is not a spoiler to say. Attwo of my biggest influences,
like I was explicit with myselfand with the editor, Eric
Ragland, who's fantastic and isthe editor of the owner and
editor in chief of Cursedmorsels. He's got lots of books
too, including a collectioncalled Moms and pyres that I

(55:17):
highly encourage people to checkout, but back on the story
itself. So he put up this callfor the anthology and invited me
to contribute to it. And I wasexplicit with him. I said I
would like to do an homage toIra Levin, and in particular, to
step forward wives andRosemary's Baby. And it was
like, great, you know this, youknow, let me know if you want me

(55:39):
to read a draft. And so becauseI knew I wanted that. I wanted
that kind of slow building of Iknew that the part that I really
loved about Rosemary's Baby,there's so much to love about
that story, but the part that Ilove the most is that every step
there could be anotherexplanation for what's going on.

(55:59):
And so it's natural for rosemaryto doubt. You know, one point
she says there are no witches,not really, right? And so, you
know, my response to that is,except when there are. And so I
I kind of had that as my hook.And so I knew that I wanted to

(56:20):
have a charter school where theteacher suspects that something
is very wrong in terms of whereit came from. So I did, as you
know, as you know, I was ateacher for a time. We both
were. I taught third grade,fourth grade and kindergarten,
and I also spent a year as asubstitute teacher. And so I and

(56:41):
actually I like subsidyteaching, I would still be doing
it if it came with affordable aliving wage and pension and
benefits, yeah, but so I knewthat I wanted to talk about my
experience in this. It wasn't acharter school, but it was a no
excuses. You know, bootstrapsstyle of education that I taught

(57:02):
at for one year, and it was justsuch a mismatch for the kind of
teaching that I wanted to do,like I I wanted everyone to do,
sustained, silent reading,because I had been doing the
research because I was workingtowards a master's in as a
reading specialist at the time,and so I would be going to My
classes at night, reading allthe volumes of research that

(57:23):
said how important it is forkids to just get a chance to
read every single day, not forschool, for pleasure. And then I
would do that, and then theprincipal would walk in and say,
Why are you students justsitting there reading? And it
wasn't. But that wasn't the onlyproblem. The other problem, that
which is not present in thestory is that I also just wasn't
cut out for teaching. So theother problem was, my students

(57:44):
would be, you know, throwingspit balls at the ceiling when
they're supposed to be reading.So that's not in the story. But
what is, is that mismatch,right? The sense that everything
has to be test prep andeverything has to be in this
very strange version of equity,where, on the one hand, these
are black and brown children,and you know, equity demands
that they do well on testscores, but on the other hand,
no white middle class parentwould ever subject their

(58:07):
children to uniforms and drilland kill and test prep, test
prep in the way that thesechildren were subjected so all
the joy was gone. So I reallywanted a chance to kind of
exercise that in a certain way,and it was quite satisfying
actually, to turn thatexperience into a story. And I
one point remember feelingreally guilty because I created

(58:29):
this character, Esther, EstherDiaz. And I remember thinking,
wow, she's really cool. She shehas a regular collection of,
like, rock T shirts, and that'show she she gets the kids to
talk to talk to her and relateto them is like, they're always
asking her about her T shirts,because she's got hundreds of
them. And she just, you know,like, it's a conversation piece
every day. And you know, she'sshe's young, and she's

(58:50):
energetic, and her parents arepolitical, and she brings that
into the classroom, and sheplays mf doom, which I did in my
classroom, was one of my warm upmusic, lemongrass. And so
created this character, andshe's really cool, and she's way
cooler than I ever was. And thenI'm not going to tell you what
does happen, but there's thiscloud hanging over her the

(59:11):
entire time, and I felt kind ofguilty for being so mean to this
character, and she does gothrough it in the story. Some of
it is backstory, but, yeah, sothat was kind of the premise,
but you know, you asked forlarger thoughts, more generally
and larger thoughts is that Ifeel like what we are seeing is

(59:33):
on a scale, writ large, is aproduct that's been decades in
The making, the wholesale,complete destruction of public
education. And we see it in allkinds of different ways. We see
it attacking the teachingprofession. We see it starving
education of any kind ofresources. We see it in the
regulation of teachers. Thathappens all kinds of laws saying

(59:56):
that teachers have to post theirfucking lesson plans on a
publicly available Document.Meant for any parent to read and
complain about, you know, likewe can all talk about it, about
all the different ways that it'sbeing attacked, being attacked
in a metaphorical sense, beingliterally attacked, being
attacked financially, beingundermined, being policed, being
starved, and everything fromfrom teaching to libraries. And

(01:00:21):
it's not an accident, and it'snot just because some people are
stared at their own shadow,right, but it's because
reactionary politics isextraordinarily ugly, and you
cannot have you can't run areactionary political program
unless you have constantinstability and fear. And so you
have to sign, you have tosystematically chop away at all

(01:00:44):
of the pillars of civil societythat people can rely on, and
education is obviously one ofthem. It's not just that.
There's also the program of whogets taught what and who doesn't
get taught what, and who gets tolearn and who doesn't, and how
to make sure that children nevereven get a tiny hint of
something that would allow themto not hate themselves. So

(01:01:05):
there's all those piecestogether. And so, you know, this
story was not really explicitlyabout that. It was hinted at it,
but it was also a way for me toto kind of take a a really
particular example, which isthis charter school. In my
charter schools are aboutdestroying public education. To
take this charter school andyes, and really hold it up and

(01:01:29):
kind of it's why horror is somuch fun. In my mind, is that we
can kind of take again the logicof conclusion of the logic. We
can take the metaphor and thenjust stretch it and stretch it
and reveal itself. Make it andmake it reveal itself, and then
hopefully someone read it willgo, oh, I never thought about it
that way. That is monstrous. No,I love that. And all we did was

(01:01:53):
call up the monsters that werealready there. Yeah, yeah. I
couldn't agree with you more. Ido want to go back to Esther for
one moment, though, because shehad a Bikini Kill t shirt and a
tiger army t shirt, which wasawesome. I love both of those
bands. Kudos to you. To be fair,I had never heard of Tiger army
before. This was when WednesdayAdams was real popular on

(01:02:14):
Netflix, and so I did kind ofphysically picture her as a
little bit looking like JenOrtega and a little bit like the
lead singer of the Marias, whosename I don't know, but when I
started looking up, okay, well,Google muck is a song that I
listened to over and over againwhile I was writing, because I
heard about it through theNetflix show Wednesday. And so

(01:02:36):
then I looked up how who elsewas Google muck being compared
to? And then who else willBikini Kill, being compared to,
and all these other bands, andso that's how I heard about
Tiger army. But I don't want topretend to be a I Don't Want To
Be A Poser. I was not a tigerarmy fan, but she is. So there
you go. I can create characterswho are cooler than I am.

Alan Bailey (01:02:56):
Well, I gotta say I, you know, being being a, I
don't want to say former punkand evolved punk I you know, I
mean Bikini Kill huge riot girl.I mean, like the right girl
band, right? Or at least one topparty for sure. And well, Tiger
army is kind of like a forpeople who don't know, which is
probably almost everybody.They're kind of like this

(01:03:18):
rockabilly punk band from mostlythe late 90s, I would say, Okay,
I'm getting my dates right. Late90s, early 2000s I don't know if
they're still together or not. Ithink they are. I think just put
out a new record, but I could bewrong about that. But they're
just a super fun band. They wereon a record label, Hellcat
records, that I really liked. SoI was,

Unknown (01:03:41):
yeah, I love that.

Alan Bailey (01:03:43):
All punk. I shouldn't say all punk, Punk in
related genres like ska, reggae,rockabilly, all that kind of
stuff, awesome stuff. So okay,I've got one more topic for you,
and then we got to wrap up.Okay, you and I originally
bonded back in the day overCOVID stuff, right? Okay,

Unknown (01:04:08):
oh, that's right. That's right, because we're the
we're the ones we're constantlycomplaining about the lack of
COVID protections.

Alan Bailey (01:04:13):
Yes, yes. I mean, I think it was right before Stoker
con, and we are complainingabout the situation, and
generally about conferences andpeople not wearing masking and
all that kind of stuff and Andeven more recently, we were
talking about the SeattleWorldcon situation and their
guidelines or lack thereof. Imean, I'm an at risk person for

(01:04:37):
multiple health reasons, so thistopic is, like, really important
to me. I'm wondering why thistopic is important to you
specifically. And you know, howdo you think conferences should
improve in regards to COVID?

Unknown (01:04:50):
Um, so why me specifically? I don't have any
particular individual Anglonight. Yeah, I know people who
are vulnerable, but a lot of usdo, right? Um. I think it's
probably because I, I've alwaysput a lot of mental energy into
like, the concept of what we asindividuals owe to our fellow

(01:05:12):
humans, which sounds strange tosay, because that implies that
there are some people who don't,right, that that's not, that's
not what I'm trying to go for.But you know, we, a lot of us,
have different things that kindof pull at us and tug at us, and
that's one of the things thattugs at me. So it's always just
been so infuriating to watchthis abdication of that

(01:05:33):
responsibility to each other.And I also, you know, I live
alone. I have a dog, right? Andso there's nobody to take care
of me when I get sick. There'sno cushion for me, that if I
lose my job, I don't have acushion. And so I am terrified
of what were to happen if I wereto get COVID and become

(01:05:55):
disabled. And so I think that'skind of my own personal angle.
But again, that's true for a lotof people, yeah. So I can't
totally answer, like, why? Ofall them, there are lots of
things that bother me. Like,why? Why this? Yeah. But in
terms of the other part of yourquestion, you know, what do we
owe each other? And what aboutcons? I, I think that, you know,
it's really sad, but there'sjust been this abject failures

(01:06:17):
leadership. It's not hard tolead as a con runner and say,
This is our policy mask. Or, youknow, go virtual, right? It's
not difficult to say, cons, doit. I see pictures of cons, and
I think it's just kind ofleading to the overall something

(01:06:38):
that became clearer and clearerwhen all of us live through
COVID is that it's not useful totalk about things so much in
terms of what individuals shouldbe doing right? Like, you know,
individuals only have so muchpower acting as individuals. And
I think you know, people whostudy public health will tell
you, yeah, if you want, if youwant things to happen at scale,

(01:07:03):
you have to actually makestructural changes. And so I
think it's just brought home howmuch of the late stage
capitalism we're living in isbasically just, let's pile more
fear and terror on eachindividual person. Because in
addition to all the other thingsthat we already had to worry
about now we also get to worryabout whether something as

(01:07:25):
simple as going to a party isgoing to lead to us getting
brain fog and losing atremendous amount of our
cognitive function when we'reolder. And this already is a
society that is hostile, to saythe very least, to people who
have any kind of disability. Andso we're seeing that just ramp

(01:07:47):
up and ramp up. And I think it'skind of telling that a lot of us
haven't really talked aboutCOVID as a there's not a lot of
stories set during COVID. Andyes, you know, it's not that.
It's still relatively recent,but I also think that it's a
horror that's actually too bigfor us, a lot of us, to talk
about. And it is actuallyhorror. For me, the very thing

(01:08:11):
that makes life worth living,which is breeding in close
proximity to other humans, likefor almost all of us, that's
essential. We want to be withour fellow humans. We want to
dance. We want to party. Thatvery thing could be an act that
will kill us. That is monstrous,and the COVID itself what it

(01:08:34):
does to the body, the fact thatit can just sit there,
insidiously creeping its way inand then cause and wake
destruction that we can't seeand don't know about until we go
to use something that we didn'teven realize was gone until we
tried to use it like that'sterrifying, and yet we're not
really dealing with it very muchin our fiction. Me neither,

(01:08:55):
right? I haven't tackled it. Itackled it obliquely in a story
called thread count, where Iimagined. What would happen if
some like, I don't want to giveaway thread count because it's
pretty short and it's a littleflash story, but it's basically,
you know what? What if thepattern that we always see or
natural disasters and pandemicsand illnesses always fall first

(01:09:19):
on the most vulnerable? What ifit didn't happen that way? What
would that look like? And then Iwon't say more about it?
Interesting.

Alan Bailey (01:09:26):
Interesting. Thank you for that answer. I really
appreciate that, and it wasquite long. I'm sorry. No, no
worries. I'm with you. I'm gonnakeep fighting the good fight and
keep trying to push for betterCOVID guidelines. I know I just
joined the board of a localorganization that puts on
conferences for this exactreason. So fingers crossed.

(01:09:51):
We'll see. Okay,

Unknown (01:09:53):
right? Maybe people really just needed one person to
stand up and say it like you do.And then that's, well, you know,
maybe that's just, what's thewho knows? Hopefully

Alan Bailey (01:10:05):
we'll see. We'll see. I don't know I'm getting
ready, I'm psyching myself upfor it, but, uh, we'll see what
happens? Well, we should startwrapping it up. I've always got,
I always end with threequestions, okay, what is
bringing you hope right now?

Unknown (01:10:24):
I don't in terms of hope for the planet, I don't
have any in terms of hope forsociety, I don't have any. I
have wishes, you know, I have awish that the anger and the fury
and the frustration that we feelcan get channeled into, you

(01:10:46):
know, an entirely differentpolitical order. But I don't
have a it's not a realistichope. It's just a wish, and it's
not the same thing. You know,individually, people who I know
and love have good things happento them, right? And that gives
me hope for them particularly.But the only way I can have hope
is by just kind of radicallyshrinking my view to things that

(01:11:11):
that allow for that. I know thatthat's terribly depressing, but
this is also true. Well,

Alan Bailey (01:11:16):
I'll say one thing that you're involved in, besides
the writing that gives me hopeis the union, and seeing all the
union action out there has beenreally amazing, in my opinion,
and inspiring, and I hope thatkeeps moving forward.

Unknown (01:11:30):
That is true, and it is also true that to go out to the
picket lines, for example, is itis what happens when people
stand up and fight back, right?And that's even one of our
chance right? No, when we'reunder attack, we stand up high
back when we fight, we win. AndI was part of supporting our
members on strike. I worked withour child Workers Union because

(01:11:50):
he was curious, and so I waspart of supporting our members
on strike six years ago. Thatwas very, very difficult, and
yet we won. And I have no doubtthat those members are going to
get what they need, and that is,I am very hopeful about that,
you know, again, so we can, ifwe pick a particular story,
there's a lot of good that wecan start to see, but we just

(01:12:13):
have to pick a particular story.

Alan Bailey (01:12:15):
Yeah, I agree with you. I have some of the same
anxieties you do. Are there anyupcoming things that you would
like to tell our audience about?Let's see,

Unknown (01:12:26):
I am editing or will be editing within a couple months,
my novella, short novel calledmunyeka. So it's going to take a
while. Keep your ears peeled,but it will come out until 2026
at the earliest. And it doesn'tactually have a release date.
It's just, you know, howpublishing goes. I have a story
coming out sometime in thespring called a girl goes on a

(01:12:46):
date alone at night. That'sgoing to be a nightmare
magazine, and that should bereally fun. And one of the
stories from the nightmare box,the darkest thing I've ever
written by far, called will theydisappear, that is being
collected in pseudo pods end ofthe Year, Best of which I was so

(01:13:08):
excited about, I squealed when Iheard so yeah, and it's the
first time that I will have gotto hear an audio production on a
podcast of my stories. So I'mlooking forward to that. And if
you like audio, Flash podcastversions, you should your peel.
Haha.

Alan Bailey (01:13:27):
Awesome, awesome. I love it. And where can everyone
find you online? So

Unknown (01:13:32):
I have a website. Cynthia Says, boo.wordpress.com
I don't update it that often,but I do, and one of the things
I'm gonna have to get around todoing pretty quickly, is doing
things like putting podcastappearances on there, because I
have gotten really fortunatenow, and now I have, I've had
more than one podcastappearance, which is fantastic,

(01:13:52):
but it means it's good tocollect them, so I'll put
awesome a link to this on there,as well as some of the others
and The stories and otherthings. So yeah, Cynthia Says,
boo.wordpress.com

Alan Bailey (01:14:04):
Fantastic, fantastic. Thank you so much for
coming on. I really appreciateit. This is a great
conversation.

Unknown (01:14:11):
Thank you so much for having me and for giving me this
space again. Authors really lovethese opportunities, and we
cherish them, and so I thank youon everyone's behalf for giving
us the space to do it becauseit's wonderful.

Alan Bailey (01:14:27):
And that was our conversation with Cynthia Gomez
before we finish up, if you likewhat we're doing, please share
us with your friends on whateversocial media that you use these
days. Don't forget to rate orreview us anywhere that you can
get podcasts. We greatlyappreciate that that helps us be
seen. And if you really likewhat we're doing, check us out

(01:14:50):
on patreon.com/if this goes on,you can sign up there to give us
some a little bit of money everymonth. I think the smallest
amount is $1 Four so go outthere. Please, please help us.
We could use it right now. Youknow, $1 or two a month is is
almost nothing these days. So ifyou can afford a couple bucks a

(01:15:11):
month, we would reallyappreciate it. We do have some
new plans for Patreon. We aretrying to get that together now,
but hopefully we will have thattogether very soon. And so since
Diane was not able to make ittoday, I am I'm not going to
talk much about books. I'm justgonna, I'm just gonna end this
real quick, like and let you allmove on with your days. So um,

(01:15:35):
thanks everybody for listening.We greatly appreciate it. We are
keeping hope alive one episodeat a time.
If this goes on, don't panic. Isedited and produced by Alan
Bailey. Our theme music is byFather flamethrower. Additional

(01:15:58):
music is by Christophercydrowski, and outro music by
sable Aradia, Intro by DaveRobinson, a special thanks to
our guest, Cynthia Gomez, thanksfor supporting us, and we'll see
you again soon. I believe
in unicorns

Unknown (01:16:18):
into planetary love.

Alan Bailey (01:16:27):
The planetary I believe in unicology.