Shining Moon Episode 09: Dark Fantasy vs. Horror

Hello, and welcome to Shining Moon: A Speculative Fiction Podcast, Episode 9. Today we’ll continue our series by asking questions about the genres of dark fantasy and dark science fiction, and where to draw the line between them and horror. 

 My guests this week are P.A. Cornell and Alicia Hilton. Let’s start with some introductions!

 P.A. Cornell is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian author whose short fiction has appeared in numerous speculative fiction publications. In 2022 she published her SF novella, Lost Cargo. When not writing, Cornell can be found assembling intricate Lego builds while drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. For more on the author and her work, visit pacornell.com. 

Hello, Patty, welcome to Shining Moon!

Alicia Hilton is an author, editor, arbitrator, professor, and former FBI Special Agent. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Creepy Podcast, Lovecraftiana, Neon, Vastarien, Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volumes 4, 5 & 6, and elsewhere. Her website is https://aliciahilton.com. Follow her on Twitter @aliciahilton01 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/alicia.hilton.161/.

"Don't tell me that the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -- Anton Chekov

Piano music for closure

Thank you for listening to Shining Moon! You can reach the host, Deborah L. Davitt, at the following social media platforms:

www.facebook.com/deborah.davitt.3

Bluesky: @deborahldavitt.bsky.social

www.edda-earth.com

Transcript

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hello and welcome to Shining Moon, a speculative fiction podcast episode 9. I'm your host, Deborah L. Davitt. Today we'll continue our series by asking questions about the genres of dark fantasy and dark science fiction and where to draw the line between them and horror. My guests this week are P.A. Cornell and Alicia Hilton. Let's start with some introductions. 

P.A. Cornell is an award-winning Chilean-Canadian author whose short fiction has appeared in numerous speculative fiction publications. And 2022, she published her sci-fi novella, Lost Cargo. When not writing, Cornell can be found assembling intricate Lego builds while drinking ridiculous quantities of tea. For more on the author and her work, visit pacornell.com. Hello, Patty, welcome to Shining Moon.

P.A. Cornell:
Hi Deborah, glad to be here.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Glad to have you on.

Alicia Hilton:
Patty.

P.A. Cornell:
Hi, Alicia!

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alicia is an--Alicia Hilton rather, is an author, editor, arbitrator, professor, and former FBI special agent. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming on Creepy Podcast, Lovecraftiana, Neon, and the Years Best Hardcore Horror, volumes 4, 5, and 6 and elsewhere. Her website is AliciaHilton.com. Follow her on Twitter at AliciaHilton.01 and Facebook at AliciaHilton.161 Hello, Alicia, welcome.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank you, hello.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright, we're gonna dive right into things. Do either of you know a little bit about the history of horror? Where do you believe that it began?

Alicia Hilton:
Gosh, well, some people think it began with Frankenstein, but that's a good question as where did it begin?

P.A. Cornell:
That would be my answer too, even though that's also where science fiction starts, right?

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, well, I would have arguments about both of those things. A lot of people say that the Horace Walpole seminal and controversial 1764 novel, The Castle of Otranto, is considered the first horror novel. But I would say that when I was doing some digging, I found that there were werewolf stories in verse that go back to the 1200s, like Bisclavret, which is one of the 12 lais of Mary de France. which I now totally have to read, and that's now on my birthday list of things I need to get and read because I want to dig more into the history of this. So there is an argument to be made on those things, but where do you personally draw the line between what's merely dark and true horror? And that's a much more subjective question, and I'll start with Patty.

P.A. Cornell:
For me, well I think true horror is kind of at least trying to be scary. Whereas just dark fiction can have kind of a darker mood, maybe darker themes, but isn't necessarily scary or, you know, including tropes like, you know, monsters, things like that. It can have that, but it doesn't necessarily have to have.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright, Alicia, where do you draw the line between horror and merely the dark?

Alicia Hilton:
Well, when you think about drawing lines, I'm one of those people that doesn't like to put things in a box. And I know

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Alicia Hilton:
that a lot of things are a matter of perspective. But when you think about types of horror, one of the types is realistic horror. And that's when we're in our own natural world. But something is off. And that could be really just a matter of perspective from a character. that they see things that, for instance, that are even really there? And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
is that literary fiction? Is that horror? What is it? So I think that drawing the line between horror and what is just sort of dark is kind of tough to do. And a lot of it depends upon marketing. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
if you're an author and you have a story and you're trying to place it, you could be sending it to someplace that only takes horror. You could be sending it to a literary journal. You could be sending it to a place that publishes crime fiction and mysteries if you have horror that's,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
you know, of that variety. So I think that labels don't serve us very well a lot of times when it comes to writing.

Deborah L. Davitt:
When I had a story recently that I wanted to make darker and I wanted to make more horror, I had a friend named Sheila Massey take a look at it and her definition was sort of eye-opening for me. She said that for her, the difference was something in the world is terrible. But that's necessarily dark fantasy. But for her, something terrible is in the world and it's coming for me directly was where she put horror. and it's coming for me right now. That's that immediacy. And I said, okay, that's not a bad way of categorizing it. But again, as you say, it's a spectrum and there's a lot of different subcategories and subgenres of horror.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Patty, you've written a variety of different subgenres. Which ones do you like to write in particularly that are dark or horrific?

P.A. Cornell:
Um, wow, that's a tough question because I love them all. I love, uh, I love dark. Sometimes I don't even feel like I'm writing dark things and then someone will read it and be like, Whoa, this is really dark. And I'm like,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah

P.A. Cornell:
is it, or is it, you know, maybe I'm messed up. I don't know.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Haha

P.A. Cornell:
But, um, but yeah, I mean, I kind of like them all. Like I like things that are just kind of moody and whatever, but I also like to go, you know, real dark if I can. So.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
I mean, it really just depends on the story, but there's kind of, it's a real, you know, there's no limit for me. I don't think there's anything I wouldn't write.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay, Alicia, do you have the same sort of feelings or do you have something here that's a little bit different?

Alicia Hilton:
Well, when I think about my own writing, my favorite thing to do is essentially cross genre or weird fiction, where I

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
blend genres. I oftentimes will take horror and blend it with fantasy, science fiction, crime fiction, sometimes multiple genres

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
altogether, or in the same stew pot. And in terms of getting back to immediacy, I think that is an interesting... perspective with horror, that the threat is immediate, or, you know, when you have quiet horror, maybe the threat is an immediate, so it still could be horror.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
But when you're thinking about types of horror, and what you want to write, most of my writing is pretty darn dark. Occasionally,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
I write something that's horror combined with humor, or something that is actually sort of happier and lighter hearted.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha.

Alicia Hilton:
Like recently, I had a poem that was meant to be sort of a happy poem. But

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

Alicia Hilton:
the editor who's publishing it actually wanted to tweak the last line and added a, you know, suggested I add a question mark. And that made the poem just really sinister. I'm like, wow, my happy poem has become very sinister now. But it was more interesting. So I liked the suggestion and I took it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright. Aaron Datlow recently said on Twitter that the majority of stories and venues like The Dark and Nightmare aren't horror but dark fantasy. That she turns to anthologies for her best horror of the year anthology each year. Do you agree or disagree that genre magazines like The Dark and Nightmare tend more towards dark fantasy? And I'm going to pick on P.A. Cornell for this, Patty.

P.A. Cornell:
I mean, I wouldn't disagree. You do see a lot of dark fantasy. There's not a ton that I would say, ooh, that's really spine-tinglingly frightening, you know, full-on horror. But I mean, they do publish some.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

P.A. Cornell:
So yeah, but I mean, I don't know, like I think as for what's out there, what people are writing, it's,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm

P.A. Cornell:
you know, it's a spectrum like you said, like it's, you know, there's a bit of everything.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alicia, would you go with what Ellen Datlow said or would you disagree with her?

Alicia Hilton:
I think that now I would agree

Deborah L. Davitt:
I'm asking you to disagree with the grand dame, so.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
with what you're saying about the genre magazines, those particular magazines, you know, The Dark and Nightmare, oftentimes publishing dark fantasy. But keep in mind that you can combine dark fantasy with, for instance, body horror. I mean,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
and something that is like body horror, for instance, doesn't have to be like grotesque and like supergory or bloody. Some of the genre magazines, there definitely isn't very much extreme horror in there. Extreme horror

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
is less popular, and that tends to be more in anthologies. And when I think about my own writing, what is horror? What is dark fantasy? If I throw some demon characters in there, well, then that becomes to me dark fantasy, and you have secondary world elements or whatever.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
But you certainly can say, OK, is that also horror? Yes, it usually is. And which is? which is the strongest horror or fantasy. So that's somehow, sometimes when I'm trying to categorize work, when I think, okay, what is the most powerful element in the story? What are the things that if I took them out, it would change the story fundamentally? And that sometimes determines to me how I would categorize them.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I would I would definitely say that an example of something that was a nightmare magazine was dick pig by Ian Muneshwar and That one is to me is definitely in the horror category. It changed how I look at horror

Alicia Hilton:
Mm-hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
and it was up for the Nebula this past year, but I don't believe it won in its category, which I think

Alicia Hilton:
I don't think

Deborah L. Davitt:
is a

Alicia Hilton:
it

Deborah L. Davitt:
shame

Alicia Hilton:
did, but

P.A. Cornell:
Not.

Alicia Hilton:
it was a great story.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah was it elicited fear and disgust in me at the same time And so it hit all the buttons at once. So that was a great story. And I highly recommend anybody who wants to read something dark, go read that now. How do you personally go about writing horror? How do you get into that head space? Patty, I'll start with you.

P.A. Cornell:
in a way I kind of equate it to being an actor when you're a writer. Like

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
you really, for me at least, I really get in the headspace of if I was this character what would I be thinking? What would I be noticing about this particular like setting that I'm in? Things like that. And just trying to involve all the senses especially I feel like horror you really need to involve them like in

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

P.A. Cornell:
you know very detailed ways to you know, make it that much more scary. So even if

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
you're not going for, I want to frighten the reader, you still want just the horror of the situation, even if it's not, you know,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Again,

P.A. Cornell:
nightmarish,

Deborah L. Davitt:
that's the

P.A. Cornell:
but like,

Deborah L. Davitt:
immediacy.

P.A. Cornell:
yeah. Right, exactly. So yeah, that's pretty much what I do.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And Alicia, how do you get into the headspace for horror?

Alicia Hilton:
Usually I start with character. That's what I do with most of my stories and my poems, that they need to be anchored in a character that

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
you will get to know enough about so you really care about their fate. You don't want someone to be just like quote me because then the story doesn't matter. It's just action and not focused on the true, because the true horror comes from the impact on the person or the non-human being or the world and how... they have changed, you know, usually irrevocably. And so usually I'm starting with character.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Do you find that you have to write a sympathetic character in horror?

Alicia Hilton:
No, sometimes my characters are twisted, deviant, anti-heroes, and sometimes even a monster. I mean, a monster, what is a monster too? It's like it can be, again, a matter of perspective. So something, a creature or person could be monstrous, but usually there is some. feature some facet of the personality or that thing that has a redeeming quality. So you also will care about the fate of the monster and maybe be, you know, or the creature or the anti-hero and feel bad when they're hurt or when they
have to do something horrible that changes them and scars them because

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
of their violent actions.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah, I would agree with that. I feel like one of the things I like about horror or everything that's under the umbrella of horror is that it frees you more than perhaps other genres do to have an unsympathetic main character. I mean, you could theoretically do that with anything, but in horror, it's almost like no one's gonna really argue that this is a horrible person. Okay, we accept it because it's a horror story. And that's one of the things I like about it, I think.

Deborah L. Davitt:
A lot of the time I find when I'm watching horror in particular is that you find that the protagonist has to be culpable in some way. That they have to be guilty of something and sort of deserve the horror that's coming after them. Do you find the same?

P.A. Cornell:
in film or just in general?

Deborah L. Davitt:
In general, does there have to be a culpability?

P.A. Cornell:
I mean, I think it makes it easier for the reader maybe to accept that, you

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
know, because if this horrible thing is happening to this person, but it also depends on the kind of story, because like I have one now, that's I'm not gonna talk too much about it because I think I'm saving it for another episode, but it's like a horror sci-fi where the horror of it is that this horrific thing is happening to a person that maybe doesn't deserve it. You know what I mean? So there's that kind of story too. that,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
you know, it's horrific because of that.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alicia? How about culpability?

Alicia Hilton:
I actually think it's more interesting when you have someone where you don't understand why they're targeted and what's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
happening because unpredictability is horrifying in itself and this

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
sense of randomness is also horrifying. And then when you leave the reader a lot of room for their imagination where, for instance, if you have a creature, you don't describe the creature. or you only

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
describe like one strange thing about it, like its smell or the sound it makes or what it feeds on or whatever. So you leave a lot open to imagination. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
so that sense of peril is higher and it also makes the reader think, geez, so I could end up being targeted and being punished and. for doing nothing, you know, that's horrifying. It's like, you think, oh, if I'm a good person or if I do this right, bad things won't happen to me. With horror, oftentimes it's the opposite.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Interesting, very interesting. All right, we're gonna slide into talking about your individual stories now. I'm gonna start with Patty. A hard time appeared in darkness blooms in May of this year. It's a dark sci-fi piece about a man who's taken his son's place in a penal colony, a rap for a crime he didn't commit. The punishment is exponentially worse than the crime. Hard labor on a Venus-like planet for a handful of skimmed credits. John Valjean much?

P.A. Cornell:
Hehehe

Deborah L. Davitt:
When the warden finds out that his son got into a security situation as an adult, he tries to get the father to force the son into embezzlement. The father manages to get the right friends to help him knock the warden out and joins him in a coffin aimed directly at the planet, which is just a spine tingling ending here, which I really enjoyed, and it was basically the ultimate vengeance. So. but also the ultimate self-sacrifice at the same time. So how did you arrive at the concept for this story? Let's start with that.

P.A. Cornell:
Well, I write a lot about just family connections and things like that and the sort of sacrifices that parents are willing to make for their children. So I think I started with that. And it's about just this kid making a stupid mistake that could cost him everything because this is set in a future where just the punishments for minor crimes are ridiculous. So the father, you know, takes his place to protect him, but that's where I guess the horror, the dark part of it comes in. Like his existence from then on is just terrible, like in every way that

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
it can be. And there is really not much hope for him. And it's just about how he's existing, knowing that this would have happened to his kid if he hadn't done

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
that. And he's kind of at peace with that, no matter how horrible. his life is currently. For him, it was worth it. So I guess, I guess it comes from, from all the things that scare you about being

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
a parent, you know, being a parent myself.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

P.A. Cornell:
It's, it's such a rewarding thing, but there's also, it's also like this overwhelming thing, sometimes the responsibility you have for this other life and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

P.A. Cornell:
how far you'd be willing to go for this person who you love. So. Um, yeah, so there's some, I guess, truth from my life and hopefully my life's a little bit better than my poor character's life.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm!

P.A. Cornell:
But, um, but yeah, I mean, it's really like just the fears that you feel as a parent come to life in a way. And with the worst repercussions that

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes, very much so

P.A. Cornell:
I could think of in that moment.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Why did you decide on an epistolary format when no letters could be sent in or out of the prison by the very design of your story? And I'm going to follow that up by saying that epistolary tends to be a distancing tactic. How did you overcome that to make everything more immediate for the audience? Since those two questions are combined, I'll let you just sort of answer them both at the same time.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah, the epistolary thing just kind of came to me. Like he can't write letters to his son. So really

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

P.A. Cornell:
in the story, he's writing letters in his head almost. Like he's just kind of to keep himself sane almost is to, you know, have and still to maintain this connection with his son, who he's never going to see again.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
It, I guess, makes it real for him. And I think maybe that is kind of where it works against the distancing thing is that for him, that's how he's keeping his connection to his son. And I think the reader taps into that. That's kind of what I was going for anyway. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right. I found that it worked too. I just wanted to hear what you had to say about it because

P.A. Cornell:
yeah, like it just really gets into what he's thinking and feeling during this incarceration. So yeah, I think for this particular story, it kind of works in that way.

Deborah L. Davitt:
it's an interesting choice and it worked out very effectively.

P.A. Cornell:
Thank you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright Alicia, we

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
have the story Sickle Claws, Hesperonicus Monstrous, which appeared in Metastellar on October 21st of 2022. In this story dinosaurs are raised and trained to kill zombies but the top specimen on killing a zombie has a realization that her job is to kill humans. She then kills multiple humans, some of whom appear to be infected with a zombie virus, and then finds a clutch of baby dinosaurs being housed by the researchers, and decides to rescue them. And there's a quote from the end of the story that I found was just really, really illuminating, which was, I was raised to be a monster, but I wanted to be a mother. And I loved the story.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
It was a really good one. This is a really unique take on the question of who is the monster. because the researchers are monstrous, the zombies are monstrous, the main character and the point of view character is monstrous, everyone's monstrous. So, what is, how did you arrive at this combination of Jurassic Park meets The Walking Dead?

Alicia Hilton:
Well, I happen to love dinosaurs and I'm fascinated with

Deborah L. Davitt:
Me too!

Alicia Hilton:
anything dinosaurs. And, you know, I liked the Jurassic Park series and I wanted to write a story with the main character that was a dinosaur. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
so that's what I started out with. And I did not want this to be set in the past. I wanted there to be human intervention. And then a recurring theme in many of my stories is who's the monster. Is it a human? Is it a non-human being? you know, or, or if there are lots of kinds of monsters, what's the worst monster? And so with this, I wanted my dinosaur to be my point of view character. And of course, because she is a dinosaur, you know, the, the baby's a dinosaur. She has a very fierce capabilities with her sickle claws. And it's a matter of like the whole question of nature versus nurture is. Are the humans making her more monstrous or less monstrous? And. you know, how monsters is what they do. And then, you know, working against your own urges and I wanted to humanize her and make her sympathetic and the fact that she wants to be nurtured and she wants to nurture. She doesn't want to be a monster, but she ends up being both, which makes it interesting too.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That really brings us back to that question of whether or not your protagonist is sympathetic or unsympathetic that

Alicia Hilton:
Mm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
we brought up earlier, and she's both. The story walks a really fine line on whether or not the character, our point of view character, is culpable or not culpable, and whether she's sympathetic or unsympathetic. It's a really good story.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank you

Deborah L. Davitt:
What did you want readers to take away from reading it?

Alicia Hilton:
I wanted to think about the concept of monstrous and otherness and how we judge things based upon what they look like and how they behave and also nature versus nurture and sort of the concept of family. Because to me, it is a monster story, but in a sense, it's also a story just about needing to be loved and needing to belong. And those are universal urges that people have. And so I wanted the reader to think about that and what they would do if they were in the position of this dinosaur, this monster created in the lab.

Deborah L. Davitt:
We're gonna switch back to Patty with another story that just got into my skin and hit most of my horror buttons. So I had to stop and think about its structure so I could actually sleep the night that I read it. And that is when the street lights go off. It was appeared in Mixtape 1986, which was published in March, 2022. This one to me is the epitome of horror. It is a haunted house with no escape, just layers of perception and deception. It's... actually structured as far as I could tell as a series of escalating jump scares once they're inside the house and then there's layer after layer of perception and deception that has to be pulled back to escape except for that there is no escape for our protagonist. Like I said earlier, a lot of horror revolves around the idea of punishment for the culpable, usually an outsized punishment for the infraction. In this particular case, the two girls lied about where they'd be, but the protagonist actually has good intentions. She saves her friend from date rape, she tries to get them not to go in from the get-go. Is she culpable or is she an innocent victim?

P.A. Cornell:
That's a good question. That's a question for the reader. It's hard for me to answer that because the inspiration comes from an actual childhood experience where

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ooh!

P.A. Cornell:
a friend and I lied to our parents about where we were going to be and then we had nowhere to spend the night, so we had to spend the night in a really shady place.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Ooh!

P.A. Cornell:
It was fortunately not a haunted house. But yeah, so I, you know. I think the protagonist is just great. Did nothing wrong. But yeah, she's kind of a normal teenage girl, like just

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
again, making stupid mistakes like we all did and our kids will do and so on through the generations. She's not a bad person. She has her weaknesses. For

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
sure her friends are also kind of like are they good friends or are they not that's kind

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

P.A. Cornell:
of more questionable So she's not hanging around the best of people maybe either so in that sense

Deborah L. Davitt:
Maybe not,

P.A. Cornell:
Maybe she's culpable because she got herself into this stupid situation with people that she probably shouldn't be hanging out with but again She's a kid. So,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
you know, it's a you live you learn situation or in this case I don't

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes,

P.A. Cornell:
know. Are you gonna live?

P.A. Cornell:
you are you gonna

Deborah L. Davitt:
maybe don't live.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, but that story is really, like I grew up watching a lot of 80s horror movies, like you know,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
like Freddy Krueger and like all the, you know, that sort of thing. And it's kind of very heavily inspired by that sort of thing, like with the, you know, the teenage girl in a haunted house. In this case, there's two last girls

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

P.A. Cornell:
and a cat.

Alicia Hilton:
What the hell?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hahaha!

P.A. Cornell:
So yeah. You know, it is very much inspired by that.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I definitely encourage people to check this one out if they can. It is a really, really good example of just pure horror. It's tropey, but in the best possible ways. All right, we're going to switch gears back over to Alicia again. We're going to talk about your story, My Heart Stopped Beating, But I'm Jonesing for a Fix, which appeared in Cemetery Gates in 2021. Dead sinners in hell join Satan for a party, all hoping for forgiveness, which has denied them, though there is always the hope for it, just out of reach, tantalizing, another form of torture. This one was probably horror, but it didn't really shock me, scare me, or disgust me. So it was much more of a think piece than an emotional or reactive piece. So what do you have to say about this one? It was interesting.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank you. Yeah, it won the Cemetery Gates flash fiction contest of that. Yeah. So it actually started out as a poem. I write more poetry than I write fiction. I've been writing poetry since I was 12. So it started

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm.

Alicia Hilton:
out as a poem. And then one thing, if you've read a lot of my fiction, you'll notice that sometimes I still have rhyming in my fiction, because

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
that's just the way my mind works. So

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
when I was crafting it, I was thinking got really deep into the world building in terms of like weird descriptions. And then I also, you know, anchored myself in one particular character. But for me, I was trying to do something kind of different, you know, which it would be different. So I was trying to pick a vision of essentially hell that is. Plays off of, you know, issues that are really. problematic in our world like climate change. You know, I have

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
a melting glacier there. But those are not the kind of things you read in typical stories that feature, you know, St. Lucifer Hell is, you know, melting glaciers and dying polar bears and stuff like that. So I was making a little bit of a statement because environment is

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
something that's important to me. But at the same time, I wanted to focus on just the strangeness and how here you have these lost souls. And some of them, you know, rats eating intestines, there's a, it's pretty grotesque. If you look at the descriptions, like

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
decapitations, poisonings, and all that. But at the same time, with all that grotesque description, I still am back to what's monstrous, what's, what's humanity. And it is hopeful in a sense, even though it's disgusting. And some of the things, you know, like spiders, it's still hope never dies. You know? So.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And that's the tantalizing thing about hope. That's

Alicia Hilton:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
the thing that keeps these sinners going.

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
They're hoping for release. They're hoping for redemption, and it's just out of reach.

Alicia Hilton:
Yeah, but that is also a form of like torture. If you think about it,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
if there was a, you know, Satanist, Satan really existed and if they were messing with people, if you lost hope, it would be kind of like, well, I've just given up and the torture wouldn't have the same impact. But if you still have hope and if you're still thinking that you might get forgiveness, you might get triumph, then everything that happens has more impact. But there's also some strange acceptance. And so

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
I was just essentially going for visual things that I could play on and others forms of sensory perception with this story

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
and trying to make it very rich with the imagery and concise.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh, you succeeded.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank you. And anchoring that one character. Because that's one thing I've started off. Sometimes I'll start off without my character, but usually I start with the character. And with this. I didn't really have the character at first. It's one of the things that was different compared to some of my other stories, is that I had the concept and the idea and some of the images in my head, and then later I anchored it in my specific character.

Deborah L. Davitt:
We're going to bounce back to Patti now with her final story, which is Into the Frozen Wilds, which appeared in Galaxy's Edge issue 59, October 2022. This is an unusual story. This is humorous horror, or at least humorous dark fiction. A holiday story about Santa's elves and reindeer after a plague has wiped out most of them in a search for the reindeer unicorn that might be able to save Christmas if she's willing to try. There is a lot of stuff about grief and death in it. but is also festooned with sugar plums and candy canes and an odd juxtaposition of tones. Did it take a while to find the right market for this one? Because my experience with markets is that they want to have genre exclusivity and they don't like when their genres touch. Did it take you a while?

P.A. Cornell:
It actually didn't take that long to sell this story. I couldn't tell you exactly how many times I submitted it, but it sold a lot faster than I thought it would be because it's also a holiday story and it's fairly long. So it had

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm

P.A. Cornell:
a whole bunch of things going against it in terms of ease of selling. But yeah, no, Galaxy's Edge picked it up fairly early on in the submission process and I'm really glad they did. I should add that's also, it's been chosen to be in the year's best Canadian fantasy and science fiction. So I'm pretty proud of this story, but it's a very

Deborah L. Davitt:
Congratulations!

P.A. Cornell:
me. Thank you.

Alicia Hilton:
Congratulations, yeah.

P.A. Cornell:
It's a very me sort of story in that I was like, I'd never written a holiday story before. And I said, well, you know, this is me. I'm not just going to write, you know, this is not your mom's Christmas story. So of

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh

P.A. Cornell:
course

Deborah L. Davitt:
no.

P.A. Cornell:
it had to have some darkness in it. And yes, yes. There's. horrible things that happened to cute little reindeer. So sorry people,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehehe

P.A. Cornell:
if that's not your thing, but it's totally my thing. So yeah, so it is like you say, like a big blend of things because of course it has the magical, fantastical Christmas

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
elements to it, but it also has some lighter moments and it has some dark descriptions of what this plague

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yes.

P.A. Cornell:
does and some of the, you know, just the way the whole. thing has happened. And the main character who's telling the story is kind of traumatized by what's happened.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh

P.A. Cornell:
And

Deborah L. Davitt:
yeah!

P.A. Cornell:
he's not in the best shape. He doesn't

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hehehe

P.A. Cornell:
really believe at the beginning of the story that they can save Christmas. He's just kind of going through the motions for Santa's sake. So I kind of envisioned him as like this grizzled old veteran kind of thing where, you know, he's... He's seen some shit.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Woof woof

Alicia Hilton:
with it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
woof!

P.A. Cornell:
So, yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
too many questions about it. I just enjoyed it. It was a fun read. And I'm going to bounce back over to Alicia with her final story, which is Black Hole, which appeared in Sci-File on March 24th of 2021. I have to admit, I read this one three times. I'm going to have to ask you to summarize it because I think that I may have completely misunderstood it. I want to see if I was right or not.

Alicia Hilton:
Okay, well, it's science fiction horror, you know, or you could also say it's not Lovecraftian, but it's cosmic horror, and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
there's a sense of loss of self-control. And this is another piece where I wanted to make it, you know, very concise, but very imagist-ist, and it also has twisted really dark humor.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
And it's also different in that I was using second person. Sometimes I do

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes,

Alicia Hilton:
you.

Deborah L. Davitt:
that's

Alicia Hilton:
And

Deborah L. Davitt:
a really distancing thing, as was something

Alicia Hilton:
so

Deborah L. Davitt:
I was going to ask you about.

Alicia Hilton:
that was a deliberate choice. Because you could say it's didstensine, but at the same time, I wanted the reader to identify with this character

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
and to feel how they would be experiencing the dread and the fear and just

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
the. realization and that sort of eureka moment at the end. And once again, there's a little bit of, you know, climate change ecology in there because that's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
something that really is a hot button for me, literally.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Understood.

Alicia Hilton:
So I wanted the reader to be lured in to the space station, you know, that's a,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
and to experience the realization as to what the consequences of their past misdeeds.

Deborah L. Davitt:
again, the person is culpable, in this case, much more so.

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
But there is a sense of sympathy for them because what they're about to face is out of proportion for whatever their crimes might have

Alicia Hilton:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
been. And my realization as a reader, which may or may not be correct, is that you're about to be turned into slot for the next person who comes along. That was my understanding of how I read it, but I

Alicia Hilton:
You

Deborah L. Davitt:
may

Alicia Hilton:
know,

Deborah L. Davitt:
be wrong.

Alicia Hilton:
I didn't want to be definite about what the fate was. That is a

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
legitimate interpretation. Another interpretation is that this person could be turned in essentially kind of as sexless android, so maybe just

Deborah L. Davitt:
I got both of those

Alicia Hilton:
certain

Deborah L. Davitt:
things.

Alicia Hilton:
parts

Deborah L. Davitt:
I got

Alicia Hilton:
could

Deborah L. Davitt:
both

Alicia Hilton:
be

Deborah L. Davitt:
of those

Alicia Hilton:
severed

Deborah L. Davitt:
things, so.

Alicia Hilton:
off. Because that is what I envisioned in my mind, not the slop to be

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay.

Alicia Hilton:
used for food. I was more of like, you are being turned into a non-human entity in a sense. We were going to... cut your genitals off, we're gonna take away your humanity, and you're not gonna die here, but there's a new chapter in your existence and it's gonna suck really. But

Deborah L. Davitt:
Okay,

Alicia Hilton:
either

Deborah L. Davitt:
I got

Alicia Hilton:
interpretation

Deborah L. Davitt:
both of those things, I'm

Alicia Hilton:
could

Deborah L. Davitt:
happy.

Alicia Hilton:
be right. And so when I think about the movie Moon, and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
if you've seen that, and okay,

Deborah L. Davitt:
I have not, but okay.

Alicia Hilton:
it's, there's a similar horrific realization, and this person is on the. is there in the moon and, you know, do you get to go home? Do you get processed? What happens to you? And so it's,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Hmm

P.A. Cornell:
It's a great

Alicia Hilton:
I

P.A. Cornell:
movie.

Alicia Hilton:
was, I wasn't thinking of moon when I wrote the story. In fact, I don't think I saw moon until after the story was published. But when I saw the movie, I thought, ah, yeah, that's in common with my story, you know, sort of

Deborah L. Davitt:
Interesting.

Alicia Hilton:
the eureka moment at the end where you realize this is. what your fate is and trying to stop that fate.

P.A. Cornell:
Moon is one of my favorite movies for that, for just the horror, I guess, of when you realize what's actually happening.

Alicia Hilton:
Yes, no, I love

Deborah L. Davitt:
Interesting,

Alicia Hilton:
that movie too.

Deborah L. Davitt:
I will have to check this one out.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah, you definitely

Alicia Hilton:
Yeah,

P.A. Cornell:
should.

Alicia Hilton:
definitely. It's science fiction horror is it's just wonderful.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Alright, then we're going to bounce to a completely different topic. We're going to talk about a story that we've all read, which is His Guns Could Not Protect Him by Sam J. Miller. It appeared in Lightspeed, issue 153, February 2023. I thought this was a really good dark fantasy story about two sons, Winchester and Remington, of a man whose monster has come for him and how Winchester, the older one, comes to realize that he doesn't have a to be like his mom or his dad, and that the monster that he sees might not be the one that comes for him in the end. I read this as a coming of age story more than anything else, but it's dark. It's really dark, but it's really good. How did you guys wind up reading it? Did you wind up thinking it was dark fantasy or did you think it was horror? Do you think it uses any horror tropes? Patty, let's start with you.

P.A. Cornell:
I mean, to me, it was dark fantasy for sure. But yeah, it does, I mean, it has monsters in it. So that's a horror trope right there. Yeah, I mean, what I love about this story, and it's definitely a coming of age story. In some ways, it's very beautiful, but it's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes!

P.A. Cornell:
also so dark. And this is the reality of this world, which is what I love about, like

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
the world building of it. Like there's just monsters in this world, and it's just... a fact of life that sooner or later the monster is going to come for you, which is also metaphorical of just like things that are going to go wrong in life, you know, that you are going

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
to have to accept. And for everybody, it's something different, you know, you may

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

P.A. Cornell:
or may not make it through. So just, I don't know, I just love this story. There's just so much that's great about it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And Alicia, what did you think of the story?

Alicia Hilton:
the story too. And when I read it, one thing I noticed before I read it is at the very top it just said fiction. It didn't say science fiction or fantasy or dark fantasy because you know, Lightspeed oftentimes kind of labels

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
stories, but it just said fiction. So I thought, ah, this must be, you know, something that's weird fiction. Maybe it's blending genres. And since I was reading it, I was thinking, oh, is there going to be any science fiction that's going to pop up, you know? What are the fantasy elements? And that's so as a reader, I was enjoying the story, but I was also kind of dissecting it that way. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
one of the things I loved about it most was that there was a lot of room for me to use my imagination

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
because you don't ever find out what actually happens to the father. You don't find out his condition or what happened. You don't find out what the monster looked like that got

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
him. And you hear about how the son learned from his father what the father's monster, what he thought it looked like. And then you

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
also learn the concept of like, okay, each person has a monster and the monster is gonna get them. And if you're in the wrong place and you could end up being a casualty, a collateral damage, but how do you know it's your monster and not just someone else's monster that you would happen

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
to see? And so, the glimpse of, for instance, that monster creature, the big gorilla thing with the horn. I thought it was very thoughtful how the boy or main character saw that thing. But it went through his head, it may not be my monster. It may be somebody else's monster. And so there was a lot of questioning. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
I thought the story was predominantly monster horror. And dark fantasy in a sense that there were fantastical creatures. But in a sense though, we don't ever learn how these creatures started showing up, when they started

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
showing up. Are they cryptids? Are they extraterrestrials? You know, what are they? So we don't really know about that element. And I really liked the way there were all these unanswered questions because it made me think more and it sucked me

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yes.

Alicia Hilton:
into the story more. And the story wouldn't have been merely as, to me, resonant if there had been more description. You know, sometimes lots of description is great, but I like the way there

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
was a lot of, there were a lot of gaps that were obviously intentional because they made the story to me much more thoughtful. And it was really, it was not just a monster story. It was a lot about family.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh

Alicia Hilton:
and

Deborah L. Davitt:
yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
relationships and love and loyalty and how, you know, even though his little brother was annoying to him, there was also, you know, a sense of protectiveness. Then

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
you also have the fact that they're both children and this older child who is still not even a teenager is having to like be the adults and

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
the calming force and was, you know, going around in the house learning and it was with the wealthy people. So it was just such a. Well done story, I really enjoyed it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
what I loved was the theme, the idea that you don't have to recapitulate your parent sins. You

Alicia Hilton:
Mm-hmm.

Deborah L. Davitt:
don't have to be, you don't have to grow up to become one or the other. You can choose to make yourself something else.

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
And that was a lovely theme to end on. And yeah, powerhouse of a story. Kudos to Sam Miller, who wrote it, I believe, if I have

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
that name

Alicia Hilton:
Yes.

Deborah L. Davitt:
right.

P.A. Cornell:
Yep.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah, great story. Now we're going to turn it over to Alicia, who's going to do a short reading from one of her recent stories. Could you go ahead and give us a little intro, the title, where it was published, and then take it away?

Alicia Hilton:
OK, this is from Vesterion. It's Gunfire and Brimstone. And this is one of the stories that I wrote that is a, what is this story, where I was

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
blending a lot of different genres. And it was published in Vesterion in 2020. And this is probably the fastest acceptance I have ever had. And it's not a

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mmm!

Alicia Hilton:
short story. It's long. It's like, f**k. 4,800 or something words, but I received an acceptance from a story in less than an hour after I submitted it. And when I got

Deborah L. Davitt:
Wow.

Alicia Hilton:
the acceptance email,

P.A. Cornell:
That's awesome.

Alicia Hilton:
John said, I mean, he, John wasn't the only person who read it. It's like he had somebody else read it, and they both loved it so much. They like wanted it. So I was, I was,

Deborah L. Davitt:
Nice.

Alicia Hilton:
I was thrilled with that. But I'm, I bring a lot of my own experiences into my fiction. And so a long time ago, I was a stockbroker, you know, financial consultant with Merrill Lynch. So finances is in this story. And so I used some of the things that I learned back from coworkers talking about, I had a friend who at one time worked in a boiler room, you know, a bucket

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
shop. And so a little bit of my dialogue, I borrowed from my friend's stories. So here is Gunfire and Brimstone. The greenish-yellow goo smelled like a rotting corpse, dredged from a primordial swamp. I discarded the soiled diaper, wiped off Gordon's plump buttocks, and wrapped a fresh nappy around his stiff little weenie. He had the unblinking stare of a zombie. His little hands clenched and unclenched as they reached for my face. I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to scream. My nose still hurt where he'd scratched it yesterday, leaving a crusty scab. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it didn't seem normal that a newborn could be so aggressive. It wasn't the first time I'd regretted having the drunken one-night stand. 24 days had passed since Gordon tore through my vajayjay, but it seemed like he was still attached to my body by his umbilical cord. I said, Gordon's a good baby. and tickled his chubby little belly. He opened his mouth, exposing an incisor that poked from his lower gums. Was that a smile? I caressed his cheek. All of a sudden, he swiveled his head and bit my forearm. I shrieked and yanked my arm away. He hadn't broken the skin, but the single tooth had left a triangular, pulplish pink bruise. My nine pound, five ounce bundle of joy seemed to have as much affection for me as a maggot that wanted to burrow into a slab of meat. That's the first page.

Deborah L. Davitt:
That's unusual for newborn, yes.

P.A. Cornell:
Yeah.

Alicia Hilton:
Hahaha

Deborah L. Davitt:
I would want to read the rest of that, yes.

Alicia Hilton:
this. The story gets much stranger. I had a lot of fun writing this where I combined a little bit of finance with crime fiction and dark fantasy and various types of horror. And I have scenes in the prison, lesbian sex scene.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All that in four thousand words? How did

Alicia Hilton:
All

Deborah L. Davitt:
you manage

Alicia Hilton:
of that,

Deborah L. Davitt:
to get that

Alicia Hilton:
you

Deborah L. Davitt:
all there?

Alicia Hilton:
know,

P.A. Cornell:
Ha

Alicia Hilton:
in

P.A. Cornell:
ha!

Alicia Hilton:
just a little under 5,000 words.

Deborah L. Davitt:
All right. Do either of you have any recent projects you'd like to talk about? Anything new coming out soon, or that in the recent past that you'd like people to revisit? I'll start with Patty.

P.A. Cornell:
What do I have coming out? It's tough to say because I can't talk about a lot of it.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Yeah.

P.A. Cornell:
But yeah, I do I have a story coming out in fantasy pretty soon like October November. So that is like a science fiction fantasy sort of not time travel thing, but I play with time with it. So it's it takes place in a building that's outside of time. and it's called Once Upon a Time at the Oakmont. And I've been telling people, this is my favorite story I've ever written. I don't know if readers will agree with me, but for me, it's my favorite because it incorporates a lot of things that I love in it. It's quite long. It might even be novel at length now that I'm thinking about it, but anyway. So that's probably the next thing coming out that I can talk about that's kind of exciting. other than I already mentioned the year's best thing with the Into the Frozen Wilds. And other than that, I am also celebrating the one year anniversary of my novella launch. So that's my sci-fi novella, Last Cargo. So that's, it's going to be a year old on September 12th. So yeah, that's also got some dark elements in it. I feel like it's funny because I've been saying this is my science fiction novella, but it's actually really been well received by the horror community because

Deborah L. Davitt:
That's nice.

P.A. Cornell:
it has a monster

Alicia Hilton:
Excellent.

P.A. Cornell:
in it and everything. So yeah, so I've heard a lot of people like our reviewers that normally just read horror, you know, have found some stuff they really like about it. So it's

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh,

P.A. Cornell:
kind of,

Deborah L. Davitt:
that's

P.A. Cornell:
yeah.

Deborah L. Davitt:
fantastic. I love things that blend genres. I am of the opinion that why write one thing when you can write all of them? So.

P.A. Cornell:
Totally. Yeah, I loved all the all the genres. Why would I limit myself to one?

Deborah L. Davitt:
Exactly. Alicia, anything new or recently out that you want to talk about?

Alicia Hilton:
Well, I write a lot, and so

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm

Alicia Hilton:
I have quite a few publications. I just had some more stories and poems published recently, and I need to update my website, add them on there, but I will do that. And alesinhilton.com has all my recent work on it, except for a few things that just came out. But one of the biggest projects I've been working on this past year is Back to Omnipark. That is an anthology, which is a prequel to the 2020 publication, Tales from Omnipark. It was an anthology that was on the preliminary ballot for a Bram Stoker Award. So this time, in that first anthology, I was just one of the authors. Now in this one, back to Omnipark, I'm the co-editor along with Ben Thomas. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh nice.

Alicia Hilton:
I also have a story in the anthology called Chimera. So. I'll be excited for people to read my story, Chimera, and very excited for them to read the rest of the anthology. It's just packed full of incredible stories. Some are straight horrors, some are blended genres. Everything is original in the anthology, no reprints at all.

Deborah L. Davitt:
Nice.

Alicia Hilton:
And there's really strong characters, world building. Some of the characters are not too likable, but that makes them interesting. And

Deborah L. Davitt:
Exactly.

Alicia Hilton:
it was interesting to see a shared world because all the stories were, and there's a few poems, they revolve around Omni Park, the strangest theme park in the world that's ever existed in Texas. And so you have a shared world, but the stories, for instance, we have more than one time travel story, but they're very different. And so

Deborah L. Davitt:
Mm-hmm.

Alicia Hilton:
you can see different authors like Ler Barron's interpretation versus Haley. Piper's interpretation versus Jonathan Mayberry's interpretation, you know, my interpretation, and like Heist's interpretation of what Omni Park was. And so it's really going to be a fantastic book. And all those stories have been edited now, and right now we have an illustrator that's doing the interior art. Each story is going to

Deborah L. Davitt:
No.

Alicia Hilton:
have artwork accompanying it, and the book itself

Deborah L. Davitt:
Oh, fantastic.

Alicia Hilton:
is gorgeous. So that'll be... Right,

Deborah L. Davitt:
I

Alicia Hilton:
it'll

Deborah L. Davitt:
love

Alicia Hilton:
be out

Deborah L. Davitt:
that

Alicia Hilton:
before...

Deborah L. Davitt:
about some of the more recent anthologies is the fact that people are turning towards having everything have its own art. And that is fantastic and wonderful. And I really appreciate that editors are going that extra mile to have things matched up that way. All right. Thank you both for having been here. I really appreciate having you on the podcast. Next week, in theory, we'll be taking a turn away from genre concerns to talk about editors and editing. Hopefully, my guests will be Eleanor R. Wood and Shingai Njeri Kagunda of the fantasy podcast and magazine Podcastle. Thank you both for being here. I appreciate your time, and we are out.

Alicia Hilton:
Thank

P.A. Cornell:
Thank you.

Alicia Hilton:
you so much. It was wonderful talking to you.