Women in Horror Month #10: Kristi DeMeester, Author of BENEATH

Hey, everybody, thanks for stopping by!  I'm very excited about today's guest, so let's waste no time and jump right in!

About Kristi DeMeester:

Kristi DeMeester is the author of BENEATH, a novel published by Word Horde Publications, and EVERYTHING THAT'S UNDERNEATH, a short fiction collection from Apex Books. Her short fiction has appeared in approximately forty magazines, including Ellen Datlow's THE YEAR'S BEST HORROR VOLUME 9, Stephen Jones's BEST NEW HORROR, YEAR'S BEST WEIRD FICTION VOLUMES 1, 3, and 5 in addition to publications such as "Pseudopod," "Black Static," "Fairy Tale Review," and several others. In her spare time, she alternates between telling people how to pronounce her last name and how to spell her first.

Interview:

SK: How are you involved in the world of horror?

KD:  I have been writing in the horror and weird fiction genre since 2012. I've always loved horror but never allowed myself to write it until I was a bit older. After I started, I couldn't stop. I wake up every day thrilled to know that not only do I get to be a fan but also an active participant. 

SK: Who or what terrifies you?

KD:  I've always preferred feelings of disquiet or unease to what typically feels like "terror." When the normal world tips ever so slightly on its axis and things that should be comforting are no longer recognizable, that is when I am truly terrified. 

SK: Are there unique challenges to being a woman in horror or do you feel like gender is irrelevant?

KD: There is absolutely still a disparity in gender in horror publishing. There's always commentary every year from someone who needs to loudly proclaim that women can't do horror because we are too emotional (we have that pesky, hysteria-inducing womb, after all), or that we just aren't wired to do traditional horror. That we should stick with "dark fantasy." As if those things are truly separate and not two sides of the same coin. There's commentary that TOCs with no or very few women or people of color are only that way because the editor only looks for the best content and can't help if women aren't submitting! To that I say that the editor should advertise more broadly. There are too many women, too many people of color, doing excellent work to have an editor make this claim any longer. There's commentary when women point out this problem of "c'mon...the editor is a really good guy! She really shouldn't have made that comment public but instead gone to the editor directly and asked the question privately." All variations of be quiet, be good, don't cause a scene. These are good guys, these are misinterpretations of the situation, and all of it the woman's fault for just not understanding. What makes situations like these even more frustrating is watching those who claim to be allies talk out of both sides of their mouths: expressing outrage on a woman's page when she's met with this kind of experience but then support and understanding for the man who criticized her. Ask any female horror author her experiences, and you'll hear stories like this one. 

SK: Who are your favorite female horror icons?

KD: Helen Oyeyimi, our fairy godmother Shirley Jackson, Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, Nalo Hopkinson, Damien Angelica Walters, Livia Llewellyn, Sarah Langan, Gemma Files, Joyce Carol Oates, S.P. Miskowski, Lauren Beukes, Tananarive Due, Toni Morrison. I could go on forever. 

SK: What are you working on/promoting currently? Why should folks check it out?

KD:  I'm currently working with my agent on edits for my second novel, which is all about girls before their bodies become women's, men that sometimes wear the faces of dogs, abandoned theme parks, and what happens when women try to repress themselves. My novel, BENEATH, an apocalyptic book about a snake handling cult, is available from Word Horde, and my first short fiction collection, EVERYTHING THAT'S UNDERNEATH, is available from Apex Books. If you like quiet horror, body horror, weird fiction, ambiguity, or reading about the world gone just wrong enough to set your teeth on edge, you'll like it. 

About BENEATH:

When reporter Cora Mayburn is assigned to cover a story about a snake-handling cult in rural Appalachia, she is dismayed, for the world of cruel fundamentalist stricture, repression, glossolalia, and abuse is something she has long since put behind her in favor of a more tolerant urban existence. But she accepts the assignment, dredging up long-buried memories as she seeks the truth.

As Cora begins to uncover the secrets concealed by a veneer of faith and tradition, something ancient and long concealed begins to awaken. What secrets do the townsfolk know? What might the handsome young pastor be hiding? What will happen when occulted horrors writhe to the surface, when pallid and forgotten things rise to reclaim the Earth?

Will Cora--and the earth--survive? The answers--and pure terror--can only be found in one place: Beneath.