INTERVIEWING ERICA WATERS: A POWERFUL NEW VOICE IN YA HORROR FICTION Today we are delighted to welcome the fantastic Erica Waters on the site, Erica is one of the most exciting new voices on the YA horror scene and we have given both her novels terrific reviews. Her debut Ghost Wood Song (2020) deservedly also reached the final ballot of the YA Bram Stoker Award and was one of the outstanding releases of 2020. If you are a fan of blue grass music, this is a rare opportunity to see (and hear!) it feature in a horror novel. This is part of our review: The debut novel from Erica Waters, Ghost Wood Song, has a unique position in YA horror; the first I have ever read which features bluegrass music as a major theme. Shady Grove is named after a famous bluegrass tune and longs to follow in her late father’s footsteps by playing old school bluegrass music and part of the conflict comes from the fact that the other members of her band, including Sarah (who Shady has a thing for), want to play more modern or mainstream tunes. For older teens looking for a slow-burning drama with a strong musical theme and supernatural overtones there is much escapism to be had in these pages. In late July/August 2021 Erica returns with an impressive and very striking second novel The River Has Teeth, which if anything, we loved even more than her first. We were very excited to have an early read of this absolute cracker and were so impressed we tracked Erica down for this interview. This is an extract from our review: The River Has Teeth is a superb second novel and considering that Ghost Wood Song (2020) was a highly accomplished debut, this is an author to watch very closely and if she continues writing dark/horror YA fiction is destined to become a major new voice in the genre. Although the plots of her two novels are completely different, they have some similarities when it comes to themes, music (bluegrass to be precise) dominated Erica’s debut and although it does not do so in her second novel, it does play a role of some significance. Also, both novels feature bi-sexual female teenage characters who financially struggle and might be described as coming from the wrong side of the tracks. Erica convincingly gives these marginalised teens a voice. If you read and enjoyed Ghost Wood Song, you will absolutely adore The River Has Teeth. It hums with its own type of magic, which is so vibrant, believable, and beautifully described you will probably end up totally emersed in it. If you are on the hunt for YA fiction which gives LGBTQ+ characters a convincing voice and explores settings miles away from traditional middle-class American high school, then Erica Waters needs to be sampled. This author gives the unrepresented and forgotten teenagers of trailer-parks a voice. If you’re a school or public librarian reading this, or parent of a thoughtful teen who likes their fiction dark DARK, then these two horror novels are pure poetry. We were delighted to welcome Erica to Ginger Nuts of Horror….. GNOH: Family dynamics and parental issues/troubles are strong themes in both your novels. Do you find the supernatural an effective way of exploring what goes on behind the household curtains? There are some YA authors writing at the moment, such as Amy Lukavics and Dawn Kurtagich, who are superb at this…. ERICA: I think the supernatural is such a good way to get at things buried under the surface, all the things we want to hide that are waiting and festering in the dark. Ghosts and monsters and magic are a way to bring those issues into the light where we can face them and hopefully deal with them. GNOH: Boys are very much in the background of both ‘Ghost Wood Song’ and ‘The River has Teeth’ with both novels led by female characters, is there much of yourself in Sarah, Shady, Della or Natasha? Or perhaps a little bit of all of them? ERICA: I put a little of myself into all of my characters, I think, even the ones I don’t particularly like! It’s a way of exploring different sides of myself. The characters most like me are probably Sarah from Ghost Wood Song and Della from The River Has Teeth. Neither girl likes to be in touch with her emotions and both are blunt to a fault, which are two traits I have always had to work on in myself. Some of the boy characters have bits of me too, though, like Orlando’s love of insects in Ghost Wood Song! GNOH: Both books feature convincing gay relationships or friendships with heavy overtones, we have Sarah and Shady in ‘Ghost Wood Song’ and in ‘The River Has Teeth’ the developing relationship between Della and Natasha. Do you feel the representation of gay and bi-sexual characters have improved in recent years in general YA fiction? Do you feel horror YA has a fair representation? ERICA: LGBTQ+ representation in YA, including YA horror, is absolutely improving, though of course I would always like to see more of it. Two upcoming books readers should watch for are The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass and The Dead and The Dark by Courtney Gould. GNOH: Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a number of YA horror novels with main characters who come from poorer backgrounds, such as trailer parks and rural locations, with a move from the standard richer suburban settings. Both your novels feature characters like this, are you consciously trying to give a group who might normally be overlooked a voice in YA fiction? ERICA: I grew up low-income in the rural American South, and I don’t remember ever encountering a character like me in a novel for young people, except occasionally as an object of pity. I very purposely write characters from low-income homes because young people from all backgrounds need to see themselves as the heroes of stories, people with autonomy and purpose, and to see families like theirs portrayed with nuance and affection. GNOH: Do you read much adult horror fiction and how widely to you read in general? Recommend us something amazing you read recently. ERICA: I try to read pretty widely, a mix of fiction and nonfiction and poetry, from adult to middle grade. I do read adult horror, though gothic and dark fantasy are more my speed than the really scary stuff most horror buffs love. I recently read and loved Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (deliciously atmospheric and creepy) and Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (a compact, dread-filled novel that made my heart race from the first page). GNOH: Could you please walk us through your education background and literary path towards having your debut ‘Ghost Wood Song’ published? Do you have a stack of unpublished manuscripts hidden in your sock drawer at home? ERICA: I am one of those stereotypical English majors turned author. I have a B.A. and M.A. in English, which I don’t think every writer needs but were great assets for me. I actually got serious about writing fiction after taking a creative writing course during my M.A., which made me realize that I loved writing fiction and seemed to be fairly good at it. I wrote two novels before Ghost Wood Song, neither of which I ever expect to see the light of day. They were both high fantasy, one Middle Grade and one YA. They were really fun to write, but my style and interests have since gone in a different—and darker—direction. I don’t regret writing them at all because they taught me how to write and finish a book (and how to deal with the inevitable rejections that abound in publishing). GNOH: What sort of stuff did you read as a teenager and which authors have had the greatest influence on you, horror or otherwise? Do you have any ‘gateway’ novels which flicked the switch for you? ERICA: As a kid, I loved spooky books, especially R.L. Stine. When I was ten or so, I got my hands on a copy of Shadows by John Saul, which is an adult horror novel about these genius kids at an elite boarding school for the gifted. I got weirdly obsessed with it and read it probably a dozen times. But as a teen I mostly remember being really into classics. I always gobbled up my required books for class and summer reading. I liked challenging myself with difficult texts, trying to work through books like Hamlet and Great Expectations on my own. I think I probably had more literary patience back then than I do now! The greatest influences on my writing have been Virginia Woolf (though of course she would think my books were trash), Charlotte Brontë, Sarah Waters, Shirley Jackson, and Daphne du Maurier. I am such a sucker for atmosphere and beautiful sentences. The book that first made me want to write YA was Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, and the book that made me realize I should write about kids who grew up like me was The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner. Maggie Stiefvater’s and Anna-Marie McLemore’s books were also big YA influences. GNOH: Could you tell us a little bit about novel three, hopefully you’re sticking with YA horror? I’m glad you asked about this because I am very excited about it! My upcoming book, The Restless Dark, is a queer supernatural YA about two girls who team up in a macabre true crime contest to find the bones of a serial killer in a spooky, fog-filled canyon in Georgia. It will be out in fall 2022 from HarperTeen. GNOH: Which author, alive or dead, would you most like to walk past on a bus reading one of your novels? ERICA: Ursula K. Le Guin. She was such a literary badass, and the thought of her simply holding a book of mine in her hands gives me heart palpitations. GNOH: We are most certainly not going to argue with Ursula Le Guin, Jeff Zentner or the many terrific authors you have name checked. John Saul was also an adult ‘gateway’ favourite for myself. Thank you very much for finding the time to feature on Ginger Nuts of Horror, we love both your novels and wish you all the best for the release of ‘The River Has Teeth’. It goes without saying we are already looking forward to ‘The Restless Dark’. Tony Jones The River Has Teeth |
Archives
April 2023
|