SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, BEHIND THE SCENES – PART FOUR
26/4/2021
 SPAWN: WEIRD HORROR TALES ABOUT PREGNANCY, BIRTH AND BABIES, edited by award-winning author and anthology editor Deborah Sheldon, will be released worldwide by IFWG Publishing Australia on 3 May 2021. Spawn is a selection of the darkest Australian fiction penned by established authors and fresh new voices. The stories range from the gothic and phantasmagorical, through the demonic and supernatural, to the dystopian and sci-fi. In this four-part series exclusive to Ginger Nuts of Horror, most of the contributors have agreed to pull aside the curtain and reveal the inspiration behind their nightmarish tales. “Part Four” includes insights from writers J.M. Merryt, H.K. Stubbs, Kaaron Warren, David Kuraria, and Renee De Visser. J.M. Merryt on “Gravid” Ever since I was a child, I’ve always been fascinated by faeries. Not the nice Disney ones or the flower fairies that populated half the books I had as a child. No, I mean the nasty ones, the sort you see in Brian Froud and Alan Lee’s Faeries. The sort you see in The Hallow and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. I fell in love with folklore as a child, but I was bloodthirsty (as most small children are). I loved the cannibalistic Black Annis and the Erl-King, stories of faerie lords who put out the eyes of women who can see past the fae’s glamour. This is possibly because one of the first books I read by myself was Enchanted Worlds: Night Creatures. There are monsters in that book. Draugrs and trolls, and a version of Little Red Riding Hood where her life ends in a larder, not in victory over a wolf. Most of all, I loved faeries, contrary and malicious thieves of children that they are. I’ve always found it curious that faeries are so often characterized as chubby cupids living in flowers, or friendly women you can summon with crystals. This makes little sense to me, having read so much about the Baobhan Sith (faerie vampire women), or the Nuckelnavee (murderous two-headed centaur). I find it impossible to reconcile Tinkerbelle with a creature like the Nuckelnavee. This is especially true when you consider that “Sidhe”, a term often used as a synonym for faerie, refers to their habitat in burial mounds—inexorably linking them to the dead. I firmly believe that there is not enough fiction capitalising on the eldritch horror aspect of these creatures. When I wrote my contribution to this anthology, I set out to exploit my own fears of pregnancy, faerie horror tropes, and to explore the wire-thin distinction between the living and dead that is the fae’s lot. Most of all, I wanted to discuss fairy tale tropes, and how fairy tales were not always so chipper cheerful. I’m a fan a Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Blood, Apples, and that fairly well sums it up. “Gravid” was one of those rare stories that did not twist itself into an expected direction. I’m rather proud of it, and I hope you like it, too. https://twitter.com/JMMerryt H.K. Stubbs on “Motherdoll” When I came across the submission call for Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy, Birth and Babies, I was delighted to explore parenthood through a weird and eerie lens. Throughout my pregnancy and the early years of my children’s lives—and even now they’re teens—I find parenthood awash with creepiness and darkness. I sometimes think longingly of Isaac Asimov’s The Naked Sun in which children are raised entirely by robots. And that’s because social structures and norms make child rearing so hard, and I experience isolation and exhaustion. On top of that comes the unrealistic expectations and blame, and the way children change relationships. It makes me wonder how the Hallmark version of motherhood can dominate the discourse. Motherhood isn’t all lovey-happy-wonderful. There’s a real dark vein, deep and sinister despite the mainstream messaging, but it seems like a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes: few are game to admit it. It’s as though if the secret got out it might mean the end of the human race. Motherhood demands such a range of skills, and mothers are truly amazing. Perhaps this is why transforming into that role is so painful. That pain is something “Motherdoll” explores. As a writer I feel a great responsibility when working with such a major theme of women’s lives. Writing is important creative research when it explores topics like the loss of control and loss of self that women experience as new mothers. I really enjoyed writing about the conflicts a baby creates and the strain it puts on a relationship; the tiny but important rituals lost as a baby replaces both partners as the most important person in the relationship. I drew on my experience and my friends’ experiences to sketch Kelly and Blake’s relationship trajectory. Blake has that kind but most terrible quality of trying to help, but not listening [OH MY GOD!] to Kelly. I’m terribly excited to have “Motherdoll” included in Spawn. Is it a warning tale? I don’t think so. It’s more a tale of wistfulness gone wrong. How much of it is autobiography, though? Did what happen to Kelly happen to me? Maybe it did. What do you think? Tweet me twitter.com@superleni and let me know. Kaaron Warren on “The Red Shrine (Fingerless and Double-mouthed)” Years ago, I wrote a flash fiction story called “A Father’s 21st Birthday Speech”, a sweet title for a story that described a horrendous act: a man who rapes his comatose wife while she’s in hospital because he wants children and she doesn’t. He got his way, clearly. I never did anything with that story, because it wasn’t much beyond an awful act. An act which has been in the news since, with a comatose patient giving birth. There’s nothing a horror writer can invent that is worse than reality. So, when Deb Sheldon invited me to sub a story for Spawn, that was where my mind went to—that old story and the inspiration for it. It’s this idea that women must have children, and that once a woman is pregnant her body is no longer under own control but somehow becomes public property. Seeking inspiration, I read an amazing book I bought at a garage sale, called Eternal Eve, the History of Midwifery (Harvey Graham, 1950). In many ways it is a product of its time, but in others it feels ahead of it, in the way it explores women’s role in childbirth. He centres women, saying “the story began a million years ago and concerns a million women and a handful of men.” The book is full of fascinating stories, histories, characters, but I was looking for the stuff that creeped me out, upset me, disturbed me. I wanted to inflict all of these things on Deb as editor and, hopefully, on readers. Every page has another story, fear and suffering. Stories of women in childbirth being shaken by strongmen to make their babies move, and of the vivisection of criminals by Herophilus to “understand the abdomen”. There were awful cures for infertility, such as drinking water that had been used to wash a dead person. And there were those women who faked pregnancy, from Mary Tudor to Mary Toft, who, it was said, gave birth to a rabbit. In all of these, one thing kept popping out at me: a number of stories about women giving birth to hundreds of babies at once. There was Sostrata, pregnant for over a year until “her belly was opened and out of it were taken a multitude of…” (last words defaced). There was Margaret, wife to Count Virboflaus, who gave birth to 35 live children in 1296, and Dorothie, an Italian, who gave birth to 30, and the Countess of Haguenau, who was delivered of 365 children in one birth. Pepys says he saw the basin in which these children were baptised. I wondered where these stories began. They felt mostly like they were an attack on the woman, evidence of bad behaviour, of multiple lovers and lack of loyalty to their husbands. I wondered about a modern version of this. I also heard, via a friend who received a successful transplant, of the “daisy-chain system”, where you might help a stranger by donating an organ, and their loved one would help a stranger, and on and on until a stranger donated an organ to YOUR loved one. It made me think of people who are desperate to have children, and how they might help each other. All of this cooked for a while until the voice of the story came through, and I sat down to write it. https://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/ David Kuraria on “The Phobia Clinic” My last four tales including two novellas and a short novel were all set in rural or remote locations, such as Australia’s Northern Territory and on several outlying islands within Melanesia and Micronesia. These are what could be termed ‘Jungle Tales’, where geography and setting is as an important as the human protagonist(s). For some time, I had been wanting to set a story in an urban environment. During 2014, I visited New York City and several eastern US states. That trip left a lasting impression on me. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had my eyes opened to the wonders of the huge city I’d heard and read so much about throughout my life. During 2017 and 2018, I made several starts to a story (which was already entitled “The Phobia Clinic”). Each beginning turned into a false start. I had a sequence of events up to what I though was a midway point—I even included a sinister shadowy organisation. Creating characters was no problem. In NYC I was surrounded by people ideal for the tale, including an ex-pat Australian conman I met working a corner on Eighth Avenue. It was an eye-opener to see him work. It was clear I had to have something awful happen but I simply could not find a ‘why’ nor could I concoct a decent plot nor a way forward with the work. Then something fortuitous happened. I was scrolling through Facebook one night and happened upon a call for submissions for a forthcoming Australian anthology entitled Spawn: Weird Horror Tales About Pregnancy Birth and Babies. I read the guidelines and knew I had found that way forward. I went back over my notes and realised I needed a horrific scene on a train. Everything fell into place. I have to say I was excited. From there I was able to have a complete first draft within a week. I put the story aside for a few months to work on other things. When I went back to complete another draft. I knew I had cracked it. There was a decent story in there that needed another edit. I did my best to fine-tune the piece before sending it off to editor Deborah Sheldon. In all honesty, I gave myself a 50/50 chance of acceptance. When the acceptance came it was a relief. I did have several beers that night. It must be said here that if I had not seen that call for submissions for Spawn, “The Phobia Clinic” would probably not have been written, and would now be in a forgotten pile in a box at the back of a wardrobe. Renee De Visser on “The Surrogate” Like all good stories, “The Surrogate” has elements of truth. In fact, lots of truth. The mother’s narrative was something drawn from first-hand experience. My own experience of pregnancy and childbirth was not an overly pleasant one. It certainly didn’t live up to my rather aspirational goals of it being free from medical intervention and drugs. If it had, I wouldn’t be writing this now, as there is no way I would’ve survived without modern medicine. Becoming a mother also grants you access to the privileged and brutally honest collective experiences of other mothers, and so I also drew on stories from my family, from my mothers’ group, from friends and colleagues. The sensations, the emotions, the view from the hospital bed—all true renditions of those collective experiences, although arguably biased ones told from a position of vulnerability, pain and, sometimes, fear. I also tapped into the things my partner said to me after my daughter was born—his fears about losing me, losing our baby, and the pressures of the decisions he had to make. The husband’s voice is that of a man in a situation that no prenatal class prepared him for. I was deliberately vague with the medical information. I’m no doctor or nurse, so my medical understanding is very much from a patient’s viewpoint, and I tried to keep the story from that perspective. Having said that, it’s quite hard to write about childbirth in a western social setting without a hospital location, so I did need to dedicate some of the story to the medical team. Looking back, I do see some minor sequencing issues, but overall, I don’t think anyone is going to ping me on my portrayal of the hospital and the events that took place within it. Finally, the animals featured in the story are very much true. Is it possible for them to do what they did? Let’s just say—and I’m no doctor remember—based on the tribal tales about these little beasties, you probably don’t want to find out what they are capable of. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. Read the previous entires here |
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