TO WALLOW IN ASH: AN INTERVIEW WITH SAM RICHARD

The horror genre has long been a home for those looking to exorcise, or just exercise, their personal demons. Author Sam Richard knows that far too well. In 2017, Richard suffered one of the worst tragedies many of us could likely imagine. Like most deep wounds, that tragedy left behind a scar. That scar is a book. And that book is To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows.
 
Richard’s debut short story collection, To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows hits bookshelves and storefronts this month courtesy of NihilismRevised. In anticipation of its release, Richard gave The Ginger Nuts of Horror free reign to pick his brain… and his scabs.
 
Before anything I just wanted to say thank you, Sam, for taking a minute to answer my questions.
 
William! Thank you so much!
 
First off, for any readers who might be unfamiliar, could you introduce yourself a little, give a bit of background on who you are and on your writing, editing, and publishing endeavors?
 
For sure, sorry if this is novella length.                            
 
I’m a weird and transgressive horror writer from Minneapolis, MN. I am also the owner and editor of Weirdpunk Books. I started out merely the editor when Emma Alice Johnson started the press, but a couple of years ago she passed the whole thing over to me. When she was still running it, she published and we co-edited two anthologies: Blood for You: A Literary Tribute to GG Allin and Hybrid Moments: A Literary Tribute to the Misfits. She passed it to me in the midst of publishing Zombie Punks Fuck Off, which I ended up roping CLASH Books into co-releasing with me as I was out of my depths as a first-time publisher, haha. Up next is The New Flesh: A Literary Tribute to David Cronenberg, which is a bit of a change for the press, as it isn’t punk/music forward, but I decided that for me, as head of the press, the punk aspect is more the DIY spirit in which I publish and the ethos of how I run the press and less the over-arching outward aesthetic, as I was getting a little burnt out with music-themed anthologies. Plus, Brendan Vidito, my co-editor on The New Flesh, and I came up with the idea for this anthology ages ago, so I was excited to finally make it a reality. It will be out in November.
 
As for my own writing, it has mostly been anthology and magazine placements, with my debut short-story collection, To Wallow in Ash and Other Sorrows, coming out on October 11th, which collects some of these previously published pieces, as well as some that haven’t been seen yet. Seven of the nine stories were written in the wake of my wife’s death in August of 2017.
 
A short, three story anthology I worked on with Jo Quenell and Katy Michelle Quinn called LAZERMALL is currently on preorder at filthyloot.com, too. It’s lazer-inclusive mall-horror that started out a joke but we’re all super proud of it. I also am currently shopping a small-creature horror novella with a satanic-panic aspect that I was writing when Mo died.
 
What came first, writing or editing and publishing? What inspired you to get into the latter? Has being a writer yourself had an effect on how you view editing/publishing, or vice versa?
 
Writing for sure. I’ve been writing since Junior High and wrote four terrible novels in my very early 20s. I got into editing through Emma, specifically for Blood for You. She was like, ‘I’m gonna do this thing and you’re gonna do it with me!’ and I just couldn’t say no, haha. And it has only grown from there.
Being an editor has, 100% without a doubt, made me a better writer. If you want to improve your writing game, read slush. This gives you a lesson on what doesn’t work. It also shows you the incredibly common story-types people write. Plus, working with so many talented writers over the years has afforded me an inside view that I wouldn’t otherwise have had, and that has been super helpful.
Having a foot in both worlds, so to speak, has given me a good perspective on submitting to publications, as well as being accepted/rejected by them. I know so much more about what it’s like on that other side (from either role) that I try my best to do everything with compassion and not take rejection personally.
 
So let’s focus in on your first short story collection, To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows. The big subject that demands to be talked about, as it’s so much of what this book is about, is your wife, Mo, who in 2017 passed away suddenly without warning. You mention in the book’s introduction that some of the stories included were written just a couple weeks after that happened. The stories themselves very straightforwardly confront your feelings from that time. Did it take a lot of effort to push those stories out of you or were they practically begging to come out? What did writing those stories do for you at that point in your life? And lastly, did you ever have second thoughts about writing or publishing them?
 
It took a lot of effort to try to begin writing at that time, but once I did, they just poured out of me. “To Wallow in Ash” and “We Feed This Muddy Creek” were days 16 and 17, as in on day 16 I wrote that entire story, basically as it is now, same with the following day with the following story. But it was a weird, horrible process as they bled out of me. I had to confront a lot of things that I didn’t even know I was feeling yet, as I was just 100% in shock. It’s strange to look back at those and try to place myself in the headspace they were written in, to be honest, as much of that time I simply don’t remember a ton of.
 
What they did for me was allow me to begin processing what had happened in a way that I didn’t know I needed, because I didn’t know what I needed other than for her to not be dead. So writing those stories was a way to try to even understand what had happened. “To Wallow in Ash” is me confronting the idea that she was even gone, which still to this day, 2 years later, is still a staggering thought.
 
I didn’t have any second thoughts about them being published, nor did I about writing them—I just needed to do it. For the collection, I did go through and change the names, as in the original version of “To Wallow in Ash,” which can be found in Strange Behaviors: An Anthology of Absolute Luridity—published by NihilismRevised who published my collection—the names were all real. When I was going through it for the book, I was like, ‘This is a bit much…’ and I hadn’t even remembered that I didn’t change the names, so I added that additional layer of fictionalization and changed the names, as that did give me pause.
 
That story, the collection’s title story, is difficult to read. I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to write it. It reads less like a story and more like a confessional. It’s in the first person, it’s conversational, it features a character with a name that is still very close to your wife’s real name, and it includes real details from her life. The line between fiction and reality becomes very, very blurry. That blurriness gives the piece a lot of its power, but even still I have to ask: Aside from the obvious, how much of it is true? Or at least, how much of those thoughts and ideas went through your head back then, beyond the context of them being elements of a story?
 
It’s funny because a fellow widow friend reached out to me after she read it when it came out in the Strange Behaviors anthology and was like, “So…what did she taste like?” which really made me question everything, haha. Like, are there a bunch of people out there who think this is 100% real? Because I didn’t eat my wife’s ashes, even though a part of me wanted to.
 
So the surrounding details are mostly all true: her death, aspects of our relationship, some of the specifics I bring up - like the conversation about the couple who ate each other’s fingers was an actual conversation we had and how we each feel about it in the story is how we both felt about it in reality. The petite-cannibalism aspect is fiction, obviously. As I wrote that day 16, anything that’s projecting into the future obviously didn’t happen. I was trying to figure out what staying alive was going to look like, as the suicidal ideation was really starting to creep in those first couple of months. That story gave me an opportunity to write a future. Not a great future. Still a future of oblivion, but a different kind of oblivion.
 
But the thought of consuming her did cross my mind, in a weird way. My brain, in trying to wrap itself around her death, tried to come up with every-single-thing it could think of to keep her here, to keep her close. That was one of the weirder ones.
 
 
For those closest to you, the people who know you personally and who knew Mo, what have their reactions been like upon reading these stories?
 
I know that they have made a lot of our friends and family cry, which makes me feel both good and bad. It’s an odd situation. The first year I went to KillerCon—in 2018—the legendary Joe R. Lansdale, who is a huge writing influence of mine, said, “Write like everyone you know is dead.” I really needed to hear that at that moment. I hope people who knew her, who loved her, find value or catharsis or something in the stories I’ve written, but I also need to remember that it isn’t about them; that it isn’t for them. These stories are my way of processing and if I spent time thinking about how other people will react to them, I don’t think I’d be able to write them. This was especially true for the final story in the collection. That one hurt so much to write but I needed to get it out and I honestly still don’t know how I feel about other people reading it, especially those who knew Mo. But I couldn’t not write it.
 
Even with the intensely personal and therapeutic nature of these stories, is there anything you would you like your readers, total strangers, to take away from To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows?
 
One of the things I realized while making the TOC for the book was that I hope, if nothing else, this collection can help at least one person who is going through big loss know that they aren’t alone. As for anything else, I’ll be happy if it resonates with people on that emotional level. If I’m able to express my experience through fiction and have it touch people then what I am experiencing is somehow more real, as I no longer carry the pain alone—I’ve now given a little bit of it to the reader. My pain is now shared and I, in some way, have a little less of it.
 
Of the stories included in the collection, all but two were written after Mo’s death, is that correct? The ones that weren’t, it says in your introduction that you included those because Mo liked them. What has it been liking going back and reading those older works and comparing them to your more recent ones? Can you see the difference? Can you see the commonalities?
 
Yes, “The Prince of Mars” and “The Verdant Holocaust” were already written and published in anthologies before she died.
 
The one major thing I’ve noticed is that while they were both absolutely written under totally different circumstances, they were still written by me. I’m sure that’s a weird thing to say, but I guess I mean that while widowerhood has changed me in a lot of ways, I’m still the same person, which is easy to forget at times. They don’t carry the same weight as the others do, but I was shocked to find that there are still common themes. “The Prince of Mars” is very much about loss. And, in its own way, “The Verdant Holocaust” is too, though more about the loss of friendship than loss via death.
 
It’s fairly apparent how your stories from late 2017 and after are to varying degrees autobiographical. But those other two stories, do you feel there’s any elements of autobiography in those as well? Was that an element that was always in your writing or is it something that has only become integral in these last few years? Is it something important to you going forward?
 
There is some autobiography in all my work, to varying degrees for sure. “The Verdant Holocaust” being kind of about the death of a friendship is absolutely based on an experience I had, though obviously a lot else is different. The religious/cult aspect as well is an exaggerated riff on reality. I grew up in a pretty extreme Pentecostal Christian environment, so anytime I include religion in my work it is me trying to come to terms and deal with issues from that aspect of my childhood.
 
I think the biographical aspect is something I’ve always leaned on, at least a little. Small details from my life or experiences I’ve had always seem to worm their way into the stories, and I think I’ll always do that.
 
I did reach a point earlier in the year where I realized I had written a few stories that open with the burial of an urn by a river. Something I’ve now done. So it is a goal of mine to push away from telling variations of my own story over and over again. But the biographical element will likely always be a factor in my work, even if it isn’t obvious to the reader.
 
On the subject of those two stories, one was written for a Misfits tribute anthology and the other for a William S. Burroughs tribute anthology. Your press, Weirdpunk Books got its start with a GG Allin tribute anthology and most recently released a David Cronenberg tribute anthology. I have three questions: 1. Why all the tributes? 2. What do you feel is the most important thing when writing a tribute story or putting together an anthology? 3. The Misfits. Burroughs. Allin. Cronenberg. What is it about these creators that connects with you so strongly that you wanted to pay tribute? How do you feel they’ve influenced you?
 
Haha. The first two Weirdpunk Books tributes were Emma’s idea and I was l just all on board because they were brilliant concepts. The WSB tribute was just an open subs call that I saw and knew I had to tackle as he was an extremely early influence on me as a reader and budding writer back when I was like 14.
 
Things to keep in mind when writing for an anthology is making sure you have a fresh take on the ideas the subject presents. There are gonna be several people who write stories with the most basic understandings of the subjects and their work, and those writers are going to be doing the most obvious takes on them. Try to dig into the details and mine from there.
 
The Misfits are just fucking awesome and Emma had a brilliant idea with that anthology. I love their classic stuff and it’s so fun and surreal that getting to work on that was kind of a dream-I-didn’t-know-I-had come true.
 
With Allin, I’m not a fan, haha. He’s never resonated with me on any real level other than a mild interest in folks who take things to stupid extremes. But I also can’t deny how shitty of a person he was. The power of that book, I think, is how we approached the concept. The idea that he, as a person, wasn’t right for our reality, but what reality would he make sense in and let writers figure that out. That idea made working on that a lot of fun, even for someone who doesn’t like him—which was a lot of the contributors, haha.
 
Like I mentioned above, William S. Burroughs was a big early influence on me, and I knew I’d be mad at myself if I didn’t try to write something in tribute to him. His work is just so cryptic and interesting. That story, “The Prince of Mars,” is a mashup of WS Burroughs and Edgar Rice Burroughs where I put Bill Lee on Mars, so I got to blend a love of his words and play with strange concepts, but also put it within a sort of pulpy context which was so fun to write. It was strange how easily his way of writing just kind of poured out of me, like that bizarre shit is somewhere in my writing DNA from having read so much of him at such a young age. I had a blast with that one.
 
The Cronenberg anthology was something Brendan and I came up with after having known each other for only a few hours. It was my first BizarroCon and we were talking themed anthologies, Cameron Pierce having recently just put out the David Lynch anthology. We were wondering why no one had done Cronenberg yet, both being massive fans, and decided that we would eventually do it, if no one beat us to the punch. Which I’m still shocked didn’t happen.
 
Another project you recently finished was a successful Kickstarter campaign you put together for the purposes of finishing a set of tarot cards Mo had been working on but never managed to complete. Can you give a little background on that and maybe share what the experience running that campaign was like?
 
For sure. Mo was a tattoo artist and so she spent a lot of her time drawing tattoos at home for the next day, which made it harder for her to find time for personal art. She would try to find reasons to do personal stuff here and there, like specific art shows and whatnot. She had the idea to do a tarot deck as a long project, which was already a big passion of hers, and she fit in doing that whenever she had time. When she died, she had finished the Major Arcana and was into the 2s on the Minor. Several of us closest to her knew it couldn’t sit as an unfinished project, so we gathered about 40 artists to help finish what she had started. Luckily, she had made notes about how she wanted everything to be. It took about a year and a half, as the couple of us heading it up were having a difficult time with the emotional toll of making this project happen. My sister got involved to basically be the project organizer and she got us back on track.
 
The Kickstarter campaign was incredibly emotional, as was the whole process, but seeing it hit that funding goal, and knowing that these decks are going to be a reality, has been an amazing experience. I can’t wait to hold them. She would be so happy.
 
Since the campaign is over, of course the backers will be getting tarot decks. Beyond that, though, do you have any plans to make any decks available to those might have missed out on the campaign? If so, when might that be possible and how best can those interested get in contact with you?
 
With the Kickstarter over, we are going to have some decks leftover. We had to buy a minimum amount from the printer and didn’t hit that, so if you missed out, you’ll still be able to get one! I don’t have them on the site quite yet—I’ll try to get them up for preorder this week!—but they will be available on the Weirdpunk Books webstore: https://weirdpunkbooks.square.site/
 
Between the Kickstarter campaign and the release of your debut fiction collection, this has been a very busy few months for you. With the end of 2019 just over the horizon, what’s next? Anything in the works at Weirdpunk or in your personal writing endeavors?
 
Yeah, it has been fucking exhausting, haha. LAZERMALL just got on preorder, too, and that’ll be out soon. I have a story in Breaking Bizarro which also just came out. It has been a lot at once. I have stories in two other Filthy Loot projects, which I hope will be out sooner than later. I have a story in Planet X Publications’ Strange Stories of the Sea, which should be out any day now.
 
I have the small-creature horror novella that I am currently shopping around. I’d love to see that get on a 2020 release schedule. I just had an awesome publisher reach out, so here’s hoping that they’ll take it!
 
I wrote a story a month the first half of the year, and the latter half has all been working on longer pieces, so I’m working on a couple of things at the moment, which I will hopefully have done before the year is up. Brendan and I are also going to spend the winter working on a collaborative novel, so we’ll see how that goes as it’s new territory for both of us. On top of already being close friends, working together on The New Flesh has just been such a blast that we figured we should try something bigger.
 
One of those other projects I’m in the midst of is a memoir about grief/widowerhood that CLASH Books is putting out. It has easily been the hardest thing I’ve ever written and is taking me so long to write (sorry Leza and Christoph!) but I’m trying to get the rough-draft done by the end of the year.
 
As for Weirdpunk Books, I’m not sure yet if I’m going to do a 2020 anthology, as that collaborative novel will kind of take up the time I would have spent on an anthology. But we are releasing our first novella. Jo Quenell, who is in LAZERMALL and Zombie Punks Fuck Off, wrote this amazing novella and asked me to look at it for feedback—we often read each other’s work and give notes—and I loved it so much I begged them to let me publish it. It’s called The Mud Ballad and I’m so fucking excited to be releasing their debut novella. That’ll be out either later 2019 or early 2020, we’re still hashing some details out right now. I’ll likely try to publish another novella or two for the press in 2020. It’s a new direction, but I think it’s time to grow what Weirdpunk is doing.
 
Finally, I just wanted to say thank you again for taking the time to speak with The Ginger Nuts of Horror. Is there anything else that you would like to say or that you want people to know?
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me! I so fucking appreciate it. I don’t think I have anything else to add other than that I’d love to see more stuff from you in the world, William! Put more stuff out! Cheers!!

To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows

Written during the black-depths of early widowhood, To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows explores grief, loss, and the alluring comforts found within the heart of oblivion. Written in the spirit of J.G. Ballard, Georges Bataille, and Kathe Koja, these nine Sorrows are a cross-section of literary splatterpunk, transgressive fiction, and weird horror, which seek to illuminate the terror, dread, and discomfort of mourning through the black mirror of the grotesque. This book is full of pain. This book is full of tears. This book is full of ash.

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