I am the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians. My most recent novels are My Heart Is a Chainsaw and its sequel Don’t Fear the Reaper, now in paperback. I have been an NEA Fellowship recipient, won the 2021 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize, WLA’s Distinguished Achievement Award, ALA’s RUSA Award and Alex Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction, four Bram Stoker Awards, five This Is Horror Awards, and two Shirley Jackson Awards, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award. I am the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado Boulder. To learn more about my work, visit [DemonTheory.net](https://www.demontheory.net/). Ask me anything.
PROOF: https://i.redd.it/2l4uj9rzfawb1.png
by SGJ72
9 Comments
hey, I’m here.
three minutes late, sorry. was signing a mountain of books (which I’m still not through, but, wanted to be over here to do this).
Hi! Thank you so much for this opportunity to ask this question — why did you choose the Caribou Targhee National Forest as the setting for The Indian Lake Trilogy? Have you ever been there, was it a certain quality about the area that struck you? Btw I’m a PhD student currently writing about your amazing work!
What book and/or author solidified your love of horror?
Hi Stephen – knowing your love of trucks, what is the truck that you gave so much love and care to but had to give up anyway? And: can you please give us any updates about your haunted house novel…is it shelved, on the back burner, coming in a couple years, maybe?
I was wondering if typically the characters or the overall story come to you first. The Indian lake trilogy (thus far) definitely reads as though it was always going to be Jade’s story, and that she was the foundation. I was curious if this is always the case, even in some of your less character-driven works. You are one of the authors I will always blindly buy, because win, lose, or draw, I know I’m in for something very unique.
Hi, Stephen! For anyone new to the Indian Lake trilogy, how would you describe your protagonist, Jade Daniels? She is positioned to be the final girl in MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW, but she doesn’t really think she fits the bill, does she?
Thanks so much! I really loved the book! How did you get started writing horror? Any tips for aspiring horror writers? And how did you feel about what they did to Dewy?
Hello 🙂 I am very excited. I read _The Only Good Indians_ in winter 2021 while commuting on the tube; I can still remember feeling totally immersed by the eeriness of the story and my emotional investment in the characters. Combined with the winter chill, it was a delicious right-book-at-the-right-time moment.
My favourite parts (I’ll try to keep it short):
– Introduction of Elk head Woman. Subtly forcing us to reckon with + humanise her supposed villainy by switching to the second person—the hunters becoming the hunted—was intimidating in the best way. Also, her arc: from peripheral apparition to growing tangibly human to then rejecting humankind to rejoin the sanctity of the wilderness was one-of-a-kind storytelling.
– The subversive, ‘final showdown’ basketball scene with Denorah. I’m basketball ignorant, but the tension when they went head-to-head + the following will-she-or-won’t-she at the elk ‘graveyard’ you crafted was insanely affecting—palpable stillness.
The stories I’ve read so far: _TOGI_, and _Demon Theory_, I’ve read as though they’re being chucked at me by an animated narrator. They can then breathe and sleep easy while I’m standing there thinking my back needs to meet a wall because this is going to end up inducing an existential crisis in me. I am awed by your confronting writing.
I’m currently reading your short story collection _Bleed Into Me_ (I’m trying to read everything pre-_TOGI_ first), they’re sparing but honest and understated to the point of soundlessness—this collection _needs_ to be in circulation again.
Your stories are an ‘automatic buy’ for me, I’m excited to see where you’ll go.
Sorry for, essentially, fangirling.
My questions:
1. You’ve written in various formats (novels, short stories, comics etc.), do you prefer one to the other?
2. Lewis, in TOGI, is the only one, of the four, who has a non-culturally-inspired last name. Is there a reason for that, if any?
3. I’m ethnically Indian (south Asian) and grew up on spicy food, I would _love_ to know if you, a) enjoy spicy food, and if so, what dishes would fill your top-tier, and b) could name the most spiciest dish from your culture, or childhood, that you grew up with?