[INTERVIEW] Exquisite Hunger Author Emma. E. Murray
Cat: To start us off, can you tell readers a little bit about yourself?
Emma .E. Murray: OK, well, so I'm Emma and I'm a horror writer. I've been a writer all my life, actually ever since I was very, very little, it was the first job I ever wanted to have. I would tell everybody I want to be an author and an illustrator, although I'm not very good at drawing so. I've dropped the illustrator part completely. I didn't really get into horror until I was older, so I would say I seriously started writing about five years ago, and then only in the last couple of years that I really start getting things out there and feeling confident to submit. Things have started taking off!
Cat: Can you tell us about your chapbook Exquisite Hunger?
Emma Yes, so I am. I love this story so much. It is a Sapphic cannibalism story. As a BI woman, I feel there's not a lot of queer representation in horror, and it's growing, but I'm all about this wave of queer representation. I was like, I want to be part of that. I'm going to be. Right? I paired it up with Medusa house, which are also the people that put out the Book of Queer Saints. And so they were like, yes!
I've always been obsessed with like femme characters that are not damsels in distress, that are much more like villains or antiheroes. So this story has to do with a femme character who is very much torn between her desire and repulsion about some very messed up obsessions she has that she discovered. She has a new neighbor move in and she becomes obsessed with her and she starts having these fantasies. Then she does things that she never thought she would do before.
Cat: Your cover was designed by Caitlin Marceau. Can you tell us a little bit about the cover and the collaborative work with her?
Emma : She's so amazing. When I found out that she was going to be doing the cover and also interior illustrations, I was over the moon because her illustrations, and her writing are just incredible. She totally got what the story was going for and expressed it in these beautiful, black and white and red illustrations. The cover has all these beautiful women in a heart and once you read the story, you'll see how this really exposes that obsession she has. When she showed me all the different prints I almost cried. So she really, really got my story. I even ordered a poster size print of one the cover, so that I can put it up on the wall. I cannot tell you enough good things about Caitlin Marceau. She's incredibly talented.
Cat: Agreed! So what inspired you to write horror, and what inspired Exquisite Hunger?
Emma: So I have always loved the dark and macabre. Like ever since I was a kid, I loved Goosebumps books and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I've always been interested in horror, then I got into horror movies when I got older. I also suffer from OCD, so I started writing horror as a way to kind of get those intrusive thoughts out in a productive way. I found out that people really loved my stories that were based around these horrific fears and ideas that would pop in my mind. So that's definitely been one part of it is the catharsis of that.
I also love the fantasy side of it. I have both kinds of stories , I love the classics and I've always gravitated towards the darker riders like Cormac McCarthy, one of my all time favorites even though he's not a horror writer, he wrote some of the most horrific scenes I've ever read. I've always kind of wanted to be a literary horror writer.
Exquisite Hunger was inspired twofold; I have a lot of my stories inspired by dreams. I had this semi fucked up cannibalism dream, and I was like, you know what, that would be a really cool story. Then I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts, and there was a story about a man who was a cannibal, and this story is quite different from that. But I liked how it showed that he kind of had this obsession for a while and this stalking, and it kind of gave it that aspect of it. I used that a little bit of a blueprint to help put this image we already had in these scenes that are so grotesque.
Cat: What draws you the most to extreme horror?
Emma: I have just always been a big fan of really gory, intense scenes in books and movies; it's just when they're so visceral, it just really sticks with you. I think it brings something out that's also deeper in the story. I think that I don't like all extreme, there's some of it that I think is over the top, and it doesn't really speak to anything deeper. I really like horror that is both extreme and has a deeper meaning to it that it's trying to kind of get at by freaking you out.
Extreme Horror] is super personal. I especially don't like cheesy over the top stuff, the kind that I like more that has that deeper layer and symbolism usually has very personal ties like and yeah, I've just fallen in love with that genre. Honestly, like even when I try not to write things that are too extreme, I often have beta readers telling me ‘you might want to tone this down.’
Cat: Writing extreme horror can often be quite exhausting. How do you handle the dark and disturbing situations you write about?
Emma: I very compartmentalise things in my life, because I also take care of my daughter who's just a toddler. So I can't be thinking about horror things all day. I definitely have to do some, you know, nursery rhymes. I think of myself almost like a method writer, like method actors in that I write only in large chunks at night. Then I put myself into that character that I'm writing, and I mean, I obviously don't like murdering people and stuff, but, I just, like, get into that mindset completely so that I can be there with them. I do a lot of research and I have a degree in psychology, so I have a lot of familiarity with mental illness, and that comes into a lot of these characters. So, before I start writing from a character's viewpoint, I'll really think about "where are they coming from? What's their background? What are they maybe suffering from? What kind of trauma have they gone through? So that I can really be there with them, I think that that gives my characters unique voices. I hope at least.
Cat: Who are some of your literary influencers?
Emma: I would say my biggest literary influences are Flannery O'Connor, even though I know she's not a horror writer, but the Southern Gothic is always something I've loved. I'm from Texas and I've also lived in Tennessee, so I just the way that she had these grotesque stories that ended in a sublime revelation about God. As an atheist, I like to think of myself as doing similar things with my stories, but often with an atheist slant. I have a lot of stories that have a sublime revelation, that there's no. I also really, really love Joyce Carol Oates. I know she can be a controversial figure on Twitter, and that's unfortunate, because her writing is amazing, but I've seen people not want to read her because of controversial things she has said. She really writes these amazing dark stories, especially her short stories. And some of her novellas are some of the most incredibly dark psychological horror that I've ever read and I would just love to be like her, but not like her online.
Cat: Final question, what are you currently reading?
Emma: I'm reading a few things. I have so many. Let me. Check my Good Read! I'm reading Everything the Darkness Eats, I just started reading that, by Eric Larocca. I always love everything by him. I'm also reading two beta novels right now for people, so that's been a lot and I'm listening to Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti. I have read a couple of other things by him, but I'm really liking this one.
