WiHM Special - Elana Gomel

An award-winning writer of more than a hundred stories, several novellas, and six novels of dark fantasy and science fiction, Elana Gomel has created a great start to her career, with her work allowing her plenty of acclaim and accolades. Now, in honor of Women in Horror Month, I talk with her about her early interest in the industry, her book "A Tale of Two Cities," and other projects.

Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?

Elana Gomel: Thank you for having me! I am always thrilled to share my journey with my fellow horror readers and writers because it is both typical and exceptional. Typical because we are all united in our love for horror and speculative fiction in general. Exceptional because I did not come to horror through the usual path of late-night movies. I did not see a horror movie until I was in my late teens. I barely knew such a thing existed. And that was because I was born in Ukraine, at that time part of the USSR. My upbringing until I emigrated with my family was commonplace in Soviet culture, but would be as alien to most of my American readers as if I had come from Mars. There was no pop culture, no comics, no drive-ins, no aliens, and no vampires. Instead, there was brainwashing, fear, and boredom. You might say I experienced a different kind of horror growing up – that of totalitarianism.

Perhaps that was why I instantly fell in love with literary horror and sci-fi when I finally encountered them. Buying a book by Clive Barker or Stephen King was an unimaginable luxury for somebody who came out of a country where possessing a copy might have landed you in jail. So, when I eventually became an academic, I chose speculative fiction, including horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, as my field of expertise. I have written many academic books on these subjects (the latest being The Palgrave Handbook of Global Fantasy, co-edited with Danielle Gurevitch) before I finally gathered the courage to write my own fiction. I published my first stories 15 years ago, and since then, I have never stopped. Because of my academic training, the influence of literature on me is greater than that of movies. I love Asian horror cinema (the Japanese TV series Alice in Borderlands is the current favorite), but all in all, my novels and stories are inspired by my reading and study of speculative fiction rather than by movies.

Me: Who were some of your favorite writers growing up? Do you try to take influences from their style with your own voice in your work?

EG: I already mentioned Clive Barker. When I first read Books of Blood, I was blown away. Here was everything that some of my teachers in college told me horror was incapable of doing: literary sophistication; visionary sensibility; fearless questioning of the status quo. Another strong influence was the Polish sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem. I have written about him at length and edited a volume dedicated to his work. Not as well known in the West as he should be, Lem combined some very dark themes and imagery with profound philosophical insights. He taught me that horror and reason are not enemies but allies. Perhaps that was why I never liked Stephen King very much: I wanted the combination of visceral thrill and intellectual challenge that I admired in Barker and Lem but did not find in his novels.

Me: What was the starting point of becoming a writer? Were you always into writing growing up?

EG: As I said, I came to writing fiction through a circuitous academic route. But actually, since I was a child, I composed stories in my head and occasionally wrote them down. For a long while, that was superseded by academic writing, where I had to publish regularly in order to get tenure. But while I still enjoy academic writing, it does not give me the same pleasure as creating an entire new world and populating it with living, breathing characters who so often escape my design and do what they want to do.

Me: Is there any specific genre you prefer to write? Is there a style or format that you find easier to get into, even if you don’t have a preference?

EG: I write dark everything. By this, I mean that my stories and novels always have a dark element, but they are not “pure” horror. I do not often write splatterpunk. Most of my stories can be categorized as dark fantasy. Some are slipstream. My novels are either dark fantasy taking place in a Secondary World (Nine Levels, The Hungry Ones), fairy-tale-based folk horror (Nightwood), or dark sci-fi (The Cryptids). My new novel, coming out next year, is a space opera, but it has strong elements of body horror, as does almost everything I write. For me, the most important element of writing is worldbuilding, and this is as true of my short stories as it is of longer texts.

Me: Having contributed to various anthologies early in your career, what tools and skills do you acquire working on those that transferred to future projects?

EG: I think it is very important to acquire technical skills. Writing is like any other profession. It requires training. Inspiration and imagination are indispensable qualities, but they are not enough. I used to teach narrative theory. It is a difficult subject, but it shows you how to construct a plot, how to handle point of view, and how to integrate your theme with other elements of narration. You do not need a college course for that, of course; there are plenty of good online workshops, courses, and communities. I started with short stories, and I would advise all future speculative fiction writers to do the same, as it is a good preparation for handling longer and more complex projects. But even if you want to plunge into a novel straight on, learn about the basic elements of narrative first. And another very important component of writing is to read widely in your chosen genre(s). Don’t be afraid to lose your independent voice by imitating others. The more you read, the less likely it is to happen. Think about writing the book you would want to read.

Me: What is the general process for getting involved in these projects?

EG: It is super important in this day and age to be plugged into a writing community where you can keep up to date on new projects, publishers, calls for submissions, and so on. There are plenty of those, both on social media and on various aggregate websites, such as Duotrope. When you sit down to write a story, it is very helpful to have in mind a specific project, anthology, or magazine that you want to submit to. The situation is different with novels, but even there, you may consider a specific publisher or an agent to be the intended addressee for your work. Many of my writer friends started as readers and fans, going to conventions in their areas and networking with others who are passionate about horror. Most states in the US have chapters of Horror Writers of America. Check it out. Look around. Create an online community for yourself, even if it is only a few people. Nobody writes in a vacuum.

Me: That brings us to your latest project, “A Tale of Three Cities.” What can you tell us about the book?

EG: If you are a parent, as I am, you know that each of your kids has a special and unique place in your heart. It is not the question of loving one more but of loving them differently. A Tale of Three Cities is a very special mind-child of mine. It was the first novel I wrote, even though what you are reading today has almost no connection to this first mangled draft. Its title is a play on the title of my favorite novel by Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, which deals with revolutionary violence. There is a revolution in my novel as well, and plenty of violence. But it is also a noir mystery set in the City unlike any other. It is an exploration of blind belief, of the power of the imagination to make and unmake reality, and most of all, of guilt and redemption. My heroine Mara Raven is not a “nice” person, but she is complex, interesting, and magnetic. She starts as a young woman looking for her missing husband through the power of a unique ability called dream-fishing. She ends up finding much more than she bargained for about her marriage, her world, and, most importantly, about herself. It is an epic dark fantasy which, some reviewers described as being “unlike any other”. I love it, and I hope my readers will love it too.

Me: How did you settle on the plots for your books? With the variety of tones and styles you publish, what type of prep-work goes into making sure they fit into the previous book in your catalog?

EG: All my stories and novels start with a visual image, often coming from a dream. A Tale of Three Cities started with the vision of a rain of blood. Nine Levels, conceived when I was in Greece, grew out of the dream of climbing a steep mountain and being chased by living graffiti of black cats. The Cryptids developed from meeting a strange animal on a deserted Californian road (I am still not sure what it was). But of course, an image is just the beginning. I am a pantser, not a plotter, but I still have to have a very rough outline of the action and a sketch of the protagonist. I have become more disciplined about drafting than I used to be. However, the problem for me is that I write in a variety of genres. My next novel to be published is a space opera, very different from A Tale of Three Cities. So, I am running several parallel catalogs, so to speak, hoping that readers who like my dark fantasy will give my sci-fi a chance. It is, of course, harder to do branding this way, but I am simply incapable of limiting myself to one type of writing.

Me: Was there any special significance to making the story involve characters in a multi- generational race to recover their past?

EG: Yes, of course. I am an immigrant twice over. The country where I was born, the USSR, no longer exists. My family’s history is inextricably linked with the great historical tragedies of the last century: the Terror, the Holocaust, and WW2. Recovering, remembering, and reimagining the past is what my life as a writer and an academic has been about. But while it is important to remember the past, I do not want to be bound by it. A Tale of Three Cities ends on a hopeful note. We need to be open to the future and believe in our power to create a better story than the one we have inherited from our families and our nations.

Me: Is there anything while writing the characters that you were surprised by in telling their stories?

EG: It is always surprising. Any writer will tell you that their characters have an existence independent of their own. Your brainchildren grow, mature, and separate from you in the same way as your actual children do. I never expected Mara Raven to end up with the immense power she has, nor did I expect her to make the choices she does. As I was revising, I even grew a little scared of her.

Me: What is your writing process? How do you stay focused on writing?

EG: It is hard, especially since I always work on multiple projects simultaneously. I am not great at time management (I hope my former and current students are not reading this!) All I can say is that one needs deadlines. They always help you to concentrate. So, just as I set deadlines for students, I need editors, publishers, and friends to set deadlines for me.

Me: Once it was finally written, what was the process for having it published?

EG: It was fortuitous. I saw a call from a new publisher, sent in the manuscript, and it was accepted. Of course, it was just the beginning of the long road of revisions.

Me: What do you do to keep your creative energy flowing?

EG: I cannot not write. It is as instinctive and necessary as breathing. Especially once I started writing fiction, I simply cannot stop, even when life, in the shape of other commitments, travel, or health, intervenes. My mother, who was a writer and a Soviet dissident, felt the same way. One of my earliest memories is seeing her perched at the coffee table in our Kyiv apartment, scribbling in her notebook. I must have been around three. This imprinted me with the belief that writing is the most important adult activity you can engage in. I still believe it,

Me: What else are you working on that you’d like to share with our readers?

EG: My next novel, coming early next year from Crystal Lake Publishing, is called Antlions. It is a space opera with mysterious aliens, strange planets, and a vast conspiracy at its core. Like any good space opera, it cannot be a single book, simply because the scope is so large (think Expanse). So I am working on a sequel, while simultaneously trying to keep up with short fiction writing, academic projects, and my Substack.

Me: Lastly, being that this is our Women in Horror Movement, what special message do you have for any women out there looking to join in the industry in any capacity as you are one yourself? Thank you again for your time!

EG: I feel a special connection with women horror writers, precisely because in the past it was often assumed that women could not, or should not, write in this genre (even though the founder of modern horror and sci-fi, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, was, of course, a woman). Even as an academic, I got my share of raised eyebrows and comments like “Are you really interested in serial killers?” (My first academic book is called Bloodscripts and deals with narratives of violence). The situation has changed with so many talented women in the field now, but still, some stereotypes persist, as women are channeled into the field of domestic Gothic or dark romance. So, dear sisters, do not let anybody tell you what and how to write. If you like splatterpunk, go for it! If you want to write cerebral, “cold” sci-fi, you can do it. Being a woman means we share some unique experiences that will be reflected in our writing, as motherhood is reflected in mine. But it also means you are a human being first and foremost, and you can write about anything human beings do, experience, and suffer.

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