Hello fiction writers, fan fiction writers, scary fiction writers, and other worldly fiction writers!
In celebration of the kind of fiction readers love but the industry doesn’t always know what to do with comes two past episodes honoring fan fiction and gothic fiction, respectively. Revisiting these episodes is a reminder of the vast world of fiction outside the narrow confines of upmarket or commercial or historical fiction. Our two past guests, Rainbow Rowell and Isabel Cañas, take us on a journey through their respective inspirations, views of the industry, and insights into the world of writing fiction that exists in the margins.
Spotlight on Latin Gothic:
Eartheater by Dolores Reyes
Woodworm by Layla Martínez
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Partial transcript from the show
Grant: I’m Grant Faulkner, generally a somewhat realistic fiction author, but I love stories that take me to other worlds, and today we’re featuring two authors who do that in different ways. Isabel Cañas writes horror, but not just horror, but horror that unshackles horror from its white European roots. She relocates and recontextualizes the haunted house in a genre that is growing in popularity: Latin Gothic, as it’s being called on the heels of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic. And then in a very different way, we explored a different kind of boundary pushing in Rainbow Rowell’s Fan Girl, which had its 10th anniversary. It was cool for me because both of these authors have written books in NaNoWriMo, and, in fact, Rainbow wrote Fan Girl during NaNoWriMo. These books are making me think of not only different kinds of writing, but different kinds of reading. I’ve never been a “beach read” type of reader, but perhaps that’s to my detriment. Maybe I should have more fun with my reading. Do you change your reading style in the summer, Brooke or read books that are lighter and more fun.
Brooke: Good question. The answer is yes—if I’m on vacation. I don’t have the luxury of going to the beach most days or most weekends, sadly. But if I take a real trip, like I did to Hawaii last year for instance, I’ll usually take with me a book that I really want to delve into. I don’t really gravitate toward beach reads, though. Instead I choose a book that I’ve been longing to get into that’s either too long, or that’s been super recommended and I’ve missed. We talked about this before recently when we talked about the BIG NOVELS that we miss reading. I remember going to Greece before James was born and I read The Fountainhead because I’d always wanted to. By contrast last summer when I went to Hawaii I read Tom Lake because I love Ann Patchett. She’s not really what I’d classify as a beach read kind of author, but that’s as close as I get to real luxury read these days. How about you, Grant?
Grant: Yeah, like you said, Brooke, I associate reading with summertime, and especially when I was younger. There was one particular summer, the summer I first decided to be a writer, when I was 20, and I remember reading so much that summer, but I have a very particular memory of reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night while lounging in a pool chair at my hometown’s public pool. I was very much not at that pool in my mind, but in France, so that was a type of beach read. Do you have a favorite summertime reading memory?
Brooke: I love that memory, and maybe we’ll get back to those days when we can tackle authors like Fitzgerald and Rand again. In the meantime, we’re reading what we’re reading. We’re reading a lot for this show, and I for one intend to read at least two books this summer that are not specifically for Write-minded, though any time I read something I love I do hope and try to have those people on the show. So maybe this show has killed pleasure reading for us just a little bit. But no complaints, of course. We’re so lucky to interview such amazing authors, like Isabel Cañas and Rainbow Rowell. We hope you enjoy listening or relistening, and we’ll be back in your queue next week. Happy summer, everybody.
Books that got their start as fan fiction:
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto
Go Hex Yourself by Jessica Clare
The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
ABOUT RAINBOW ROWELL & ISABEL CAÑAS
Rainbow Rowell writes about adults (Attachments, Landline), teenagers (Eleanor & Park, Fangirl), and lovesick vampires and guys with dragon wings (The Simon Snow Trilogy). Recently, she’s been writing short stories. Her first collection, Scattered Showers, is out now. She also writes the monthly She-Hulk comic for Marvel. Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer, and the author of two novels, Hacienda and The Vampires of El Norte, which just came out. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and New York City, among other places, she has settled in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage.
Great picks. I always enjoy this podcast.