Seeing Things started as a short story that came to me during my daily walks through my old neighborhood. I used to always see this elderly man that no one else acknowledged. I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be funny if only I could see him? From there, I thought up a story situation where someone could see the dead, but none of them wanted to talk to her. The thought made me laugh, so it snowballed from there. It took a while to develop the idea into what became Seeing Things, but I’m very happy with the result.

I have a soft spot for Abby’s Uncle Keith. It’s been interesting seeing how people respond to him. Usually it’s with indifference or simple liking, but some readers say he’s really unlikable. I think he’s flawed and deeply damaged—there were definitely moments where even I, the writer, was like “Jesus Christ, Keith, get it together!”—but I also know he has a good heart and that a lot of his flaws come from his damage. He was partially inspired by Nick Miller on New Girl, who’s famously a TV character that a lot of his fans want to fix; so maybe that’s where that comes from, ha ha.

I worked with Doug Puller on this cover, as I’ve done with all my covers thus far (except for a standalone short story I released, “‘Tis Better to Want”—that was done by Cassie Daley). I told him I wanted Abby on the cover, and one detail I specifically asked for was to not have her smile. I’d noticed with both my previous novel covers, Please Give and Without Condition, the woman protagonist always faced the reader and didn’t smile. It stuck out to me as a solid choice for a woman subject on a book cover. So I asked him to continue that trend.

The whole story of Seeing Things unravels from an incident in an abandoned locker, so I asked Doug to incorporate that. He did such a good job making it subtle that some folks don’t realize right away there’s a ghost in the shadows. It’s scared a few readers! I love that, ha ha.

I think most readers want originality! I usually write based on an idea I find funny and/or fascinating and go from there. Readers don’t always respond to the story the same way I do, but there’s usually some kind of connection. I’d honestly be a bit bored if everyone read my work the exact same way I do—part of the fun is seeing how different people view your story. I think if you write what’s in your heart, it’ll connect with folks.

Too many unpublished stories to list, ha ha. I have two books in progress. One is my next short story collection, Someone to Share My Nightmares. It focuses on the overlap between horror and love—mostly romantic love, but a couple stories with familial love as well. I’ve also started my fourth novel, currently called Errant Roots. I’ll work on that more when I’ve finished the short story collection.

I’m getting ready to start Lucid Screams by Red Lagoe. I love short stories and I’ve heard nothing but good things. I’m also a fan of Lagoe’s work.

I wanted to be an artist. I actually used to draw comics as a kid. I had a series called “Damont,” about a teenage girl named Damont and her family. They were all stick figures and the artwork was atrocious, but the scripts were actually pretty good considering I wrote it when I was 9-10 years old. Guess I was always meant to write and not draw!

Spiders. I can step on them if they get nasty.

Tea. I’m obsessed. I’m one of those tea drinkers that always has a ton of varieties on hand. I drink it every day.

This is cheating a bit because I do plan to finish this one for the next collection, but, a story idea I’ve had for years is one based on a single line I wrote in the dark of a movie theater while watching Won’t You Be My Neighbor: “Mr. Rogers meets a child psychopath.”

Absolutely. I can write essays about how women horror authors are overlooked or discriminated against, especially women of color and queer women. But one I’ll highlight is this: women’s stories are more likely to be scrutinized as “not really horror” than men’s. It’ll get classified as drama or mystery or romance, or any of those genres with “dark” in front of it. Now, some women’s horror can be classified as those things—I’ve written dark romance, for instance—but I think readers are more likely to classify a woman’s story as something other than horror than they would a man’s.

So many, and I know I’m going to miss some names, but here are a few of my favorite women writers:

• V. Castro
• Helen Oyeyemi
• Chesya Burke
• Sara Tantlinger
• Laurel Hightower
• Alexis Henderson
• Jessica Guess