Damien Angelica Walters reveals secrets about assembling her first short story collection Sing Me Your Scars from stubborn resilience to the value of spreadsheets; motifs of scars, singing, knives, and sewing; crossing genres; body identity via Frankenstein’s monster; toxic masculinity, why she likes characters who give up, and how weakness can be strength; a robot Henry VIII; Lithuanian folklore and family; the art of titles; how character is at the center of her stories; Redhead Fiction; narrative styles and breaking rules; “her latest story “Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: The Elephant’s Tale” (Apex Magazine) and what’s next, including her novelette, co-written by E. Catherine Tobler, in the upcoming Cassilda’s Song anthology edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. and a possible novel which might be titled Walls of Bones and Lies; why she is thrilled by so much great work by her “sister [writers] in the dark”; and her reading recommendations including Sunny Moraine, Kristi DeMeester and Priya Sharma.

This archival episode will be available again at This Is Horror soon. In the meantime, subscribe at iTunes  or Blubrry to make sure you don’t miss an episode.

NEXT WEEK’S GUEST:  Chesya Burke, author of Let’s Play White and The Strange Crimes of Little Africa (upcoming from Rothco Press)