We chat with co-editors Desiree S. Evans and Saraciea J. Fennell about The Black Girl Survives In This One, which is a new YA anthology of horror stories centering Black girls who battle monsters, both human and supernatural, and who survive to the end
Hi, Desiree and Saraciea! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourselves?
DESIREE: I’m a Black writer from Louisiana. I love writing stories that feature Black kids and teens encountering magic, mystery, adventure, and all things fantastical. I grew up loving science fiction and fantasy, but rarely saw people like myself in those stories or movies. So today I write for the shy nerdy teen I used to be, and for the grown-up nerd I am today. I love talking about alien conspiracies, urban legends, folklore, and about the strange things that live in the dark corners of our bedrooms.
SARACIEA: Sure, I’m a Black Honduran American Brooklyn born writer from the Bronx, NY! I love writing stories for teens and adults that center Black voices and experiences. I’m also a huge nerd and love all things speculative fiction, from SFF/H to magical realism and more. I think humor makes everything better, so I also love to make people laugh when I can.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
DESIREE: I would say I discovered my love for writing and stories as as soon as I found my love for reading, which was very early in life. I recall that one of the first stories I ever wrote was at the age of 4, a story about a lonely little ghost. I loved the idea of responding to the stories I read with my own stories, writing back to the writers. Books in many ways saved my life as a kid. I was a poor kid from a rural family, and the library was the one place in town I could go to escape. I started writing stories because there were so many stories in my head fighting to get out. As a kid I wrote handwritten novels on loose leaf paper, filling several trapper keepers. But even though I loved writing fiction, it wasn’t until a couple of decades later that I would find the courage to try to get professionally published and make a career out of it.
SARACIEA: I discovered my love for stories when I was really young. I grew up on oral storytelling, my siblings and cousins and I would each tell each other stories too. So I think that’s where my love for crafting spine tingling stories came from. At night we would take turns telling bedtime stories and I always had to bring the scary to my stories. As far as actual writing goes, that started for me when I was in high school, I started out like most folks – writing poetry. I loved Edgar Allan Poe because of how dark his stuff was. Later, I fell in love with creative nonfiction, and speculative fiction. While it took me a while to get my fiction published, I did write a bunch of nonfiction and journalism style articles for my high school and college newspapers.
The Black Girl Survives in This One is a new YA horror anthology featuring 15 stories and co-edited by you both! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
DESIREE: Black girls fighting and surviving.
SARACIEA: Black final girls for the win! (Whoops that’s six, but couldn’t resist 🙂 )
What can readers expect?
DESIREE: I think this anthology is a great introduction to the horror genre for anyone nervous about reading horror. For one, they’re short stories, so you can read each in one sitting! For another, the title is a big spoiler. You go in knowing the girl you’re rooting for makes it out alive, and there’s a certain sense of security in that. But you still get a great story along the way, rooting for her and her friends, and getting to enjoy the thrill of the ride. The stories also offer a variety of takes on horror and its subgenres, from ghosts to mythological creatures to psychological horror, which makes it a good sampler for anyone wondering what horror is and what horror can do.
SARACIEA: I agree with Desiree here. there’s truly a wonderful variety of horror from space horror to zombies, there’s something for everyone! Most of all it’s Black storytelling centering Black girls who survive the horrors of the world whether fictional or realistic, and I think readers will resonate with it.
What inspired the collection to come to life?
DESIREE: There’s been a lot of meta-discourse and conversation in the last few years around horror tropes like the Final Girl. A lot of books have come out discussing Final Girls. I love seeing this chatter, but one thing I noticed was that there was not enough conversation around race as it relates to the Final Girl. Which girls get to survive and why? And how does race play into that? With the horror boom in full effect, and with the birth of a Black horror renaissance following Jordan Peele’s Get Out, there’s been more room to really enter into the conversation about horror and who gets to make horror. In this climate, we thought this was a great opportunity to make a call for more Black Final Girls. We love the ones we have, but they are so rare. So that became the theme of our anthology — we want more Black Final Girls! And my co-editor and I both love young-adult fiction and see such power in that age group, and truly there is no better place to talk about teen girls kicking butt and saving the world than YA. But our goal was to center Black girls in that YA space as heroines, survivors, and Final Girls.
SARACIEA: I think Desiree covered it all here. We wanted to offer something to the horror cannon for Black girls. I definitely was able to heal some of my inner teenself by reading these chilling and thrilling stories that I had always longed for growing up.
Can you tell us a bit about the process of putting together an anthology?
DESIREE: We were able to work well given the new technologies that make teamwork over great distances possible — Zoom Video Calls, Google Docs, and text! After our initial work to get the anthology sold, we really concentrated on solidifying the contributor list and getting these writers’ first drafts edited and revised. We knew we wanted a diverse array of Black writers, so we drew from writers working in various age categories and also targeted writers in genres that had a kinship to horror, such as dark fantasy and thrillers. We also did an open call for new voices because it was important to us that we offer an opportunity to a writer who was unpublished. So we had to read through a lot of amazing submissions to select a winner. In the end, it was about making every story shine individually and making the anthology work as a cohesive project. Through every draft and conversation with our editors and with our contributors, our aim was to make all of the stories as strong, and as scary, as we could.
SARACIEA: It was such a fun collaborative effort. Though it was a lot of work to carve out time to edit each story individually, it was an awesome experience. Desiree also got to put together a moodboard for the cover direction, and aside from editing some badass writers, that was one of the highlights of this project for me. I mean just look at that gorgeous cover – it’s totally amazing!
Whilst not playing favourites, was there a particular story that you wish you had gotten to read when you were younger?
DESIREE: Honestly, this entire collection would have changed my young life. To see Black girls as the main characters?! To see us fighting villains and winning?! Every story in this collection would have shaken me to the core. I needed these stories as a kid. And heck, I need these stories now as an adult.
SARACIEA: Totally agree with Desiree here! I longed for variety in horror like this growing up so getting to see the lore from some cultures within the African diaspora that I wasn’t familiar with was refreshing and it made me want to search out more horror honestly. I’m hoping that readers will devour this collection and walk away knowing that the genre is so broad, that there is a place for anyone within the genre, whether you like more gore, creature features, or psychological stories, it’s all here!
What’s next for you both?
DESIREE: Our debuts! We are both working on what we hope will be our solo debut books. I’m so excited for y’all to read the novel I’m working on, a book where I will be able to dive deeper into some of the themes introduced in my short story in the anthology. I’m also so excited to see what Saraciea’s first book will be. So please stay tuned for us — publishing can be a long process, but we promise we have good things coming your way in the future!
SARACIEA: Yes, next up will be a fresh solo project. Though, I’m not going to lie, anthologies are likely in my future because I love getting to work with other writers hehe. But for now, I’m spending time working on my debut project, it’s so satisfying not having strict publishing deadlines, ha! In the meantime, I’m excited for more readers to discover my work, and hopefully follow along with me on this writer journey.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
DESIREE: A lot of my favorite writers have been recommending James by Percival Everett, so I’m very excited to pick that novel up the next time I’m book shopping. I love Everett’s work, and I’m so interested to see what he does with his retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
SARACIEA: There’s so many great books about to hit shelves, but I’m really excited about Lauren Blackwood’s forthcoming THE DANGEROUS ONES, because I’m obsessed with vampires and can’t wait to devour this one.
