Liz Kerin for Women in Horror Month
1. Introduce yourself. What do you want people to know about you and your work?
I’m Liz Kerin, a screenwriter-turned-novelist living in LA by way of NY, who lives for female driven body horror, weird coming-of-age stories, and chunky corgis.
2. Who or what were your earliest horror influences?
I was a kid who would watch every single rerun of Unsolved Mysteries and then stay up all night fretting about all the horrifying things I’d learned that day. I especially loved the episodes about demonic possessions, ghosts, and aliens. Are You Afraid of the Dark? was another staple in our household, as well as those Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books from the 90s. Those illustrations still give me nightmares. Ultimately (and probably due to my Unsolved Mysteries obsession), I always wanted the horror I wrote to feel grounded, more speculative than slasher, and have more to do with character, trauma, and delusion that anything else.
3. You're best known for your vampire duology Night's Edge and First Light. What about the vampire speaks to the experience of women specifically, and why do you think we're seeing a resurgence in vampires in media right now?
“IN THIS ESSAY I WILL—“ Just kidding. Except not really? I think there’s always been a dark, romantic fixation upon the vampire because of the power imbalance women have been raised to not only endure, but fetishize. There’s a lot to unpack, but I think our current cultural obsession with “spicy dark romance” speaks volumes. Women need to feel empowered and uplifted, now more than ever… but there are still these dark things we secretly crave. I wrote a short story about exactly this, based on two of the supporting characters from Night’s Edge, called “Amoxicillin” (it’s still available for free on Reactor). One of the trickiest things about writing vampires nowadays is keeping them horrifyingly wicked while also exploring the grounded, psychosexual implications. In the NIGHT’S EDGE duology, I used that ruinous sexual relationship as a jumping-off point. Mia’s mom Izzy gets involved with a creep who drinks human blood, and ultimately her daughter inherits all of that trauma secondhand.
4. Take us through a day-in-the-life of Liz Kerin.
I’m up at 6am to feed my dog and my son. Then we all go back to sleep together for another 90 minutes (it’s my cutest bad habit). I have a shed I converted into an office in my backyard, and that’s where I get to work every day around 9AM. I can only really write for like 3 hours a day max, so once my creative output is exhausted I’m usually reading/reviewing other books and editing for other writers. Otherwise I’m probably gardening, walking the dog, and pushing my kid’s stroller around Target till he zonks.
5. Imagine you're standing in front of a crowd of every horror creative—authors, filmmakers, podcasters, journalists, etc. What would you want them to know about your experience as a woman in the genre?
I’m probably the hundredth person to give this answer, but that’s probably for a reason. I’ve become really, really good at dusting myself off. Someday I’d love to dust myself off LESS, but the truth is when you’re a young woman who writes about the supernatural (particularly vampires), people view your work through a different lens. Your work (especially if you have young female leads), gets sorted into categories you might not have chosen. Categories that misrepresent the work. What I would love all my fellow creatives to know is that this is extremely common, and it does NOT define your craft! Only you can do that. Keep speaking out about what you stand for, and why. Tropes are fun (I even own a dad-hat that says “ENEMIES TO LOVERS!”), but tropes do not make or break a career. Keep on writing your truth.
Liz Kerin is the author of The Night’s Edge duology. The special edition re-release of her novel The Phantom Forest is coming May 27 and is available for preorder.