Writing Speculative Fiction and Horror
I don’t write horror because I like to be scared. I write it because I already know what fear feels like, and I’d rather not look away. Speculative fiction and horror are the only genres honest enough to tell the truth. Strip away the jump scares, the dystopian window-dressing, the surrealist flourishes, and what you’re left with is this: what we fear most reveals what we are most desperate to protect. When I write, I’m not inventing monsters. I’m naming the ones we already live beside. The systems that turn our bodies into statistics. The lovers who vanish without explanation. The quiet domestic rituals that curdle into cages. Speculative fiction lets me move the walls just far enough that readers see the shape of their own prisons. Horror lets me turn grief into something wild. People ask why I don’t write something lighter. Something more commercial. The answer is simple: light has no meaning if you refuse to look into the dark. And the dark is rich. It’s where memory lives. It’s w...
