In the following email interview about their new “sawmill Gothic” novella The Secret Skin (paperback), writer Wendy N. Wagner not only explains what she means by “sawmill Gothic,” but also how, in a weird way, this story is a bit of a history lesson.
Given that it’s centered around kids who summon a nature god, only to have it bite them in the ass years later, you probably expect that Wendy N. Wagner’s occult horror novel The Deer Kings (paperback, digital) to be influenced by Stephen King’s It. And it is. But as Wagner explains in the following email interview, The Deer Kings was inspired by something a bit more fuzzy.
When George Lucas was writing the first Star Wars movie, he based the character of Chewbacca on his dog, who would sit in the passenger seat of Lucas’ car whenever they’d drive somewhere. But Jorge isn’t the first to incorporate man’s best friend into a sci-fi tale. Enter Wendy N Wagner, whose new novel, An Oath Of Dogs (paperback, digital) takes inspiration from a couple of our furry friends…including one, oddly, that isn’t hers.