R Leigh Hennig gathered many of the amazing authors from Mother: Tales of Love and Terror for a council at the roundtable about writing, mothers, and horror. Join us as we pop in for a brief spotlight on how the stories of Mother, and their makers, worked their horrible magic to create this book.
Author Spotlight: Nicoletta Giuseffi, author of “Mother Made Cake”
Q: Do you ever see yourself revisiting the topic or theme of your story?
A: Absolutely. The sickly sweet environs of “Mother Made Cake” are what the inside of my head looks like on any given day, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it came about again in some form or another.
Q: What was your process for writing this, and did that at all differ from your usual approach?
A: I began with a completely different story at first; a few pages about the famous cloth and wire mother experiment, but it didn’t feel personal enough. I started over, something I rarely do, with a completely different theme. After the idea to tell a sort of fairytale struck me, the rest wrote itself. Turned on its head, “Mother Made Cake” is a Beauty and the Beast story, but this time mother sets it all in motion.
Q: If your own mother could read this story, would you send it to her? Why or why not?
A: I told her about it, and she said she’s beginning to think of reading my writing for the first time. Our household was not a creative one, so the prospect of sharing it with her is slightly terrifying, but I would love to see her reaction nonetheless.
The Weird Team is comprised of several unhinged individuals that have a love of life and a lust for adventure. They scour the world to find the strangest, scariest, and most wonderful news in the universe.
