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: Jonathan Louis Duckworth, author of “Unchild”
Q: Did you know what you wanted to do with this story from the start, or did it surprise you?
A: I knew I wanted wasps. Everything else sort of accreted around that core image.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on turning this story into something longer, or do you feel the tale has been told?
A: Technically it’s already part of something longer, in that it’s one of the tales from my “Wilderthere” setting. This story takes place in the “market lands,” what was once the eastern seaboard of the United States before the apocalypse, whereas most of my prior tales take place in “stead country” which more or less corresponds to Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. But I think Tame’s tale is just about perfect at the length it’s at.
Q: Have you explored these themes before, and if so, to what depth?
A: Miscarriages crop up a lot in my fiction, probably because I survived one. I was originally going to be a triplet, but my other two siblings miscarried. I don’t like thinking about it, but I apparently love writing about it.
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.
