Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: As a fellow Canadian, I was excited to see Lucy E.M. Black’s novel A Quilting of Scars, which tells a story of 19th century small-town Ontario, and the very human quality of the struggles arising from the restrictions and silences of that time—and some that persist to our day. I’m delighted to have her here to talk about her book. Lucy, can you introduce it to us?

Lucy: A Quilting of Scars is a poignant exploration of forbidden love, abuse, and murder, brought to life through a cast of relatable yet uniquely original characters. Set against the backdrop of a rural community bound by rigid moral codes, the narrative follows Larkin Beattie as he navigates the complexities of a lonely existence filled with repressed sexuality and deep-seated guilt. With a deftly crafted sense of time and place, Larkin’s story unfolds as a thoughtful meditation on aging and remorse. As he reflects on pivotal moments from his past, the narrative delves into the hypocrisy of the church, the profound grief that has shaped his life, and the suffocating fear that grips queer youth in a society quick to judge. Through Larkin’s eyes, readers experience the strictures and rhythms of farming life in the not-so-distant past, revealing how societal expectations can stifle personal truth. A Quilting of Scars resonates with timeless relevance, evoking a deep emotional response that transcends the era in which it is set. It is a powerful reminder of the enduring struggle for acceptance and the scars that love can leave behind.

Zilla: What was the moment that sparked this book?

Lucy: This novel began in an antique store when I fell in love with a reproduction poster from May 1874.  

The splendid horse, young Netherby, was available as a proven foal-getter at $4 a single leap.  I was charmed by the poster but also intrigued by the idea of a farmer advertising his horse’s services in this way.  I began to wonder about the farmer and gradually Larkin’s story revealed itself and the novel unspooled. 

Zilla: There’s something very special about characters who come to you, instead of being created by you. Can you tell me more about Larkin? 

Lucy: Larkin is a character that I have quite fallen in love with.  He embodies a number of characteristics belonging to family members and farm folk that I have known.  He also represents those vulnerable young people I have encountered over the course of my career as an educator. The secrets that are kept throughout the story changed Larkin’s life and left him isolated and lonely.  And so, as the novel took shape and I came to know Larkin and his best friend Paul, it became important to me to tell their story – which is a love story of sorts and a celebration of male friendship.  The setting is placed at the end of the 19th century when small-town Ontario was still very much under the influence of Victorian ideology.  This is a period of tremendous growth and potential with huge advances in science and technology and yet the social mores, if you will, were much slower to change.  So much of our society has changed in the last hundred years but what is so clear to me is how desperately we still need acceptance and unconditional love without judgement.   

Zilla: It sounds like the story emerged from your own life and those lives around you. Did you need to do any research for it beyond living?

Lucy: The book takes place during a period of Ontario history that I know well and have explored in other novels.  Aspects of this book that required a deeper research dive included the early treatment of breast cancer, prostitution in Collingwood, coroner’s inquests, and rural farm practices including branding, castration, and cattle drives. 

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?
Lucy: My books are sold at independent book stores, Chapters, Indigo and Amazon.  I write a monthly newsletter, a website, and post regularly on facebook (lucyEMBlack) and Instagram (lucyemblack). 

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: If you grew up watching Sailor Moon, you’ll be as delighted as I was to see Claris Lam’s newest short-story collection, Stay Magical! Claris, can you introduce us to your book?

Claris: Stay Magical! is a young adult (YA) collection of ten short stories reflecting on what it means to be a magical girl, the tough sides of being a magical girl, and what happens when you’re no longer defeating bad guys in costume every week.

Fans of anime, manga and books such as Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, and A Magical Girl Retires will enjoy reading Stay Magical!

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Claris: My love of magical girl TV shows like Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, Ojamajo Doremi and Cardcaptor Sakura inspired me to write this book. I enjoyed watching them because of the hopeful, optimistic themes they had, as well as all of the actual magic involved! 

I’ve always wanted to write a book that was centered on magical girls, and realized that there was a lack of short stories in the genre. Though light novels and manga exist for magical-girl fans to read, I discovered that there aren’t a lot of short stories written for this genre. Given this, I decided to write my own! 

Zilla: Is your work more plot-driven or character-driven?

Claris: Stay Magical! is character-driven, given that all of the characters in each of the short stories face different scenarios in their lives. Some are trying to move on after saving the world with their powers, while others are currently facing the bad guy of the week. All of them have a lot to learn in their life journeys as magical girls (and in some cases, former magical girls). 

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Claris: My next writing project is a fantasy book for children, inspired by book series such as Daisy Meadows’ Rainbow Fairy series and Gwyneth Rees’ Fairy Dust series. I also have another young adult fantasy short-story collection on the way, and this one takes heavy inspiration from the Grimm Brothers’ fairytales!

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Claris: You can purchase your copy of Stay Magical! at this link. Find all links to my socials at: https://clarislam.carrd.co/

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: Science fiction gives a ripe field for comedy, and you find it in spades in Brian K. Lowe’s novels Alien House and Wasted Space. He’s here to tell us about them—Brian, take it away

Brian: Phil was sent to Earth to masquerade as a college student to size us up for invasion, but his ship crash-landed and he lost his weapons, papers, and most importantly, his clothes. Needing a place to stay, Phil pledges Alpha Tau Ceti, the worst frat on campus.

Resurrecting his mission from the ground up turns out to be the least of his problems: someone is shooting at him with lasers, the dean wants him to help with a TV show about UFOs, his fraternity brothers are hiding a secret in the basement, he keeps losing his pants, and worst of all, nobody warned him that Earth girls were so cute.

Conquer the Earth or spend time in the library stacks with a cheerleader? No one said college would be this hard.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Brian: There was no divine inspiration; it kind of just grew on me over the course of a few days until I had no choice but to write it. I still don’t know where it came from (but I have some vague hints).

Zilla: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?

Brian: When I meet high-school grads headed to college, I always tell them that the next four years will be the most amazing, inspiring, and enjoyable time of their lives, the period where they will enjoy the most freedom with the least responsibility. I tell them not to hurry and to appreciate the ride. If I were to meet the ATC gang, that advice would be superfluous, because these guys have mastered the art of college living. I’d probably just remind them, “Recycle your empties.”

Zilla: How much research did you need to do for your book?

Brian: I did very little research, because most of what happens was inspired (loosely) by real events. Most of the characters are amalgams or exaggerated versions of people I knew. Whether anyone I went to college with was actually an alien is a question we debate to this day.

Zilla: Is your work more plot-driven or character-driven?

Brian: Most of my work is plot-driven, without question. Alien House, though, I like to think of more as character-driven, because it’s Phil’s arc as college forces him to grow up (like a lot of us away from home for the first time). I feel the sequel, Wasted Space, is more of the plot-driven story that I typically write.

Zilla: What’s your next writing project?

Brian: Because I can’t focus on one genre, there’s an urban fantasy novel, the sequel to my first space opera, and a disparate handful of short stories all shouting for my attention. It’s anybody’s guess which one gets finished first.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Brian: All my work is listed at www.brianklowe.wordpress.com. Alien House and Wasted Space available on Amazon.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: As someone who thinks far too deeply about the science fiction and fantasy she reads, nothing could be better than a journal of essays about exactly that. Today, instead of an author, we bring in the editor and publisher Alexandra Pierce to talk about Speculative Insight: a journal of space, magic and footnotes. Alexandra, what do you do?

Alexandra: I like to say I pay smart people to write clever essays about interesting science fiction and fantasy topics! We publish two essays a month online – one is free to read, the other is available to subscribers. Subscribers also get 6-monthly ebooks compiling the previous 12 essays, plus a bonus. (I’m also an historian; I’m not sure which one is my ‘main’ focus these days …)

Zilla: What inspired you to start this journal?

Alexandra: I co-edited two non-fiction anthologies (Letters to Tiptree, and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Ocatvia E. Butler) a few years ago. When I left teaching and was thinking about what things I might do instead, I was reflecting on how much I enjoyed putting together those anthologies … and realised that a journal would do a similar thing, but without the need to get everything done at exactly the same time. Once I had searched, “Who is allowed to start up a journal?” (true story; turns out there’s no answer online because the answer is “whoever is silly enough to want to do so”), I went from there. 

Zilla: What research did you do before starting your business?

Alexandra: I researched the functional, business side a fair bit … and also read up on a bunch of people who are writing really interesting nonfiction about SFF, as people who I hoped would want to write for the journal. 

Zilla: Who are your readers?

Alexandra: My hopes were and are that people who are interested in interrogating their literature would be the audience for the journal. While many of the essays are about a particular book or set of books, the intention is that they will deal with some topic that is applicable across other books too. So the essay about families of the future refers specifically to four books, but I think a reader could make connections to lots of others; same with the essay about whether Robin McKinley’s Deerskin counts as a “cosy fantasy”, for example. 

Zilla: And for my penultimate question, one about you. You must have plenty of speculative fiction loves. Who is your favourite fictional character?

Alexandra: Probably my two favourites are Cheris, from Yoon Ha Lee’s Machinery of Empire series, and Breq, from Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice trilogy. I am a huge fan of space opera, so both of these series have been near-annual re-reads for me for several years now. Cheris is a very complicated character for a whole range of reasons, and has done terrible things for (probably) good reasons. Breq is literally a fraction of who she used to be, and is making the most of a terrible situation. Both have an excellent line in snark, too. 

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your journal?

Alexandra: I’m on Bluesky @speculativeinsight.bsky.social and Instagram @speculativeinsight. Speculative Insight: a journal of space, magic and footnotes is here.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

ZZilla: What if the real horror was the friends we made along the way? What if it’s you? What if it’s me? … It’s probably me. 

These and similar questions were why I knew I needed to have Romie Stott on the blog, and I needed to get all the details about Nothing in the Basement. So … tell me about it!

Romie: It’s a haunted house story about middle-aged people who have a lot of trouble believing anything could be going wrong on the level it’s going wrong. I’m a longtime editor at Strange Horizons and you may have seen my writing in Analog, Atlas Obscura, The Deadlands, and Tractor Beam.

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Romie: Have you had long theoretical conversations about what makes horror horrifying, and what does and doesn’t count as horror? I spent a lot of time hanging around someone who insisted horror has to meet two criteria: (1) it has to include an element of the supernatural, and (2) it has to scare you. That’s tricky for me, because I don’t believe in the supernatural and therefore am not scared of it. My reaction to most horror fiction is grief.

Some years ago, I was spending the weekend at a friend’s house, which is built on a hill. When you’re in the back yard, it’s obvious the front of the house is on the ground, and the back of the house is up on poles. I grew up in houses with crawl spaces, but rarely thought about them while indoors. I started playing with the idea that you could live your life standing on something without realizing how little was supporting you, both literally and metaphorically.

I was visiting my friend partly to see him in the play Wait Until Dark; he was one of the villains. I enjoyed being frightened by his believable on-stage cruelty (and loved that production overall). But it didn’t change my core understanding that when he stepped off stage, he was my friend. I wondered how much it would take to convince me otherwise.

When it comes to what keeps me up at night, I worry I could notice clear warning signs and then use my excellent coping skills and reasonableness to stay in a situation that has become very dangerous. Similarly, I worry that I appear ridiculous to other people, with no evidence this is true. So in my book, what haunts the characters is nothing; it’s nothing. These things happen to everyone. 

My goal while writing was for readers to think “oh no, is that what I’m like?” (The real horror is yourself.) The trouble when I finished was – oh no, what if my friends think I think that’s what they’re like? I ran it by my friend whose house and performance inspired the whole thing, and he was flattered. He asked me to be vague about the address so he doesn’t have to deal with tourists if the book becomes famous, which is a generous thing to worry about.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Romie: Facebook, BlueSky, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, Bandcamp, mailing list. You can buy Nothing in the Basement at Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and here’s the Goodreads page.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: If you’re as nostalgic for Goosebumps as I am—young-adult horror with ‘90s vibes—then you need to read our next guest’s novella, CodeSkull. Chloe Spencer’s been on this blog before, and we’re delighted to have her back! What’s your latest book about?

Chloe: CodeSkull is a YAt sci-fi horror novella set in 1998 which centers on a gamer girl named Mick who is one day gifted an RPG by her rival, Tommy. When she plays it, she accidentally unleashes a demon upon her town which can possess and control any electrical object. Now, Mick, Tommy, and a fledgling occultist/punk rocker named Cain must team up to save their town from total annihilation. 

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Chloe: I was inspired to write this book when my publisher, Mad Axe Media, put out the call for it. They were looking for books set in the 90s that could harken back to the days of Goosebumps, and I was stoked, because I hadn’t had the opportunity to write a YA novella yet. I wanted to write something that gave me the same spooky feelings I had when watching things like Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. I also wanted to try to write a book where romance wasn’t a big focus (this is one of 2 published novels or novellas that I have where the B-story isn’t romance) and reflected on a lot of my friendships growing up. One of the characters, Tommy, is inspired in part by my childhood best friend. 

Zilla: I love asking authors what their characters would say to them, but in your case it’s an extra-fun question since one of the characters is inspired by a real person. So—what would they all say?

Chloe: Mick would absolutely say, “How COULD you?!” 

Cain would ask, “Was all that necessary?” 

Tommy would say, “Actually, that’s not how any of this happened, can I rewrite this?” 

I have no doubt that all three of them would roast me. 

Zilla: That’s delightful. It sounds like you were following the old rule to “write what you know” for this book. Did you end up needing to do any research?

Chloe: One of my goals with writing CodeSkull was to create a story that was more geared towards a younger audience. My two other YA works, Monstersona and Haunting Melody, are more for readers who are 16 and up. When I was promoting Haunting Melody, I encountered a lot of teachers and parents who were desperately looking for something for their 13- and 14-year olds. And I was like, “Oh, surely there has to be a LOT of books out there for 13- and 14-year olds, right?” And I was surprised to discover that there weren’t that many! I remember having access to tons of books with characters that were close to my age when I was a kid, but nowadays, it’s very rare to encounter a character in the YA space that’s under the age of 16, which is interesting, because YA as a whole is supposed to be for kids between the ages of 13-18. 

I have a lot of knowledge in the YA horror space already, but I lacked that same knowledge in middle grade, so I ended up checking out a lot of books for that age range so that I could try to write something that could successfully serve as a “transitional” read between those two age groups. 

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?

Chloe: You can find out more about me at my website, www.chloespenceronline.com. I’m also available on Instagram, TikTok, and Bluesky @heyitschloespencer. You can get the paperback here, and the e-book here.

Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.

Zilla: From the written word to the sketched image, stories have the power to move us. Artemy’s queer WW1 webcomic is a story you won’t want to miss, so we’ve brought them here to tell us about Gentle Hands.

Artemy: Gentle Hands is a queer-centric story about the home front and the medical system during World War One. After suffering a severe injury that has left him paralyzed and unable to talk, Dmitri finds himself in an institution in France. Jadyn, a retired military surgeon, is assigned to be his nurse, but after some investigation he gathers some alarming details. Is his placement with Dmitri an elaborate hazing? And can he prove himself as a capable doctor despite that? 

Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?

Artemy: When I was 17 I discovered I would be disabled for life. For this reason I really enjoyed stories about disabled characters and could never get enough of them. So when I discovered webcomics I knew I had to make my own. 

Zilla: The webcomic is clearly written from the heart—I can see how personal it is. Who is your favourite character in your story?

Artemy: My biases lie with the main love interest, Dmitri. I’ve always wanted to write a nonverbal character, and Dmitri was my way of experimenting with that. His thoughts and feelings are so complex, yet his way of expressing them is limited. This has led me to come up with creative ways to communicate those ideas. Character-wise he has a lot of contrast, and that seems to be my readers’ favourite thing about him. 

Zilla: How much research did you need to do for your story? (I ask this as though I didn’t meet you on a server about writing historical fiction!)

Artemy: Initially, I started this story as a relaxed side-project. I told myself I wouldn’t fuss over the fine details or research. It only took two days to throw that out the window. I have since been chest deep in articles and archives. 

Zilla: Who did you imagine as your readers?

Artemy: I imagined a lot of disabled trans men with uniform fetishes reading my book. That is precisely what I got and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and Gentle Hands?

Artemy: My series can be found online for free on both Webtoons and Tapas with weekly updates. You can also find me on tumblr at @leonardoeatscarrots.