E.M. Markoff 7/29/19 E.M. Markoff 7/29/19

Scary Stories For A Good Cause: Sumiko Saulson on "Unheard Music in the Dank Underground

Your story “Unheard Music in the Dank Underground,” is mostly set in an underground laboratory in San Francisco. Was this purely your invention, or was it based on a real location?

A little of both. The exterior is Fort Point, a fort at Golden Gate Park under the Golden Gate Bridge near Crissy Field. The twisted maze of tunnels and rooms below under the bridge itself are completely fictionalized. They are based on World War I and II bomb shelters and bunkers, and the story on the whole is an homage to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

By L.S. Johnson (https://traversingz.com/)

Sumiko Saulson is a cartoonist, science fiction, fantasy, and horror writer, editor of Black Magic Women and 100 Black Women in Horror Fiction, author of Solitude, Warmth, The Moon Cried Blood, Happiness and Other Diseases, Somnalia, Insatiable, Ashes and Coffee, and Things That Go Bump in My Head. She wrote and illustrated the comics Mauskaveli and Dooky, and the graphic novels Dreamworlds and Agrippa.

Your story “Unheard Music in the Dank Underground,” is mostly set in an underground laboratory in San Francisco. Was this purely your invention, or was it based on a real location?

What is your relationship to California?

I was born in Los Angeles. I lived there until I was 12, then I lived in Hawaii for 7 years before moving to San Francisco. I have lived in the Bay Area most of my adult life. I currently reside in Oakland, down the hill from Mills College in the Fairfax District.

As writers, we constantly use our imaginations, sometimes in terrifying ways. But can you imagine a hopeful future for California? What might that future look like?

I think of California in Gene Roddenberry’s universe, where the Bay Area was home to Starfleet and a beacon of hope to everyone who loves multiculturalism, diversity, peace and the environment. I can’t really do better than that. They even solved homelessness and economic disparity. Queerer than Roddenberry and less heternormative, though.

Where can readers find more of your work?

www.SumikoSaulson.com, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes... Or local book stores in the Bay Area, Reno, and Sacramento.

NEXT POST ON MONDAY 8/05/19, SCARY STORIES FOR A GOOD CAUSE: Sean Patrick Hazlett ON “Mukden”

Tales for the Camp Fire - A Charity Anthology

E.M. Markoff 7/22/19 E.M. Markoff 7/22/19

Scary Stories for a Good Cause: E.M. Markoff on "Leaving the #9"

Tell us a little about your story, “Leaving the #9.”

The story follows Adelia, a working class cook who has worked long and hard for a better life and is finally able to take that next step. With her are her brother, Miguel, and a client turned best friend turned “the grandma I never had.” Her sense of reality is shaken when strange occurrences begin to disrupt her attempts to achieve her dream. The setting was inspired by the ongoing gentrification and displacement of the Mission, San Francisco’s historically Latinx neighborhood. A reader described it as “[a] wonderful ghost story …

By L.S. Johnson (https://traversingz.com/)

Latinx author and publisher E.M. Markoff writes about damaged heroes and imperfect villains. Growing up, she spent many days exploring her hometown cemetery, where her love of all things dark began. Upon coming of age, she decided to pursue a career as a microbiologist and spent a few years channeling her inner mad scientist. Her works include The Deadbringer, To Nurture & Kill, and her recent short story “Leaving the #9.” She recently published the charity anthology Tales for the Camp Fire under her imprint, Tomes & Coffee Press, to raise money for California wildfire recovery and relief efforts. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association and is mostly made up of coffee, cat hair, and whiskey.

Tell us a little about your story, “Leaving the #9.”

Your story includes both Spanish and Nahuatl words. For readers unfamiliar with the latter, can you tell us more about Nahuatl, and why you wove it into your story?

I am fluent in Spanish since my mom never learned English, but I only recently began learning Nahuatl. Nahuatl is one of the many native languages of Mexico, and is still spoken today by 1.5 million people. I wove it into the narrative because I wanted to see all aspects of my culture represented in the story. All my works are like this, including the books in my main dark fantasy series, though the references there are not as overt.

Mind you, I’m not fluent in Nahuatl, but that’s my own fault. I’m a horrible student, but I’m working toward learning more about it. UC Berkeley, through their Program for the Study and Practice of Indigenous Cultures and Languages, offers Nahuatl courses in the fall. Another wonderful resource is David Bowles’s online Nahuatl course.

What is your relationship to California, and does California influence your work?

Just this May was Carnival San Francisco, and earlier in the year was Mexica New Year. The Mission Cultural Center had an exhibit dedicated to rebozos, and they offer classes such as Danza Azteca. My point is that California, and for me specifically San Francisco, influences my work because of how rich the Latinx community is. I live in a city where I have direct access to a part of my culture (Mexica) that I thought I could only ever experience through books or museums. I’m very privileged to be able to live here and I hope it remains so.

As writers, we constantly use our imaginations, sometimes in terrifying ways. But can you imagine a hopeful future for California? What might that future look like?

I can imagine a hopeful future for California because we live in a time where injustices are being challenged on a national, state, and local level by communities of color. What might that future look like? Diverse.

Where can readers find more of your work?

My main body of work includes The Deadbringer, the first book in The Ellderet Series, and its standalone prequel To Nurture & Kill. The first book was described by Booklist as “An amazing action-adventure, tinged with Mexican folklore, that will appeal to fans of A Game of Thrones.” You can learn more about the world of the Ellderet by visiting www.ellderet.com or signing up for my Newsletter of the Cursed. You can also follow me @tomesandcoffee on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. As for my work as a publisher, visit the Camp Fire website at www.ellderet.com/campfire, where you’ll find interviews (such as these) by other contributing authors. There’s also a Facebook page where I post T4tCF events and updates. You can also catch me, editor Loren Rhoads, and contributing author and interviewer extraordinaire L.S. Johnson at Silicon Valley Comic Con on August 16-18 at Booth 21a. I’ll have my own works available as well as Tales for the Camp Fire. If you’re attending, please stop on by and say hello!