Creating community is important to me. Whenever possible, I want to share my expertise, knowledge, and questions with other writers and creatives.
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Click on the image to the left to listen to my advice about starting your own project.
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Interview excerpt (from Haunted MTL)
Interviewed by Nicole C. Nuttrell
I was fortunate enough to interview Linda Gould about her beautifully eerie podcast, Kaidankai. I hope that you all enjoy getting to know her and her creepy work as much as I did. Your recent collection is called Unpleasantville, a collection of stories from a singularly creepy town. What inspired this project? One of the only poems I related to when in high school was Spoon River Anthology (SPA). For those who don’t know it, SPA, it is a collection of poems about life in a small town as told by the ghosts of the residents in that town. The poems were based on real people, and the anthology burst the bubble on the idea that country life was idyllic. I loved its irreverence and was captivated by the idea that ghost stories, which I always loved, could be literary, taught in high school AP English classes! For the Kaidankai, I asked listeners and contributors to pick their favorite poem and read it for me. Then, I did a special presentation of their readings for the podcast. Many people had never heard of SPA and were so happy to find it. So many people, way more than I expected, sent in their readings, and they were just awesome. That made me wonder what a modern version would look like. Since the Kaidankai audience and contributors are all around the world, I couldn’t pick one place without excluding someone, so I made up a name and a few landmarks that anyone, anywhere could relate to and sent it out to see what would happen. Unpleasantville is a shared world, with many writers telling their own stories. What was it like, working with so many writers in this shared space? Well, that describes the Kaidankai podcast in general. People from Asian countries, Australia, North America and throughout Europe contribute. Sometimes, before I reject a story, I have to read it a couple of times to make sure that it isn’t just a different storytelling technique that I don’t understand or relate to. I force myself to explain to myself why a story isn’t a good fit. I’m not sure that I would take that approach if all the stories came from Western writers. Read the full interview here. |
Links to recent interviews and presentations
Japan Writer's Conference, 2021
Writer's in Kyoto (video) Duotrope Haunted MTL Samjoko Magazine Horror Writers Association |