It’s always good to welcome guests back onto greydogtales, so today’s interview with author Lynne Jamneck is a particular pleasure – and extremely interesting as well. Having covered some emergent writers recently, this time we have someone with plenty of experience as a writer and editor in the weird fiction field. We first talked to Lynne in mid-2016, following the release of her anthology Dreams from the Witch House, and we discussed some issues around LGBTQ+ fiction then. Now we have more space to get explore the topic – and to talk writing, the nature of the horror experience, and all sorts…
Lynne Jamneck
“People don’t like changing their established world views. It’s confronting, and you might find out you had been wrong about something all your life. It’s psychologically discombobulating.”
Lynne Jamneck has been nominated for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda awards, and holds an MA in English Literature from Auckland University, New Zealand. Her fiction has appeared in Ashes and Entropy, Jabberwocky, H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, Something Wicked Magazine, Fantastique Unfettered and the collections So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction, Tales from the Bell Club, Unconventional Fantasy: A Celebration of Forty Years of the World Fantasy Convention, Black Wings of Cthulhu V and Black Wings of Cthulhu VI. She is the editor of Periphery (2008), Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror (Dark Regions Press, 2015), and Gothic Lovecraft (with S.T. Joshi; Cycatrix Press, 2016).
greydogtales: Hi, and welcome back – almost three years on, amazingly. Obviously we’re going to ask about LGBTQ+ writers and characters in strange fiction, but maybe first you could tell the readers a bit about yourself, to set the scene. And if you wanted to share your personal identity in the context of this feature, how would you do so?
Lynne: I’m a transplanted South African/New Zealand citizen. Don’t ask me about rugby. I began writing when I was about 12-ish but seriously started thinking about it when I was about 17. You’re asking someone with a philosophical brain about personal identity, hur-hur. But if I put it in the context that matters here, in a pinch, I’d say I’m a queer scientific mystic. How’s that work?
greydog: Sounds excellent. How do you describe the bulk of your own work – horror, weird fiction, magical realism, speculative, or what? Would you find ‘horror’ an uncomfortable or inappropriate label?
Lynne: I’d probably opt for ‘weird’, because I’ve ended so many stories on wtf-moments. Not necessarily because there is a big reveal; rather, the reader doesn’t know what the hell is going on. I know the bulk of readers, or if you prefer, a mainstream audience doesn’t appreciate that sort of thing. But you know, your house doesn’t stop living when you close the front door to go buy your groceries.
greydog: And what’s your preferred format and length as a writer – flash fiction, short story, novella, novel, or even book series?
Lynne: Probably short stories. If I didn’t have to worry about money, it might have been novels. I have a 25K Thing lying around that is set in Antarctica (please, someone, put me on a boat) that I think might be a ghost story and that I still want to develop further. But I also appreciate the confined space of short story – the short-burst idea that’s allowed to bloom in the mind long after the story’s finished.
greydog: We admit to preferring the short story form, as a rule. Were there key books and films that influenced and helped you develop as a creator? Did they include LGBTQ+ works and/or characters – and if not, did this bug you?
Lynne: Whenever someone asks me about my favourite book I always, invariably, return to The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende. I’ve seen the movie about 12 times (#truestory), but I find it difficult to watch as an adult because it’s such a watered-down version of the book. Let me tell you, that book is well-dark. It’s essentially about a kid who loses his identity and discovers he has a nasty little shadow-brute living in the dark recesses of his unconscious mind. The great thing about the characters in Ende’s novel is that the bulk of them are so strange and fantastical that they can literally be anything, any way. So while there are not any explicitly LGBTQ characters (that I can recall; I’ve read the book several times and discover new things every single time), the novel presents a very accessible space in which the imaginative visualisation of such characters is entirely possible.
greydog: We’ve only read his book Momo in living memory. Perhaps we should go back to NeverEnding and see how well it’s aged. Anyway, how did you discover authors who wrote about characters whose identities/positions you could relate to? By accident, word of mouth, or actively hunting their work down on your own?
Lynne: Honestly, as a teenager, most of my time was spent: a) reading, and b) figuring out who I was. It was only at around 17 (coinciding with seriously thinking about being a ‘writer’…hmmmm) that the bulb went on and I realised, ‘oh hey, I like girls’. I read a lot of crime as a teenager and discovered lesbian characters mostly in this way, and to this day, Patricia Cornwell, Lucy Farinelli deserved better. But to answer your question, mostly by actively hunting them down. When I was a teenager, the internet didn’t exist the way it does today. Our local library had a catalogue, y’all. Little drawers with magical cards. Sitting in the library and reading the descriptions of books and thinking, ‘hey, this sounds a little gay!’.
greydog: Being realistic, there are times when many of us compromise, and times when we lose our cool. Have you ever dialled down the queer aspects of a piece to try and draw in a wider audience? Or dialled it up on purpose, to hammer a point home?
Lynne: I don’t think I’ve ever done either, at least not consciously. I guess because I don’t write to specifically attract an audience there’s no need to.
greydog: This is a bit direct, but do you feel you’ve ever had work rejected because of your own sexual identity, or that of the characters portrayed?
Lynne: I love direct. It’s difficult to say, really. I’ve never experienced that overtly. I do also make a conscious effort to contribute to projects and work with people who are unlikely to have issues with things like sexuality, so maybe that’s a contributing factor. My tolerance for BS has always been extremely low.
greydog: And have you ever had negative reader reactions because of those factors, to your knowledge?
Lynne: Not that I know of.
greydog: When it comes to LGBTQ+ characters in your work, do you tend to depict particular identities – lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transsexuals – any primary group that comes up in your writing more often than others?
Lynne: This is a difficult question because, in my mind, I write characters, not sexualities. Since I’m a woman, most of my queer characters tend to be women, because that’s my primary experience. In a recent story, “We All Speak Black” (Ashes and Entropy, 2018, Nightscape Press), I included two queer women and an interracial queer male couple. I also find the intersection between transgender identities and the topic of transhumanism fascinating, and hope to write something about it one day.
greydog: Here’s something we’ve mentioned to other interviewees this month. We were at an interesting panel during the 2018 UK Fantasycon, which included discussion of asexuality in fiction as part of the diversity spectrum. Have you ever covered characters who specifically identified as asexual?
Lynne: Not to date, but I do find it a very appealing topic. As you may have figured from what I’ve said so far, I’m driven to write because I either have to get something off my chest, or I’m trying to figure something out. These topics tend to be aimed at ‘bigger picture’ subjects – my philosophical brain coming into play again. But I do get angry (which is why I tend to avoid things like the news and people), and once in a blue moon I will write something based on red-hot ire. But it’s toxic, for the most part, so I tend to avoid doing it.
Back to asexuality – I think the topic is extremely interesting. We are constantly and consistently bombarded by institutionalised ideals of gender and sexuality. Asexuality, as a state of being, has the potential to illuminate connection with others based on understanding and acceptance, something that isn’t entirely chemically-based, which to me seems like a dangerously narrow edge for establishing a relationship on. Cosmopolitan will tell you that if you’re not having sex at least once a week your relationship is in trouble. I mean, what? Have they actually looked at what people are required to do on a daily basis? Who has time to think about sex!
greydog: We think we remember it, vaguely. So which piece of your own work are you most proud of, and why?
Lynne: Well that’s a question. I’m proud of different pieces for different reasons. Sometimes it boils down to a sentence. An abstract idea I was able to quantify in words. A fear being addressed without exploding from anxiety. I am quite fond of “Azif” (Fantastique Unfettered, #4, 2011). It has Paris, and cicadas, and wait whoa, are those insects talking?
LGBTQ+ AND THE FIELD
greydog: The most common phrase you hear when people object to active movements which encourage diversity in fiction is “I don’t care about the sexuality, gender, colour, etc. of the writer. I only care about good stories”. How would you respond to that?
Lynne: Well, the fact of the matter is that LGBTQ people have been discriminated against for a long time in Western mainstream society. If that had not been the case, we would potentially not have had an issue with diversity in fiction. If you don’t care about the sexuality of the writer, then why make a fuss about promoting diversity? I feel like that argument springs from a subconscious fear of having to confront the Other, and of having to change the social constructs through which we see the world. And what is older than storytelling?
greydog: For fantasy/speculative readers especially, world-building allows for any take you want on individuals and societies. Nowadays that includes gender identities and sexual identities more than it used to. Do you have any examples of books you’ve read where you felt that LGBTQ+ characters were handled particularly well?
Lynne: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith always comes to mind. More recently, despite not being a YA reader in particular, I really enjoyed The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth. I used to read a lot of Clive Barker in my twenties and I think you’d have to go some way to beat Imajica in terms of representation.
greydog: Ammonite is terrific. Are many readers basically scared of directly queer fiction (which would be ironic in the horror field especially)? Or do you thing that they just don’t come across enough good examples to get into it?
Lynne: Interesting question. The horror genre, as you point out, can be contradictory. It’s certainly evidenced in current horror visual media that there is a preference for intense violence, rather than anything to do with sex (though I may be at a disadvantage here, because when I watch/read horror, I avoid things where people terrorise other people. Aliens can rip people in half all they want and ghosts are my jam, but I see enough torture on the news, thanks). Even in the glorious eighties, the penalty for sex in horror movies always seemed to be death…then again, those characters were almost always, without fail, heterosexual.
When it comes to reading horror – it’s a different experience. You have to engage with language; I feel there is a cognitive process going on that perhaps is not quite as active as sitting back and passively taking in images. Language – its concrete form – is an indelible aspect of humanity’s sense of reality, and I think certain words – ‘homosexual’, ‘lesbian’, ‘faggot’, ‘queer’ – have been infused with adverse meanings that have in turn permeated the aura of gay narratives. I feel like it comes down to confronting change again. People don’t like changing their established world views. It’s confronting, and you might find out you had been wrong about something all your life. It’s psychologically discombobulating.
greydog: ‘Straight’ is a silly term in many ways, but we’ll use it for shorthand. A number of straight creators utilise LGBTQ+ characters in their work. Do you see any inherent problems with this, or is it a good way of getting audiences to broaden their minds and reading scope. Are there any common misconceptions which get transmitted by straight creators?
Lynne: I don’t see any problem with it, as long as they’re representing people accurately. A part of me also doesn’t have a problem with it if they are doing it to attract an audience, as long as they are thoughtful in terms of how they do it, and they don’t utilise LGBTQ characters – or any minority for that matter – as a way of inciting or supporting hate or any type of negativity.
greydog: Are such niche fields as gay and lesbian dark erotica, and the more explicit side of paranormal romance, useful for advancing the presence of LGBTQ+ writers and characters, or detrimental to a balanced portrayal?
Lynne: There’s probably a fine line. On the one hand, it’s erotica with queer characters, which shouldn’t be any different from erotica with straight characters. Unfortunately, the LGBTQ community has historically been portrayed in a negative light in terms of our sexual preferences. So the reductive reaction is going to be, ‘oh yeah, the queers are all perverts’. But the erotic market is substantial and I’m sure that its queer readers appreciate the representation. I don’t think it’s a problem per se, but its an easy target for people with biases and unfortunately, there is a large segment of society who choose not to think for themselves. To my knowledge, statistically, most sexual predators are heterosexual.
greydog: Do you think LGBTQ+ fiction is more acceptable to the broad public when it comes from ‘nice middle- class white people’ than when it comes from additionally marginalised groups such as queer black writers?
Lynne: Very likely, yes. At least the white, middle-class queer looks outwardly the same to other white, middle-class straight people. There’s a sense of tacit sameness, a thin film of ‘normality’ – as long as a sense of distance remains. You know, ‘I don’t have a problem with you being gay, just don’t act like it/talk about it/ in front of me or my children’. When it comes to race, difference and a sense of otherness is intensified. It seems to be that people will go to great extremes to avoid anything or anyone that is different from what they have been taught to accept as ‘normal’.
greydog: Getting work noticed at all is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve. Do you think there are more barriers for LGBTQ+ writers in general?
Lynne: I think there are probably a lot of factors involved in terms of how ‘hard’ it is – the market you’re writing for, the genre/s you adopt, who you’re working with, what you personally want to achieve. The biggest barrier is probably the fact that the publishing industry, overall, wants to make money. I don’t think its primary goal is to tell stories, and I don’t think one of its main goals is to effect change in society. With LGBTQ characters becoming much more visible in visual media, and particularly on TV, I’m hoping that this will spill over into publishing. I mean, I want to believe that the bigger percentage of people who read are thinkers, and therefore also likely more open-minded.
greydog: How should the big publishers and larger independents be fostering LGBTQ+ fiction and portrayals? Or is it purely up to readers to express a demand?
Lynne: I believe there are publishers out there actively working at creating diverse content, but they are the smaller, indie publishers. And yes, business is business: the larger the demand, the bigger the supply becomes. I don’t think readers should be content to depend on LGBTQ-publishers for what they want to read, the stories they want to see told.
greydog: On that note, there are a number of presses dedicated to LGBTQ+ fiction. Do you view these as a Good Thing, or do you think they risk perpetuating exclusion from mainstream presses?
Lynne: I think the risk is less a matter of being excluded due to the nature of their content, and more so the result of being formulaic. It’s one of the reasons I personally don’t read many books published by solely-LGBTQ-publishers. Yet there must be a demand for these stories, evidenced by their number in the market. I have written both erotica and crime in my aim to find the genre that I feel most comfortable in expressing what I want to say. These markets are significant for LGBTQ readers. Personally, I think there is room for more diversity.
greydog: In recent years, it does seem there has been a slow but gradual diversification within the weird and horror genres. Are there any new writers we should be paying attention to?
Lynne: This question! I always feel weird answering this because I know there are so many writers out there I should be aware of. What I will instead recommend is reading anthologies. They are under threat; large, mainstream publishers have long been moving away from them because they are not big money-makers. But they are vehicles – for both publishers and readers, through which to discover new voices.
greydog: Totally agree – that’s where we find some of the most exciting stuff ourselves. The anthology is hugely valuable on many levels, for both writers and readers. So, finally, what have you planned in the way of work for 2019?
Lynne: The big news for 2019 is that I will be working with Nightscape Press as acquisitions editor. My past editorial work has primarily involved working on my own, so I am very excited about the prospect of working with other creative, like-minded people. I’m also co-editing a charity anthology, ‘Weird for Good’ with Robert S. Wilson and John R. Padgett. NP has done some fantastic work in this area in the past – another reason I am excited about working with them as AE.
greydog: Congratulations on that – sounds excellent – and of course, many thanks for taking part today.
Lynne: Thank you for asking 😊
Our earlier interview with Lynne Jamneck, including musing on Lovecraftian fiction, can be found here:
http://greydogtales.com/blog/voices-from-the-witch-house-an-interview-with-lynne-jamneck/
And this is the ‘Ashes and Entropy’ anthology: