SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to the Dread Alert Podcast. I'm Vince, and today we're joined by Anya Alborne. We are thrilled to have Anya on the show. Anya Alborne is the best-selling author of the horror works Brother, The Devil Crept In, Within These Walls, The Bird Eater, The Shuddering, The Neighbors, Seed, If You See Her, Good and Joyful Things, The Novella Collection A Part in the Dark, The Thriller Dark Across the Bay, and the Novellas The Pretty Ones, I Call Upon The and Palmetto. Anya, thank you for joining me today. Let's jump in with some questions. It looks like this novel is an interconnected piece of fiction with multiple narrators switching multiple points of view very efficiently, almost picking up where the last one left off. Was your writing process a little bit different with this? What was your writing process like to achieve it?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Actually, my writing process was not that different. Multiple points of views, uh, it's kind of like my comfort zone. So I I love writing this way because I'm obsessed with kind of the idea of a single story sort of refracted through different lenses of, you know, the different characters in the book. The unseen has sort of this like sprawling cast, right? It's got a grieving mother and it's got a father who is uh kind of desperately trying to keep it all together while it falls apart around him. And um, we've got a couple of brooding teenagers, we've even got like a five-year-old girl who's watching everything uh unfold with this sort of eerie, sugar sweet sort of innocence. So it's so the characters are all very, very different. Their points of view are very different because they're in such different places in their lives. And just, you know, jumping between their perspectives isn't just fun, but I think it keeps the story really fresh. It keeps the pacing kind of tight. And honestly, for me, it's it's a built-in escape hatch as a writer. Just because if I hit something while I'm writing where I'm like, I just do not know where to go with this, you know, I can switch to a different scene or a different character and kind of work around it that way. Um, so but no, I mean, this is really kind of the way that I tell the majority of my stories, is all very multiple point of view based.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, and maybe it was the the cast itself and the variance and the age ranges that really stuck out to me with that. But I thought it filled in a lot of gaps with things that other characters may not have seen. It was really efficiently done. I really enjoyed it. I've read a number of your other novels, Within These Walls and Seed, and I Call Upon Thee, and of course Brother. I find your prose to be both compelling and efficient, specifically the physical sequences, and I'm thinking of that end scene in Brother. Do you have a specific approach to writing action-based sequences or physical sequences that maybe you'd want to share with our writer listeners? I've actually had writer friends who mention you as an inspiration for their action thriller novels and how you handle physicality.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Wow. Well, thank you. That's that's really a huge compliment. That makes me feel very cool. So honestly, just secrets out. I'm a I'm a kid of the 80s. I grew up on way too much TV. I spent like entire summers just like glued to the tube and watching basic cable horror at like one in the afternoon. Once upon a time, they did that. They used to play like all these cheesy horror movies in the middle of summer, like at lunchtime. And I was the kid that would just like sit there and watch these movies and just be enamored by this really this like bad horror cinema, right? So I feel like that comes from that experience of my childhood where I'm writing the scenes like they're a movie, sort of in my mind. Um, I block them out kind of like shots that you would see in a movie, like who's in the frame, what's the focus, where's the tension. Then I try to sort of strip the language down to keep it fast and keep it sort of visceral so it's not confusing. And you just get the snapshots of like what really is happening and what's important. I also don't like revealing too much, so I pivot away from you know showing too much. I I like the reader to use their imagination for a lot of the really pivotal scenes because I think it just makes it more effective, it makes it scarier if it's like a like a spooky scene. But I mean, honestly, I don't remember who I said it to, but I've said it before. Probably one of the reasons that I became a writer is because filmmaking requires like a whole crew of people. And I am absolutely not a team player, I don't have time for that stuff. Like, I I would want to be like the actor, the director, the producer, everything. I would be doing it all myself. And so, books for me, this is me directing movies in my head and directing movies in your head and telling you what to see. And and there's no boom mic or anybody telling anybody else what to do. So yeah, I mean, it's very cinematic, and I understand that it's cinematic, and I know where that comes from. It's not like an accident, it's just really the way that I, when I read books, I love it when they play out like movies because I I'm such a movie lover at heart. And um, I guess it just, you know, it just comes naturally to my work because that's that's what I grew up with.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

I think that really comes through. I was a child of the 80s and the 80s horror wave as well. And as a former theater producer and director myself, I can tell you we moved to reviewing media because of the time commitment and the team commitment. So you are on to something with that answer, a hundred percent. Well, I think this novel, The The Unseen, is really textured and it covers a lot of ground with its large cast, and it explores a ton of different themes from family and parenting to grief and loss to fate and faith and compassion and mental instability. But I think one of the biggest themes is generational trauma. Is there something you'd like the readers to take away from this book? And I know that's a really difficult question sometimes, but is there something you would hope they would feel or think or do with this book after they've completed it?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Well, I don't write with any moral in mind. I think that doing that is sort of dooming yourself to fail or kind of to be preachy. And I don't I don't like that. I don't appreciate when I read a book and that's what I'm finding. You know, it just kind of turns me off from the story. Uh so I don't really set out to make any sort of a moral impact on anybody. Um my main concern is that the story lingers with with the reader, that it gets under their skin. However, you you bring up generational trauma, and I am a huge advocate of like, especially as a parent. I don't I mean, I don't know if we're allowed swear words here, but like get your shit together, right? Um so I feel like I'm I'm really sort of championing that. I don't know how well that comes through in this book because again, I didn't set out to write this book with that particular thing in mind. Now, now Isla is like the the catalyst for that, right? She's she is, if you had to put generational trauma into one character, she is it. And she is essentially the downfall of the family in this story because of all of this baggage that she has. So I I I suppose in sort of a I I don't want to say it's it was a subconscious thing because I knew it was there. I knew it was happening, I knew what I was writing when I was writing it, but I never set out to write it specifically to like impact people in that like oh well, this is the moral of the story sort of way. I really, I guess I just want readers to feel unsettled by what people are capable of, especially when they believe they're doing the right thing, or they're just so affected by like grief or trauma that they're they're blinded to the fact that they are causing grief and trauma for other people. But yeah, I mean, if someone finishes the book and they need to sit in the dark for a little bit before moving on with their life, then I I've I think the book has done its job. But I didn't set out with any moral in mind.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

That's certainly been my experience of the book. I was left questioning myself as the father of a nearly two-year-old and with another another child on the way in December, the looming shadow of the missing children in the book and also the failures of parenting from Isla as well as Luke. Um, he had, I would argue, a responsibility to step in at multiple points in the story that I don't know that he lived up to. That was almost more horrific to me than the antagonist of the piece. Not saying that the antagonist, singular or plural, without spoiling a lot, wasn't horrifying. They were truly horrifying. But I find that to be the case in a lot of your work, that the interpersonal relationships are sometimes scarier than the overtly horror element, supernatural or not. Is that something you strive for? Is are you interested in the relationships as well as the horror? Are you putting a lot of focus into the horror of the relationships?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Horror for me, I mean, you you said it really well. The relationships and like the way that they can just be toxic, that's where the horror comes from. I feel like if the whole failing at parenthood vibe got to you, the book works because I feel like as a parent, and I have I have a seven-year-old, and oh my gosh, you say two-year-old, and it's so sweet. But like I'm kind of like I I love I love that age, but I'm also a little bit glad that I've now got a seven-year-old. But but I I I'm a little jealous of you. So, but I will tell you the that fear, it it does not go away. If anything, it just intensifies. So, like, get ready because it just, you know, it you're not gonna, you're you're not gonna wake up one day and be like, oh yeah, I'm like this badass dad, and everything is gonna go right. You keep falling into that that fear of I think I'm doing something wrong. Like, how do I fix it? How do I fix it? And you know, it's it's just never-ending. And I feel like horror is such a real genre, right? It's it taps into what we're already afraid might happen. And there is nothing more terrifying than the idea of failing your children. The book takes the concept and spins it a bit with Isla because she's the mother figure. So she should really be concerned about you know, doing that, but she's the one who's inviting in all this instability, and her grief is so blinding that she can't see how she is tearing down everything good in her life by trying to claw back something that she's lost. So the horror in my books, they're usually just a metaphor. And the supernatural is almost always a reflection of like the trauma or the grief or the interpersonal sort of wreckage. So when I write something overtly horrific, I'm I'm rooting it in something painfully human, like failure or fear, or like, you know, unresolved trauma or uh that sort of thing. Things that we try to pretend don't exist. Because that's the kind of horror that really gets to me. So that's the kind of horror that I like to write.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, there is a constant vigilance as a parent and a constant vigilance in your own interpersonal relationships that you don't become the the tr the trigger of the horror for sure. Right. Um, and I love that you say it's a metaphor, reflecting back, because I when I think back on a lot of your work, I can absolutely see how one reinforces the other. Without giving too much away about the antagonist of this book, aside from saying that it is an intruder in the family in the guise of a child, was there any inspiration you had when you were creating Rowan?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

So Rowan just kind of came from an image that I couldn't shake. In my head, I saw this child standing at the edge of the woods, you know, like completely still. He's not supposed to be there. But he's not lost and he's not scared, he's just like off. He's just wrong. He's standing there, he's staring. I am pretty obsessed with the uncanny valley. Yeah, like that almost human wrongness that makes your skin just crawl, but like you don't know what it is. And I think that's that's like such a fun place to play in. Um, so I love writing children whose innocence doesn't feel right, like it feels like it's maybe fake or just off or something, and and and and kids aren't supposed to be that way, like they're supposed to be little angels, right? And so, like when it's just off-kilter a little bit, it it's super creepy. So it's like this deeply unsaddling thing about a child who should be harmless but isn't. So Rowan came out of that sort of intersection. There's like a bit of changeling folklore baked into the story. There's um just a lot of emotional detachment from him, which is also very creepy. Like you have not experienced this yet as uh as a father, but just wait until one of your kids is just like he could not care less that you're like there or trying to help or like trying to comfort them or something. Oh my gosh. It's like it's the biggest punch to the gut, just like what has happened? It just feels so wrong, and there's like this weird void there. So it's like Rowan is is familiar, but he's also deeply off. It's almost like he's wearing like somebody else's skin or something that doesn't quite fit. And that is to me, like the most unsettling kind of villain is like when you can't pinpoint why they're so off. And if you just put that on a kid's shoulders, it's just like double terrifying. So, you know, that that he just kind of came from a picture, like an image of well, there's a kid, and like he doesn't belong. And I just worked from there. I I wanted to write a story about this kid that just shows up. I didn't know what the story exactly was gonna be or who was gonna be in it. I just had this picture of this kid showing up. So Rowan was like the first character that I knew had to be in there, and it sort of spiraled from there.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

That's really interesting. And yeah, I think uncertainty is some of the creepiest things you can explore. And through the guise of a child, it makes it it makes it much creepier. Though it Rowan was extremely effective for me. And we talked a little bit about this next question already through the course of our conversation, but I'll give a little space here if you want to add anything else. I found your previous novels to be some of the most gut-wrenching fiction I've read. I'm still shaken by brother long after I finished it. How would you say this novel is different from your previous work, without spoiling too much? And I know we talked a lot about some of the similarities. Uh, is there anything else you'd like to highlight with differences, either in approach, in structure, in themes, or in the actual plot itself?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

As far as gut-wrenching fiction goes, I think that that is just the most effective way to write a horror story. Like um, I've I've read horror where it's it's not emotional and it just doesn't, it just doesn't resonate. It just doesn't resonate with me. So I I I always take this approach of um I've been called like the author of some of the saddest horror out there. Um and honestly, like I take that as a compliment. That means that it's hitting you somewhere deep. And that's the stuff that sticks. And so I'll take it. I'll take it. If that's if it makes you sad, I mean, I'm sorry. Don't read my, you know, don't don't read my stuff if you're looking for like a really good time or a happy ending or something. Um, that's not what I give you. But I I I feel like my stuff really it doesn't hold back when it's hitting on these like uncomfortable truths that we all need to face. Um, it doesn't uh, you know, hold back on on talking about like the really the stuff that really makes us human, you know, like the grief and the and the the the loss and and just feeling like you're out of control and that sort of thing. Um how is this book different from my others? I don't really know that I'm the best person to answer that, honestly. I think um The Unseen, it still has all those familiar bones that I always work with. My I, you know, I have these themes that I always fall into. Family, um, how easily those bonds can sort of be twisted and snapped under pressure. I guess if anything feels different about this book, it's just the scale of how many characters are in it and how how vast it is just in this fictional world that exists in the book. You know, but I'm so close to the book I can't really see it that way. Um, so that's really how how it's different or how it's similar is really the the best people to to ask that are the readers. You know, the readers will decide what makes it different or make what makes it similar.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Well, I think our listeners now have a mission to dive in and uh compare and contrast. But I think you're probably onto something with the scale of the book being a little bit different. Some of your other work that I've read feels a little bit more intimate and not in a not in a good or bad way. I really enjoyed the unseen, and I think it's interesting to see you flex your muscles with a larger cast of characters. I found the family's viewpoints to be vastly different from one another in certain instances, and it was a really refreshing change of pace and really, like you mentioned before, kept the book moving very quickly.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

You have an excellent ability to get me to root for people who on paper, if you listed out their attributes, I wouldn't be rooting for. And I think that's what makes some of your endings so gut-wrenching. And another thing I absolutely love about your fiction is your ability to bottle up a location and serve it to us in narrative format. I think of Appalachia and brother specifically having family from that region. It was so accurate. And even Colorado in the unseen, I haven't been to Colorado, but I feel like I've been there after reading the book. Do you have a specific way of researching setting that allows you to make it come to life so well on the page?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

So I grew up in the southwest United States. I grew up in New Mexico. I did not grow up in Colorado, but Colorado was a neighbor. Um, so I'm really familiar with Colorado and the prairies and the kinds of forests that they have out there. I knew from the start that I wanted the unseen to take place in that specific region of the United States, um, and in that kind of a setting. So I needed something to be beautiful but isolating. And like the Hansen's farmhouse, it sits on a big plot of like wide open space, but it's flanked by like these thick forests. And that it's I really love that kind of spatial tension. Like you feel safe in one direction, but not so safe in the other, even though it's technically like the same space. So I was sort of playing with that a little bit here. For other books, I've done lots and lots of setting research, uh, just because I'm not from that region or I want to get it right. You know, I don't want to mess it up. I mean, I I've I've I've gone so far as to like look up what types of trees grow in forests and specific mountain ranges and things like that, just just to like make sure that I'm not saying like pine tree, and there's like literally zero pine trees and like you know, wherever. Because that uh yeah. But for this one, I just kind of knew what was out there, you know. I didn't have to really look anything up because I I kind of have that space um from from spending so much time there. It's just, you know, I it's just so familiar to me. Um, but but the reason I chose Colorado is just I didn't want to base it in New Mexico because if you try to say uh the prairies and forests of New Mexico, somebody's gonna look at you like you're crazy. And I will tell you, as someone who has grown up in New Mexico, there are definitely prairies and forests and things like that. But when people think New Mexico, that's not what they think. And so I didn't want it to get like, I didn't want there to be this like, what? You know, because that's that would just be distracting. So I I chose Colorado because it's got that that really beautiful sort of isolation. It feels safe, but it also feels still very frontier like. And if you're if your car breaks down in the middle of, you know, in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, it's like a long walk to anywhere. So I really want. To sort of capture that sort of isolated feeling.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It was extremely effective. I have to say that even the open spaces felt like, by the end of the story, felt like bigger threats than some of the wooded spaces. Right. It was it was extremely effective. It's interesting for me as a director and as a reviewer. I spend a lot of my time reverse engineering what the writing process is. So I just want to take a moment and thank you for pulling back the curtain for us a little bit so we can kind of get in your head and go through your process with you. I think that's not only interesting to me, but I hope useful to our audience. Last thing, we we have a couple more questions. We ask these to all the guests on the podcast. And so if these get tricky, I'm glad that we we could talk a little bit before the show and and give you some time to prep on these. But do you have a favorite family-based horror novel that you like to read as a reader? Maybe maybe if it inspires you, you could talk about that as well. But as a reader, do you have a favorite family-based horror novel?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, I I do actually, and it makes me sound very, very basic. But not the shining is a standout, right? You've got the torrents heading to the overlook for the winter. And and when they're heading up there, they're full of hope, right? Jack's gonna write his book, they're gonna heal as a family. He's not been doing so good as a parent. He's hopeful for a new career and all this stuff. And and we all know how their trip turns out. And um, that arc from hope to just ruin is just the best kind of horror for me. It's like this slow rot, you know. And and having a kid in the center of it makes it just that much more devastating. So I don't know, there's just something really gutting about a parent looking at their kid and like feeling nothing, you know? Yeah, which is like it's so scary. It's like this erosion of connection. But yeah, I mean, I tried to really bake some of that into Isla's story, as I'm sure now that you think back on it, you can see that. Like there's a little bit of Jack Torrance in her where, you know, she wants to be this great parent, but then like it's just all sort of, you know, her desire to be the mother of all these children, because she does have many. Um, and she she lost, she she had a pregnancy loss, and that's why Rowan is such a big thing for her, that she wants him to like replace that loss. Her desire to just become this just ultimate mother figure is is the is is her downfall, um, where she just can't be happy in the space that she's in. She's just reaching for more, she's overreaching, you know. Um, she's grieving, but she's un unraveling. And so like that slow disconnection, just like you know, the Jack Torrents slow, creepy disconnection where finally it's just gone. That that is what you know, that's the stuff. That's the stuff of like that really good family-based horror. So for me, The Shining um is is, and honestly, The Shining is also one of my favorite movies as well. I think that it's just done so, so well. And I know that the book and the movie are are, you know, pretty different. That's why the King doesn't like it, but like, sorry, I thought I thought it was really good.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

So no arguments out of me. I just bought an overlook hotel shirt, so I'm I'm a fan. And I think that what makes Isla such a compelling character is the vacillation between her desire to be that good mother and the complete abdication of her duties to a portion of her family. It that's really the vacillation there is really compelling writing, and what kept me turning pages, especially in the Isla chapters. You mentioned a lot of horror movies in this book, and I know we talked about your uh 80s horror street cred, which I I love. I noticed The Omen and Child's Play, Halloween, The Blair Witch Project, and those are the ones I wrote down. There's more in there. Do you have a do you have a favorite horror movie? And you can give multiple movies. I I am not opposed to a list here.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah, I mean, we were just talking about The Shining. So, so least favorite adaptation of Stephen King's, but my favorite based on his work. So there's that, there's The Witch, which um absolutely just gets under my skin every time I watch it. Hereditary, devastating. The Conjuring series, but specifically the first one, but the Conjuring series, I love all of those as one of the newer series out there. I think that one's just so well done. And and again, like, are you seeing the theme? Like it's all family stuff, yeah. Right. For me, that's like really where it's at. If a movie can make you question the people you love most, or like yourself as a parent, like that's I'm that's my buy-in right there, is like this is gonna be this is gonna be good, just because it's like so rooted in what can really happen if you're not paying close enough attention, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Absolutely. We talk a lot on the channel about horror as projection uh of our deepest fears and horror as catharsis, just editorializing on why horror is beneficial and builds a strong community. And I think that you hit the nail on the head with that constant vigilance and the need for insight as a parent. I oftentimes work through my fears about those things through horror, and I think your love of family horror is definitely shared by me. So, where can people find out more about your work? Do you want to share a website and maybe some social media accounts if you have them? We're happy to put those in the description of this podcast so people can follow up with you.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yeah, I mean, I'm a super boring social media and website person. Everything is under my name, Anya Alborne. So if you go on Facebook or Instagram, just put in Anya Alborn and you'll find me. My website is just anyaalborne.com. I don't have X or whatever the heck that is anymore. Like I had to piece out of that. So yeah, the PR team right now is really trying to get me to post more, and um, I'm supposed to be getting better at it. So I uh I mean, I I don't really post a whole, whole lot of stuff. I try to be pretty relevant and not overwhelm people with like a bunch of you know garbage that they are not interested in. But I don't know, I'm not a very good social media person, but I do have some plans. I have uh uh a plan that involves like a skeleton that I have right now in my attic and um an unboxing video. So like they told me you should make an unboxing video, and I and I said, Oh my gosh, you know, I I'm really not like a camera person. So, but I do have a skeleton that might do it for me. So we'll we'll see. So if you if you go on my socials and you find the skeleton, that's great. And if he's not there, then something has seriously gone sideways. And the PR team is probably really unhappy with me.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

That sounds like a reason to subscribe. Uh the anticipation of the unboxing.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Look for the skeleton, look for the skeleton. If he's there, great. If he's not, forgive me. I'm sorry. I I just be assured, I tried.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

I'm gonna be a biased interviewer here and hype up your website. Your writing is so prolific. I actually have to like cross-reference your website to make sure I don't own your book that I'm thinking about purchasing or the audiobook that I'm thinking about purchasing. I have to go and look at the titles to make sure I've cross-reference with my library to see where the gaps are. So your website is extremely helpful when uh reviewing all of the stuff you've written because I'm slowly making my way through your back catalog.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Lastly, what are you working on next? If you can share, if you want to give us any hints, feel free to tell us what you're up to next.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Well, uh, you will be shocked to know that I'm working on another horror novel, right? What? What?

unknown 30:01

What?

SPEAKER_01 30:02

That's so weird. Um, so this one is definitely more uh intimate. It's not as vast and sprawling. It's less expansive than the unseen. I can give you some hints, but I am a little superstitious about talking too much about stuff that isn't finished yet. Um whatever you're comfortable with. But I will say, I will say, um, if you think Stepford, Connecticut, and a demon, then you are close. You're you're you're gonna you're gonna be close.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Sign me up. I can't thank you enough for joining us. I know a few of our friends and readers, um, people who have recommended your work to me when I started getting interested in your work will be listening to this. And I know personally they will be thrilled. But I I know that I'm thrilled. I'm not only you know running a media channel here, I'm also a true fan of your work, and I can't thank you enough for spending the time with us. Thank you for having me. Yeah, check out the unseen. It comes out on August 19th. And until next time, stay spooky, my friends.