Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
During the Civil War, the Underground Railroad became a spy network, so we could still have fresh stories for these characters years into the future, with desperate people still doing desperate things.
For a white writer not to be able to step into the shoes of people of color confuses me. That should be the default - many people of color have to step into the shoes of white people. Women have to step into the shoes of men.
One of the things I love so much about horror is the way it uses surprise, and when I write, it's about: What have we not seen before? What's going to surprise us? If we're not going beyond, taking that challenge, I get kind of bored.
How do you make sure that you stand your ground and you find your place in the world, even if that place is not the place everyone else tells you it's supposed to be? For me, TV is character-driven and those are the types of characters I want to watch.
You know, being an 'other' in this world, you're walking around in a horror movie at all times, you're always on edge and wondering when the monster is going to jump out and get you. I feel like that's the experience of African-Americans and queer people in America.
From the start I was a kid who read 'Goosebumps', and that led me to Stephen King, and then I saw 'Aliens,' and 'Night of the Living Dead,' the original. And with 'Night of the Living Dead' I was like, 'Oh my god, there's a black person who's the main character. Does anybody see that?'
The Underground Railroad was the first integrated civil rights movement. And it's a great example of when we work together, what we can go against. Which is 600 miles of crazy terrain being chased by slave catchers to get people to be what they should be in the first case - which is free.
When I read Matt Ruff's book, that was my first encounter with learning about sundown towns, and I was like 'What?' Like, you can't make this up. If I wrote this horror movie talking about sundown towns where you can't be black after dark in America, people be like, 'OK, we get the metaphor,' and it's like, no, that's real. It's not a metaphor.
I was familiar with Lovecraft, I also was familiar with his history as a person. So I had read his stories but I wasn't bananas like I think that a lot of people get bananas. I was like, they're good and I can definitely see the influences - but I can definitely read them and see the parts where you're being racist right there in your own stories.