My story “In My Father’s House,” in which a woman with anxiety issues takes a long drive to check on her elderly and estranged father, gets stuck inside a nightmare which might be his or her own, and struggles to get them both back out, is part of Vox et Liber’s newly released anthology “Graveyard Visits,” featuring horror by and about people from groups who often aren’t represented. (IMFH is on the hopeful end of horror, I think, though it’s still the most Halloween-ish story I’ve written.)
I’m particularly pleased about this, and some other upcoming releases of stories whose protagonists share my struggles with anxiety. I’ve been encouraged by other stories that portrayed folks with mental illnesses as something other than villains or helpless victims–as full-fledged people who have something to offer (as well, of course, as being broken and sometimes quite difficult). I’m thinking of Charis in “The Robber Bride,” Cousin Mary in “The Scent of Water,” Wolfheart in ‘My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry,” various of Dorothy Gilman’s heroines… I’m glad to put a few more stories with that vision out into the world.
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