TIH 561: Samantha Allen on M to (WT)F, Dark Humour, and Women’s Restrooms

00:02.16

Michael David Wilson

Samantha, welcome to this is horror.

00:03.85

Samantha Allen

Thanks so much for having me this. This is horror. We're here in it.

00:09.66

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, yeah, it is and goodness I mean that could spur a entire discussion in and of itself I mean all the horror in the world today or the horror that one can find just by a. You know, looking in the newspaper or possibly opening the door depending on where you're living but instead of starting with horror or this might start with horror or depend how you'll answer this question but I want to know what some of the early life lessons were that you learned. Growing up and they don't have to pertain to writing it can just be anything that was instrumental in those formative years.

00:59.99

Samantha Allen

Oh goodness so I was raised more amen. Um, and I'm now you know an out queer trans woman so that was like quite the journey to go from Mormonism which has. I'd say it's fair to say anti-al g b t q doctrine it teaches that gender is assigned to you premorally and is inalterable. Um, yeah to go from that to who I am now quite the journey but I would say like early life lessons that I still kind of keep. Rattling around in the brain from those days are working hard mormonism is a calvinist tradition. You know it's all about that. Ah that american reformationist ethic. Um, for better for worse. That's ingrained in me. Um, and I think the power of words you know I I was reading the King James bible as a kid like around the same age that I was flipping through like. The gingerbread man. You know like you're going to church on Sunday and you're hearing this very like majestic english and in you're learning to read at the same time and it's all kind of going in there and there was something entrancing to me about language and its rhythm and you know it's power.

02:28.60

Samantha Allen

You know and obviously in mormonism I kind of disagree with how the power of language is used and it took me a while to kind of come around to realizing like hey I can use words for good things instead of making feel people feel restricted and confined. So Yeah I think it's some you know that. That calvinist work ethic and kind of an addiction to to language I guess.

02:53.70

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, and I wonder I mean having left the moment church for very obvious reasons. 1 thing that I'm interested in is what your relationship with spirituality and. God and religion is to these days because I mean I know that yeah growing up in a religious household to myself that it it can be difficult to shift some of that mentality entirely. And so I'm wondering what your relationship is pertaining to spirituality and religion.

03:37.90

Samantha Allen

Yeah, it is difficult. It's like falling off an existential cliff. You know like everything that you were told about the world when you come of age often is when you know people tend to lose their faith I've found and you. You kind of realize wait everything I've been told is like wrong or intentionally misleading or maybe not intentionally misleading. Maybe the people who told me that actually believed it and yeah, it's like a real matrix moment for sure. Um, my relationship now I would say like immediately after I left I I felt like a pretty hardened died in the wool atheist and as I get older I'm just kind of like well why bother even investing the psychic energy in. Denying something when I can just be like I don't know you know we're all just weird squishy meat sacks on a rock like if something happened after I wouldn't object it. It would I hope be better than being you know a decaying. Pile of flesh on a on a planet. Um, but yeah, you know I'm I'm not particularly invested in that possibility either I would say I I live my life as though there's nothing after but not in like a carpi Dm I'm going skydiving.

05:04.80

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds like a very sensible way to approach things and I mean it it sounds like kind of similar to the conclusions that I've come up with I feel a lot of us when we.

05:06.59

Samantha Allen

Way.

05:23.95

Michael David Wilson

Go away from the church to begin with probably because we're so bloody angry about all the you know bullshit to put it bluntly. We. We do go to some more kind of Militant aphiist route. But then as I've got a little bit older. It's like you know. I Don't know what the truth is I don't know what's out there. It will probably be pretty arrogant to to say that I did but I I like the idea as as you do too of perhaps there being more to this but I'm I'm not Sure. There's the scientific. Evidence to support that it's more just something that would be quite nice but there were a lot of ideas that would be nice that don't necessarily manifest in reality.

06:07.69

Samantha Allen

Yeah, definitely and I mean you hit the nail on the head like what bothered me about mormonism was the epistemic arrogance. It was like only we know the truth like on a planet of billions of people only like. 12000000 people living in the rocky mountain west of the United States like ah know what god wants for humanity has like that that seems pretty arrogant and yeah I kind of became more reluctant to like just mirror that arrogance on the other side. Just be like whatever at least I'm out.

06:44.85

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and in terms of your first experiences with stories both reading and writing I mean I understand that. You know as early as elementary school you were writing silly poems and then graduated to demotivational posters in junior high school. So let's talk a little bit about those early experiences with writing.

07:18.44

Samantha Allen

Oh my goodness. The research goes deep I mean I can't remember which book I even mentioned that in. But yeah I would I've made like a poster that said something like shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you'll like suffocate and then never ending. Nothing missive space or something like that. Um, yeah and I you know I have little like pocket notebooks in elementary school just jotting down stuff that I would be terribly ashamed to look at now because you know you're 5 years old and you don't have like a.

07:54.27

Samantha Allen

Prefrontal lobeat or whatever I'm not sure I'm not sure about brain physiology. But yeah I you know I think there was a weird almost totemic quality to books. To me as a kid you know I loved like holding them in my hands I'm sure that comes from mormonism too like you're holding the bible you're holding the book of Mormon and it's this object that people are investing so much energy and meaning into and I think like more than anything like I wanted to make one of those objects. And it was almost coincidental that what had to go into it. Voice who is word says like I I sure would like to make one of these things that people carry Around. Um, but yeah I was I I Read a lot early and like you know independently and.

08:48.66

Samantha Allen

Then in grade school I started inhaling science fiction. It's weird for dune to be in the box office now and not to be something that I'm sheepishly reading on the back of the bus while like the popular kids talk about what they're going to do. This weekend. Um, so yeah I mean for me the trajectory was the King James bible to Frank Herbert um to variety.

09:19.41

Michael David Wilson

And that is quite a trajectory you know I think from the King James bible to like outlandish science fiction. There were some connections and perhaps commonalities and then. Well variety is I it's gonna be more tenuous to try and then make a connection there but it certainly adds some some fun and some spice to the reading material.

09:49.33

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean largely, it's a function of like I think a lot of people are writing cross genre today which is really exciting to me having recently written a cross genre myself and. Still doing it. Yeah I like things kind of breaking out of boxes more and not knowing what to expect so you know lot of what I read lately or like friends books or that kind of thing and it's just like oh I guess I'm going to be reading a romance book now I'm going to be reading a you know. Ah, near future drama. You know they it all depends. But yeah.

10:26.22

Michael David Wilson

And I wonder and I've never asked this question before but as you were talking I mean as somebody who read the bible a lot did you learn any lessons in terms of how to write compelling. Stories and persuasive fiction through studying the bible.

10:48.99

Samantha Allen

Oh gosh I mean you know I think I think I probably spent more time as a kid with the book of mormon than I did with like the new testament which I read more is I was like a teenager when on my mission. But yeah, like. Book of mormon was full of all these like florid like stories with these larger than life characters I mean for anyone who's not familiar with the work of mormon scripture it sort of posits that there was a ah group of. Israelites who came to the north american continent anciently predating like native americans and had an entire civilization that was lost to time that Jesus also visited so like some wild stuff without any historical record. To back it up really and so Joseph Smith in my view at least was just kind of like making all these people up there were you know military generals who. Were kneeling in front of god and praying for guidance on the battlefield. There were like brave truth tellers standing on the wall like getting pelted with rocks for trying to spread the gospel to the lamanites like he invented these big characters. But I guess I would say more than anything like.

12:16.93

Samantha Allen

Spending time with mormon scripture. It taught me that like wildly disparirate tones can coexist in 1 text you know like if you take it as a whole it's like old testament god is just like murking people. You know it's just like. Smiting left and right and then you have all of these like tender notes in the new testament. All of the the feet washing and the caring for the poor and then you have revelation where you have I had an almost like love crafty and like. Creatures like destroying creation I mean and yet people kind of all refer to it as 1 thing you know it's the bible. It. It has everything and I'm like well I think fiction can have a little bit of everything too.

13:10.00

Bob Pastorella

And sounds like if is the book of norm of mormon was written now that it would be like Fanfic instead of a religion. You know I mean it's like this stuff you're talking about it's it's crazy I've I've never read it I've heard of.

13:22.23

Samantha Allen

I Mean essentially it is like bible fan fiction. You.

13:27.48

Bob Pastorella

Yeah, it pretty much but it's I didn't know about the ah the I ah grew up Catholic So I You know that's I know that and I don't go to church anymore. Um I'm spiritual just not religious religious comes from Man. So I I Knew you're telling me things about a religion that I knew nothing about and it's like really fucking me up. So It's like like Wow Okay I didn't know this This is just crazy.

13:55.30

Samantha Allen

Yeah, no I mean it's a trip you know and like of course you look back on it now and you're like wow I like believed that god told Joseph Smith he needed to marry like other men's wives I believed that Joseph Smith could translate Egyptian before anybody had found the rosetta stone you know like you you believed these things and then gosh I left the church in 2007 so is that what fifteen plus years ago more yeah I mean it's all seem sillier to you over time. But like when you're locked in it. It's it's ironclad in your mind which is terrifying.

14:45.93

Michael David Wilson

And yeah, I mean this is a thing when you're a child and your parents tell you something is true at that point you have no reason to doubt them. It's quite a revelation at least it was for me when it's like hangar. That that just wasn't true. Oh what? Why did they say that to me and I mean sometimes I'd even have arguments with teachers because my mother had told me something so I'd taken it to be true and then you know later in Life. It's like oh. She was Wrong. Musta looked a right idiot having that argument but you don't question it. You don't question your parents for at least a time.

15:31.78

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean you know it's it is tough to grapple with I mean I have a good relationship with my folks now but like you kind of have to think well like they needed to tell me that because it was serving some psychic function for them like.

15:48.95

Samantha Allen

Trying to transmit their beliefs to their children was for them like a bulwark against the own uncertainty they feel that leads them to need to shore up their own faith or belief or fear of what comes Next you know, um I like. I disagree with that. Ah I Also don't have children and you know don't want children like probably not coincidentally just because it's just like.

16:21.46

Samantha Allen

There's there's something about transmitting any sort of belief system to another human that feels inherently tyrannical to me now. But yeah.

16:32.29

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, and I think unfortunately with children I mean you will find a way to inadvertently mess them up or teach them something wrong even with the best will in the world. So I mean.

16:50.90

Michael David Wilson

And if as a parent you just have to do what you believe to be best in the moment and apologize later when you realize some of those moments werent weren't actually for the best I mean I don't know how else to do it but to to realize that there is no. Such thing as perfect parenting and there is no such thing in in my view as perfection. Anyway, it's like the imperfections that almost paradoxically make us perfect. They're the things that make us special.

17:23.40

Samantha Allen

Yeah, and I mean I think that you know ultimately the place I have to arrive at with it is just you know. A lot of people say like if I could go back and do it all over again would I do it differently? no like in this brave way and I'm like yeah I probably would but I didn't and I can't so I need to appreciate the kind of perspective that like that experience has given me you know like. I don't know that my brain would be producing quite the strange kind of stuff it does if I hadn't had the life I did so I try to like glean aspects out of having this very unusual like. Outsider alienated existence like growing up closeted in a you know deeply conservative religion like I I try to hold on to that. Even if I would you know snap it away in a heartbeat if I had like the. Thanos Glove or whatever.

18:30.51

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, and I mean talking about the kind of fiction that you write and the fiction that you read I mean I understand too that you were watching a lot of slash your movies relatively early. And so I mean I want to know about some of the films that you were watching I'm also interested in terms of whether teachers and your parents and family members and friends but were they mostly. Encouraging and supportive of your love for genre or was it the opposite. What did that look like.

19:13.30

Samantha Allen

You know so mormonism at least like devout mormons follow this rule generally avoid rated our movies so growing up like my access to horror was Hitchcock like you know for some reason I was allowed to watch like. Psycho even though to my money. Psycho is like a much more disturbing film than like many much more gory slasher movies like it's it's terrifying on a visceral and almost like grounded level of like the roadside motel like. This stranger with the creepy smile. Um, then you know a lot of stuff that I could have like snuck in with my friends to see at the theater. So yeah, that was kind of my immediate access and I loved hcock growing up like I loved rear window I love vertigo I love psycho. Um, so yeah, that was my initial exposure and then as I got older that that changed of course but we could talk about that more later. Um I did make a ah short film in high school. About a serial killer who murders people by shoving them in a dryer. it was a it was a comedy and I call it permanent press I think I started with the pun and worked backwards. So yes, slashing was on the mind I liked making.

20:44.82

Samantha Allen

Movies mostly in high school more than jotting in notebooks with a little like camcorder with mini Dv tapes. Um I would say you know mormon is um at least my own family. Not super encouraging of the creative impulse. Um. You know my dad worked a white collar job for decades that you know paid for four kids to go through school and I think he always thought like you know his kids would kind of follow in that more secure life path and he. Sort of gently reminded me that like for everybody who who you know was trying to make it in a creative industry. There were like 99 people who failed or whatever, not super encouraging to hear. Um, and so yeah I think that kind of put me off the idea of ever kind of having a career in the arts who I will say a career in the arts again. So you can edit me knocking my table and then edit me saying knocking my table.

21:57.56

Michael David Wilson

Ah, okay.

21:58.93

Samantha Allen

Um, But yeah, you know I think I still have held onto that I've I've maintained a day job like editing or doing journalism for virtually all of my writing career for that Reason. Don't want to lose that Health insurance. But yeah I've never I didn't get the kind of like carte blanche like follow your dreams kid ah kind of parenting around. Yeah my creativity.

22:28.75

Michael David Wilson

So given that there was discouragement regarding the writing What was the impetus that made you decide. You're going to go for it anyway.

22:46.79

Samantha Allen

Gosh Yeah I mean I was an economics major believe it or not for for a time until switching over to linguistics you know I think grad school basically gave me the space and leaving mormonism gave me the space to kind of pursue. More authentic desires and wants personally and professionally so you know I I remember I mean and I was always pretty good at writing like I loved writing essays in school. Um I wrote a thesis in undergrad and. One day. My thesis advisor was like great job on this now we need to talk about like which Ph D programs you're going to apply to This was a a women's and gender Studies Professor and I was like I'm not going to a Ph D program like I'm going to go get a job. And she was like well you know Ph D Programs pay you to go to school. She didn't tell me that they pay you like almost nothing she just to old me they pay you and I was like well then I'm going to get a ph. Do you marry like I get paid to just keep doing this. Um. And kind of the second I got into grad school I had a little bit of money of my own I had my own place far from my parents I had my own health insurance that had Trans inclusive you know writers on it or whatever The Lgbtq Center had negotiated with emory.

24:16.17

Samantha Allen

And that just kind of opened a whole world to me I had free time to do freelance writing which I started doing and I transition which I did around the same time. So Yeah I mean basically it was it was this pragmatic thing of like. Getting my own autonomy and then the second I had my own autonomy like 1 of the first things I wanted to do was write.

24:41.68

Michael David Wilson

And yeah, and one thing that I said are fair is like throughout your writing whether it is fiction whether it is nonfiction. There is always. Just this delightful dark comedic fred throughout like I love your sense of humor and I feel that this must be part of your essence and how you see the world because it just permeates throughout everything.

25:14.70

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean maybe I don't sound very funny on this podcast so far talking about all my religious trauma. But I I promise especially I think it comes out most in my books honestly, my sense of humor. But yeah I think you kind of have to have. A little bit of a grim darkly comedic view on the world to have experienced some of the things I experienced you know some some bit of trauma I haven't mentioned is I had open heart surgery in 2008 that was 4 years before coming out as trans. And around the same time as I was leaving the church so you know like when you're born with in the wrong gender with a defective aortic valve in like a religion invented by a treasure hunting teenager in Palmyra New York like you've got to have that. Ah. Almost like self-effacing like god is really like playing a ah big long trick on me, kind of view and you kind of have to laugh at how cruel the universe can be sometimes um. Yeah I wouldn't say I'm like totally nihilistic and joker pilled by it. But I like to flirt with that edge.

26:37.36

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, and I mean the open heart surgery is of course something that you mention in your nonfiction. But I mean not in. So much detail. But I'm wondering I mean in terms of that period in your life I Guess what? what was the timeline in terms of realizing you need to have this surgery actually having the surgery and then what did the.

27:11.90

Samantha Allen

Yeah, this is how messed up it was I found out that I needed the aortic valve replacement while I was on my mormon mission and my first reaction was I get to go home like I wasn't like oh shoot like.

27:11.24

Michael David Wilson

Recovery look like.

27:29.55

Samantha Allen

My sternum it needs to get cracked open I was like I get to like stop knocking on strangers doors every day for the next two years trying to persuade them to like join this church like by then my my faith was kind of slipping anyway. So yeah I mean before then I had a heart murmur growing up I sort of thought the most I was told the most intensive thing I would need would be an anggioplasty but I guess at some point like the the tricuspid valve 2 of the cusps started fusing together something like. You know you can have an infection or you can have stress or something can change that sets it on a different track and so yeah, it was. It was a shock to me when I found out that that's what had to happen. But yeah I think it it changed the course of my life in that like. You know that was my entry into my twenty s you know like I I didn't get to feel immortal I didn't get like a yolo decade like I I started out my twenty s in ah, intubated in a hospital room. You know like so i.

28:46.49

Samantha Allen

That's kind of like a rude awakening and I think that it only kind of cemented a kind of outsider status I felt like growing up mormon in New Jersey where not very many people are mormon so you know going from that to being like. 1 of only a handful of people I knew who had had some kind of major health crisis at that early age like yeah I guess contributed to a long term sense of being on the outside looking in which I think you can see in my fiction as well as the. Memoir.

29:25.68

Michael David Wilson

and yeah and I'm I'm wondering too I mean obviously like leaving any sort of religion can be a traumatic and a difficult experience. Do you remember the first time. You started doubting the truth in Mormonism and was there ah a conversation or a person who you first approached and you were like I I don't know if this is true. I'm I'm not sure that that what we've been led to believe is actually real.

30:04.16

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean the really simple answer is like obviously my my gender which I understood without vocabulary from my earliest memories was at odds with the Religion. So I Think. In a sense that was inevitable but there there's I suppose a more interesting answer and I think it has to do with like going on a mission. You know I. As a kid I think it's hard to take religion seriously because you're a kid and you're just this like formless ball of it. You know and I sort of turned to mormonism even though I was raised in it like leaned into it when I was 16 out of. And you know insecurity and loneliness honestly and I think what kind of started putting some cracks in it was having that missionary. Experience. So This was pre transition you know suit and tie like. All the boys knocking on doors etc and I remember how militaristic it felt and how that didn't feel spiritual to me, you know like I was in the mission field and there's this.

31:25.99

Samantha Allen

Very regimented hierarchy of like this this other teenage boy is your zone leader and then this is your area leader and then you have the region leader and then the mission president and the mission president will scold you for you know. Doodling something in your notebook while you're supposed to be paying attention during scripture study and make you feel terrible and you know like to me the more experiences I had in that hierarchy the more I was like this doesn't feel like. God's love this feels like men playing dress up and shouting at each other. Um and that started to kind of put the emotional chinks in it that then became kind of more intellectual and. And then very deeply personal wedges between myself and mormonism.

32:26.48

Michael David Wilson

and yeah and I mean thinking on your childhood I mean something that comes up a lot in M To W Tf which by the way people can listen to on audible. You you can listen to that if you've got an audible account. It's available and I certainly urge that you do. But what 1 of the the themes was in in terms of you trying to express your your gender and to tell people. The truth was to to have like this humor and this game where it's like hey why don't we have a prank where I dress up as a woman and it it kept that was always the punchline to any game any prank who is ultimately you. Being you and you know ah a lot of this happened with your childhood friend chase and I want to know have you had any contact with chase because that this feels like a fred that was unanswered. It's like i. Since transitioning have you two got in contact.

33:44.81

Samantha Allen

Oh gosh I mean you know I had a big cross-country move when I was 11 so I moved from Southern California to New Jersey I I think I may only still be in touch with like 1 person that I know from elementary school. So. Chase if you're out there. This is why that was always like the prank that I was proposing sorry about having a 1 ne-track mind. It's just that there was a deep misalignment between my brain and my body and you know. I I didn't know how to deal with that. But yeah, you know obviously like I've reconnected it with um friends from high school or that kind of thing I mean the annoying and sometimes exhausting thing about transition is it. It forces you to realize how many people you actually know and interact with in your life. You know I transitioned in 2012 and like there are still cousins that I like haven't seen since then and I'm like oh god like I don't want to have to like. Show up to her reunion or a funeral sometime and like do that again. It's been years since I've I guess it can feel sometimes exhausting to reconnect because the initial period of coming out just feels relentlessly repetitive like having the same.

35:15.60

Samantha Allen

Conversation with you know, a gazillion different friends and family members.

35:24.90

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, yeah I I recall that you spoke a lot about this in the audio book with immense humor as well like like everything everything dramatic and difficult it is with humor and ah.

35:41.80

Michael David Wilson

Yeah I think one of the most important things that you said as well is you know and unfortunately like there there are a number of of people and comedians like laughing at Trans people trying to make Trans people like The. Kind of but of the joke but really like you said laugh with us not at us because there's so much kind of humor in terms of the the awkwardness in having this second puberty and there's. So much joy to be experienced So I wondered if you could talk a little bit on that.

36:25.40

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean that's basically the thesis of m to wtf which is my inscrutably titled audio memoir about transition which is like transition is funny and there's. There's a stereotype that trans people are humorless largely because trans cultural critics have had to do a lot of work of kind of critiquing this very kind of mean 90 s era like transphobic comedy that's still somehow in vogue today but like. Behind closed doors are like within the community trans people think it's all like really funny like it's hilarious like it is really weird to in your mid 20 s do puberty again like. Just after having finished it. The first time it's a very bizarre life experience. It puts you in all sorts of awkward situations which you can listen more about in the book for sure. But like you you have to laugh at it and and you laugh at it with. Each other I mean and and I think that like the mistake is Cis comedians or cisgender comedians sometimes think oh well because I can't do the insult that means I can't joke about it at all and I'm like no, you just have to like.

37:58.45

Samantha Allen

Be smart and be creative I think you can make jokes about a community. You're not a part of um I just think you have to do it really intelligently? you know like they're they're comedians who I think like have um examples of. Ah, both like in their in their work like like you know Louis C K before everything happened with him had this I thought really interesting trans joke where he he sort of riffed about trans people for a second and then he was like god. But don't you admire that they know what the hell is wrong with them like I wish I could I wish I knew what was wrong with me. You know I wish that I could just like wake up and be like oh I need to like put on a dress and everything will be fine like how amazing would that be if that could like solve my problems. Was like this is an example of a really like funny joke about trans people that finds the concept mildly amusing but that isn't making the joke of like trans people are gross or unattractive or delusional losers. You know. Um, and then you know I think you can find examples of like this same comedian making sloppier jokes on the subject that that don't kind of have that finesse and nuance. So yeah I mean I don't know I don't want to.

39:25.22

Samantha Allen

Get too roped into the comedy world but that that's sort of my feeling on it and what I wanted to accomplish with and deputf was to say like we can. We can make light of this and we should make light of this and I mean part of. My frustration is like a Trans author is in a bid for acceptance and Respectability. We've often had to present these very like sober clean cut narratives because they're easily digestible by a mainstream audience. Part of what I think is happening now with Trans and Queer storytelling more generally is where like well we can continue sanitizing everything for acceptance that will always be held hostage to us by right-wing politicians or we can just like be ourselves and like. Talk like we want to talk about our experiences. Um and invite people in that way instead of saying like look at me I'm just like a good good little transsexual who's never had like. Any weird life experiences ever and I I Just wish to be accepted What you please admit me to the halls of power. Um I think matter don't know you've got to to invoke the Joker Again, be a little joker pilled about it. You've got to? yeah.

40:50.24

Samantha Allen

You've got to have a little bit of an anarchic instinct I think.

40:54.96

Michael David Wilson

Yeah I think anyone really trying to claim that they haven't had any weird life experiences is just not really being authentic and as you're saying and I think with with any not just fiction. But With. Of any life really being authentic and being true to yourself whether it's messy whether it's palatable or not I mean that seems to be the way to be but I mean it certainly sounds like as well I Mean. Fiction writers we have enough pressures as it is but it sounds like you know, being a trans woman. You are under even closer scrutiny. It's like oh so you've got all the regular pressure and now we're just gonna top it up with some more pressure for you to deal with and some more scrutiny.

41:55.57

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean I think that may be largely. Why I've avoided having trans characters in my fiction. You know I've written so much memoir like memoir is often kind of the ticket into publishing for many trans people because it's like. If. You're a talented writer like and you're trans a lot of what people want to hear from you like is your own story and so you kind of have to use that as your foot in the door before you get to do something wild and zany like Patricia wants to cuddle. Um, you know like. I know so many people recently who have taken that turn of like oh I'll I'll write online about my experience or I'll write a memoir and then I'll finally get to do like the thing the thing I want to do and so I think now that I'm writing fiction I'm kind of yeah I'm kind of like well I'll have I'll have. Queer cisgender characters in here and I think you can still see quite a lot of like trans thematics in something like Patricia but I'm not going to I'm not going to box myself into like the representational. Expectation of like I gonna write a fiction works at fiction with trans protagonists or trans characters I reserve the right to eventually. But for now I'm kind of having fun deviating from my own experiences while still.

43:29.13

Samantha Allen

Incorporating them.

43:30.40

Michael David Wilson

And in terms of your writing I'm wondering what does your writing routine look like and how many projects do you work on at 1 time.

43:45.72

Samantha Allen

My writing routine is absolute chaos and I would describe it as binge writing followed by periods that I refer to as brain rinsing. So I I will. Sit down and write something like Patricia in three months and then I will play dark souls for like two months and not look at words because I like I I did all that and that's been my routine always um. I think I can be like a little manic about it but part of I think yeah, I'm not going to be 1 of those authors who delivers the like first I wake up at 7 and have my first cup of coffee and get down 500 words and go for a shroll before returning to my dad you know like. I think for me once I get going and I get to the point where it's exactly in my head. How I want it to look which one of the things I feel lucky about in my process is that tends to happen like pretty early. Then the unlucky part happens which is I feel like I can't stop until it's down because I'm just mad that it's not on the paper yet. It's like I wish I could just like you know, extract it from my brain or like roll ink.

45:20.99

Samantha Allen

Through the grooves of my brain and then like press it against paper and be done with it. Yeah I find writing almost annoying So I have just like out out out. Get it all out rinse the brain edit rinse the brain read the first pass pages.

45:40.99

Samantha Allen

And then rinse generally only one book going at a time. Um, just because I still work. You know in in publishing at online publishing is a daydrop So. It's hard to really have multiple irons in the fire. But I'll I'll typically start something. All the last book is in later stages of edits just because that's when the brain rinsing starts to give way to some free time.

46:13.39

Bob Pastorella

So like when you say brain rents are you are you talking about staying completely away from any ideas any concepts or anything like that just totally immersing in ah things that that could inspire you but no thinking about writing at all.

46:29.49

Samantha Allen

Yeah I Tabular Rasa is the motto I I don't read during that period. Um I don't like to like even consume a lot of fiction in the space I'm thinking about writing next during that period. I Feel like I am waiting for some kind of inspiration in that period and the only way that I can let it in is by doing something that is just pure process which is like playing a video game where I.

47:06.14

Samantha Allen

I Kill the boss and then I level up and then I go kill the next boss. You know it's It's all just like the same inputs over and over again for hours and for some reason you know somewhere in the middle of the brain rinsing. You get an idea like. You know what? if a sasquatch showed up on the bachelor.

47:32.55

Bob Pastorella

I wish I could brain rentse then because I'm I'm I'm not a binge rid. But once I latch onto an idea I'm I'm kind of like you I want to finish it and I want to get it out and I'll work through a first draft. Um I just recently did one it sucks but you know that's. That comes with the territory almost start another project. So um, but during during the day I can't write every day I just can't do it I'm impossible for me day job things like that. So I find myself ah periodically going through it like a 2 three week period where I don't write it all but the ideas won't stop coming. They just they they attack they you know it's I um, get away you know and so I just after after years of this I just let it go but I'd love to have like a brain rinse is that I mean it sounds like something you can buy brain rinse you know in a bottle now you know and I'm like it. You know I need because.

48:23.46

Samantha Allen

Yeah, yeah.

48:28.70

Bob Pastorella

Sometimes just to clear to slate to get all. It's be like clear to cash you know and you you have that ability to do that. That's that's I'm very imy that.

48:37.14

Samantha Allen

Well I envy you I think this may be a grass greener situation because round month two of you know, replaying Eldon Ring I'm like

48:50.59

Samantha Allen

God I wish I had another idea you know like I wish I had the problem of having too many ideas sometimes so yeah I don't know everybody's brain works so differently in this world. It's fascinating.

49:02.75

Bob Pastorella

I Didn't say there were good ideas but not do get ideas is idea to me I think ideas are almost like a diamondma doesn and you have to be able to put a character with the story with it. You know so you can come up with the Grand Man. What if this happened you know it's like well but that ain't goingnna Work. You know so you know, um. But just have that clean slate that would be and just for a little while just for a little while I could have that for like a day or 2 that'd be cool.

49:29.65

Samantha Allen

Yeah, what watch are you a log you know I know it for me like I don't know it's I still have to be doing something that's like engaging in some way but not tapping into the part of.

49:47.19

Samantha Allen

Me That's requiring language you know? yeah I feel like there's a hard cap I have a quota on the number of words I can process in any in any given day.

50:01.16

Michael David Wilson

And I think I have that too because there does seem to be a kind of law of diminishing Returns. So I might be able to write a certain. Amount of words and it's flowing and it's going quite well. But once I hit whatever the threshold is for that day that they're just no good or they're just coming so slowly or my brain has decided lightning Out. We're we're Done. We're going to be distracted by other things so you know that's probably the point where ah as you suggest or you don't suggest but you said as part of your life. We We load up dark Souls. It's like let's let's just do that Because. Haven't played a video game for a while but this probably wasn't the takeaway that I was meant to come to. But now I'm just like damn I maybe I need to play video games this afternoon because it's been too long.

51:00.64

Samantha Allen

Yeah, just like boot up a boot up a Nintendo switch or an s and nes or something just like yeah I mean it is very humbling work because like you said you know.

51:06.95

Michael David Wilson

Yeah.

51:16.42

Samantha Allen

I think realistically I probably have a thousand really high quality words in me on any given day a book is like 70000 words you know and you kind of want to be able to like be done with it. But you have to be on day one of 70 and be like well that's as good as it's going to get for today even though this looks like a humiliatingly small amount of text on the page. I guess I will obscenely reward myself for what looks like very little effort. You know? Um, yeah, you have to kind of overcome how silly it feels and acknowledge that it is like actual labor like it's very hard for people who. Don't write. It's almost mystical like what writers are able to accomplish like you're able to look at a page and put something on it which is not a skill most people have.

52:21.22

Michael David Wilson

And yeah, and getting deeper into the minutiae I mean when you have an idea and you start writing how much of an outline or a plan or lack thereof is there. And then once you finish the first draft. How many drafts would you say that you go through.

52:45.10

Samantha Allen

Yeah, so you know this this differs with nonfiction versus fiction. You still kind of have to put something like real queer America my my first traditional book into like an act structure. But I think that's about as. As much as I often do is I'll break out a 3 act structure or a 5 act structure or something and then I'll fill it in and I like the filling it in to feel fairly freeform I don't really want to outline or save the cat or anything I just kind of want to have. In my mind a preconceived idea of where it's going to go and when it's going to go and when certain turns are going to occur and then just be more freeform from there. Um.

53:39.80

Samantha Allen

Patricia wants to cuddle went through one larger structural draft like many pieces of horror fiction. There comes a point at which characters in danger split up into groups. And in the original draft the pairings that split up were different so I had to rewrite it keeping much of the same action because I liked what happened to each of these splintered parties. But. Acknowledging and incorporating the different characters. We're now involved in you know the events happening on the others each side of this you know Pacific Northwest mountain so yeah that that was 1 big structural edit and then finessing from there. Um. My my forthcoming book ah editing was quite intensive because I originally wrote it in a more kind of like mixed media almost found footage kind of way and then. We decided to make it kind of more straightforward and legible so that was quite a lot of rewriting and a different and I think like interestingly challenging experience for me I'm I'm I'm glad I went through that.

55:09.72

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, so at the moment you've got Patricia wants to cuddle you have forthcoming next year I believe Roland Rogers isn't dead yet which is an incredible title and I'm hoping that. In the second hour we can possibly find out a bit more about that one but I'm wondering. Are there any other novels that you have that are kind of ready to go and a complete or the ah. Ah, various stages in the process like what else have you done.

55:51.40

Samantha Allen

I'm just emerging from brain rinsing now I I realize I'm using this very ridiculous term in a really serious and.

56:00.70

Michael David Wilson

I Love the term. It's new to us but I want to incorporate it now.

56:05.69

Bob Pastorella

I Want to buy it. Yeah.

56:12.50

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean you know I wish that we could like ah I wish that lobotomies were like reversible. You know like I wish I could lobotomize myself and then like undo it when I needed to start writing again. Um. So yeah, I'm in the early stages of the next one I am a little superstitious about ah details this early. Um I will say it has cosmic and apocalyptic elements to it. Um, you know like. Sort of have this problem where I start writing things and I think they're going to be normal like Patricia wants to cuddle wasn't going to have a sasquatch in it and in my next book. You know the plot. Oh it comes out later this year by the way so sooner. Then we think but the the plot description is out there. So. It's not spoiling anything to say that one of the characters is a ghost. Um, that character wasn't originally going to be a ghost and then he became a ghost when I started writing. So I have a problem where I'm like I'm going to write a really normal commercial book and then I'm like the what if and then that's what gets me excited about it. So for my next one I've sort of decided like I'm going to stop fighting the instinct.

57:41.40

Samantha Allen

And start out weird and see where that gets me maybe it'll be bad. Maybe it's good for me to have the tension of starting out normal and trying to incorporate the weird but I'm sort of in a like throwing caution to the wind mood with. With the next one you know who knows how many of these things 1 gets to right in a life. So I might as well swing for the fences. Once.

58:08.34

Michael David Wilson

And I completely relate to what you say about trying to write something commercial and normal for want of a better word and then it just rapidly descends into anything but I mean a few months ago I started trying to write a commercial thriller because I know everything I write is a bit weird. It's a bit darkly comic but only a few chapters into mapping this out I realized that there will be a callistenic sex cult and at that point it's like well. Commerciality has gone right out the window but I'm kind of in love with where this is going so I just have to see what happens. But yeah I think at this point I won't ever write anything commercial and that's okay, it keeps things interesting and it's certainly. Makes it more fun for me in the writing and I think you know as creators we should find joy in creating in the pursuit of the writing and if you enjoy the process anyway, then whatever happens you've kind of won.

59:18.72

Samantha Allen

Yeah I mean I don't know maybe maybe some people are able to kind of switch it off and and turn something out. That's a little more marketable but I guess yeah I have the the same problem like you know I'll I will privately. Complain to my age and don't be like I wish I could just like you know my my next book is ah it's a romantic comedy I suppose on its surface and I feel like.

59:50.90

Samantha Allen

To my agent be like I wish I could have written this where like he wasn't dead I was like why did I have to make him dead and she's like Samantha like I don't think you're interested enough in it to write it if there isn't something weird or. Or messed up going on in it and sadly like you know I feel like if you're not interested in it. It's almost impossible to do it in any sort of way that brings you pleasure at all, you know like it would to me feel like like clean toilets. You know, like to write something that like didn't feel like it was letting some of my deranged side out. Yeah I I totally relate. Um, that's okay, oh. I'll I'll make the mortgage I suppose.

01:00:46.74

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, yeah, and I mean having a romance where the love interest is dead it. It worked out. Okay for the movie ghost. So there you go there might be commerciality after all.

01:01:02.97

Samantha Allen

Well there. The ghost thing is just the first delay of the weirdness. There's something I would say like callisthenic sex called level of strange about going on in Roland um.

01:01:06.56

Michael David Wilson

Yeah.

01:01:13.80

Michael David Wilson

Yes.

01:01:20.27

Samantha Allen

That I won't I won't spoil but I will hint at yeah you know like that that is there's a there's an escalation. There's a ratcheting up. You know you're like okay, he's dead and what if this was how he experienced you know.

01:01:33.35

Michael David Wilson

And.

01:01:37.40

Samantha Allen

Yeah, being dad what if this was how he could relate to other people. What if this was the mechanism through which he could move and it becomes strange stranger than your average ghost story. Even um. But I think readers want that I don't know or at least judging from the reaction to Patricia which I was so gratified by like I feel like people want to be shaken up a little bit ah in the movies too. You know like they everyone has seen so much media. That like what breaks through is something that like really arrests your attention and and makes you think about story in a different way. So yeah I'm I'm just trying to break through all that desensitization and shake people and. See if a saswatch makes them feel something.

01:02:34.26

Michael David Wilson

Yeah, well I can tell you that I certainly want to read Roland Rogers isn't dead yet and as soon as it is available I am going to do so and you know if if you. Up for it. I also want to talk to you about it once I've read it as well. Because yeah, everything I've read by you thus far I have loved so I am so excited and.

01:03:03.26

Michael David Wilson

What great news to find out that is coming out later this year I don't even have to wait till Twenty Twenty five.

01:03:08.50

Samantha Allen

In fact, I'll send you a paperback Galley which I think I just just came the other day so you don't even have to wait until later this year, you'll just have to look past the the.

01:03:16.77

Michael David Wilson

Wow I do not have to wait longer. Oh.

01:03:26.86

Michael David Wilson

Of courses of course and I mean as you said before this this is going to be a 10 year Segue Bob is used to this. But I mean you made an analogy about.

01:03:27.17

Samantha Allen

The typos in the Galley and yeah.

01:03:45.41

Michael David Wilson

How you didn't want to be just kind of cleaning toilets and one are your missions I Believe throughout your work is actually to spread awareness of women's bathrooms and a very serious issue of hovering So You've mentioned it. In mostly your nonfiction I'd like to give you the opportunity to talk about hovering the dangers of it. The solutions for people who are listening.

01:04:16.84

Samantha Allen

Yeah, the the public service announcement portion of the program. So yeah I mean obviously for ah I mean in shot as a child. I guess you're often taken into the women's bathroom by your mother regardless but you don't really pay attention necessarily to the cleanliness of bathrooms as a kid. So yeah I mean for the first you know 23 years of my life I used men's restrooms and I think some naive part of me thought. Oh well after transition my public restroom experiences will probably be cleaner and then you come to find out that cisgender women instead of sitting on public toilets for fear of like. Germs I suppose will like hover over or occasionally and this terrifies me like on the toilet seat and just kind of hope you know which is an interesting reversal of the dynamic. In many single family homes where it's always the cisgender men who are being scolded for their aim like little do they know that like when their wives go to the bathroom at the mall. They're just like a sprinkler like spring over like the entire toilet in the floor. So I was like.

01:05:43.41

Samantha Allen

Absolutely horrified enough to like devote I think a paragraph of real queer America and like an entire chapter of ebb to wtf to this practice because um, you you do not get like. Gonorrhea from a toilet seat you know like so I do not hover I will use toilet seat covers if they are available sometimes if it seems dire I will I will make one of those little birdlike nests of toilet paper in lieu of a toilet seat cover. But the hovering thing is absolutely unhinged behavior that to me is like the precursor to the downfall of like civilization like if we can't even like building sewers and plumbing was how like. We escaped all of this and then and then we just like don't even use that infrastructure properly. It's like what did we? even? yeah, what did we even climb out of the primordial soup for if like we're not going to sit on toilets.