TIH 612: Sofia Ajram on Editing Bury Your Gays, Balancing Writing and Metalsmithing, and Tragic Queer Horror

Michael David Wilson 0:28
Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today I am talking to Sophia ashram, a metal smith, novelist and editor of queer and speculative stories. They edited the Bram Stoker Award nominated anthology, Bury Your Gays, an anthology of tragic queer horror. And their debut novella, coup de grace was named a Best Book of 2024 by Barnes and Noble, and is also nominated for the This Is Horror novella of the year, and that is the book that I am primarily talking to Sophia about today. But as with all of these conversations, I get into the life lessons Sophia starred as a writer and their early life. So a lot to look forward to, but before the conversation, a quick advert break

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Michael David Wilson 3:01
Okay, with that said, Here it is. It is Sophia. Azram on, This Is Horror. Sophia, welcome to This Is Horror.

Sofia Ajram 3:15
Thank you for having me. I am a long, long term fan, like a lot of guests that have been on here, so I'm excited to finally get to chat with you. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 3:24
I'm excited to chat with you, too. And as you probably anticipated to begin with, I want to know what some of the early life lessons were that you learned growing up. Oh,

Sofia Ajram 3:37
my goodness. I think one of the things that I think about recurrently, like on Sunday, I'm going to be 35 So thinking back on like earliest life lessons, one of the things that I find was most important to me was trying to have deep and meaningful explorations of different types of art and different interests throughout my life. I tried a patchwork of things throughout my life, in terms of, like, careers, in terms of hobbies. I went from like, fine art to photography, to being a concert photographer to being a professional dominatrix. I worked in retail. I was a tarot reader. I'm a metal smith. There's like a medley of things, and I think exploring all the little avenues that interest you in life helped to make you I don't know, more, truly understand yourself. And then if the ultimate goal is, you know, writing work or to just self improve, let's say I think that that puts you closer to the horizon of whatever that is. If that makes sense,

Michael David Wilson 4:59
yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, already, that's such a broad array of different jobs that you've had, and so, I mean, my understanding is, at the moment, as you said, off air, in addition to writing, you are a metal smith. So when did that come into play. When did you begin in that area? When did you decide this was the pursuit for you?

Sofia Ajram 5:30
I started in maybe around 2010 2011 I was pursuing a BA in East Asian Studies and in Gender and Sexuality Studies. And I was doing academia, partially because I thought that that was just what you did when you, you know, graduated high school. I'm based in Quebec, and we have something called sujep here, which is, you graduate in 11th grade, and then what would be 12th grade for two to three years, you specialize in a certain it's not necessarily a degree. It's like a diploma. It's more like a college. And I studied graphic design, and then I was like, oh, after that, you know the thing to do, typically at the time, was to continue academic studies. Everyone was saying, you know, you can't really get a job in a field unless you have at least a bachelor's. And so I was doing that. And it was interesting to me personally to study these things, but I wasn't sure career wise, if that was going to lead anywhere. And so I started taking once a week evening classes, just metal smithing at like a local arts center. And initially I hated it, because when you're starting anything, unless you're like, preternaturally talented with something, you're going to be bad at it. And it sucks to have a vision for something and suck at it. And so I started doing that, and eventually learned different techniques, like wax carving and integrating gemstones into my work. And like, weirdly, someone saw some of the work that I was posting on, like an old blog spot account. I don't know how on earth that happened, but they commissioned me. And after that, I was like, Oh, is this a viable career? And it was like a weird, serendipitous thing where, like, I had seen at the time, like a job listing for a local jeweler who was looking for someone. So I ended up working for her as like a bench jeweler, which is just you're doing someone's production. And then, yeah, the rest is history, as they say, it was just a nice way to work with my hands and be creative, and it felt like the amalgamation of a lot of things that I enjoyed in life.

Michael David Wilson 8:08
And so at that point, does that mean you went from academia straight to metal smithing? Metal smithing? Is that the verb? I don't know. I'm not.

Sofia Ajram 8:18
Yeah, it is, I do a lot of, like, goldsmithing, but I do work with silver as well. So I just, like, broadly, call it metal smithing, pretty much is the answer to that. I was, like, career wise, working at Sephora, and then I was also working as, like, a part time dominatrix. And I was like, those don't feel like long term career industries that I want to stay in personally, even though they were, like, interesting and fun to me, especially at the time. So it sort of like funneled over the course of maybe, like two or three years, and then in 2015 is when I started the brand that I have now. It's called Sufi. Is a Kia, which is just like my first name, middle name. And I started off with making silver pieces because it was all that I could afford, and then eventually moved on to gold pieces, which is like making a lot of bridal wear, which ended up being, I don't know, I caught the weird tail end of, like, when social media wasn't the hellscape necessarily that it is now. And instead of having to go through having your work sold at retail stores and going to trade shows and all of these things you could all of a sudden sell directly to consumers. And so I, like, was able to hit that timing really nicely in a way that allowed me to build the brand to what it is today, which allowed. Me to then, like, have enough time to do writing, which is, like, has been a passion of mine since I was like, a, you know, early teens, but has grown into something that I've done a lot more concretely into my, like, 20s and 30s and

Michael David Wilson 10:17
so fast forwarding all the way to today. What does a typical day or a typical week look like for you in terms of the balance between writing and metal smithing? And indeed, I don't know. Maybe there's another sideline that you have as well, seeing as you've done so much,

Sofia Ajram 10:39
it's it feels so messy at times, like I was listening to some of the other podcast episodes this week and listening to guests talk about their writing schedule and their writing routine And my routine feels as though it's a little bit more atypical, because I have to follow the sort of trends of the jewelry industry, which is like, over the holidays, we get a big batch of orders because it's like Black Friday sale will happen. A lot of people want to get engaged over, like, New Year's Eve, and so I have to take almost a like a blackout period from writing, which has been interesting, like before I was more traditionally published. It didn't really matter as much. But then once you have work that's traditionally published, then there's like, the external factor of people that are depending on you and wanting to know timelines and committing to certain timelines. So in terms of like, what does a week look like? I usually have to plan out certain days where I'm only doing jewelry, or I'm only doing writing, because I tend to be more focused and attentive, like at the start of my day, from like nine to noon, and then I'll get like, another burst of energy at like 7pm but if I do like jewelry work in the morning, I'm not gonna have there'll be like, too much brain fog to do writing or like creative related work in the evening. I don't know if that's like similar for you. I know some people are like, early birds. They get up at like five some people are night owls. But for me, it's like, if I don't do my like, big focus thing, first thing in the morning, it's almost like the day is like, god.

Michael David Wilson 12:50
It's actually really similar for me. So I get up pretty early, but then I need to front load the day with creative tests, because if I wait till the afternoon like I'm just in a slump, that energy has gone, so I try to put, yeah, the creativity at the start of the day, and then the kind of less enjoyable admin and marketing and just all the writing tangent or things that You kind of have to do, but I don't know they're just not as satisfying. Because for me, what I love is writing. If I could write all the time, that would be it, but then I'd have a lot of books, but nobody would know about them. So, you know, it's this eternal dichotomy in this dance, really, between creativity and then practical things where you might actually be able to make some money. And the other difficulty too, is that, particularly in terms of selling books, the goal posts are always changing. I mean, you alluded to social media at the moment, obviously with and even know what we're gonna say about Twitter and x do we call it an implosion? Do we call it an absolute cluster fuck of epic proportions? Is everything. But you know, five years ago, it was a really good way of getting the word out. Now, social media has fragmented into many platforms, so we're all doing this bizarre dance where we post on about five platforms, get a little bit of engagement on all of them. But I, I don't think cumulative Lee is anywhere near what we would have got on Twitter when it was called Twitter, and it was a relatively nice place.

Sofia Ajram 14:52
Yeah, I when you were saying that, I was thinking on the like jewelry thing that I was saying earlier, where I hit. This weird perfect timing of like starting my brand, when Instagram specifically was like a great place for independent artists to be showcasing their portfolio directly to people. And it feels like Twitter was that sort of place for authors like everyone in the publishing industry felt as though it was this community space, and now, like you had mentioned, it feels really fractured in a way, where you're putting out all these announcements or posts or thoughts that you know would have maybe gained more traction on Twitter, but now it feels like there's so much more energy that has to go into promoting your work on all of these different platforms, and it's just not as effective. And so I don't know if it's just me. I highly doubt that it is, but there's this fatigue that feels like it's happening, where there's just so much to do as an author like it makes sense that you're expected to have an author platform nowadays, but the way in which it's so fractured now, and like, people building audiences on x have to go, you know, over to blue sky or threads, or wherever else, and then with, like, tick tock shutting down, and like, that was the place for book dog. And it's just like, how many times can you, like, restart the platform for your career. It feels so endlessly exhausting. And this is like coming from someone who I like very much. Grew up on the internet. I like saw the death of Live Journal and blogspot, and like all of these different social media apps and like Tumblr, and I'm just like, I feel like an old like an old lady just being like, I'm so sick of this shit, like I can't do this one more god damn time. You know,

Michael David Wilson 17:10
nobody has mentioned live Daniel for a long time now. That brings me back to almost the MSN days and AOL Instant Messenger. It was around that era too, but yeah, goodness, I know what you mean about the fatigue of posting to social media as well, and that's another reason why I front load the day with creativity, because if I'm doing marketing, then it just zaps it zaps energy. It zaps enthusiasm and and to be quite honest, I feel more depressed. I don't enjoy life as much, I think particularly because if I'm writing, then I know at the end of that session I have achieved something. I've got something out of it. But if I spend a few hours posting things on social media, queueing things up, sending promotion or emails out, there's absolutely no guarantee that that will amount to anything good. And I kind of feel like it's almost like, if I'm writing, I'm fueling my body with good, healthy food. But if, if I'm just doing stuff on social media, it's like just stuffing the most inedible donuts into my into my mouth, into my face hole, and there's nothing. There's nothing good that will come of it,

Sofia Ajram 18:48
that's not us fulfilling it like the connections don't feel necessarily as deep, and then you just it becomes like an existential question, where you're like, What am I doing with my life? Because it feels like you're running on a treadmill. You're like, it makes sense, where any creative thing that we put out there feels like a sort of scream into the void, waiting for something to sort of echo back. But so much of it feels very like rote now, where it's like, Is there even anything like, any sound that's coming back at all? And so I think what we're gonna see in the like, near future is a lot of people going back to more analog relationships and like, with each other and with their work. There's an author. His name is Jacob Brenn, and when I did the Montreal launch for my novella CUDA class, he was one of the people who interviewed me. Brilliant, brilliant author, um. Very like dry in a very funny way, very interesting man has like an old flip phone, and that's it. And so I think there's a lot more people moving back to the sort of like dumb phone state where initially smartphones, it was like, okay, cool. You have access to like, Google Maps and notes apps and being able to take photos. And then now it's like, there's too many things that it does, to the point where it's like everything is constantly vying for your attention. And like you mentioned, like, if you don't focus your creative energy at the start of your day, it's just gonna seep it out of you, whether or not you're doing that, like, tangential marketing work, one of the like fault lines that I found myself repeatedly falling into, like, especially over the summer, was like, Oh, just watching videos, or, like, seeing what's going on in the industry is gonna, like, keep me up to date, and that's gonna make me a better writer, or, like, better at marketing. And then it was, like, a weird delusion that I was, you know, telling myself where the reality is is just like, I'm making my brain more lazy and seeping my ability to think critically, because at the end of, like, a long work day, the last thing that I want to do is have to focus again on something else. So like, the fun dopamine hit thing is to just be like, Oh, technically, I'm keeping up to date with the community in the industry, but you know, at what cost? Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 21:48
and talking about kind of being up to date and marketing and things pertaining to that, I wonder when you got the deal with Titan, then you shifted towards a more traditional publisher. How did that change the dynamic, both in terms of your approach to writing and also to marketing? What are the kind of things you're doing? What are the things that Titan are doing, and how much are they actually directing what you do?

Sofia Ajram 22:24
It was an interesting process that actually, when I initially signed the contract, I started filming these, like almost video blogs, partially for myself, and partially, if I ever wanted to, like, share my experience of, like, what it was like for the first time, trying to go through the process of, like, finalizing cover art and going through the developmental edits with an editor, and going through the Copy edits, and then going through marketing and then interviews and award seasons and things like that. And I love to get sort of hyper fixated on something, and I think that marketing is quite interesting, at least to me personally. And so I had this Excel document that I had created that was like 10 sheets, and each sheet was a different thing, where it was like, here are all the people that I would love to send arc copies to. Here are places that I would love to focus on interviews. Here are a list of subjects that I would be willing to talk about, or like listicles that I could do. Here are awards that this might possibly be eligible for. There was, like so many little breakdowns of things, and Titan is excellent. I highly recommend them. As an author, I have had nothing but good experiences with my editor on the project, who is Daniel Carpenter, and their marketing team. But I love to also be very hands on, and it's hard to let go of things and trust that things are happening behind the scenes when you don't have visuals on them. So I ended up doing a lot of things on my own as well, where it was like reaching out to people that might have seemed like a pipe dream for like blurbs or potentially working together, like I was lucky enough to have I worked together with an artist friend of mine, Chris McAllister, made, like over a minute long animated trailer for the book launch, which I just. Absolutely fell in love with and I was like, I would love to have this launched somewhere. So we ended up reaching out to Fangoria, who did a sort of like launch post about it. And I think a lot of first time authors are like, new to the industry, authors might be more hesitant to take bigger shots like that, but it's like, at the end of the day, shoot your shot. You like you almost 100% of the shots they don't take, you know? So a lot of the marketing process was just like, I'm going to genuinely reach out to people who I think will engage with what it is that I've written, because I've read their work, or I'm familiar with the platform, and I think that for whatever reason that it would be a good fit. Worst case scenario, they don't respond, or they say no, but between that and then the work that Titan was doing, I think it ended up being, you know, a successful book launch, like I'm happy with it, although I'm waiting on the reports, I guess, back from them, to see on What the sales were, it went into like three print runs, which is like more than I could ever possibly hope for. But because of how the like quarters work, I don't know how many we sold yet, really. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 26:33
Well, certainly going into three print runs is a very good sign indeed. And I believe you were recently nominated for an award as well. So yeah, it's it's looking good. Thank you. It's exciting. I've

Sofia Ajram 26:53
been sort of on the fringes of the horror industry for, like, many, many years, so the stoker Award nomination was so exciting, I was like, crying and jumping up and down for like, an entire week after that, I'm still absolutely in awe. I don't know it's so exciting, you know, to get recognition from your peers and the writers and the artists that you admire?

Michael David Wilson 27:24
Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that it will be the first of many on the basis of the quality of coup de grace, but we are gonna get into that imminently. But before we do, I want to know about what some of the first stories and the first movies were that attracted you to the horror genre to begin with. So I mean, what were you reading and watching from an early age?

Sofia Ajram 27:56
Oh, my goodness, I was watching a lot more films than I was reading in the genre. I was, like, deeply interested in reading when I was a kid. It was always the Barnes and Noble equivalent in Canada, is like chapters in indigo, and it was always like the place that I would want to go to for my birthday or whenever there was, like, a special occasion. So I was reading a lot of like YA literature and classics growing up, but not necessarily horror. For some reason I was very, very into horror films. I used to have Fright Nights with friends, where it was like we would go to Blockbuster and then we would rent, like four horror movies and see if we could make it through them without, you know, like watching through our fingers. And I remember the, like, very first horror movie I think I watched was maybe Mars Attacks, which is like a horror comedy. But as a child, for some reason, the way that they were animated was horrifying to me, and I had nightmares for like years after that. It's just a like sort of Uncanny Valley appearance of them that really freaked me out, and then I wasn't as drawn to slashers, which is, like a big part of, like the horror film genre.

I really loved haunted house films. Rose Red is, like, technically, a mini series that Stephen King had created that I loved it as, like, you know, a classic.

What else gave me nightmares, house on a Haunted Hill. I loved anything with the sort of inconceivable space or haunted house. Stories I think drew me the most. Uh, the others, the ring stuff like that, all these things that I, like, saw at an age that I shouldn't have seen because I was the youngest of, like four. I have three older brothers, and so they were always like, going to the movies, and then anything that was, like, rated R or like, 13, plus they could go and see and I wasn't allowed. And so I felt like I had to prove myself. And so the minute that, like, you know, the Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake came out on blockbuster, I was like, I dragged my mom to the movie rental store, and then was trying to watch stuff like, as soon as it came out, where I could watch it in a sort of controlled environment. But, yeah, it was a medley of things, but definitely more the horror films that drew me. I don't know I like, haven't given it too much thought as to why, but it's definitely like I worked as a photographer in my like teens and early 20s, so I think that the visual medium was just something that was attractive to me, and it was only more in my like mid 20s that I got to know horror literature, and like, more contemporary horror literature. Yeah, you

Michael David Wilson 31:25
said before that you were working as a band photographer. Was that for kind of live shows? Was that for more promotion or shots? Was it for the full gamut? And of course, I want to know about the type of bands, the type of genres and sub genres that you were working with and are into.

Sofia Ajram 31:46
Okay, so when I was 16, I was obsessed with Michael romance because their black braid album had just come out. And I was like, this esthetic is phenomenal. I wanted to, like, bleach my hair, like Gerard Way, and they were coming to Montreal, and I was on the, like, MCR Live Journal community, and then I saw someone who had posted these photos from one of the shows, and it was so crisp. I was like, how the hell are they getting those shots from the audience? And then I realized that concert photographer was a thing, and so I sent from my like school email account an email to the VP of Warner Brothers music division, and I'm so sorry to This man I lied and said that I was the photographer for this, like Canadian guitar magazine, which, like, I wasn't I was 16, and he, like, immediately approved a photo Pass, which is, like, I don't know if they still do this, but each show is like a custom little patch, and then you have to go through this, like, media entrance, and then they take you behind the scenes. And it was at the Bell Center, which is, like the biggest theater, essentially, in the City of Montreal. And my, like, mom dropped me off, and I was, like, pretending that I knew what was going on. I had, like, borrowed a camera from a friend, and essentially the first three songs, generally, you're taken to the front of the pit, which is where the security guards are in front of the audience, and that's when they like will light the show really nicely so that they can get those good shots, and then they kick you out. And so I did this. And then they were performing again with Lincoln Park at this, like, outside festival in Toronto. And so I sent the guy an email again, and I was like, It's me again, doing another, you know, exclusive for this Canadian guitaring magazine. And he approved again. And so I went to Toronto with my mom the same stint. It was, like, so exciting. You got to, like, stand in front of this audience of, you know, like 10,000 people. It's this, like, immense energy to be caught between that and like a performer. And then with that, I had a portfolio that I applied to an actual magazine with ended up getting a job. And the next time that I emailed that guy, it was legitimate. And so sorry to this man, but I ended up doing that for work. It was like part time work. So I would do maybe, like a concert a week, or concert every two weeks. And it was everything from like independent bands to like big headliners. It was like Dave Matthews Band at the time, like, no doubt, it was like the bigger ones. And then I would shoot OCEANA. Is like a. A Montreal festival, or like, heavy metal is like a Montreal festival where some smaller bands would come in, and so I would shoot all of these, and then it's basically like, next day turn around. You have to have the images complete so that the magazine can publish them. And yeah, I did that part time for maybe, like, four or five years. It was wonderful. It's that like hubris that you can only have in your youth, that like nowadays, you would never get away with the way that the internet works again, just like a beautiful, crystallized time, like moment in history, and also, just like being in my 30s, I'm like, I would never pull that kind of shit at the age I am. Now. I had to be 16 to do that, but it was like a delightful story that I have in my personal history.

Michael David Wilson 35:51
Yeah, it kind of reminds me how I got into journalism. So I actually started with video game journalism, and I set up my own website. I learned how to basically use Dreamweaver through a load of blog articles and things like that. So I created this decent looking video game website. And then so I started emailing people like Capcom and EA and Konami just to be like, Look, I got the website. Are you gonna send me some games to review? And as soon as you know, one said, Yes, I could be like, well, Capcom board, so you know, you want to get in on this and and it was literally just through doing this that I I learned the vocabulary. It's like, you know, some sometimes, instead of just calling it a game, it's like, you got any code. Code just means they're going to send you the video games. I mean, you got any code for Tomb Raider? Okay, great. Send it to this address. And, yeah, it's just my home address. But I write, write the name of the of the website below sound sounds a bit official. And then from that, I don't, well, hang on a minute. I can get paid a number of times here, because not only can I put it on my website, I'm gonna write to the local newspaper and be like, Look, this is what I'm doing. If you want to pay me to have a little column, then we could do that. I think as well, maybe they had, this is terrible, but I think they had a columnist at the time, but I didn't think he was any good, and he wasn't really being very specific, I can do a better job. And they took me on. I was a 13 year old boy. I don't know who I really wild, but yeah, that's, that's kind of how it worked. And then from from there, I got into, like, much later, heavy metal journalism as well, because it's like, if you're if you're reviewing, you can, kind of, as long as you've got the website or the magazine, you can get whatever you want. That's probably part of the reason I started This Is Horror Wow. This is a good way to get horror books, and here I am still doing it, but not a 13 year old boy. Is time moves forward.

Sofia Ajram 38:29
It's like a delicate balance between, if you're good at something and you're passionate about it, why not get paid for it? But then the like double edged sword of monetizing your hobbies, and then all of a sudden there is the obligation to do something which can have like alter or like tilt, your experience of it. I don't know if you like had that experience with this, or if it's still

Michael David Wilson 39:00
I know exactly what you're talking about, and it's something that you know I think about, and I'm very active about with This Is Horror, and with reading, and particularly for the podcast, because there could be, and I think for a number of people, there is a temptation to be like, right? Let's just get the biggest guests that we can, and let's expand our audience in that way. But you know, I've reached a point with this as horror and with this as horror podcast, because goodness, how long have I been doing it, like 12 years now, for goodness sake, where I just decided I'm only going to talk to people if I really, really like their book. It's not even good enough that, like, oh, I kind of enjoyed it. No, I want to have really fucking resonated and think this is an amazing book, and that is. The main reason to get somebody on the show, because, if not, number one, I'm not going to enjoy it as much. And number two, it just feels fake and cheap, and it's it's not what I'm interested in doing. And so, so I mean, when publishers or authors send me a book. It's like, you can send me a book. I I'll check it out. But if I if I don't enjoy it, then was not even if I don't enjoy it, if I don't absolutely love it, I'm probably not going to talk to the person. And it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that it's not a good book, it just means that it wasn't right for me at that particular point. And like I've said to people before, there are different seasons of our life. There are different times when a book can connect with us. And sometimes I get the what could be the right book, but at the wrong time. But when you get the right book at the right time, it's a glorious, magical moment.

Sofia Ajram 41:06
Yeah, I think it also, like, I don't know, it's such a mix of, there's definitely like a privilege to getting to say, No, I'm thinking of in my jewelry experience, or even with within the publishing industry, with like agents, for instance, you it does come from like a place of like, a certain privilege to be able to say, I this doesn't resonate with me, or like you had said, like at this time in my life or at this time of my career, this isn't necessarily what I need. It wouldn't feel like authentic to pursue this path and at the same time, I think it lends credibility to your work, to know that you only engage with the things that you truly like speak to you on a certain level. And I think that that goes for a lot of things, because it's like it's such a saturated industry, like any you know, creative industry out there, if you said yes to every blurb request, every like publisher request, every book that you got sent, then you get back into the like existential question of, like, what, who am I doing this for? Am I doing it for the publisher? Am I doing it for me? Am I doing it for the author? Am I doing it for the reader, which, like, at the end of the day, is the like target audience. So I think it's important not to like dilute that down and to have like conviction in your taste and in your opinions. But again, I know that that's not like that comes from a place of like, oh, you could like me, for instance, like I can speak comfortably on with jewelry, like, if I get certain bespoke requests. So it's like customizations, where people will ask for something. And I'm like, I don't want to do that, so I say no. But at the start of my career, I was like, saying yes to everything. Because I was like, I need to put food in my mouth. I have to say yes, and then it'll be like, things for my portfolio. And so you start from that place, and then you get to where you are now. So you know, it's a little bit of both,

Michael David Wilson 43:41
yeah, yeah, and I, I mean authenticity and just being honest is being something that's always been important to me. And I remember there was one magazine I was working for, and they sent me a book to review. I this was not a good book. Normally, I say, Oh, it wasn't for me. I kind of feel objectively, this was not a well written book. At that time, I would, I would write any, any review, you know, irrespective of what I feel, whereas, whereas now, if someone asked me to review a book and I absolutely hate it, I'm probably just going to pass because I think as well, because now I'm a writer, it's like I don't need to put that negative energy. I don't need to shit all over this. It just was unnecessarily cruel at the time. However, I gave a very honest appraisal, and the magazine said, we, we can't publish this. But they said, they said, because this person has bought a. Advertising. Whoa, no, no, no, we can't give them a good review because they paid you. Yeah, I said this is, this is the review. It's like, I can't, I can't compromise. It's like, either you publish this or you don't, but this is what I feel I'm not gonna pretend that it's any good. I think then I doubled down and started sending extracts from the book to prove how bloody glad it was. But anyway, after that, I didn't really write for them much again, but I I just didn't feel comfortable. And, you know, this is a magazine that exists to this day and is fairly big, but I, yeah, I can't engage in that is like, and I also, I always say to people, you know, if, if they want to advertise on this as horror, it's like, you know, you can, but it doesn't. It doesn't mean you're going to get on the podcast. It doesn't mean you're going to get a review. But also it works the other way. It's like, if I asked you if you're going to advertise, and you say no, it doesn't mean like, right now, you ban from the podcast. So, like, they're very much separate things, and I think they absolutely should be. I hate this practice of, like, you know, trading money from the author or the publisher for a review. It just does not sit with me at all. I don't think it's right. I can't engage in that.

Sofia Ajram 46:38
Yeah, I feel similarly. It's like, honesty and justice are such a huge part of my value system that I'm like, I won't engage with that type of thing. I even have like my partner, I know this, like people who are listening can't necessarily see this, but for Christmas last year, he made me a little zine, and it was like a way for me to rate all the books that I had read that year. And I was like, this is just for me. I can be 100% honest in here if I absolutely hated a book or didn't finish it, no one's gonna see this. This is, like, just purely for me, so I can, you know, tear something to shreds if I didn't personally resonate with it. And I think that, you know, that's fine to do in like, the privacy of this little book. I wouldn't do that on like, a public forum where, again, like you had said, I'm an author, like, I don't see the value in like, tearing another person's work down because I didn't personally resonate with it. There was, like, a trend that I saw going around online recently where it was like books that I'd be forced to read in hell over and over again, and that put a sort of sour taste in my mouth where, like, I like honesty and like the full breadth of reviews, where not everything speaks to everyone. I wrote a book that very much has, like a very divisive response people either love it or they hate it, which is like, fine for me, I love to not have a mid book and at least get some sort of emotional reaction out of someone. I'm not, like, responsible for people's reactions to the book I wrote, what I wanted to write, but I think just judging something on, like, a trophy, sort of basis, of like, here's a list of books that I fucking hate, and I don't know it like gains online traction where we want, sort of, like catchy, click Beatty things to engage with. But for me, that felt like it, you know, struck a nerve, because at the same time, the industry is very small, and I feel as though, likely, people who are posting those sorts of things are going to have those posts seen by potentially, the authors that are listed on there. I don't know they each their own.

Michael David Wilson 49:23
Yeah, I think, you know, probably growing up, there were a lot of, I guess, like provocative reviews and kind of holier than thou, and so maybe my earlier career was influenced by that. But, yeah, yeah. As as I got possibly wiser, as I certainly got older, right? I just thought, yeah, that's it isn't for me. And I think as well, you know what, once you're in that industry, as you say, it's like, well, now, nowadays, are your colleagues and all. So you have a personal reference point, like, how would that feel if that was your book? Yeah, you know, I want to know in terms of your writing. So when was the first time that you wrote a story, and when was the moment that you realize this is for you. This is the path that you want to take.

Sofia Ajram 50:27
I was writing a lot of short fiction and doing a lot of online role playing in my early teens, so when I was like 11 to 1516, whenever I have sort of free assignment in class where you could turn in whatever creative thing you possibly could, a lot of the time it was either graphic design or writing or like some combination of the two. And then when I was maybe 25 um, which would have been like 2015 around the time that I started my jewelry business. Um, I had these characters in my mind that whenever I would go to lie down, I would have, like, really bad insomnia at night ever since I was a kid, and my family members, they would, like, lie down, like, immediately, like, put to sleep. And then for me, it would be just awake for, like, an hour, an hour and a half, sometimes longer, I'd have to keep myself entertained somehow. And so I was just telling myself these stories. And so the next night I would pick back up, and then either it was almost like a choose your own adventure, which is kind of funny. I would like go back a couple scenes in my mind and then say, well, what if the characters did this? What would happen? And like, play it out like a movie, which is funny now that I'm saying it out loud. I read recently Kathe Akbar's book martyr, and the main character throughout the book also has insomnia, and whenever he goes to sleep, will take either real or fictional characters, so like his deceased mother and Lisa Sibson and put them in conversation with each other, and then see what happens out of that. And so I was doing something like that, but with the same original characters that I had created. And then basically, finally, when I was 25 I was like, What the fuck, why don't I write one of these down? Because it was really starting to take form. And so that's when I sort of officially started to write a project. Wrote it to its completion, put it on the back burner. It was the first time that I had interacted with someone in the industry. Externally, there was an editor. Her name was Jess Landry, a phenomenal writer, a phenomenal editor. I had seen that she had edited Gwendolyn Keith's the rust maidens, and I loved that book at the time, and so I reached out to Jess and I hired her to edit my manuscript. And she did. And then I was like, as with a lot of great adventures, especially when you're younger. Time passes, you end up making more work and engaging more with, you know, reading. At the time, I went back to read her notes, and I was like, this book is awful. I was like, this needs so much work, and so I put that on the back burner, and then I started writing short stories, and I was like, fuck it. I'm going to submit. Since I was working as a jeweler at that time, also I tried to make it a point where I was like, I'm only going to submit my work to charity anthologies or to propane anthologies, because I had the like, you have to have personal goals. One of my personal goals was like, I want to be an active member of the Hwa. And my first short story that I wrote ended up being published by Max booth, who runs ghoulish books, who is the editor of Burrier gays, which is an anthology that I edited. And so everything sort of neatly trickled into itself, where these relationships that I created, like right from the get go, were really, really strong ones with people who I love working with. I love their work. I love their sort of life. Values, their goals aligned with mine. And, yeah, that's sort of the long and winding story of how I got started.

Michael David Wilson 54:50
So with bury your gaze. Did you pitch it to max? So did they suggest it to you? How did that one come about? Correct

Sofia Ajram 55:00
So Burrier gays came about when, again, this is like so much of what we're talking about tonight is these crystallization of moments that don't feel possible now anymore, with the like way that we started are like, with your journalism and with the concert photography and with my jewelry, there was like a post going around on Twitter, and it was like, if I could edit any anthology, it would be this. And so people were writing, you know, listing out whatever, and then I think I listed out two or three. It was like a Tarot themed anthology, a liminal space anthology, and a anthology called Burrier gays, which is like just tragic queer horror. And then I ended up getting a DM from Max, and they were like, do you want to do this? And I was like, I'm so down. I it was my first editing gig in terms of, like, selecting people's work and then going through developmental edits, which was a really interesting process, we ended up having, like, a separate email account, and then we received, we like, opened submissions, and we sent out. Like, I guess we like solicit. Solicited some submissions, but then the solicited ones, there was, like, no guarantee that it would make it into the anthology, which, in and of itself, was an interesting process, because, going back to the like, for instance, writing negative reviews. There's these authors whose work you love, and then maybe what they've written doesn't necessarily align with a project, or, you know, for one reason or another, doesn't work in the, like, entire coherence of what you're trying to do, and so you have to, like, very gently, perfect the art of rejection, but it was an interesting process. I want to say there was like over 600 submissions. That's how I was like every night going through and like reading and slotting things into folders where it was like, Sophia, yes, Sophia, not sure Max needs to look over this. Maybe, yes, but it doesn't fit the anthology theme. There were some great stories that just didn't fit the theme. So, like, I couldn't justify putting them in the anthology, but the process was really interesting. And then there's some authors where, when I was editing, it's like, there's a word or two that I want changed, and otherwise it's perfect. I'm thinking of like, Joe Kosh is work. I'm like, God, could not touch this. It is perfect as it is. And then some authors, where I was really lucky. They were, like, very receptive to more developmental changes. And so it was an interesting process, getting to sort of run the gamut, and like, see the full spectrum of what it's like to be an editor, and understand from that side of things, the full breadth of the experience of like sifting through submissions and then sending rejections out, and it gave me more appreciation, you know, from an author's perspective of what that's like.

Michael David Wilson 58:27
Do you think you'd like to edit an anthology again? Or do you think this phase in your life where you know you're with Titan, the metal smithing is really, you know, blooming. I don't even know if there's capacity for it.

Sofia Ajram 58:45
I love the process of editing. I think I would definitely do it again if it was like the right time and then the right project. I'm lucky enough to get to pick the sort of passion projects that I want to do. Sometimes I say no to things only because, like, the timing isn't good with running a studio or having a day job and, like, all these other things, but it's one of those things. I'm like, I've never given birth to a child, but I feel like it's a similar experience where at the time I'm like, Why did I do this? What are you doing? This is so much work. This is so intense, I'm never doing this again. And then it's done, and there's like some amnesia that happens, and all of a sudden you're like, what if I edited another anthology? So I'm back at that point now. So

Michael David Wilson 59:42
what I'm hearing is Daniel carpenter or max booth or someone else listening, if you want a liminal spaces anthology, Sophia is the person to go to hell. Yeah,

Sofia Ajram 59:55
I know there's, like some other folks I'm thinking specifically of. Gabino Iglesias, who had voiced some interest in like, editing a liminal space anthology. And I'm like, if it's not me that's doing it, I would love to just see it exist, because I love that as an esthetic, and I really think that there's a sort of gap in the market for it, where we have a lot of liminal space media, visually, but not necessarily in writing. So I'd be interested in seeing different writers perspectives on like, what does that mean to them? Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 1:00:31
I mean, immediately I think of Todd keithsling, of course, I think of Mark Daniel leesky, obviously, I do, and even John Paget, I could imagine doing something in liminal spaces, but, yeah, there's so many authors, and even some who they might not necessarily write about it so much it's like, what? What would a Nadia bulkin Lumino spaces story look like? Or I was gonna say, what would a jammer files? I figured Yammer files is very much in the liminal space universe, the liminal space genre, but it's so ripe for stories, and it would be ripe for such a variety of stories. So yeah, if, as a publisher listening, that would like to make that happen, then I think it's a case of, it will happen. Is it's just a matter of when, but is it's got to happen. I mean, goodness, you look at Silent Hill and how it's one of the most popular horror games of all time, and that is liminal as fuck.

Sofia Ajram 1:01:48
Yeah, it feels like it's especially having a sort of resurgence. I'm gonna like backtrack what I said earlier, where there wasn't very much liminal space in genre writing, I think that there is, but it's maybe more online, a lot of like, more indie spaces like Reddit. So it would be nice to see that in more like traditional published media, like all together in one space,

Michael David Wilson 1:02:19
yeah, yeah. I think so. And I think the liminal spaces are that we see it's more on the fringes, like you say. It's not quite at the forefront with, you know, it is not at the front of the Barnes and Noble shop, or probably not even in the shop all, unfortunately. But

Sofia Ajram 1:02:41
it's coming. I think, yeah, I think that there's gonna be a sort of shift in that I'm thinking of like it's Friday when we're recording this. You know, what else comes out on Friday, severance episodes, and that's having like a moment right now. And so I feel between that and a 24 announced a back rooms movie. It's common. It's like moving from the video game sphere into the film sphere, and eventually it'll hit the publishing sphere.

Michael David Wilson 1:03:15
Yeah, it does tend to be that books is the last place where these things kind of catch on, but at least we're going in that direction. And I mean, of course, talking about books back with bury your gaze, you said sometimes you would get a story that was great, but it didn't quite fit the theme. So, I mean, I'm wondering, in terms of, you know, themed, tragic queer horror, what I suppose were some of the things where it's like, right, that that isn't quite in the vision, what made it in the vision? What is tragic queer horror to you?

Sofia Ajram 1:03:59
Specifically, when I had originally written the open call, I was looking for tragic queer romance, so it had to have like queer characters that, for whatever reason, didn't like could not necessarily end up together at the end of the story, which is like, bury your gaze as a trope, typically is when there's two characters the moment they come out as queer or have a kiss, or, like, have sex for the first time one of them dies. So it's like, as queer characters, they can never have happiness. And so there was a sort of a backlash to that that was happening. And, um, as someone who is both queer and a horror author, I was like, I think what makes horror such an interesting genre is the tension and the chaos and the things that go wrong. That's what makes something a drama rather than a comedy. And so what if we looked at that angle, but from the perspective of queer authors? So anyone who was like queer identifying, no matter what that meant, if you were questioning and under that umbrella, that meant that you were eligible to submit. And so it originally started off like that, and then as I was accepting submissions, it opened itself up a little bit more to the aspect of not necessarily romantic love, but like community love and familial love. There were some stories that I accepted that were when I ended up putting together the anthology, I had to order things, which was like an interesting process to do. One of my close friends is a musician, and she outsources to a friend of hers putting in order the track list. Because she's like, I'm too close to the project. I don't know what order they should be in. So she always outsources that to a friend of hers. And I was like, Oh, now I sort of understand, for the first time, as an anthology editor, you have to do essentially the same thing. So I was like, I have to find some sort of narrative thread that is weaving all these things together, and what it ended up being was from like the sole one person alone, queer and trying to reach out to their community or like themselves, and not being able to achieve That, to like couples and to the many where it isn't successful, and then at the very last story, it might be successful, where there's, like, almost an element of hope. And so that's what it ended up being at the end. So it was a little bit different than my initial call, but I'm thinking of like, I don't know if I'm, like, allowed to say this on air, because I don't think that it's been published, but, like, I'll give a general gist better. Corella wrote this phenomenal story about transvestigation, where it was like this woman who's obsessed with transvestigating Her husband and then her daughter, and just like questioning the gender of everyone around her, until it became this like psychotic obsession by the end of the story, and it was phenomenal, and I think about it so much, especially now, with just like the state of the world. But it didn't fit the call, so I had to say no, but I think about that story every day.

Michael David Wilson 1:07:44
Good. I'm so interested in just that kind of little pitch for bitter Corella story, and now I want to see it in the world. I hope that it is published somewhere, because, wow, that sounds fascinating.

Sofia Ajram 1:08:01
Yeah, a lot of the time it's like crossing my fingers and hoping that it finds a home somewhere else. Whenever I find open calls that fit a story that we said no to, I'll send it to the author and be like, if this is still looking for a home, this feels like a good place for it, because even of some of the ones that we had to say no to, there's still, like a handful of them that I'll think about from time to time, which, like, stands for something. It means that the stories were impactful in some way.

Michael David Wilson 1:08:42
Thank you for listening to This Is Horror Podcast. If you enjoy the show and want to support us, then please consider becoming a patron a patreon.com. Forward slash, This Is Horror. You'll get early bird access to each and every episode, and you can submit questions to the interviewee, you'll also automatically become a member of the This Is Horror discord, and every year there are bonus episodes for patrons only, such as story unboxed, the horror podcast on the craft of writing, in which Bob and I and sometimes a Special guest will dissect a short story or film and let you know writing lessons and takeaways to improve your own writing. Another great way to support us is to leave us a review on the Apple podcast app or website, and if you want to watch the video version of the This Is Horror Podcast, join us on YouTube. Youtube.com, forward slash at This Is Horror Podcast. You can subscribe there and get notified every time there is a new video. And however you support us, I thank you in advance. Okay, before I wrap up a quick advert break.

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Michael David Wilson 1:11:06
before I go, I would like to remind you that my new novel, daddy's boy, comes out very soon indeed, and it is available to pre order at the This Is Horror website and on Amazon. And now, not only can you pre order the eBook on Amazon, but I've seen that the physical book, the paperback is also available. So if Amazon is your preferred place to shop, you can get daddy's boy in any format. Well, apart from audiobook that has been approved, that will be coming soon, that will be available on the likes of audible, on audiobooks.com which is a place I get my audiobooks from, Google Play, and many other places I'd love you to support daddy's boy. And actually, earlier today, at the time of recording, I sat down with Jasper bark, Dan howar from Bob Pastorella, and we recorded a special. This Is Horror Podcast episode on daddy's boy. And I also spoke to danger Slater in a separate kind dad is boy themed episode in which we're talking about Absurdism and trying to sell difficult to categorize fiction. So a lot of good things coming up on This Is Horror, as I said before. The way to support us and to get those ahead of the crowd is patreon.com, forward slash. This Is Horror, but until next time for part two with Sophia as drum, take care of yourselves. Be good to one another. Read horror. Keep on writing and have a great, Great Day.