TIH 613: Sofia Ajram on Coup de Grâce, Titan Books, and Fear of Man-Made Machinery Under Water

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 we are talking to Sofia Ajram, a metal smith, novelist and editor of queer and speculative stories. And one of those such stories is their debut novella, coup de grace, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker award in lung fiction and is currently up for a This Is Horror award in the novella category. Now this is a two part conversation, and this is the second part, but as with all of these episodes, you can listen in any order, and this one in particular, we do concentrate on coup de grace. So with that said, a quick advert break, and then we'll get on with the show.

Bob Pastorella 1:38
A brutal attack during a peaceful drive to the Irish countryside, sets the stage for a grotesque tale of body horror, medical abuse and occult conspiracy theory, puppets banquet by Valkyrie, la crew, Clay McLeod Chapman calls it a blissful injury upon the reader's psyche. Fans of Silent Hill Hellraiser and Cronenberg's the brood will be consumed by its exquisite nightmares puppets banquet out May 14, visit tenepresspress.com for more information.

RJ Bayley 2:10
It was as if the video had unzipped my skin, slunk inside my tapered flesh, and become one with me.

Bob Pastorella 2:19
From the creator of This Is Horror. Comes a new nightmare for the digital age. The Girl in the Video by Michael David Wilson, after a teacher receives a weirdly arousing video, his life descends into paranoia and obsession. More videos follow, each containing information no stranger could possibly know, but who's sending them and what do they want? The answers may destroy everything and everyone he loves. The Girl in the Video is the ring meets fatal attraction for the iPhone generation, available now in paperback, ebook and audio.

Michael David Wilson 2:49
Okay. Well, here it is. It is Sofia Ajram onThis Is Horror. So let's talk about coup de grace. And I want to know to begin with, what is the elevator pitch for this? For our listeners who are unfamiliar,

Sofia Ajram 3:12
oh, my coup de class is about a man in Montreal who wants to take his own life, and he is taking the underground subway to the end of the line, where he plans to walk east until he hits the St Lawrence River in Montreal and then drown. And he falls asleep on the subway, and when he wakes up, he's in a station that doesn't exist and it has no exits, and he cannot go back. And so the book is about his experience being trapped in this liminal space that he cannot get out of, that has no windows, no exits, and yeah, any more than that would be spoiler territory.

Michael David Wilson 4:01
And what was your why for writing this book? Oh,

Sofia Ajram 4:09
it was a mix of things. It was a mix of circumstances. I was initially asked to write a novella for Crystal Lake publishing. They have a series called Dark tide. And earlier in the episode, we had talked about Jess Landry, who was the first person to read my work, and she had reached out to me. She said, Hey, we're doing this anthology series, essentially, and her and Nadia bulkin Were looking for a third person to complete this anthology series. I loved both of their work, and so I said, Of course, I'll be part of this project. And so I had initially written this book as part of that it started off. Have very different roots. Where instead of being a singular story about this man who wants to take his own life, it was about a cast of people who were all dealing with liminalities in different ways. And so there was a subway car that appeared at the end of the line out of nowhere, and nobody knew where the tunnel went, and so they were sending an expedition team in. So it was a little bit more along the like traditional lines of almost like found footage. And I found that it was a lot to fit into a novella length project, because you have to tie the loose ends on all of these, like cast of characters. And then B, when I ended up narrowing it down to this one character, long story short, I had the editor for the project look it over the way that it was written. Didn't resonate with him, personally, because I will be the first to admit, as the author of this work, that it is very verbose and it is very dense in certain parts. And that is by design. I love when form sort of follows function. That was something that I was taught in graphic design, where something can be effective and beautiful, and it could also, you can step back and almost see, like the the meta framework of what it is that you're looking at, I love, like a when a film can only be a film, or you look at, you know, House of Leaves is a perfect example. There is no audio book of House of Leaves. It can only be in the form that it is. And long story short, the project didn't resonate with that editor, and I ended up writing a different project that felt more in line with that anthology series held on to the book, and then I can go into more specifics. But now it is published with Titan, and you know, it's the beautiful way in which sometimes there are silver linings to things that you don't see at the time. All right?

Michael David Wilson 7:13
And how did you end up working with Titan? So let's get into those specifics.

Sofia Ajram 7:19
Okay, so I had this entire book that was written because it had to get all the way to the like editorial stage, and I started sending it out again. Back to my like Excel sheet nonsense. I had this Excel sheet that was like my top five publishers that I want to work with, and then I was very much reaching out to, like, independent publishers that, like, whose catalogs I really liked, who I wanted to work with, as unagented. So it's like, it's almost one of those pipe dream things where it's like, unless you have an agent, there is no way to approach traditional publishing. One has to proceed the other. There was, this is the second time where I'm, like, freaking up Twitter as this, like, weird, fortuitous thing, which is, again, why I'm sad that this like framework doesn't exist anymore in the same way. I think someone had tweeted, like, describe your current work in progress as just like vibes. And then I think I had, like, described it as, like, these infinite escalators and these enormous underground cathedrals, and it was just like because so much of liminal space relies heavily on space itself as like having a mind of its own and being a threat that's not natural or tangible, but as The existence of a space itself. I was like, Oh, this is, like, the perfect tweet opportunity. And then the acquiring editor at Titan ended up seeing the tweet, and he sent me a message, and he said, pitch this to me. And I had never pitched. I think maybe one other publisher had been like, pitch this to me, and then we'll see if I want, like, a full length manuscript. He liked the general pitch. I sent him the full manuscript, and then a couple months later, I ended up getting the response of, like, we'd like to send this to acquisition? Is it still available? Which is just, you know, like, dream come true. So exciting as an author, especially for a work like this, which is like, so deeply experimental for a publisher of that size to sort of take a risk on a project like that meant a lot to me, like specifically as an author or like as a creator. Very like affirming. Sometimes you can do things that are a little bit outlandish and a little bit like outside of genre tropes. And if it's effective or it feels like it lands with the right audience, very much. This is like a specific audience. People love it or they hate it, which is like having some distance between the release date, which was back in October, and we're in March now. You know, I peek at Goodreads sometimes it's interesting to see what people's reactions to it are, but it's really nice to have like an editor who absolutely stood behind the project and loved it for all of the like purpleness of its pros, which is like more than I could ever possibly ask for as a like creative try to make a career.

Michael David Wilson 10:50
Yeah, to me as well. I mean, I feel that a lot of the criticisms, because I had a little look at good reads too, seem to almost be features, or perhaps, in a bizarre way, might even be a compliment. You know, if people are saying, you know, at times it was really dense and it was kind of almost overwhelming, it's like, well, yeah, that's the metaphor for depression. You felt what you were kind of meant to feel through reading this book. You were really immersed in it. So I mean, do you have a strange relationship with these so called negative reviews? They're kind of complimenting your style at the same time, even if it wasn't their intention,

Sofia Ajram 11:44
I think they're interesting. I always love like either with like literature or, I guess more frequently, since movies are so much easier to sort of take in. I love going to letterbox sort reviews by like, between half a star and one star, and just see what people are writing, even about something that I love, I'm like, change my mind or something that I hate, I'm like, I want validation that I'm not the only one who thinks this. And so like, of course, it's gonna be for any media, including my own work. And yeah, it's interesting. The ones that I that sort of like make me smile are the ones that were like this book does something at the end that made me feel like, deeply uncomfortable and like, for that reason, I don't ever like, I hate this book, and it's like, so interesting to see the like, visceral reaction that people have where I'm like, as an artist, and this is something that I've had to learn over time, like, this is the first time that I published something that's like, read by more than, You know, a handful of like my close friends. So once something goes out into the world, it's like it's no longer yours. You only can take responsibility for creating the thing that you had intended to create at the like, at the end of the day. And so I can see the ways in which having distance from its release date that I might have changed things now, which means that I've, like, grown as an artist, which is really nice, but overall, I'm, like, proud of it, and I think that for me, I would prefer to have some, like, created a work of art that has a strong reaction, even if it's not the reaction that I was hoping for. Then people being like, is there a is good? Sophie is nice? I'm like, Okay, I don't want, like, I could talk about this ad nauseum. One of the things where I'm like, Oh man, at the time of releasing it, it was my first book, I had like, nothing to write on my author bio. So, like, the publisher was like, we need an author biography. And then I was like, Oh my gosh. I was looking through all these like other books that I have, and the author bios are like, So and so has been nominated for like this, such and such award. And like has been a professor. And then I was like, what, like, I have lived a whole life, but none of it feels relevant experience. And so I was like, Okay, I gave lectures at like, what used to be Miskatonic Institute in Montreal. They, like, renamed it Montreal. I was like, Okay, put that in there. And then I was like, I'm the mod for the horror and horror lit subreddits. I love those forums. There's like, so much interesting conversation that happens there, and so I put that in the author bio as well. And then there were so many like, reviews that were popping up that were like, low star rating. And they were like, Oh, we can tell that Sophia is a horror moderator, because. Is it just has that air of like a creepy pasta nest to it. And I was like, okay, that, like, you could read that in a couple different ways, like, slung as an insult, or, like, I think creepypastas can be good, but it was just interesting to see the ways in which people would take external things and like, apply them to fiction. This is, like the last thing that'll say. There was one review that I had read, and it was like, this is clearly a projection of Sofia's life onto the character. And so this is a work, like an autobiographical work, and it should have been a series of essays, and I don't know, that was also so interesting to me, to see, I don't know, to like, read all these different experiences where I was like, That wasn't my intention. Of course, as an author, you're gonna have some amount of self that you're putting into moments or characters. You're pulling from real life experiences. You're pulling from, feelings even if they're not exact, experiences you can approximate in your mind. And the whole point of an author is to imagine what it would feel like to be in those experiences. And like I have on through depression in my life. That was what drew me to the project, in a lot of ways, but it was interesting to see people sort of projecting me onto these characters. So, yeah, there's a nice variety of reviews out there, and they're all it's always very interesting to read them. Even the ones that are like, thumbs down. Is this bad? I want to, like, whip my ass with it. I'm like, okay, like, Thank you for your feedback.

Michael David Wilson 16:39
Yeah, I hate it when people say what they think the story or the movie or the book or whatever should have been, is like, Well, no, that that might be what you would have done with it, but this is the author's work. It was what it needed to be what the author intended it to be. So the fact that you didn't like it, or you didn't resonate with it, is a separate conversation, but it is so arrogant to say this should have been a series of essays and the most bizarre review I ever received in that genre of what a book should have been was when one was reviewing my novella, The Girl in the Video, and they basically were describing all the things they thought it should have had, and they were essentially the ring. And it's like, I think they might have even written, you know, why wasn't it more like the ring? Well, because you can read the fucking ring by coach Sasuke. That's why. Because, yeah, as you say, it already exists. So it's, it's bizarre and, and, of course, you know this is why we should never strive to please everyone. Because you'll have some people, no matter what you do, some people will want it to be more original in inverted commas, and then others will want it to be more like an archetype or an existing property, in my case, like the ring. So you might as well do, going back to the first hour, what is authentically you and what you wanted to do, because, GOD, IT'S A TRAP if you try to write something to to universally please others, and it's impossible. You could never do that anyway, so you might as well not even attempt to.

Sofia Ajram 18:45
Yeah, there's like, the quote that I always think of, I think it was Dita Von Teese that said you could be the tastiest peach in the world. But there's still people that aren't gonna like peaches. And I'm like, Yeah, at the end of the day, you have to think about again, going back to the existential question of, Why am I doing this? Who am I doing this for? And there are some people where it's like, if your goal is to write commercial fiction and reach a lot of people and have a sort of wide audience in like a specific genre, then that should be their aim, and then they'll write work with that goal in mind. But for me, usually when I'm approaching work, I'm writing it for myself first and foremost, because if I'm not holding my own attention, there's no way that I'm going to be able to even finish the project. So it has to start with that. It has to start with nuggets of, what are these different things that interest me, and how can I combine them together in a way that's not regurgitating something that's already been done? Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 19:57
and I think what we have. Here as well. It's a very original. It's, at times, very provocative. It is thought provoking, and it's also almost impossible to categorize. If somebody asked me, you know, what is the Book about, or what genre is it in? I mean, it's, it's broadly in the horror genre, you can say that there's something a little bit Clive Barker at times about it, particularly just the this hidden subway, these hidden spaces and this liminality. Of course, I mentioned Silent Hill before, of course, because of particularly composition leaders, House of Leaves. I think there's also something a bit Jacob's Ladder about it and it, it is almost like, you know what? What is this book? It's like, it's, it's depression in literary form. I don't know kind of how else to to even describe it. And I mean, when, when you were writing it as well, did you have concerns that it's like, yeah, in in terms of the the like, even pitching it, but maybe that wasn't in your mind at the time, because you'd originally had the Crystal Lake deal, and then kind of Daniel had approached you. But it's a difficult one to kind of succinctly summarize. If someone has you, what's it about? It's like, well, just read the entire book and then you have your answer.

Sofia Ajram 21:41
Yeah. It's definitely a tough one to categorize. And when I started writing it, I was working on a lot of different projects at the same time, I had a writing partner at the time where we would just like, get together, shoot the shit at night, and write little scenes for one another, which is really cool. It was like you're writing for an audience of one, and you already like each other's work, so it's always going to be a banger. And so the stakes were really low, and one of the things that I'm discovering now that I have a published work behind me is really keeping that core at the heart of everything that I do from here on forward, where I'm like, I can't and do not want to be reproducing that same work over and over again, and I have to stay true to whatever originally interested me about whatever projects I'm currently working on or will be working on, without thinking like this is what's popular, or this is what worked about my last thing, and this is what people are going to expect once that sort of corrupts your mind is really hard to shed it, I don't know. So that's like something that's new to me. I

Michael David Wilson 23:10
wonder too. And we alluded, I think we alluded towards this. You know, at the end of the book, it's maybe a composition or spoiler, but I don't think it's a plot spoiler to say that it it literally at the very, very end, turns into accuse your own adventure. I'll say that about it and and the the kind of thing about that is it then makes you as the reader, complicit, which makes it more terrifying, like you are now an active participant in this story. When did you know that this was going to be an element to the book, and how was this received by your editor, Daniel Carpenter, I knew

Sofia Ajram 24:05
that it was going to be Choose Your Own Adventure before it was sent to Daniel, because it had already sort of had a complete draft at that point, But essentially, originally, it was a more traditional narrative, although a little bit more philosophical, if you can, like, believe that when it had the larger cast, because I was touching on the liminality of so many different elements of people's character background, so It was like one character was going through a gender transition, and one of them had just come back from war, and then one of them had, like a sickness of the body, and one of them had a sickness of the mind. And so when you're touching on so many things, in order to tie all those threads together in. Novella length, you have to almost paint with really broad strokes, which means the language was getting really philosophical, to the point where, like, I myself was like, Good God, like, is anyone going to want to read this? I'm like, rereading my own stuff, and it's, I'm like thinking it's pretentious, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but at the time, I was feeling almost like insecure about it. And then I went to go lie down, and I just started thinking of like one of the characters who ended up being the main character of the story, vicin, talking to me as the author. And then I opened up my notes, and I just ended up writing a scene of like, what if he talked to me directly? And all of a sudden, this project that I was like, honestly, like, 85% done, I was like, Oh, I have this new excitement for it, in a way that completely eclipses the feelings that I have had of it before. And I was like, Okay, open up a new file. What if we change this completely? Just immediately started writing these, like random like, quote, unquote, choose your own adventure scenes where there's like a meta fictional element, where you were forced to interact with a character, and the character, in some way, knows that you're there. I've always loved meta fiction when it like shows up in films, when it shows up in books. I was like, Oh my gosh. Like, of course, this is like, perfect. And then in that weird and wonderful way that art can sometimes be, it's like, all these puzzle pieces slotted together perfectly in a way that I hadn't necessarily anticipated, where the like whole trajectory of the book all of a sudden made sense, all the way back to like the start, where I was like, Oh my God, there's always like to talk technical, all these like plans and payoffs that made sense that I hadn't even necessarily thought of when I was initially writing it, which was really cool.

Michael David Wilson 27:07
And you said during the kind of read through that there were, I suppose, moments of doubt as you were looking at some of the things that you'd written. And you said that you felt some moments were pretentious Now that it's out in the world. And as we said before, I guess we've had about six months or so between it being published. Obviously, you've had a lot of really positive acclaim. You've had the Award nomination, you've had really respected people within the genre say this is a fucking great book. Has this helped with your confidence and your identity as a writer to just boldly put out whatever it is that you want to put out? Because obviously, it's resonating with, you know, a not inconsiderable amount of people.

Sofia Ajram 28:07
It definitely helps. Um, it's like when you're writing something, of course, you're spending so much time alone with it, you've, like, created this entire world that you've been living in for months, sometimes years, and then all of a sudden, it's out of your mind. It's out of your hands. You aren't really, I don't want to say responsible, but you don't really have control over how people are going to receive it, and to have other artists whose work I immensely respect have true, like honest, valuable feedback on it. That's like positive is like more than I could ever possibly ask for. And of course, it's like whatever for every one nice thing that someone says, it feels like 10 bullets of like when one person says something negative, but the more amount of time that passes, the more I think like I accomplished what I set out to write, and that's at the end of the day, more than I could ever possibly ask for. Like, if I had never published this, and I had just written it, and it sat in a drawer, I would still be proud of it, which, at the end of the day is how I want to continue to approach future work. Nothing is ever sort of guaranteed, especially in this industry, things move at like such a quick pace, you don't know, like if people's taste is going to resonate with what it is that you're writing, sometimes one story is a banger and another one is like an absolute flop. So you can only ever really make things for yourself, otherwise you won't necessarily feel fulfilled ever.

Michael David Wilson 29:57
Yeah, this is why i. Often say, if you can find joy or you can find fulfillment in the act of writing itself, then you win every time. So I think it's important to try and find joy as much as we can in what is, you know, a solitary and often isolating experience.

Sofia Ajram 30:20
I definitely think so, and that can look like a lot of things to different people when we're talking about, like, pretensions. Earlier, I was thinking about Ethan Hawke did, like an interview, I think, with Time Magazine, where he was talking about pretentiousness, and it just meaning that as an artist, you have to set a goal for yourself, and so might as well have those goals be lofty, and you can approach that from the perspective of pretension, or from the perspective of like experimental ism or anything that's like out of the norm for a genre or for an industry. And I think of that often when I'm like approaching the things that I'm currently working on, where I might as well push the envelope of whatever it is that I'm trying to do. You can always reel it back, but I find that it's hard to sort of push things further when you've already established them. Now

Michael David Wilson 31:24
there are a number of references to other things, kind of little Easter eggs hidden within the text, and one that particularly stood out is the Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa, specifically to his film pulse. So I want to know a little bit about your decision to include that within coup de grace. And also, I want to know about your relationship with East Asian cinema and East Asian Studies, because we spoke a little bit about that offline. So let's bring it online and let the people know,

Sofia Ajram 32:11
yeah, I have, like, a deep love of that film, and I don't know, I'm a personal believer in if something resonates with you, to sort of pepper it in wherever you want. So it felt like the scene that references that, which is like the elevator game scene where the character is thinking back on the scene from Pulse, where on the computer screens, once you load a website, it says, Would you like to meet a ghost? And so that element felt so striking, and I was like, I'm gonna put it in because I can. So it's, I guess, like an interesting background for it. But when I was a teen, and I was initially getting into horror, as a lot of people do, once you start to get into the genre, you start to push the envelope with yourself, almost to see what is the spookiest thing that I could find, what is the most like, intense, harrowing, disturbing, disgusting film that I could find. And of course, you know, there's like the top 10 lists that always pop up, and J horror and like specific, like in particular, was on so many of these lists of like deeply dreadful fear that almost is like difficult and like nebulous to identify. It's always going on, like torrenting websites and downloading all of these movies, and so I feel as though they had a really deep influence on my esthetic as an artist. One of the things that I've like sort of learned recently is there's so much of what happens to you in your childhood and in your early teens that sort of locks in your esthetic or your voice as a creator. And it's not to say that like as an adult, that you can't add to that lexicon, but there's always references that your creative mind will go back to. And so like, Japanese horror is certainly one of them. And then, like, completely unrelated to that, after I had graduated from graphic design, which is like college here, I applied to be in cinema school with no film in my portfolio. I only applied with graphic design, and so I got rejected. And I was like, it's fine, I'll get a BA in something else. And I. Then when I looked at the McGill book of like, curriculum, I was like, Oh, my God, they don't do like, sort of fine art at McGill. I wasn't sure what to study, and I felt compelled to do, like, to complete academics, or at least, like, complete a BA and so I was like, okay, East Asian Studies. The person I was dating at the time had lived in Japan. I was like, I love Japanese literature. I love Japanese culture. And I wanted to learn more about, like, Korean history and Chinese history. And so I ended up studying that. And then, as with a lot of things in youth, it feels as though, once you start something, that it's like a sunken cost theory, where you're like, I've already put a year into this. I have to continue. And so I ended up getting a bachelor's in East Asian studies with like, a major in Japanese language and culture. How much Japanese Can I speak now? So little, because I'm not immersed in it. So I'm so ashamed. But it comes back when I when I visit, thankfully.

Michael David Wilson 36:13
So how much Japanese Could you speak? Kind of, I guess, at the height of of the studies. Because I yeah, I suppose, having not done a degree in it, I don't know what level did they take it to,

Sofia Ajram 36:29
yeah. So there was, you could major in different elements. So there was, like the historical element, the culture element, and then the language element, and you have to pick two sort of branches of it. And so I did the language and the culture element, and it was the first time in my life where I needed a tutor, because language does not come easily to me at all, which is funny, because, like, my mother's a translator. She can speak so many languages, it comes to her so easily. She has the memory for it. And me, it's just like brain fog. But at the height of it, essentially like, by the end of the four years, you are supposed to be able to be a translator. And then I only did a year of the like language module itself, which is like the basic to graduate. But I was like, dreaming in Japanese, which was interesting. Like, I remember right before the final exam, which is like, you have to write this 10 page essay, and you don't know what the subject is gonna be until you get there. I was like, I had this dream about, like, being on Oprah, and we were speaking in Japanese together. And I was like, Oh, this is like, the height of a language really permeating my mind?

Michael David Wilson 37:46
Yeah, I've had it said before that once you start dreaming in the target language that you're learning, that's when you know that you've kind of leveled up. So I mean, Oprah as well. I don't know. Do we? Do we want to unpack that? Is there anything to unpack? What, uh, what a facet to the dream day include? Oprah, yeah, yeah. But goodness, I mean, that's an intense course in the four years for you to be expected to be at a level where you can be a translator, but that's a facet of the course you're also learning about the coach. Yeah,

Sofia Ajram 38:30
it was intense. I ended up going more with, like, the sort of culture branch, and then double majoring in women's studies, because, like, Gender Studies and Social Justice Studies was interesting to me as well at the time, but the culture module sort of opened my eyes up to so much Japanese literature that I never would have necessarily known about, because beyond like Murakami At the time, there was like, not that many authors that were permeating, I guess, like bookstores in the West, there's like others that I could think of, but there were courses that I was taking that were like anarchy in Japan, where we were reading books on like history and culture that had to do with that, which is really interesting to me. And I'm glad that I have these books like on my shelf now that I can still go back and reference that I might not necessarily have known about otherwise.

Michael David Wilson 39:33
And so when you're watching Japanese cinema, do you typically have the English subtitles on, or I don't know what, what level your Japanese has got, or, you know what it was at the peak.

Sofia Ajram 39:47
Yeah, I definitely need to have stuff that is on now. It's my mind is so slow to register the like translation in real time. And then I. Like, the way that sentences are ordered, like, you know, this is not like, the same as in English. It's like, you're like, waiting for the end of the sentence to be able to, like, translate it, and then by the time that that's done, it's like, moving so quickly. I'm just, I don't know, as a writer, I'm embarrassed to say I'm not like, like, language does not necessarily come very easily to me. When I started off the first year of the program, I was literally, like, recording myself saying vocabulary and then trying to replay it to myself at night for like, hypnosis, which is, like, that's not a thing that works, by the way, if anyone wants to try that, you're not going to retain any of that shit. But I was like, trying to easy out my way through it, which I very quickly learned was not going to work. But yeah, living in Montreal, I'm like, I have to know French. It's like, the official language in Quebec. But that comes a lot more easily because I was like, I grew up in Quebec, mostly, so your brain is spongy when you're a child, and so you learn language so much more easily. And the Japanese as an adult, I was like, okay, like, without being fully immersed, it's so difficult to practice. But, yeah, maybe I, maybe I should watch the films without subtitles. I should read more deep. But what I ended up doing, when I was like, in my first year, was just reading children's books. Because I was like, oh, okay, it has, like the hiragana written on top. That's like, Okay, this is accessible to me,

Michael David Wilson 41:42
yeah. But, I mean, unfortunately, that's what we have to do when we're starting out. You know, you want to just jump in with the literature, but you're just not going to understand any of it. I mean, if it was the other way around, and you're encountering English for the first time. Obviously, there's a lot of metaphor and what the literal reading is not often the actual meaning of the text. So yeah, but that, yeah, that hiragana and katakana really helps. It's like, sometimes I wish that the kanji just didn't exist because reading was such a breeze. But, yeah, yeah, like 2000 basic ones, but then about 10,000 in total, in general,

Sofia Ajram 42:33
yeah, it was at the end of the, like, first year. They were like, you have to have learned 4000 I was like, so I have this stack of flash cards that I keep just as like a memento that I'm like, You did this. You were capable of that you're capable of a lot like, one day I will go back and re try to relearn them, but I don't know,

Michael David Wilson 43:01
yeah, 4000 in one year, that's that is intense, that is ridiculous. And you know, the difficulty as well is that there are quite a lot that looks so similar, and it's like, Nope, there's one stroke different, and now it means something completely different.

Sofia Ajram 43:25
Yeah, exactly. So it was interesting. I'm like, I'm glad I did it, and I learned a lot. And it like, taught me a certain discipline that I didn't know that I had in me, because to do something that you're like, not naturally good at we, like, talked about this a little bit earlier in the episode where, like, Head Start and jewelry, it's so hard to be, like an adult beginning something where you're like, oh, I don't want to waste time. I just want to, like, get to the good part where you have to sort of do your due diligence and pay your dues and do the learning process.

Michael David Wilson 44:05
But yeah, and going back to coup de grace, do you think that you know in writing it, what was it cathartic? Was it transformative? Did it even help you navigate the landscape of depression, because there's so much that has been packed into it, I'm wondering how just the the experience of writing changed you or affected you.

Sofia Ajram 44:38
So interesting question. I have definitely gone through like come in and out of depressive episodes throughout my life. And I think that one thing that comes from age and experience is having gone through experiences personally you. Can look back on your life and be like, I made it through this. I can do it one more time. And so it was interesting putting that to literal experimentation, where it's like, if I put a character in a liminal state that feels like it's eternal. How much can I, like, push that character before it feels like it's too much, and it like tips the scale where they're like, I don't want to do this anymore. Or like, Oh, this is fine. I got through this the last time you really have to sort of toe the line. And I think it was only through going through that experience multiple times in my life where I was able to be like, Okay, I'm gonna try and be level headed and patient about this, and try to give that same level headedness and patience to my character. And then it's at the reader's discretion if they want to push the envelope or not, and I think it says a lot about whoever it is that's reading it. What they ultimately choose in the Choose Your Own Adventure element, which is always really interesting. Whenever someone tells me that they've read the book, the first question that I always ask is like, what did you do at the end? Which says a lot about them. I think,

Michael David Wilson 46:26
yeah, I must admit that, you know, for the sake of having this conversation, I then went back to look at, right, what are all the possible options, you know, to make sure that I I'd read it thoroughly, which perhaps is not in the spirit, but it felt like it gave a more complete reading experience. And yeah, the the fate can be pretty different, depending upon the option that you choose. Let's say,

Sofia Ajram 47:00
yeah. There's some people that, and it's like, more common that I thought would read through it completely straightforward. So it's like, for a choose your own adventure. It has Page Flip elements, which was when I was when I had submitted that to Titan. It was really interesting, because I was like, Oh, shit, I have this, like, Word document that if you load it on a different computer than mine, page 89 is now page 91 and the Page Flip instructions no longer make sense, so I had to learn how to like hyperlink within the document. But there were some people that were just reading it straight through. They were like, ignoring the page turn elements. And I was like, okay, that says something about them too, which is interesting. And then I have to make sure that this still makes logical sense if people completely ignore the instructions, which is, I don't know, fascinating to me. There's like, another book I'm thinking of in the dream house by Carmen Marie Machado, who's like, a fantastic author, where she looks at an abusive relationship through the lens of a haunted house in all these different writing tropes. And so one of the writing tropes is the Choose Your Own Adventure, and the way that she had done it. There's like, one point where I did like you, where I was like, I'm gonna full, like, read the full experience you get to a page and it's like, you couldn't have gotten to this page unless you flipped through and cheated. So that says something about you as a reader. And it's like, it's like, talking to you directly. And I was like, oh my god, this is, like, it's rare to experience again, like a meta fictional element where it's sort of breaking the fourth wall and saying, once a work of art is completed, there is a like, correct end to where things are going, whether or not you will that into existence,

Michael David Wilson 48:55
which I thought was interesting. Yeah, it feels like you were almost being called out. It's like, right? We know that you've been cheating, so yeah, gonna have a little word with you now Exactly. How did Titan respond to the Choose Your Own Adventure element? Were they receptive from the start? Was there any concern? Was there a logistical headache as to how it might work for other formats of the book,

Sofia Ajram 49:27
Hap, it's been, I'm like, really happy to say it's been really good thus far. I did have, like, a meeting with Daniel, my editor, where I basically had to, I guess, like, defend the order in which the choose your own adventure elements happen. Because, again, if someone reads it straight through, it has to make certain sense. And he had suggested some changes where I was like, No, I. Want to keep it the way that it is for this reason. And then he agreed. And so I'm really lucky in that we aligned really, like, easily from the get go on that I just found out recently that there's going to be an audio book version that's coming out in August, which I'm so excited about I'm like, oh my god, somebody's gonna be reading my work for like, a full two hours, three hours, I don't know. I have no idea how they're gonna do that. Are they gonna be like, click, chapter 11, if, if, like, Felix does this. I don't know. I don't know how that works. I've never audio book read or choose an adventure story. I don't know how they know what to do.

Michael David Wilson 50:41
Yeah, yeah, I was thinking about this before, and, you know, I noted that there wasn't an audio book. I assumed it was because of the ending and the impracticalities. And then, as I often do, my brain starts to run away with like, well, what would it look like if it was accuse your own adventure. And I was thinking, you know, I don't even know if you can do this, but would you have to program something in so that when it got to the Choose part, it pauses the audio book, so you have to actively press a button? Because, you know, if not, then I imagine so many people would probably, you know, particularly, because sometimes you'll be listening to audiobooks when we're on the go, they're like, oh, let's just let it play. But if, if the audiobook pauses, then it forces you, you have to click this option or that option. I don't know if that is practical. I don't know if it's possible, because obviously, you know you're not just on one platform. You're going to be on Audible, you're going to be on audiobooks.com you're going to be on Google Playbooks. I don't need to list everything else. So this is gonna turn into a weird conversation and and, you know, the normal way that you would upload an audio book would be, you just upload each individual chapter file. So you know where to ask. Do you need to find out how they going to do that? I

Sofia Ajram 52:20
really should like the way that you mentioned. It makes me think of when Netflix released banter snatch as part of, like the Black Mirror series. And then I think how they did it was it sort of pauses, and then, if you don't select, it, randomly chooses a response for you and like that would work. But of course, Netflix is in charge of its own UI. I don't know how like Apple or Google is gonna approach this, so literally, the only way that I can think of is like click chapter 12, if like the character does this. Otherwise, I don't know it's going to be as like new for me as it is to readers.

Michael David Wilson 53:04
Yeah, they're probably going to have to go for the click chapter blah blah blah option, because without that, they potentially have to create an entire new platform and interface. And I love your book, but I'm not sure if corporations like Google and Amazon are prepared to do that. But if you're gonna say like, okay, click chapter 22 for this, chapter 10 for this, or whatever, they also need to bake in some sort of, I don't know, 10 to 22nd pause at the end. I wash up a lot when I'm listening to a book. So I say I wear washing up gloves, because I don't want these hands to get all hard and rough. So you got to give me time to take the gloves off to click to the next chapter. So just give me, give me 10 seconds. Those gloves can be on tight, yeah, which maybe segues into your previous job as a dominatrix. I didn't even mean to go because I said tight gloves. It's like there's a safe way opportunity. I am a little bit interested in how you got into that line of work and how long you're a dominatrix for part time dominatrix, you? You said you're not not full time a little bit on the side.

Sofia Ajram 54:50
Yeah, it's because I was, like, I was also working at Sephora at the time, which made for really interesting bag checks, like when you clock in and clock out at your shift, your. Bag has to get checked, and so sometimes it has some interesting items in there for my managers to discover. But basically, if I like, draw it back to a precise moment, there was a sex blogger that I used to follow. I think her name was Carly scorciano, and she had a series on vice that she was doing, just about exploring sexuality around the world. And in one of her episodes, she met with New York City dominatrix, and she was like, This is wild and hysterical and delightful. You can get paid to, like, corporately punish someone, or, you know, humiliate someone or whatever. And I was like, Oh, my God, that's fascinating. And so as someone who is like a through purist at endeavors, sometimes I reached out to different DOMs in the city. One in particular, I was like, I liked her website in terms of she approached it from a really, almost therapeutic angle, where it was about meeting, like client specific needs. And it's not necessarily about you. It's about crystallizing a it's not always like a role play, but like a fantasy. And I was like, Can I tutor under you, essentially? And she agreed. And then I met with her. She let me, like, spectate a session. And it was really cute. I still have it. She had this like little book that she had given me, and then she was like, here are all the essentials of, like pro doming. And each page had like a different element. It was like ball busting, like cock and ball torture, humiliation. It was like all these different elements. And so she was like, writing little notes for me. And so I did, like do a sessions with her. She was, like, anything that you're doing on something else, I want you to know what it feels like on you first. And so I got, like, tased with a cattle prod to make sure that if I, like, ever did that to someone, I would know exactly what it felt like. And then I ended up doing that for like, four or five years, it was like,

Michael David Wilson 57:24
on and off. I

Sofia Ajram 57:27
loved it as an experience. It was really fun. It was really delightful. It was cool to get almost like a prompt at the start of every session where it was like, sometimes people had like, you know, more common, like fetishes will say, and then sometimes there are more niche and specific. And I have really interesting conversations with people that I otherwise wouldn't have talked to or wouldn't have had those conversations with, where, like, the person that I like that mentored me, because it is such a therapeutic experience for a lot of people, there's like an openness that happens right away, because you have to establish trust in such a quick amount of time that I made some really close relationships from from those experiences,

Michael David Wilson 58:21
how do you think that being a dominatrix expanded your life?

Sofia Ajram 58:36
it gave me more perspectives on different peoples, like, not necessarily, you know, judging a book by its cover, so to speak, where I was like, Okay, I'm at the time. I'm like, I'm a young woman. I'm meeting with a lot of older men, some of them are, like, in the corporate industries or, like, government industries. And it's like we on paper, have nothing in common, but then once you get to know someone on such a like intimate level, you either do have a lot in common, or you can find really interesting elements of each other. And so it taught me, in a lot of ways, to be open to people completely, no matter what, and not to the point where I you know, you allow yourself to get walked all over or allow for like, inappropriate things to happen, but more in the sense Of like, people come from all walks of life, there's always like some interesting part of someone that you'll relate to, even if it doesn't seem like it at first glance. And so it gave me a lot more patience, especially as someone who was like in my early 20s at the time, like every. Thing feel so fast paced when you're at that age, it taught me to sort of slow down and have more meaningful relationships with people that I wouldn't have necessarily geared myself towards.

Michael David Wilson 1:00:11
And I wonder, what do you think are some of the misconceptions about the industry, and what do you wish more people knew?

Sofia Ajram 1:00:22
Hmm, that's a good question. I remember a couple years ago, Netflix came out with this, like mini series. I think it was kind of like bonded or something like that. And it was this, like quirky mini series about a girl that worked in like a dungeon. And so it's a little bit different than what I was doing, because I was like freelance. So I would essentially like rent a dungeon anytime that I had a session. But there are some folks that will work in dungeons, so they like go there, and they almost have, like, a nine to five, where a client will come in, they'll fill out a survey. These are the things that I want to do it either corresponds with what you know you offer or not, and then if it does, you get paired up. And so it was like her quirky experiences working in a dungeon. And so much of it felt like a parody of the industry where a lot of the fetishes were, like, played for like, cheap thrills, where it was like, this person's into, like, Puppy Play, for instance, like, isn't that so wild and weird? And I think that there is, like, a light hearted humor that a lot of clients, and like DOMs even will approach the work with where there's like, delightful aspects of it. I'm thinking in specific, there was a podcast that I used to listen to called Sex nerds Sondra. And she would talk about all these different aspects of sexuality. And she had one episode where she brought a DOM on, and the DOM was talking about how, what was her like, weirdest session ever. And there was a client who wanted her to take, what was it called Baby powder, and, like, tie him up, and then, like, threaten to baby powder his entire body. And he was like, no, no, please. Like, very, very dramatically. And so there is something like wildly delightful about that, in it's like strangeness. And so I wish that that show, and I wish that a lot of people, more generally, approached that sort of thing with like, more levity and open mindedness and understanding, rather than like, pigeonholing people that, like, do sex work or go to sex workers for specific things, because, like, the like variety of like Clients and requests and interests and people's backgrounds like you would not believe it is just so so so varied, and so I think that it tends to get diluted down into like, really specific boxes, you know, like anything. But, yeah, that's what first sort of comes to mind.

Michael David Wilson 1:03:18
Yeah, a little bit of what we're talking about here reminds me of when Raph James White said, you know, never, yup, someone's Yum, you know, don't kink shame. There's a broad variety of things that people are into. And yeah, I suppose in any kind of niche industry, there's the temptation for outsiders to almost parody it, or to in their mind, it becomes an archetype or a stereotype. But obviously, you know, it is much broader than that. Yeah,

Sofia Ajram 1:03:55
I there's a film festival in Montreal that happens every year called Fantasia Film Festival. And it's like a genre Festival, and there's a lot of really great indie films that will get picked up by larger distributors at this festival. And one of them that I had seen a couple years ago was called cam, and it was, I think it was picked up by Netflix related film, phenomenal film. It's about a woman who's a cam girl, and then all of a sudden, one day she wakes up, she can't log into her account. There's already someone who is her exact doppelganger, who's streaming on her account and doing things that progressively she would not necessarily do. And so it's like about her experience trying to reconcile this and the writer, director Issa maze had been there because it was like, I think, the international launch. And she had created this film from her own personal experience. This is working as a cam girl. And. And I loved that perspective. It felt really authentic. And so I had reached out to her after the movie, and then we had become sort of like vaguely online friends, and the weird roundabout way in which the world is wonderful, she ended up reading coup de class and blurping it, which was really nice. But yeah, the world is wild and wonderful in some ways. The

Michael David Wilson 1:05:25
film Absolutely, is on Netflix, because that's where I first watched it, and, goodness, it's a wonderful film. I need to re watch it because it has been a few years now, and I'd love to talk to her on the show at some point, because it, it got a moment, but it, you know, where a lot of people were talking about it, but it seemed to be very fleeting. So we need to bring it back. We need to get that in the collective consciousness. Because, yeah, I mean, you talk about authenticity and putting something out where it's truly the vision of the Creator and could have only really been written or created by that person. Is cam, yeah,

Sofia Ajram 1:06:12
absolutely. I think that's also like some of the work that I find most resonates with me is like work that could only have ever been created by that specific person at that specific moment in their life. There's some weird, serendipitous crystallization that happens, where it's like you're almost channeling something external, where you know at least, like for myself, like people go back and ask me, like, how did you make this thing? Or, you know, the same question I'll be asked to other people, and it's almost like I did it because I had to at the time. Like this, you had to exercise something from your body.

Michael David Wilson 1:06:56
Yeah, this is how I feel every time I read something by Cassandra core or Eric la rock, and they both feel like they could only have been written by those two amazing and talented individuals at that particular moment in their life, and that's why they're an instant read for Me in in both instances,

Sofia Ajram 1:07:21
hell bore is very good. That is Cassandra's next book, yeah, the library at Hell bore fantastic. I love about Battle Royale. It's, I'm it's one of my guilty pleasure as, like, a sort of sub genre.

Michael David Wilson 1:07:36
Should be no guilt involved in any, any battle royal enjoyment on the page. Maybe there should be a little bit of guilt, if it's literally in person, or quite a lot of guilt, but we don't need to talk about that on the podcast. We don't need lawsuits or criminal investigations.

Sofia Ajram 1:07:59
So another phenomenal Japanese film. It is. It

Michael David Wilson 1:08:03
absolutely is. Let's move on. Yeah, yeah, let's move on to what are you working on? At the moment,

Sofia Ajram 1:08:15
I have my hands in so many different pies right now. I don't know if that's because of like, it's so easy to externalize it as like, the state of the world. There's like, so many things going on that I find it hard to narrow my focus. But I think one of the other things we touched on this a little bit earlier, but one of the next things that I want to work on, or that I am working on, is, like debut novel stuff. And there is so much pressure that goes into the title of a debut novel, because it feels very make or break, at least in like traditional publishing, or my understanding of traditional publishing. And so I'm working on a bunch of different things. There's like a novella that I'm working on right now that feels like it has some similar roots to kutakas. It's set in the early aughts, and it is about someone who meets someone in an online chat room, and as their relationship deepens, they sort of form a pair of like a co dependent relationship with each other. And as that relationship blossoms, the main character's world literally starts to close in where it's like his reach to the outside world is limited to his block and then his building and then the his floor and then his apartment, and then his body, and then it's like, what happens when you're robbed of everything because you're so focused on a relationship that you don't realize is toxic at the time? So that's like, one of the things that I'm working. On. And then I have a zombie novel that I'm working on. And then I have a non genre book that is set on Titanic that I'm working on. I have a deep, hyper fixation with Titanic and everything that is sort of like the early 1900s the early 1910s but that one requires a lot of research, so I'm trying to take my time with it.

Michael David Wilson 1:10:26
Would a titanic one in particular, might be particularly anxiety inducing for you, because I understand that you have a fear of objects underwater.

Sofia Ajram 1:10:40
I do. You've done your research. I have what's called submechanophobia, which is like, specifically, man made machinery underwater. I don't know why my brother also has this phobia. I'm like, did we experience a mutual trauma when we were children? Weirdly enough, it's not like old, rusted things. So, like, that's fine for me, but seeing like a fresh turbine underneath the water sets off my fight or flight for some reason. So I don't know. I have to, like, examine that one more.

Michael David Wilson 1:11:15
I mean, if, if you did see, in your own words, a fresh turbine underwater, what? What do you think your reaction would be, and with the fight or flight? I mean, what would you get out of there? Would you freeze up? What? What would go on?

Sofia Ajram 1:11:34
I get, like, a weird, flighty sort of panic, which is when I was 12 and 13, I had it in my mind that I wanted to do synchronized swimming. I don't know why my mother indulged me. And so there's these, like, massive Olympic swimming pools that you're like practicing in that are so deep because you're doing so many different like acrobatic tricks underwater and the like warm up every day is like, they throw the rings down to the bottom of, like, the deepest part of the pool, and you have to, like, hold your breath to go and pick them up and doing laughs and all these things, and the panic that I would get Getting near a drain, I'm thinking of like Chuck Palahniuk, as soon as

Michael David Wilson 1:12:24
you said that, I was thinking like, Oh God, this is the ultimate horror story for you, like

Sofia Ajram 1:12:32
collective trauma over guts. Just everyone who's ever read that short story, but yeah, just absolutely traumatic. And I don't freeze up. I get really, like, flighty about it, where I'm like, I gotta swim out of here as like, quickly as possible. There's not, like, many other things in my life where I feel that sort of animal, baseline, primal panic. I don't know, and it like, a lot of the time, it doesn't make sense. It's like a pool cleaner. I'm like, it's not gonna do anything ominous, but it's a weird distortion that happens underwater. I don't know. I was a child easily influenced.

Michael David Wilson 1:13:14
Maybe something will come to the forefront of your mind one day and you'll realize this was the moment. This was the the incident that set it all up. Yeah, I mean, some people, when they have a fear, they will go for immersion therapy to try and overcome it. But, I mean, your fear is so specific. It's, it's like, how many situations are you going to be in where that's going to come up.

Sofia Ajram 1:13:45
You have no idea there was, like, one time during the pandemic where, because of lockdown, I had to furlough my jewelry production team, and so I was, like, producing all the jewelry myself, which was just like a nightmare amount of work, because when everyone is under lockdown and cannot spend their money on traveling and weddings, they online shop, which was great for the business. But just like I was so much jewelry production, and then I had this one day where I was doing so much jewelry, and it's like eight o'clock at night, I've done like a 12 hour shift. I'm rinsing off the last pieces. And then one of the pieces fell into this, into the drain, and so I had to, like, shut off the tap, and I got stuck in the sort of, like, u pipe that's underneath the sink. And it took me, like, an hour and a half to, like, muster up the courage to open up the pipe, to get this gold pendant out, because I was just like, I can't get near the pipes. They, like, scared me so much, and I knew that that was irrational, but I just had to, like, hype myself up for so long, I was exhausted by the end of that day. But I don't know that's immersion therapy for you.

Michael David Wilson 1:14:53
That is a very unfortunate situation, let's say, to find yourself in. I. You said that your brother also has this fear, I hope that your partner doesn't as well, because then at least if your partner doesn't have the fear, then should something happen? They can intervene if they do have the fear, then, rather than it being genetic, it then almost becomes this terrifying. Is it a virus? Anyone you get too close to they kind of contracted it. We've gone a little bit. It follows with that idea,

Sofia Ajram 1:15:31
yeah. What's that? Oh, my God, it's it's literally like blanking out of my memory. But it's like the Canadian zombie film, where it's like words. It's infection happens through words. I

Michael David Wilson 1:15:44
Yeah, it's gone for me too, but yes, yeah, Ponty pool and another very good and underrated film

Sofia Ajram 1:15:57
Canada represent, there you go.

Michael David Wilson 1:16:02
Well, I asked you what you were working on at the moment, and you mentioned, you know, the the novel being the next big milestone. But it sounds like from your answer, there are multiple novels so, you know it that'll be the next thing. It's like, Well, which one is the debut novel, and in terms of that conversation, in terms of putting a debut out into the world, do you have an agent? Is that mostly a conversation with the agent? Are you representing yourself? Do you go to Titan because you've got that pre existing really good relationship, and they're a phenomenal publisher. Or do you kind of send multiple novels to multiple people and see what the universe delivers back?

Sofia Ajram 1:16:55
Titan definitely gets like first dibs, and I'm talking with some folks for representation, but I want to have, like, a completed thing ready to present, because you got to go off the momentum, you know,

Michael David Wilson 1:17:13
so you've got the Titanic novel. Is it a novel, or is that one a novella?

Sofia Ajram 1:17:19
That one's a novel I had, it's like, such a bizarre sort of, like side through line. But I had, like, a writing partner a couple years ago, and we were just writing stories for each other, and then at one point, we were like, let's write entire books for each other, and I had started this project, and I was like, I'm gonna write this book, and I'm gonna create this entire box of, like, things that would have been found on the Titanic that have to do with this book. And it was really cool. I, like, posted a video about it on Tiktok, and it went viral. And then I was like, Oh, I guess I have to finish this book. There's like, 30,000 words of it that are done. I just need to, like, complete it. But because it was written like, for specifically one other person, it doesn't necessarily make sense narrative like, structure wise, because it's like connected universes to the stories we're writing for each other. So I'm like, Okay, I have to, it has to stand alone on its own two feet as like, I don't want to create an unintentional series. There can be easter eggs. I think that that's fun, but that's why it's taking a little bit

Michael David Wilson 1:18:37
longer. So you've also got the zombie novel, I suspect, just based on your work, that is probably not a conventional zombie novel, or there's going to be a twist, there's going to be some layering. I wonder, is there anything you can tell us about that one? Or are you kind of keeping it under wraps and then linked to that. I'm wondering, logistically, seeing as you have multiple projects on the go, is there one project that you're actively writing now and then, when that's complete you'll move on to the next, or is it literally as wild as like, right? Monday is zombie day. Tuesday is Titanic. Wednesday. Guess I haven't done any metal smithing for a while. You know, what is it looking like? Sometimes

Sofia Ajram 1:19:29
it is that, but I try not to have that be my routine, because there's like you need to get into a certain voice, especially if it's like more historical work like Titanic, there's a certain vocabulary that I have to be using that all of a sudden, if I'm writing something more contemporary, like the chat room story that takes place in the early aughts, like, I can't be using that sort of slang and the Titanic not. Hole. So usually when I'm like working on one thing, I try to really buckle down and work on that one thing. The reason why I'm like playing a little bit more is because I'm more in the like outlining stage of a lot of these. So I sort of follow, follow the muse, so to speak. I am mostly working on the Titanic one right now. The zombie one is earlier we were talking about first works. That's the book that I had fully written and then put on the back burner, because I was like, I need to revisit this when I have more skill as an author. And so that was finished in 2020 and now I have like five years worth of life experience and author experience to sort of go off of. And it's also been like five years worth of writing notes in my phone where I'm like, Oh my gosh. Like, this character makes sense. Now, these things are related to each other, and so what I need to do is have a bunch of sticky notes and, like, have a crazy wall full of, like, thread connections with each other, so that I can figure out what to throw away from that novel and what can stay but It's an interesting process.

Michael David Wilson 1:21:20
Yeah, I'm so fascinated by all of these. And, yeah, that the chat room one as well. I mean, immediately that does make me think a little bit about Eric la rocker. I feel like he's the chat room or, hell yeah, like, kind of any sort of communication medium master. He's the master. He's the mistress, he's the fucking god of it all. And, yeah, I'm so into that kind of thing as well. There's almost something a little bit epistolary about it. Is experimental storytelling. So I'm, yeah, I'm very much looking forward to that one too.

Sofia Ajram 1:22:01
Yeah, I loved. Things have gotten worse. And then, oh yeah, more recently, I read wrecked, which was like, also in sort of forum storytelling you, you read wreck, wrecked, I'm wrecked, wrecked. Let me

Michael David Wilson 1:22:19
wrecked by Eric, no, is

Sofia Ajram 1:22:22
by Alex Gonzalez, okay, it's

Michael David Wilson 1:22:24
because, yeah, Eric has a forthcoming story called red. So then, because it was so similar, that word Yeah, because that was a surprise too, because I don't what, I didn't think he'd even finish writing it, yet you read it before he finished. What's going on? Liminal space is becoming reality. You're reading quotes that haven't been finished.

Sofia Ajram 1:22:52
I wish. I wish. Yes, retch the like Cassandra story also interests me, even though it's not written yet. But sorry, their author name, sort of like escaped me, rect, R, E, k, t, which is like told in sort of for a forum format, which I think is really interesting. I think that's coming out later this year, but I love to see how people approach epistolary storytelling in different ways, especially since there the Internet has so much history now that we can pull off of where it feels very distinct of certain eras like I'm thinking back on the novella that I ended up writing for Crystal Lake. There's, like, some of that story has to do with Twitter. And I'm like, oh, it's not even Twitter anymore now. So that really dates it to a specific time in history.

Michael David Wilson 1:23:52
Yeah, my forthcoming novel has a reference to Twitter, and I, I wondered about changing it back, but I don't know. This is a story set in 2023 basically. And as specific as that is, whatever I'm just I'm just keeping it and, you know, there's some people that hope that eventually, then the social network, now known as x, will change hands again, yeah, basically it will become Twitter again. So just, yeah, hold on to that thought. But I

Sofia Ajram 1:24:34
everybody's author BIOS with the links at the back that's like, find us on Twitter. It'll be like, relevant again, yes, it's

Michael David Wilson 1:24:41
interesting that I decided to to keep the reference to Twitter within the story, but in the author bio, yeah, I said you get where you can find me on ads, yeah, I don't know I I feel that probably. Whatever the dominant social media form is going to be, it probably doesn't even exist yet. Like, I think, you know, all these things like blue sky and threads, it's, they're just kind of Twitter clones. So whatever it is that really taps in, I think it will be different to whatever we we have seen something we can't really conceive of. Or like you kind of said at the start, it's going to become so fragmented that, well, there never will be a predominant one anymore. It'll revert more back to the kind of old internet days where we have our little niches and our little forums, and maybe it's not such a bad thing, particularly if you it then means you don't have the equivalent of everyone's having fun at the party, and then some asshole walks in and they're like, fuck you. I say everything you stand for. Why do you exist? Look, I don't even know you. Yeah. What are you doing here? Get out.

Sofia Ajram 1:26:11
Jesus Christ. Kick this guy. Yeah.

Michael David Wilson 1:26:15
Well, thank you for spending the vast majority of your evening chatting to me. This has been a hell of a lot of fun and really informative. So I do appreciate you taking all this time my

Sofia Ajram 1:26:29
pleasure. I'm so glad we finally got to talk. I'm like, honestly, as someone who's been a fan for like five years, I'm like, I feel so delighted that we finally got to talk. So thank you. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 1:26:40
yeah. And you have, please, got to keep me informed as to what's coming out next, because I would love to chat with you. I know that Bob would love to chat with you too. He was, he's very upset to be missing this one, but he's presently ghoulish, so I'm sure that he's having fun in some capacity. It's

Sofia Ajram 1:27:02
a worthy it's a worthy reason to mess as well.

Michael David Wilson 1:27:07
I wish I was at ghoulish. Maybe people listening also wish they were at ghoulish. Yes, all in spirit. But where can people connect with you in this world, in

Sofia Ajram 1:27:24
this in this liminal world between Twitter and whatever is coming next, I can be found at @SofiaAjram, on whatever platform you're probably on, that's the trick. You just keep the same handle.

Michael David Wilson 1:27:39
It's a good trick. Well, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners? Oh my gosh,

Sofia Ajram 1:27:48
that's it really. Keep, keep on trucking the hard world out there. Make, make the art that you want to make, do the shit that you want to do. We don't know how long we're going to be here for. Do, do the things that bring you joy, like we said earlier. If it doesn't bring you joy, you know, maybe it'll bring you life lessons or $1 I don't know. We're getting too existential. It's getting late in the evening for me.

Michael David Wilson 1:28:14
All right. Thank you very much. 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.