Alma Katsu is an internationally award-winning novelist. The Hunger is one of NPR’s 100 favorite horror stories, and The Deep was nominated for the Stoker and Locus awards for best horror novel. Red Widow draws on her career as an intelligence officer, and her latest novel, The Fervor, is a horror novel set in a Japanese internment camp. LJ caught up with her to talk about writing, the power of horror fiction, and authors who inspire.

What drew you to writing, in general, and historical horror in particular?

I was a big reader as a kid, and it made me want to be a writer, too. I went through school thinking that’s what I’d do, but I ended up getting the opportunity to work at a U.S. intelligence agency. It’s the kind of job that takes over your whole life and I ended up giving up writing for a long time. My debut novel—at age 51—was The Taker. It’s been compared a lot to Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire: historical, but with a supernatural/fantasy element. I’ve always loved otherworldly stories—dark fantasy, speculative fiction, the Gothic. Stories that bring magic into our lives. History always seems to find a way in there, too, I guess because it grounds us, makes the fantastical seem more plausible.

You wrote a stirring and highly personal introduction to the anthology Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women where you explored the harmful stereotypes of Asian women. But The Fervor is the first time you have explored your own identity as an Asian American woman in a novel. What was that experience like for you?

Writing The Fervor was an eye-opening experience. As you say, it was the first time that I wrote a lead character who is Asian. The Fervor is a personal book for me: my mother is Japanese and came to America after World War II, and my husband’s entire family was interned. So, I learned a lot about this episode in U.S. history, and the issues around internment are quite complex. We don’t hear the whole story in school—it’s not as straightforward as some might have you believe, but the real lessons from this event, the “why” it happened and what it really means to the soul and character of a nation, are in those details. It was a revelation to write a book with a character that was the same as me. I could suddenly say all these things that had only been in my head. That’s why it’s so great to write horror: you can really explore those feelings. You don’t have to be polite, you don’t have to turn away.

You are the 2022 Summer Scares Spokesperson, but before that you spent 2021 appearing at a variety of libraries across the country as The Hunger was one of three adult selections for the 2021 program. What did you learn about public libraries through these appearances? And what do you hope to share with the library community going forward in 2022?

It was such a gift to talk to librarians and readers across the country. I learned that there are more horror fans than you might imagine, particularly among librarians. I’m so excited to be able, through Summer Scares, to bring new horror to more readers. There’s nothing wrong with the classics, whether it’s Poe or Stephen King or R.L. Stine. But horror seems to be in a new golden age right now, with so many great books being written, and the genre broadening to include stories and ideas that might surprise some people. Too, in the pandemic age, people seem to have more of an appetite for horror, for stories that help us face our fears and make sense of the unknowable, and I’m looking forward to talking horror with librarians and readers.

Who are the authors that inspire you as a writer? What specifically do you glean from them and their example?

I am drawn to stories that are original in some way, whether it’s subject matter or approach, and especially the way it uses narrative form. Josh Malerman is a favorite: that man is pure artist, unafraid to take risks. I don’t think any two of his books are alike. I think of him when I sit down to outline another historical horror novel, so I’m inspired to try something new and take chances. Stephen Graham Jones has a gift for conveying the inside life of society’s “outsiders,” an especially important talent in today’s fractious world. Audrey Niffenegger is an example of artistry in narrative form: I read and reread The Time Traveler’s Daughter in order to figure out how to handle nonlinear jumps in time in my debut, The Taker. And Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was the narrative model for my spy novel, Red Widow: I wanted to have a second POV character come in and completely blow apart what we’ve learned from the first POV character, and Gone Girl was the perfect model for this.

I cannot let you leave without asking you to tell all of us which authors we are missing out on. Who should more people be reading and adding to our library collections?

I’ve been telling everyone who will listen that they should read These Bones by Kayla Chenault. It’s a bit genre-defying—is it historical, horror, or memoir?—but it’s definitely one of those magical, rewarding, transcendent reads and hard to believe it’s her debut. Another favorite is The Art of Space Travel and Other Stories, the latest from British writer Nina Allan. One way to be exposed to a bunch of talented writers at the same time is to pick up an anthology. When Things Get Dark, edited by Ellen Datlow, is a collection of stories inspired by the work of Shirley Jackson. You have deliciously macabre and uncanny stories by masters such as Kelly Link, Paul Tremblay, Elizabeth Hand, Richard Kadrey, Josh Malerman and Stephen Graham Jones, and many lesser-known but not lesser-talented writers. As long as I’m talking about anthologies, I’d like to give a shout-out to two for which I was lucky enough to write the forewords. Miscreations, edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey, explores what it means to be a monster. The second is Black Cranes, edited by Lee Murray and Genever Flynn, mentioned earlier, a collection of short horror stories written from the perspective of Asian women.