Interview with Christina Rosso
“Glossary” has a unique format compared to other short stories. Other than an actual glossary, were there any other pieces of writing that inspired you? What was your process for choosing and connecting each word throughout the story?
This story was inspired by a writing prompt from one of Kathy Fish's incredible workshops! I don't remember the exact exercise, but I believe she offered a glossary of terms as an example. My story "Glossary" is very loosely based on my European honeymoon, where my partner and I explored Neuschwanstein Castle and learned about the Mad King. Germany is the backdrop of so many fairy tales and Ludwig II's castle was literally the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle! I wanted to write about the Mad King, but I also wanted to explore the lexicon of a person and their experiences. There is a devolving of sorts happening to my protagonist, a liberation that foils the rigidity of the glossary format. In terms of choosing each glossary term, they essentially boil down to the essence of each section. I love how we start with a castle, one of the most famous symbols of a fairy tale (and a powerful, stable structure), and shift to something more intangible, more embryonic--a woman who is intertwining (or at least imagining) an expanse into something mythic.
Much of your writing includes supernatural elements, including these three short stories. Additionally, these stories feature the relationship between husband and wife. How do these elements connect within these stories? What is your goal in creating this connection?
I write about married couples a lot! I think this is in part because I'm married myself. Until I met my partner, however, I never wanted to get married and didn't believe in marriage. It was too restrictive for me, at least in the way I had seen it modeled. I've always fought against the gender binary and the roles that accompany it. And, in many fairy tales, husbands kill their wives. This directly mirrors the violence that women face in domestic partnerships. So, I ask myself: Why is there so much violence toward women in these tales? And how are these roles reflected in a patriarchal society? Then, I write from there, subverting tales like Bluebeard with my story "One More Lie," where the wife is just as dangerous and deadly as her blue-bearded husband. I'm obsessed with unpacking who the real monster is in these stories, and sometimes the answer is everyone. I love the complexity of that, how it casts shadows on everyone's capacity for violence or mischief, regardless of gender or sexuality. Monsters exist in every medium, but they thrive in fairy tale and mythological settings, so I often find them to be the perfect vehicles to drive forward the questions I'm interested in exploring.
What was your process in pairing these three flash stories together? Did you consider adding more or different short stories?
There is a clear evolution from the first story to the third for me. We begin in our world, on a honeymoon, but something is off. Magic and hunger and rage lurk around the corner. Next, we find ourselves in a fairy tale, with Bluebeard and his bride playing a very dangerous game of Two Truths and a Lie. Placing this story in the middle bridges the mundane with the otherworldly. And, of course, when we get to the final story, "My Husband Reads the Paper After I Tell Him I’m a Succubus," we are in a world different from our own. Mythical creatures exist! And you might be married to one of them. This heroine, this wife, shakes off the chains of normalcy and the patriarchy to be her beautiful, monstrous self. She has attained what the protagonist in the first story is dreaming about. I didn't consider adding additional stories, but I think I could put together an entire collection of stories like this! Maybe I will now thanks to your question.
Tell us about your published works Creole Conjure and She is a Beast. How do they compare to these short stories?
She is a Beast is a chapbook of feminist fairy tales, ranging from retellings of classics like Cinderella to original fairy tales. It was heavily inspired by The Bloody Chamber; I started drafting the stories in it shortly after I completed my MFA. Creole Conjure is an interconnected short story collection that follows femme and nonbinary folks trying to survive both literal forces of evil as well as the evils of the patriarchy. It shows my maturation as a writer of fairy tales, taking those stories and mixing them with mythology. I tried to create my own mythos, my own strange world of magic and mayhem. I didn't realize it at the time, but the thesis of Creole Conjure is how monstrous it can be to survive the evils of the world. As a queer, femme-bodied person, I have lived through violence. I have lived through trauma. I wanted to write characters that feel real and truthful, who are literally doing whatever they can to survive. Sometimes that gets ugly, but there's also a lot of beauty and healing in the collection, too. The three stories Bluestem so graciously published stem from that same place. One of trying to exist in and thrive in the patriarchal world. Of trying to figure out who we are and then learning how to accept ourselves.
Where did your interest in the supernatural, fairy tales, and other similar elements begin? Which of these elements do you plan to include in your future writing?
I've always been interested in the strange and bizarre, and fairy tales are such a rich space to find exactly that. During grad school, I discovered Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber and it inspired me to start experimenting with fairy tale retellings. I've never looked back! I think I'll always write in the fairy tale realm because it's accessible to everyone and there are infinite possibilities for reimaginings. In the last two years, I've really been focused on monsters, and in particular, the monstrous female. I plan to continue to explore that through fairy tales, mythology, and the supernatural. Currently, I'm working on a folk horror novel about the Corn Mother, an ancient harvest deity from Hungarian folklore. It feels like a culmination of the things I love—fairy tales, monsters, feminism, and all things spooky.