Spent last night at Harbour Hotel listening to TJ Klune, V Castro, Keith Rosson, and George Morris De’Ath discuss horror and queer fantasy. The kind of evening where you leave with more questions than answers, which feels right for the genre.
V Castro talked about body horror as cultural memory, how physical transformation reflects immigrant experience and displacement. Her work explores Latinx identity through visceral terror – the body becoming unfamiliar territory. That resonated. Writing about fractured selves in a second language means constantly inhabiting a body that doesn’t quite fit the words coming out of it.
Picked up Best New Horror, an anthology with Castro’s story alongside twelve others. She signed it after the panel. Strange moment, watching someone whose work explores similar themes of identity and belonging through completely different methods. Her horror is corporeal where mine is psychological, but we’re circling the same questions about who we are when everything familiar shifts.
Klune discussed balancing hope with darkness, how horror can be wholesome without losing its edge. Rosson and De’Ath examined apocalyptic fiction and monstrosity. Two panels, Q&A, signing – three hours that felt like twenty minutes.
Brighton’s literary scene keeps surprising me. Living here while studying means stumbling into these conversations more often than expected. The city’s small enough that genre writers actually show up, talk craft, answer questions about narrative structure without flinching.
Currently reconsidering how much visceral horror my next project needs. Sometimes listening to other writers work through their methods clarifies your own.
Daria Ryzhikova Writer