Gwendolyn Kiste is a three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Haunting of Velkwood, The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Mortals, and most recently, a short story called “Your Mother’s Love Is An Apocalypse” in the Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror anthology, foreword by Sadie Hartmann, edited by Lindy Ryan. Kiste has also won the Lambda Literary Award and received the This is Horror award for Novel of the Year.
She doesn’t just tell any old ghost stories. Kiste’s books, like The Haunting of Velkwood, orbit themes of self-identity, complacency, and unbreakable bonds. To her, “Everyone’s life is like a haunted house.” Perhaps that’s why her books linger, giving readers a ghostly book hangover.
Kiste spoke to Cemetery Dance about The Haunting of Velkwood, gothic horror, themes of complacency and accountability in her latest novel, and, of course, ghost stories (her specialty).
(Interview conducted by Haley Newlin)
CEMETERY DANCE: In The Haunting of Velkwood, you say all our pasts are haunted houses. Did that theme come before the characters when developing the story?
GWENDOLYN KISTE: I feel like the characters and the story for The Haunting of Velkwood formed simultaneously. I love the idea of the past as a haunted house. It can be so easy to get caught in a loop of nostalgia, regret, and what-ifs when it comes to our personal history. In a way, we’re all our own ghosts, the younger versions of ourselves always haunting the present. That was definitely the concept I was cultivating with The Haunting of Velkwood, and these characters were the perfect ones to explore that theme.
In particular, the core group of four friends on Velkwood Street each ended up in very different places in their lives twenty years after the neighborhood turned into a specter. It was such an interesting experience exploring how and why people take such divergent paths, even if they share many of the same experiences.
The Haunting of Velkwood blends classic gothic tropes with modern horror expectations. What is your favorite gothic horror novel/film?
I’ve got so many favorites! My go-to gothic novel is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Its got horror, its got whimsy, its truly got 
everything. Merricat Blackwood is one of my absolute favorite characters of all time, and her relationship with her sister Constance is so wonderfully loving and dysfunctional.
As for a favorite gothic film, it’s an old standby, but I absolutely adore The Uninvited, starring Ray Milland, Gail Russell, and Ruth Hussey. It’s a fairly straightforward ghost story, but the gothic elements are so delightful, and it’s got a few really cool and chilling moments. Plus, there’s even a queer subtext to the film, which is almost revolutionary, considering it was released in 1944. Definitely a film worth watching if you haven’t seen it already.
Enid, the oddball and peculiar girl in the Velkwood neighborhood, is a fan favorite. What were the most significant inspirations behind her character?
I love that you call Enid a fan favorite! That makes me so happy to hear! I’m pretty fond of her, so it’s wonderful that she resonates with readers.
I feel like Enid is an ode to the odd girls we grew up with, like Wednesday Addams, Lydia Deetz, Daria, and the coven from The Craft. She’s also probably a bit of my subconscious incarnate. She’s all the weirdness that lives in me that doesn’t always have a clear outlet: the witchiness, the strange way of looking at the world, the love of insects.
Over the years, I’ve featured a lot of strange girls in my writing, but Enid is one of the few in my longer works with a major role. I definitely would have loved to spend even more time with her character. On that same note, one of my next projects spotlights that sort of “peculiar girl,” but this time, she’s one of the major viewpoint characters in the book. I figure it’s about time that I give the truly weird girls who exist in my fictional world a chance to have even more say in their own story.
Complacency and accountability are other leading themes in your latest novel. Why do you think these themes are important to include in fiction, or horror in particular? Why now?
I’ve always felt that fiction ought to reflect life, and in particular, horror fiction should reflect the things that scare us most. Complacency is honestly more frightening to me than any of the vampires, werewolves, or other monsters of the genre. The way people can stand by and do nothing, even when they know something is going very, very wrong.
As for why now, I genuinely hope that things are shifting in the world, and we’re finally starting to listen to victims. There’s more of a conversation around abuse and toxic behavior than ever before, and that gives me hope that not only are we finally at the right time for these stories but also that we’re at a moment when we can turn the tide and possibly change the way we deal with trauma and survivors. Horror is such an ideal vehicle for exploring the past and how we can move forward. It’s just one more reason why I love the genre so much.
What do you think is the greatest ghost story ever told?
If I had to choose one, it would probably be Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, especially because of how influential it’s been in the genre. Plus, anytime I get a chance to sing the praises of Shirley Jackson, I’m always very happy to do so! I adore the characters of Theo and Eleanor; they’re so fantastic, and there’s also a sapphic vibe to their relationship, which always does my heart good. It’s such a great book, and the original film, The Haunting, is one of the best ghost story movies of all time. Awesome, spooky stuff all the way around.
What’s next? Are you currently working on any projects?
I’m working on a couple of different books right now, so I’m hoping to have something to announce soon. In the meantime, I’m always writing short fiction and nonfiction. You can catch my latest stories in a number of recent and forthcoming anthologies, including Mother Knows Best, Euroschlock Nightmares, and Fear of Clowns, and my nonfiction appears regularly at The Lineup where I write all about horror cinema and fiction.
Where can readers learn more about you and your work?
You can find me on my website, gwendolynkiste.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram under the handle @gwendolynkiste.
