[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 572 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest this week is Agatha Andrews. Agatha is the host of the She Wore Black podcast, and she’s a former librarian, so she has summer horror recs, perfect for romance readers! We also are going to talk about activism in Texas and the origins of Purse Bingo as a charity fundraiser. If you are involved in nonprofit fundraising, this part will be kind of mindblowing. Plus we talk a lot about what happens when Taylor Swift fans and StokerCon share the same hotel.

I will have links to all of the books that we talk about and where you can find Agatha and her podcast in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

I have a compliment, and this always makes my entire week.

To Janette D.: You are the human personification of the feeling of warmth and delight that you get when you see lightning bugs at sunset.

If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you. You are keeping me going, you’re making sure that every episode has a transcript – hey, garlicknitter! [Hi, Sarah and all the transcript readers! – gk] – and you’re making sure that every episode is accessible. If you’d like to join the Patreon community, the benefits, I think, are pretty cool: we have the most wonderful, welcoming Discord server; you get bonus episodes every other week; and you get to tell me bad jokes. What better option could there be? If you would like to join, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

This episode is brought to you in part by Lume Deodorant. Since we moved to Maryland seven years ago, every summer I learn what it feels like to live in a bowl of soup. Hot soup. Like chowder. Not a nice gazpacho. Thankfully, Lume Deodorant makes it easy to feel comfortable and freshly scented too, and there is a special offer: new customers get five dollars off Lume’s Starter Pack with code SARAH30 at lumedeodorant.com. The whole family over here is so happy with Lume. I brought the Lavender Sage deodorant cream with me on a vacation where we were touring extremely crowded places in very hot weather, and wow! It was effective. I also use the stick deodorant, and it’s great. The Toasted Coconut scent is lovely, and I don’t ever have to reapply. I think about it once a day and only once a day. How does it work? Well, some products will try to mask an odor with a fragrance, but Lume is formulated and powered by mandelic acid, so it stops odor before it starts; it’s like a pre-odorant. And Lume can control odor for up to seventy-two hours. It’s a first-of-its-kind product, too: it was designed to be safe to use anywhere on your body, even your feet. Lume’s starter pack is perfect for new customers. It comes with a solid stick deodorant; cream tube deodorant; two free products of your choice, like a mini body wash and deodorant wipes; and free shipping. As a special offer for listeners, new customers get five dollars off a Lume Starter Pack with code SARAH30 at lumedeodorant.com. That equates to over forty percent off the Starter Pack when you visit lumedeodorant.com and use code SARAH30.

All right, are you ready to talk horror, Purse Bingo, and assorted other mayhem topics? Let’s do this: on with the podcast.

[music]

Agatha Andrews: Hi! I am Agatha Andrews, and I am the host of the She Wore Black podcast. I am a writer, but my show also features Gothic mystery and horror, with a lot of romance thrown in there as well.

Sarah: Yes, this is why I like it! So you just got back from StokerCon, which is awesome, because actually Pittsburgh is my hometown; that is where I was born and raised. So you were in my hometown. And I hope you enjoyed it.

Agatha: More than I can say. Well, first off, let me tell you, we shared our hotel, and we shared Pitts-, well, shared Pittsburgh, and we shared our hotel with Swifties, and so it was –

Sarah: Oh my God, the energy!

Agatha: It was amazing. It was amazing!

Sarah: That sounds so fun!

Agatha: Oh my –

Sarah: Where were you staying?

Agatha: At the Sheraton at that Station – what is called?

Sarah: Station Square.

Agatha: At Station Square, yes. And so half our hotel was sequins and pink sparkles, and half of us were all in black? And they were so cute, Sarah, because they, they, like, someone heard them saying, and we all delighted in this, like, Why, why are half of everybody here in black? And someone said, I think they’re going to a Dracula concert.

[Laughter]

Agatha: It was the most precious thing we’d ever heard. We were all like, I want to go to a Dracula concert!

Sarah: I mean –

Agatha: We’re down for that! [Laughs]

Sarah: – can you imagine the shirts for a Dracula concert?

Agatha: They were so cute!

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Agatha: So they, but they were all very sweet, and a lot of them are also sort of that, I forget what it’s called, but, like, where you have, like, that, that – whimsigoths, if you will. So they appreciated that there’s horror writers, like, running around them and everything.

Sarah: Whimsigoths! I love it so much!

Agatha: [Laughs]

Sarah: So in addition to sharing my hometown with Swifties –

Agatha: Yeah.

Sarah: – which is adorable –

Agatha: It was pretty great.

Sarah: – how was StokerCon?

Agatha: Well, it was my first Stoker, and I will say this about Pittsburgh, ‘cause I know you’re curious: I am in central Texas, so I’m used to a lot of trees and hills, but nothing like what I, what I saw when I landed in Pittsburgh.

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Agatha: I had no idea! I mean, all I really knew about Pittsburgh was Andy Warhol and –

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: – the Steelers, and the Steelers, by name, made me think it was very industrial? It is one of the greenest cities, and I mean –

Sarah: Very.

Agatha: – this is, I’ve spent time in, like, Cincinnati and other green areas and San Francisco! I used to live in San Francisco. This was gorgeous. You have a gorgeous hometown.

Sarah: Isn’t it beautiful now? So I was born in, in 1975, so I was alive for the very tail end of the steel industry; like, the Wheeling strike was when I was a, like a toddler; and I remember seeing, as I drove down the highway, seeing the remains of different mills on the, on the river, and they’re all gone and it’s completely renovated. It’s green; it’s beautiful. Like, when you have some, an area that’s so industrial and then it becomes, like, art and trees?

Agatha: It’s gorgeous. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Sarah: It’s amazing! It’s amazing!

Agatha: But StokerCon was great! It was, you know, you get the awards for, you know, it’s our annual conference. So I know, I know RWA is no longer what it should be or once was, or I don’t even know what it – I know all the things about RWA, but –

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: – this is like the horror version –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – and we, we have substantially fewer problems? There are still things, of course, like any organization that they’re still working on, but they’re working very hard, and one of the things that was really great this year was the first two, or the, the first Latino – the first one was a Latina; the second one was Latino – awards, Stoker awards were given out.

Sarah: Yaaay!

Agatha: We’re thrilled; we were absolutely thrilled. Cina Pelayo won for Best Poetry Collection for Crime Scene, and Gabino Iglesias won for Best Novel. He won for The Devil Takes You Home.

You know, and as a Texan I’m waiting next for a week at Ghoulish Festival here in San Antonio, and that’s a little bit more punk rock, if you will.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: We have, you know, a, a very cool, very thriving horror scene in Texas? We have a very good literary scene. We have the Texas Book Festival? There’s a lot of things going on in Texas that you would never expect – [laughs] – ‘cause we have a reputation for other things.

You know, but we have some really wonderful, again, very diverse horror writers. So, Johnny Compton wrote The Spite House, which is a phenomenal haunted house novel, you know, written by – I mean, he’s a spectacular, Black debut author, and it is, that, that book is taking off, absolutely taking off, so we’re very excited about that. I’m excited about Stargazers by L. P. Hernandez, and Rhonda Jackson is this amazing Black writer from, from Houston. I mean, we’ve just got this wonderful, diverse culture, and we all have each others’ backs, you know? We go to everything!

Sarah: Yep!

Agatha: It’s wonderful.

Sarah: That’s the best feeling, when you go to your conferences and you see, like, your people? It’s the best energy.

Agatha: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I kind of miss it.

So I want to ask you, speaking of horror in Texas and –

Agatha: Um, yes? [Laughs]

Sarah: – the political horror show –

Agatha: Yes.

Sarah: – I know you’re really very much involved in a lot of different activist communities in Texas, and like you said, there’s a lot of misconception about Texas, which I myself had until we spoke, and I wanted to ask you, what are you involved in locally?

Agatha: Well, activism has been a part of my entire life. My mother raised me that way. She’s alw-, I mean, still, she’s in her sixties and still going strong with being a very centralized person and home for political campaigns and things like that that, you know, for, for movements that are important to us or for, for policies that are important to us. So that was something I’ve always known as a very, I mean, from the age of nine I’ve been out there doing the work.

So one of the things that I have found for me, I do, I try to help with, with organizations, but what I have found works for me – and everybody has to find what works for them, and, and if you do it and you do it well and you go all in, you’re going to make a bigger impact – so what works for me is to be involved with local politics –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – through, like, statewide. Because, like, when Beto O’Rourke was running – and we do know, like, for anybody who’s not aware, it’s not that Texas voters are, are very red. We are gerrymandered; the voter oppression is strong; they will, you know, close most polling areas in places that are heavily blue, which are often populated by people of color. So they will close polling locations so that hundreds of thousands of people will have one polling location available to them. You will, they will have –

Sarah: And then they have to wait in line for ten hours to vote, which is –

Agatha: Yeah.

Sarah: – a lost day of wages. That’s, that’s a lot of childcare.

Agatha: Illness, everything else, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: And then, and then what will happen is that that single polling location, the electricity will magically stop working!

Sarah: Oh my goodness!

Agatha: Yeah. Like, random things like this, but Ken Paxton, who’s our Attorney General, also does things like Houston, which is very heavily Democratic, he will shut down the, the counts, the, the voting count with, like, when, when Beto was running, there were still like, like over six hundred thousand votes still left to count. He shut that counting down; he also purged over two million mail-in ballots.

Sarah: Good God.

Agatha: And so that was all people that were, you know, trying to avoid COVID things, so people tend to be Democrat or vote blue were those votes, and he knew it. So we all know that Beto won. We all know he won, and probably by a pretty good margin, but the votes were stopped.

So what we do is do our best, or at least what I found works for me is to try to work in local levels, so city council races, school board races, and we all know that those are actually areas where a lot of the fire is burning right now, and county –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Agatha: – county commissioners offices. So what I, I live now – I mean, I lived in Austin for many, many, many years. When I started going to UT I just sort of never left, but I live in a, in a ‘burb now, a very cute, historical, Stars Hollow kind of town just north of Austin; it takes me twenty minutes to drive into downtown Austin from where I live. But the area where I live, for decades, Sarah, was considered deep red, never going to change, and one of the reasons for that is invisibility, and so what we started doing was basically putting boots on the ground and being very, very, very, very visible.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: And just started knocking on doors and doing all of this work, which when you’re in the Texas summer sun is very difficult. You know, it’s 106 outside, but it feels like 118, but we’re still out there doing, doing the work, and what happened is that my area is now showing light blue consistently in, in elections. We have a lot of school board positions and city council positions, and our state representatives are Democrats. You may have seen James Talarico, who is my state representative. He’s very viral very often for putting Texas House conversations to rights. You know, he still needs other people, however. If anybody’s listening, y’all need to get the – [laughs] – get working in your areas, ‘cause James needs support in the House. He can’t, you know, do all of the work if he doesn’t have all the numbers.

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: He does a lot of work and gets things done, but, you know, they, they redistricted him out so that they could just get rid of him. So he moved and won that district anyway. [Laughs] So it’s like they, they will play every trick in the book.

So, you know, I just, I do that for campaigns, and I find that we see the most change when we get the right people in local offices. You see bigger effects, so that my whole district now is light blue instead of being the deep red, never going to change kind of thing.

Sarah: Yeah. And that’s where I –

Agatha: I, that would be my –

Sarah: Yeah. And that’s where I see the most insidious involvement is school boards and library boards and local offices. Somebody called the Moms, what is it Moms for Liberty? Moms –

Agatha: Yes, yes.

Sarah: – whatever those – anti-trans –

Agatha: A hate group.

Sarah: [Sighs] Somebody called them Planned Karenhood?

Agatha: Oh shit, that’s amazing! [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s so – chef’s kiss! And they’re, they’re horrible in places like Doylestown, Pennsylvania. They are just dreadful, and I realized, okay, I need to start paying attention to my school board and who’s – and I’m, and I’m in a very, very blue place; like, my county is a, is a sanctuary county; my state is now a sanctuary state for trans people. Like, we are extremely blue. But, you know, you cannot take that for granted. Do you think –

Agatha: Right.

Sarah: – having been a librarian adds to your level of community organization? Like, your ability to be like, I know what to do? I know the Dewey decimal system organization for everything we’re doing here.

Agatha: It’s hard to say because, again, I’ve, I’ve been immersed since I was a child.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: My mom had me doing volunteer work since the age of nine for different organizations, and so, like, I think it was Campfire Girls when I was nine years old. I wasn’t a Campfire Girl, but I volunteered in their offices.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: And Campfire Girls were very interested in, like, you know, the environment and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – you, civil rights and, and justice and things like that, so, you know, I, I don’t think I can remember a time when I’ve not been involved! I was the first president of the Environmental Society at my high school, Sarah. Like – [laughs] –

Sarah: Awesome!

Agatha: I got a city ordinance passed about balloon releases at the age of eighteen. Or seventeen! I – Lord have mercy, I was seventeen in 1991, so it’s like something I’ve always done, so it’s hard for me to say, because it’s always been in my life –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – but, I mean, I imagine so? I mean, libraries are sanctuaries for people.

Sarah: Yes.

Agatha: It’s one of the few places that you can just exist.

Sarah: And it’s such a rare thing now, for young people especially, to have a place where you can just exist and just be, and you don’t have to buy anything. You don’t have to participate in anything. It’s okay for you to just be there. That’s a dying –

Agatha: That’s one of –

Sarah: – thing.

Agatha: It’s one of the reasons why they’re targets. It’s not even just the books.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: It’s because they’re sanctuaries for a lot of people.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And they can go and learn things on their own.

Agatha: I mean, when you look at things like after Ferguson happened, one of the few places that people felt safe was their library –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – and they were going there and recovering –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – and organizing and doing all kinds of things, you know, and this, I mean, again, it’s one of the reasons why they’re attacked, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – it’s, it’s a safe space to exist.

Sarah: And I remember after Katrina, I went to one of the ALA nationals after, right after Katrina, and that was right after that, that libraries has, had been designated, they had been moved, moved up to a tier one required asset in a community that’s experienced a disaster. So you have to get the fire department, the police department, and the library, ‘cause everyone’s going to go to the library. If they’re not bleeding and they’re not going to the hospital and they don’t need help but they need somewhere to go, they’re going to go to the library.

Agatha: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sarah: Which is very true.

Agatha: Yeah.

Sarah: Now, on Twitter recently you introduced me to the concept of Purse Bingo, and I feel like everyone who listens to me needs to know about Purse Bingo because I had never heard of this, and I think this is ama- – please tell me everything you know about Purse Bingo because I think this is such a brilliant fundraiser, especially talking about conferences, because one thing we used to do at RWA was show off our handbags.

Agatha: [Laughs] I had no idea!

Sarah: Oh my gosh! That was…

Agatha: That was not the case at Stoker!

Sarah: The limited edition Kate Spade typewriter bag?

Agatha: Oh! That’s amazing!

Sarah: Like, Alisha Rai has one, and she would speak at conferences, and she would just, she’s like, I know everyone wants to see the bag, and she’d just put it on the table and be like, There it is!

Agatha: Well, I got everything I know from the Purse Bingo from one of my best, most closest, most wonderful friends, who I met because she used to be a library patron.

Sarah: That’s my kind of person!

Agatha: [Laughs] So we bonded over Neil Gaiman, and the rest is history!

Sarah: As you do!

Agatha: [Laughs] As you do! So she is the director of a domestic violence shelter called Safer Path Family Violence Shelter, and if anybody wants to make a donation, I’m just going to say this now: you can do that at Safer Path FVS, as in Family Violence Shelter, dot org [saferpathfvs.org]. So the last time I mentioned that on my show, that actually got some donations, and they were so excited because it’s a rural community south of San Antonio, and it was just such a big deal when listeners started making donations, so –

Sarah: That’s amazing!

Agatha: – I will give you Purse Bingo info, but it all comes from them, so this is, this is phenomenal.

So local shops will donate purses and jewelry. Now, the jewelry is like usually used for, like, the goodie bags and the swag bags –

Sarah: ‘Kay.

Agatha: – but everybody goes there to Bingo for, to Bingo for these Kate Spade purses or maybe some, you know, luggage or, I mean, like, the whole sets will be donated so that they can – and these are people that just love and support everything that the shelter does, and anybody who knows what domestic violence shelters do, it can be a sanctuary, but they also provide, like, legal advice for –

Sarah: Oh yes.

Agatha: – anybody who’s maybe being stalked. You know –

Sarah: Yes.

Agatha: – this kind of thing, so, you know, people love them, and they make all these wonderful donations, so you have designers and you have shops that will donate, like, for the big prizes as well as the door prizes and the swag bags, and you have, like, Vera Bradley luggage and totes and vacation sets, and Coach and Prada and all the names, right? So –

Sarah: Amazing.

Agatha: – picture Steel Magnolias and their daughters, like, all attending these things, and what is so hysterical is that my friend said that the night starts off like, Yay! – [claps] – when people win, but as – [laughs] – the night wears on, people start going, Grrr –

[Laughter]

Agatha: – when they don’t win!

Sarah: Oh!

Agatha: And, and so what, what happens is they sell the tables, and so your spot at a table for, like, the general tables will amount to about seventy-five dollars, and for that you get, like, your main Bingo cards –

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: – and you…like a little swag bag that has, like, your Bingo pen and a coaster and like a couple of other things. But because we’re all essentially second-graders going, I want that, I want that, you have tiered tables, too? So, like, if you get a slightly more expensive table, you’ll get, like, a fancy cake, plus those things, and then if you want an even more expensive table, you’ll get, like, flower arrangements and a fancy cake and all of those things, and – [laughs] – and then, like, you’ll also get, in those fancier tables, like, the Bingo cards for the bigger prizes, and so it’s apparently a wild, wild night full of women who want –

Sarah: Purses.

Agatha: – purses! Yeah! And, I mean, I think I laughed most when she told me about the evolution of emotions throughout the evening. [Laughs] But it is their biggest fundraiser of the year. They’ve been sold out for months, and it hasn’t even happened yet.

Sarah: Oh my gosh!

Agatha: I feel like she said they got it from a different shelter in a different state, like, or maybe a different county or something.

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: It, she, she attended another one, and they helped her form the one that they do, so yeah.

Sarah: That’s amazing.

Agatha: Yeah!

Sarah: And it’s so brilliant because one of the things I remember after Kate Spade died, there were a lot of people, especially people my age, who were saying, That was my first, like, grownup bag. That was when I felt like I had a real job and I bought myself a grownup handbag, and that bag meant everything to me, and there are purses that I have that I don’t, like, carry often, and I’m like, I can’t, I can’t part with this; I love it so much.

I love the idea of Purse Bingo, and I just love the idea that this is something that is going to bring a lot of women to an event and raise a lot of money for a shelter?

Agatha: And one of the things that people forget is that, like, children and pets are part of the…

Sarah: Yes!

Agatha: …and so…

Sarah: Yes!

Agatha: …they have provisions for everyone.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: So, you know, and it’s they’re biggest fundraiser of the year, and they all have a hoot, and it’s a time, you know, that they get to relax, ‘cause they’re out there, you know, every other day of the week, like –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – having to fight for funds, having to fight for everything, you know. You know, and, and making sure that judges and police officers and everything, like, treat your – you have to have advocates to make sure they’re treated well in those scopes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: So I just really appreciate that this is their one let’s let loose.

Sarah: I just love the idea of all these gorgeous, wonderful, charitable women as the evening goes on just – [snarls].

Agatha: I mean, luggage!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Agatha: I mean, seeing Texas women fight for Vera Bradley luggage makes total sense to me. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, I can think of no clearer image. I’m surprised it’s not on a book cover. [Laughs]

Agatha: Yeah, right? Oh my goodness, I want that story.

Sarah: Right?! Speaking of horror.

And I want to ask you, obviously – book podcast – please tell me your horror faves for summer, fall, whatever. I would just love to receive all of the recommendations that you wish to give.

Agatha: Well, as a former librarian and as a book podcaster, you know this is my favorite part.

Sarah: It’s only the best part of the podcast. Like, let’s just say books at each other. It sounds like a good time.

Agatha: Well, I was a guest before on your show, and last time I spoke about The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas. Now, for those that did not catch that or for those that don’t know what that is, that is a spectacular, one of my all-time fave books ever written of all time – [laughs] – but it, you know, it’s a book that’s in conversation with Rebecca, except it takes place in Mexico in the 19th century, so 1800s Mexico, and it’s – you know, but there are differences. It’s in conversation with –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – not necessarily a, a novel that’s like, she’s just going to slap Mexico on it. You know, it’s something where – like, we have a named character; we have a hot priest, right? We have, we have a hot priest that, that, you know, they bang it out. [Laughs]

But, but she’s got a new book coming out this summer, and I am very excited. I’ve already read it. It is freaking spectacular, and because Isabel Cañas comes as much from the romance world as she does the horror world, it is even more romance-y, like from the very beginning on this one.

Sarah: Oh really!

Agatha: It is also 18th cent-, or 19th century, so it’s 1800s, but it’s south Texas, where I’m from, and it’s –

Sarah: Oh wow! How cool!

Agatha: Yeah! Yeah! And it’s vaqueros; for anybody who doesn’t know what vaqueros are, vaqueros are Mexican cowboys. So, you know, you have a curandera and a Mex-, and a vaquero, and you have vampires, and it’s called Vampires of El Norte. And vampires are monsters, but there are also people trying to come in and encroach on Mexico. People like, you know, Davy Crockett and people that are settling in areas where they’re not supposed to, and so metaphor-, the, metaphorically, vampires takes on another meaning, but there are monsters, and we see them, and these vampires are unlike anything I’ve ever read. At one time they feel like they’re classic Hollywood, like, versions of vampires at the same time that they’re also entirely new? But the setting is gorgeous. Like, I feel this beautiful heat at the same time that I feel some beautiful heat.

[Laughter]

Agatha: So Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas. I feel everything I’ve picked to recommend that’s a horror novel is something I think your listeners will also love.

Sarah: Thank you!

Agatha: Mm-hmm! Mm-hmm.

And then another writer that I like to recommend for summer is someone that you know as Erin Sterling, but the horror world knows as Rachel Hawkins.

Sarah: Yes, I do!

Agatha: The first one I have is Reckless Girls?

Sarah: Ohhh!

Agatha: A lot of what Rachel will do is kind of like what, what Isabel Cañas did with The Hacienda and Rebecca: there’s something that’s, like, reference to a previous classic –

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: – but they do, she does something else entirely different, so – or that, that makes it her own. So Reckless Girls, you see these beautiful hibiscus, like pink hibiscus on this yellow cover; it looks very tropical, very island-y. That’s because it is, but it’s also Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, but with young, sexy people in bikinis with secrets and murders. [Laughs] It’s like, it’s wonderful!

Sarah: And they’re all on a desert island?

Agatha: There’s a fancy luxury boat, like a yacht –

Sarah: Yep.

Agatha: – you know? Yeah, it’s wonderful.

And then this one, I, I cannot get enough of this book; it is one I will revisit time and time again. This is called The Villa. Most people, I think, knew the origin story of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein, which is that famous Gothic summer with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley and, you know, basically all these beautiful, young artists gathered in this, you know, villa, and there, it was basically a dark and stormy night for a very long time, and they had a writing contest…

Sarah: Yes.

Agatha: Okay, so that kind of thing. Well, because Rachel Hawkins is a genius, I don’t know if every- – Erin Sterling/Rachel Hawkins –

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: If you don’t know Erin Sterling, and I can’t imagine that any of your listeners don’t know who that is, she wrote The Ex Hex.

Sarah: Yep.

Agatha: Yeah! Like, those novels. So she has, like, graduate degrees in Gothic literature, and so she uses that with these, and so what she did was take that story and the idea of, like, Fleetwood Mac, 1970s band, like musicians and songwriters, and stick them together, and when you think about it, that totally works!

Sarah: That super works. And that’s very horny.

Agatha: It is!

Sarah: Like, extreme –

Agatha: …all around.

Sarah: Like, extreme horny.

Agatha: But you have, like, your Lord Byron, and you have your Percy Bysshe Shelley character, and they’re not named –

Sarah: Wow.

Agatha: She’s totally done something like different character names and things like that, but it is very much the 1970s Fleetwood Mac vibe planted over that Gothic summertime. It was amaz-, it’s amazing, and it, and there’s twists, like, that I never saw coming. She, it’s phenomenal, and it’s not very long. You’ll get through that very quickly, and –

Sarah: Oh yes!

Agatha: Yeah! [Laughs] So. In part because it’s amazing and you’ll flip the pages like, you won’t want to stop flipping the pages, but also because it’s not, it’s not super long and I’m just, I will reread that over and over again. It was phenomenal.

Sarah: It never occurred to me to look at the Lord Byron aspects of certain members of Fleetwood Mac, but now that’s really stuck in my head, so yeah, it totally overlays very nicely.

Agatha: Well, and with the women, you have one that’s slightly more famous than the other –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Agatha: – and they were friends, and then there’s tension, and they’re both talented, and how does this work out? And, I mean, it is just, you know, and yes, again, as you said, very horny, so you have, like, all of those tensions going on, and all of those exact same things happening in Fleetwood Mac. When you go back and look at the story of Gothic summer, that was happening!

Sarah: Oh yes.

Agatha: All of that was happening. So I’m like, that is the perf- – how has this not been done before? [Laughs]

Sarah: So tell me what you’re reading now.

Agatha: Well, what I’m reading now is another book that comes out this summer –

Sarah: Fabulous!

Agatha: – and I absolutely worship – [laughs] – Rachel Harrison’s books. Those I will read all, everything she’s written over and over and over and over again, and one of the things that is, I absolutely adore about Rachel Harrison is that she is absolutely a horror writer, there’s no doubt that her books are horror, but she is so accessible to people who don’t read horror, and people who don’t read horror love her books, because she’s, there’s so much depth and layers and fun! They’re so fun! And, and so, you know, I, I can’t recommend her entire oeuvre –

[Laughter]

Agatha: – enough, but the one that she’s got coming out is Black Sheep, and Black Sheep is, takes place in a very tiny, rural New Jersey, tiny, tiny, tiny town. There’s a religious cult; there’s a fabulous woman at the helm, and I say fabulous in that she is a horror icon? So picture like an Elvira –

Sarah: Yep.

Agatha: – kind of figure –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Agatha: – at the helm, and there’s, the main character is someone who managed to leave, but she’s come back for a wedding, and the rest unfolds. And there are –

Sarah: Oh my.

Agatha: I remember getting to the big reveal? I was on the plane to StokerCon and I put it down, and I went, Oh shit!

[Laughter]

Agatha: And I looked around and no one cared, so I was very lucky.

[Laughter]

Agatha: But it was amazing, and I just love, like, the dynamic between mother and daughter feels very like Mermaids, the movie Mermaids?

Sarah: Yeah.

Agatha: Ryder and, and –

Sarah: …love that movie!

Agatha: – Cher? So think of, like, Mermaids but with, like, religious cult that Winona Ryder happened to flee, and now she’s come back for a wedding. So.

Sarah: Wow!

Agatha: It’s, it’s amazing. She – but, I mean, anything Rachel does, all of her books, like I said, are very accessible to non-horror readers at the same time that you’re totally reading horror.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Agatha: So it’s wonderful. And I talked about her last time I was on your show too, because –

Sarah: Yes.

Agatha: – Such Sharp Teeth had come out, and that is very much monster romance in that it’s a, it’s a lady werewolf. She does have –

Sarah: For sure!

Agatha: Yeah, she has a love interest in that one that, you know, it was important to her to have that romance play through in a, in a positive way.

Sarah: Are there any other books you want to mention?

Agatha: Oh, yes! If you give me the opportunity to mention one more book, I absolutely will. Did I put it away already?

Sarah: What do we got here?

Agatha: So –

Sarah: [Gasps]

Agatha: This –

Sarah: The Briars!

Agatha: So, The Briars by Stephanie Parent is something that will also appeal specifically to your audience, because it does, it is, it has a romance, absolutely has a romance in there, but it is a haunted house story that takes place in an old BDSM dungeon in LA. And it’s called The Briars, the dungeon, and the metaphor of roses and thorns that are crumbling are very, very important.

Sarah: Everyone who is listening has just hit Pause so they could go find this book. [Laughs] No one is listening to us now!

Agatha: I know.

Sarah: They’re all gone!

Agatha: Stephanie Parent is writing from experience as a sex worker, and –

Sarah: Oh, that’s so cool.

Agatha: – she is a gorgeous writer, Sarah. If you’ll allow me –

Sarah: Please.

Agatha: – to read the first couple of sentences? Ahem.

Sarah: [Clears throat]

Agatha: “We all knew a ghost haunted the dungeon’s attic, but the phantom coexisted peacefully with us. She sent us playful messages, showing herself in the wink-like flickering of a candle, the giggling trickle of a faucet that no one had turned on – until Mara arrived. That was when the ghost turned, like the moment the warm water of a shower runs out and becomes cold as needles. Cold as knives.”

Sarah: [Gasps]

Agatha: Every – look at this. So y’all cannot see this, but I have Mr. Darcy Post-it notes? Like –

Sarah: [Laughs] Oh, it’s his little head is poking up –

Agatha: Yeah!

Sarah: – above so many pages! [Laughs]

Agatha: And there’s a bazillion of them. And it’s because I was marking pages and sentences. She is a gorgeous, gorgeous writer; so thoughtful, so smart. Metaphor is important. She uses mirrors in such an intelligent way. The ghost story is phenomenal. I mean, I did an episode? If anybody wants to listen, I did an episode with Stephanie about this book, and you can learn more about it there. Also –

Sarah: I will look at, I will link to it, never fear.

Agatha: It is so good, Sarah; she’s so smart, and Hustler just, their current issue of Hustler has an article about her, and –

Sarah: Wow!

Agatha: – about writing this book. One of, another sex worker from that dungeon, you know, is also a writer and, and was able to interview her and, and do a feature on her for Hustler, and we’re very excited and very proud of Stephanie. She’s worked very hard.

Sarah: That is so cool.

Thank you!

Agatha: Yeah! Yeah.

Sarah: Holy cow!

Agatha: There is definitely place, there is definitely a lot of crossover with horror and romance. There’s a, you know, we call it horrormance? There’s a –

Sarah: Horrormance, yep.

Agatha: Yeah, and there’s also erotic horror, which functions differently, where the eroticism functions as a fear, as a, a tool towards fear, so it’s –

Sarah: Wow.

Agatha: – it’s used…device to perpetuate horror, and it’s really interesting. Like, you know, we have – in fact, I’m going to show you one more; let me grab it. So today this is birthed out into the world. This is called Les Petites Morts, and it’s from Ghost Orchid Press. This is a collection of erotic horror stories, and if anybody’s interested, I did write the Foreword for it.

Sarah: Ohhh, congratulations!

Agatha: [Laughs] It’s the best Foreword you’ll ever read! No! Just kidding!

Sarah: I bet it is!

Agatha: But the stories are spectacular, and I’m really, really proud to, to have been invited to write the Foreword for such a spectacular…

Sarah: That’s so cool!

Agatha: Yeah! There’s so many things that cross over, and it’s really gorgeous, and so they use a lot of fairytale, because the whole point was dark fairytale –

Sarah: Right.

Agatha: – but it, they’re all erotic, and so it’s just really fascinating, you know, to, to see all the different ways that people have been inspired by fairytale to write those stories.

Sarah: Thank you so much for this awesome list! I super appreciate it.

Please tell everybody where they can find you, in addition to, obviously, She Wore Black podcast, wherever you get your tasty podcasts.

Agatha: [Laughs] I’m at sheworeblackpodcast.com, and there is where I have my individual episodes as far as, like, if you want the show notes. So I have all my show notes there; I also have what I’m reading, my Kofi donation and everything, but I’m also on IG as , and I’m on Twitter as . I’m on Facebook, but, you know – [laughs] – I’m just getting weirder, like weirded out by both that and Twitter these days. I mean, I’m on them, but I really, IG is where I’m happiest, I think, right now?

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so much to Agatha. I will link to all the books; do not fear. I’m sure that many of you hit Pause so you could go add them to your lists; I understand completely! But fear not: the books are always linked in the show notes. I will also have links to her podcast and if you would like to find out more about Safer Path Family Violence Shelter, I will link to that as well!

As always, I end with a terrible joke. This week’s joke comes from Reddit. It is from korar67 – [laughs] – and I love this joke so much! Okay, Serious Podcaster Voice:

What store do stormtroopers shop at?

Give up? What store do stormtroopers shop at?

The store next to Target.

[Laughs] I love it so much! Oh, that one really hit me in the exact right happy spot! Oh my gosh! Next to Target.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and we will see you back here next week!

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[Laughs] Next to Target!

[end of music]