Hello Friends and Fiends--
Today in the Madhouse, I'm sitting down with R.J. Joseph, a writer of exceptional talent and a scholar with razor-sharp intellect. She and I met at Seton Hill during one of the SHUWPF residencies, and not only is she the type of person who I could talk to for hours, but she has this beautiful energy and sense of humor that makes her light up any room she walks into.
She's joining me today to talk about her origins with the horror genre, and how she uses her writing as a way to invoke themes of balance, social justice, and discourse surrounding the female form. Also, be sure to check her out on Twitter at @rjacksonjoseph and on her blog at https://rjjoseph.wordpress.com/
Until next time,
Stephanie M. Wytovich
No, Life
Ain’t Fair…but I Can Make It So
by R.J.
Joseph
“That’s
not fair!”
Mama met
my oft-repeated childhood refrain with, “Life ain’t fair,” in what became a
household song she and I sung together.
My child’s
heart became deeply wounded when faced with what I perceived to be injustice of
any type and I never understood why Mama would think it was okay to just accept
these things as given. It didn’t matter to me then whether the issue was a
large one or a small one: the person who stole from another person and the one
who got the big piece of cake while everyone else got a tiny one were both way,
way out of line. While growing up helped me to better understand scale and
nuance in these situations (as well as the realization that life is, indeed,
unfair), the passage of time did nothing to quell my frustration at the
existence of grave injustices and the thought that some people would just be
allowed to walk through life unpunished for their deeds against others. For me,
horror is partially a means to try to balance those scales and even tilt them
in the opposite direction. Using this tool as a Black, female horror writer
serves two main purposes towards this goal.
Female
horror writers are more widely accepted into the genre now than in the recent
past. So are Black horror writers. For horror writers existing at the
intersection of Black and female, however, the road is still one harshly
traveled, even if less so than previously. The remaining obstacles are ones
other writers are rarely forced to consider. Some experiences I write about are
determined to exist outside the horror genre when they’re clearly frightening
to me and a large segment of the population who also happens to be Black and/or
female. There’s often an unnamed “problem” with my writing that can’t be
articulated but still prevents the writing from being published. My characters
are unrelatable, even to other Black people, who don’t have any empathy for my
characters’ circumstances because they aren’t their own. Yet, I continue to
write. In refusing to shut up and stop telling stories, I’m working with other
Black, female horror writers to try to enact balance to what’s offered within
our beloved horror genre.
My
stories, themselves, often center on the experiences of Black women. These
lives don’t represent a monolith: there are endless experiences within the
diaspora. They do represent women I know, as well as the woman I was, am, and will
be. Their lives are filled with wrongdoing, fear, and victimhood. When I tell
their stories, their lives become also marked with ways to gain justice for
themselves. I love to write characters who have strength they know exists but don’t
know how to harness. They may be afraid of themselves and what they’re capable
of doing. I think about the unfairness of the “strong Black woman” stereotype
and write about the women who aren’t really as strong as outsiders want to
paint them, so they aren’t charged with helping these women. When society or
their partners label them as monsters because they react to circumstances
forced upon them, some of my characters lean into their monstrosity and create
the lives they want for themselves. The scales of justice tilt whatever way I
want in my writing, so the lives of those Black women take turns we might not
always see in real life.
Horror is my vehicle towards creating the type of world where I want to live. I want to live in a world where every writer has the same opportunities to fail or succeed without prejudice throwing some out of the game before they get started. I want to live in a world where the experiences of Black women aren’t dismissed as invalid or unimportant. No, this life ain’t fair. But I’ll continue writing justice into existence as I continue to write myself and other Black women into existence. Then it will be so.
Author
Bio:
Her most
recent short story, “Witness Bearer”, can be found in the charity
anthology, Twisted Anatomy: An Anthology of Body Horror.
Rhonda can
be found lurking (and occasionally even peeking out) on social media:
Twitter:
@rjacksonjoseph
Blog: https://rjjoseph.wordpress.com/
Email: horrorblackademic@gmail.com
Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/rjjoseph
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