Today in The Madhouse, I'm welcoming Grace R. Reynolds. Grace R. Reynolds is a native of the great state of New Jersey, where she was first introduced to the eerie and strange thanks to local urban legends of a devil creeping through the Pine Barrens. Since then, her curiosity about things that go bump in the night bloomed into creative expression as a dark poet, horror, and thriller fiction writer.
When Grace is not writing she can be found dreaming up macabre scenarios inspired by the mundane realities of life. Her debut collection of horror poetry “Lady of The House” was released in December 2021 by Curious Corvid Publishing.
I recently read Grace's collection Lady of The House, and you folks know I love me some domestic horror, so this was a fun, dark world to explore. Below is our conversation, which discusses feminism, women's labor relations, the balance between violence and the erotic, and much much more!
As always, if you enjoy this interview and appreciate the work we do here in The Madhouse, you can show your support for the blog by "buying a coffee" (or two!) for our madwoman in residence: me! As always, I thank you for your time and support and I look forward to serving you another dose of all things unsettling and horrifying soon.
SMW: Hi Grace! Welcome to The Madhouse. Since this is your first time joining us here, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what drew you to poetry in the first place?
GR: Hi Stephanie! It's great to be here. We're all a little mad, aren't we? For readers who don't know me, I am a New Jersey transplant living in Texas who loves to read and write dark poetry and fiction. I am the author of the horror poetry collection Lady of The House.
I've written poetry for as long as I can remember. Still, I never seriously considered it an art form that I loved until I was in high school when I found a copy of Sylvia Plath's post-mortem collection Ariel in the school's library. I devoured it. It wasn't the untouchable Shakespeare; it wasn't an epic verse written in Old English or Homer's The Odyssey. It was accessible to modern readers. Raw, dirty, sad, and vulnerable. I didn't know poetry was allowed to be self-loathing or that it was allowed to show the darkest parts of a person's psyche. Sylvia made me feel seen and permitted me to write all the horrible and beautiful lines that floated in my head onto post-it notes and notebook paper. I've loved poetry ever since.
SMW: What was your writing process like for the Lady of the House?
GR: Chaotic. Painful. Cathartic. Repetitive. Fun. Reflective.
Writing this collection was an exercise in writing perspectives. Channeling difficult emotions that did not sit well with me into a fictional woman I could relate to at the time was triumphant and challenging. I created a character built entirely out of raw emotion, which forced me to think of the oppressive circumstances for her in a prison of domesticity where my everyday fears became her reality. Did she daydream of accidentally slicing off her fingertips on the cutting board or getting her hand stuck in a garbage disposal? Did she have intrusive thoughts, too? I then broke the collection up into three sections to help me organize the Lady’s dissent. I think doing that helped me focus on the build-up and pace of the events that take place in the book.
SMW: This collection tackles domestic horror in a hauntingly violent yet empowering way. If you’re comfortable answering it, what drew you to the idea of the “haunted house” and the trapped female figure?
GR: My love for horror started with haunted houses, both physically and metaphorically. I grew up in a haunted home, and my body, too, is haunted by its ghosts. In the gothic, haunted houses often reflect a character or family’s inner turmoil, so the setting felt appropriate for the collection.
As for the forlorn woman trapped in her suburban hellscape, Lady is the manifestation of my affinity for all things vintage and my background as a student of labor studies and employee relations at Rutgers University. I’ve always found studying women’s history in the workforce to be one that pulls back the curtain on realities for women that transcend generations.
When I started writing the collection in December 2020, I had moved across the country twice in one year for my partner’s job. The first move happened in January, before the pandemic. After a horrific and emotional personal experience, I decided to leave the conventional workplace so my child and I could reside with my spouse, as he moved ahead of us at the time. The second move happened later that summer. Imagine moving a couple of thousand miles with a fifteen-month-old trying to isolate as best you can from the world around you. Even after we settled in, I looked for work, but every job announcement I applied to was canceled left and right. Subsequently, we learned our child had developmental delays that required them to attend weekly appointments. I told myself that this was how I could redefine my role in society, but I still struggled.
I was raised to become a productive member of society by joining the working class, and I knew that stay-at-home parents were not similarly valued. Moreover, in 2020 I became a statistic. I was one of the nearly 1.8 million women that left the workforce due to personal situations stemming from the pandemic, and that number has only grown. That’s why I wrote this book. I wrote it for the readers, mainly women, who felt like me and struggled with their new identity.
Holding the butter knife a little too hard,
Stephanie M. Wytovich
SMW: Hi Grace! Welcome to The Madhouse. Since this is your first time joining us here, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what drew you to poetry in the first place?
GR: Hi Stephanie! It's great to be here. We're all a little mad, aren't we? For readers who don't know me, I am a New Jersey transplant living in Texas who loves to read and write dark poetry and fiction. I am the author of the horror poetry collection Lady of The House.
SMW: What was your writing process like for the Lady of the House?
GR: Chaotic. Painful. Cathartic. Repetitive. Fun. Reflective.
Writing this collection was an exercise in writing perspectives. Channeling difficult emotions that did not sit well with me into a fictional woman I could relate to at the time was triumphant and challenging. I created a character built entirely out of raw emotion, which forced me to think of the oppressive circumstances for her in a prison of domesticity where my everyday fears became her reality. Did she daydream of accidentally slicing off her fingertips on the cutting board or getting her hand stuck in a garbage disposal? Did she have intrusive thoughts, too? I then broke the collection up into three sections to help me organize the Lady’s dissent. I think doing that helped me focus on the build-up and pace of the events that take place in the book.
SMW: This collection tackles domestic horror in a hauntingly violent yet empowering way. If you’re comfortable answering it, what drew you to the idea of the “haunted house” and the trapped female figure?
GR: My love for horror started with haunted houses, both physically and metaphorically. I grew up in a haunted home, and my body, too, is haunted by its ghosts. In the gothic, haunted houses often reflect a character or family’s inner turmoil, so the setting felt appropriate for the collection.
As for the forlorn woman trapped in her suburban hellscape, Lady is the manifestation of my affinity for all things vintage and my background as a student of labor studies and employee relations at Rutgers University. I’ve always found studying women’s history in the workforce to be one that pulls back the curtain on realities for women that transcend generations.
When I started writing the collection in December 2020, I had moved across the country twice in one year for my partner’s job. The first move happened in January, before the pandemic. After a horrific and emotional personal experience, I decided to leave the conventional workplace so my child and I could reside with my spouse, as he moved ahead of us at the time. The second move happened later that summer. Imagine moving a couple of thousand miles with a fifteen-month-old trying to isolate as best you can from the world around you. Even after we settled in, I looked for work, but every job announcement I applied to was canceled left and right. Subsequently, we learned our child had developmental delays that required them to attend weekly appointments. I told myself that this was how I could redefine my role in society, but I still struggled.
I was raised to become a productive member of society by joining the working class, and I knew that stay-at-home parents were not similarly valued. Moreover, in 2020 I became a statistic. I was one of the nearly 1.8 million women that left the workforce due to personal situations stemming from the pandemic, and that number has only grown. That’s why I wrote this book. I wrote it for the readers, mainly women, who felt like me and struggled with their new identity.
SMW: Reading this reminded me of movies like The Stepford Wives, Death Becomes Her, or Kept Woman. How do you think your collection comments on feminism in a culture where female rights are constantly under threat?
GR: I think the collection shows that the fight for a female’s autonomy in its multiple facets is one that endures. How far have our rights come in the past seventy years? Where can we improve? The collection is a reminder that despite all the progress made, we still live in a society that prefers women to serve in traditionally defined gender roles in and out of the home.
SMW: Something that I particularly loved from a structure standpoint is that you included recipes throughout the book, especially since food prep and cooking is often attached to domestic duties. Where did that idea come from and what do you think it adds to the overall collection?
GR: The collection was built around the poem “Ambrosia.” It was the first I wrote, setting the tone for the collection. I wanted the poetry throughout to be very tongue-in-cheek “because presentation is everything,” and what better way to do that than to experiment with epistolary writing?
The recipes also reflect the deterioration of the Lady’s psyche. When we think of the recipes in the context of the entire collection, on their surface, they represent something physically mundane, but what happens to a dish when just one of the ingredients or directions is altered? Maybe there is little to no difference in the outcome, or perhaps the dish is irrevocably changed.
SMW: To kind of build off of the question above—and play a little bit—if you had to describe this book as a meal or a drink to readers, what would you pick and why?
GR: My first instinct is to suggest a dirty martini – charming, silent, and dangerous. Tell me you’ve never felt an air of mystery around someone holding one of those. I could also describe this book as a delightful slice of cherry pie, of which you aren’t entirely sure whether the red food coloring is from the sticky syrup or something more sinister.
SMW: Something that I’m always interested in chatting about is the balance of the violent and the erotic. There is a focus on pleasure here amongst all the death, and I’m curious about how you approach that in your work. Throughout the collection, the phrase Lady of the House is repeated. Can you talk a little bit about why that emphasis was important to you and what you hoped it to do for your readers?
GR: “Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin.” Both are powerful sensations, and I tend to view death through a romantic lens as both a pleasurable and painful release from despair. The Lady’s desire for freedom from the confines of her role at home, marriage, and mind is depicted through violent visions of self-harm, a behavior to which I am unfortunately not a stranger.
I think back to Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Lady Lazarus’:
“Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.”
And the following excerpt from her semi-autobiographical novel “The Bell Jar”:
“I am. I am. I am.”
The repetition of “the Lady of The House” reinforces her attempts to redefine her place with a title of importance while also acting as a mantra that she is still alive and breathing.
SMW: What poets are you currently reading?
GR: I’m currently reading the biographical poetry collection Threadbare by Adanna Moriarty, and the horror poetry collection Embrace The Madness by Timothy P. Flynn.
I also had the recent pleasure of reading Christina Sng and Cynthia Pelayo’s latest collections, The Gravity of Existence and Crime Scene, respectively.
SMW: Are there any collections you’re looking forward to adding to your TBR list?
GR: I am always looking for new collections to read, in and out of the horror genre. I need to catch up with Courtney Peppernell’s Pillow Thoughts series. The first installment, published in 2017, got me through a challenging time and is of great importance to me.
Aside from that, I am looking forward to reading The Place of Broken Things by Linda D. Addison and Alessandro Manzetti, The Gorelets Omnibus by Michael A. Arnzen, The HWA Poetry Showcase Volume IX edited by Angela Yuriko Smith, and Elegies of Rotting Stars by Tiffany Morris.
SMW: What’s next for your readers?
GR: My next poetry collection, The Lies We Weave, is forthcoming from Curious Corvid Publishing in April 2023. It explores the darker side of adolescence, adulthood, and motherhood with a flair for the macabre. It is my hope, as it was with Lady of The House, that this collection connects with its readers, that they feel seen, and that they are reminded they are not alone.
If readers don’t want to wait until then, they can check out my poetry and short fiction in current and forthcoming publications listed on my website www.spillinggrace.com.
Short Summary of the book:
Lady of The House shares the fictional tale of Lady, a 1940s riveter turned housewife trapped by a loveless marriage and societal framework that makes it difficult for her to abandon her current circumstances. She feels purposeless, hopeless, and she is angry. Resentful. And she festers…
Blurbs:
“A dark tale which chills and shudders the spine…Grace R. Reynolds’ Lady of The House augments the capacity of the human mind to observe or neglect its own deterioration and the ability of the mind to comprehend its own destruction.” - David Grinnell, author of the gothic psychological horror novel Ashes and poetry collection Moonglade
“When does domestic bliss turn deadly? Grace R. Reynolds’ Lady of The House is a dark poetry collection that answers this question as it spins its web like a favorite crime podcast” - Stephanie Kemler, author of the paranormal thriller novel Bloodborn and The Bloodmad Series
“This poetry collection is a fascinating, sinister exploration into the thinking of the time through the lens of one woman’s stifled freedom, one woman’s crumbling restraint, and ultimately, one woman’s destruction of the cage that keeps her from becoming the woman she knows she is.” – Vivian Rainn, author of the gothic romance novel Solita and The Solita Series
Promotional Links:
- Website: www.spillinggrace.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spillinggrace/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/spillinggrace
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