We love hearing from debut authors! Since we’re in the perfectly haunted season to read horror and thrillers, we asked author Logan-Ashley Kisner to share some of the behind-the-scenes details and inspirations for his debut novel Old Wounds. And he’s also got a few horror movie recommendations for your Halloween watch list (you’re welcome).
Old Wounds is your debut novel! What three things should teen readers know about you and your writing?
- In middle school, I used to write so much that I’d carry notebooks everywhere I went. (I wrote three or four books this way!)
- My favorite motivator is spite. I want nothing more than to prove somebody wrong, even if that somebody is myself.
- I love happy endings almost as much as I love doomed ones.
What was your inspiration for the story, the characters of Erin and Max, and the small-town Kentucky setting?
It’s strange talking about the inspiration for Old Wounds because so much of it came from “negative” places. It really was a story born of spite: I was seeing so many stories “dealing with gender” but failing to do so in a way I found interesting and satisfying. It’s still frustratingly rare to see trans characters in horror, and even rarer to have the stories focused on transness. With Old Wounds, I wanted the reader (and, in many ways, the story itself) to be forced to acknowledge trans identities in a gender-informed horror story. From there, the story was as easy as following Max and Erin and letting their actions drive the story forward.
Erin and Max’s personalities and dynamic came pretty fully formed. (I always wanted characters who’d be butting heads while the world came down around them.) My only rules for writing them were that I wanted them to be as realistic as possible: that meant as human and flawed as possible. Where they end up—Lebanon Junction—is a real place in Kentucky with a population of around 1,700 people, and a lot of the details I fed into the story are barely embellished. I found it from clicking around on Google Maps (like I do for most of my story settings), and it was perfect for the small, condensed area I needed to trap Max and Erin in for the night.
You’ve said that trans horror is a sea of untapped potential. Tell us more about your hopes for this category and if you have more stories of your own percolating?
My hope is to see more creativity and willingness to engage with identities outside of “the norm.” I don’t just want to see horror employ more diverse perspectives, I want to see the stories reflect and respond to these perspectives as well. My next book, The Transition, was based around the question: “How would a trans person respond to body horror?” and creating this forced detransition narrative that is so gross but also really hopeful and fun to write and read.
I promise I have many more stories fighting for attention as well: slashers, identity-theft thrillers, monsters, riffs on Collateral and Malignant, all revolving around different relationships to gender identity and queerness.
What’s on your Halloween horror movie watchlist this spooky season?
Currently in the midst of showing my partner all of the Nightmare on Elm Street films for his first time (so far he’s loving them). I’m also hoping to finally watch Oddity (2024), Salem’s Lot (both the 1979 original and 2024 remake), and Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971).
Do you have your Halloween costume picked out?
I thank God that the Renaissance Fair comes to town in October; let’s see how scary I can make a faerie!
