We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nicole M. Wolverton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nicole below.
Hi Nicole, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
In interviews I’ve heard novelists talk about the “book of their heart”–but no one typically expects horror writers to characterize their books that way. Maybe it’s because if the book of their heart involves slaughtering half their characters, well… that’s a little disturbing. But the young adult horror book I have coming out in July 2024, A Misfortune of Lake Monsters, really is a heart-full story for me. There’s a lot of me in it. There’s a lot of my history in it and how I came to be who I am as an adult.
The genesis of A Misfortune of Lake Monsters is a preteen Nicole, standing at the sink in my childhood home and doing the dishes. I grew up in a rural northeast Pennsylvania town, and my childhood home is situated on the outskirts. From that kitchen window, Briar Creek Lake (more of a man-made reservoir than a real lake) was visible. What else is a kid going to do while knocking chores off their to-do list but let their mind wander? That’s the first time the idea of what might be lurking below the surface of the water popped into my head.
To me, the idea of the unknown was never all that scary–it was exciting. It was possibility at a time when I felt like I had no real agency and in a place where I felt fenced in and limited. The horror wasn’t the lake monster; it was my childhood town and the possibility of not having a chance to be the person I wanted to be. A lake where a monster could live meant that interesting things could happen even in a place that felt flat and boring to me at the time.
So much of my writing is about the fear of isolated and sparsely populated places, and that lake (and my rural childhood home) is where the book of my heart started.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Nicole M. Wolverton, and I’ve been imagining life through the lens of horror since I was a kid–I had an imaginary friend named Mona, who had curly red hair and knives for fingers; my mom still has the crayon drawings to prove it! I grew up in the rural hinterlands of northeast Pennsylvania but now live in the Philadelphia area with my husband and our rescue Labrastaffy in a creaky and mysterious century-old home. I’m a Pushcart-nominated writer of mostly horror and speculative fiction for adults and young adults. My short fiction, creative nonfiction, and essays have appeared in over forty anthologies, magazines, and podcasts. A Misfortune of Lake Monsters, my first young adult horror novel, is due out from CamCat Books on July 2, 2024; my adult psychological thriller The Trajectory of Dreams was published in 2013; and I also served as Editor of Bodies Full of Burning, a first-of-its-kind anthology of short horror fiction that centers the experience of menopause.
A famous self-help book published in the 1930s claimed that life begins at 40, and I’m starting to believe that’s true. My first short stories and my first novel were published right around that age, and my attitudes and experiences are very much reflected in everything I write. My interest in fear and horror led me to earn a masters of liberal arts in horror and storytelling when I was 51–something that has both informed my work and changed the way I see the function of the horror genre. It’s more than just being scared for the fun of it from the safety of a removed space: reading, writing, and watching horror media helps develop remarkable resilience in the face of crisis.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
There’s this perception that once you get a literary agent to say yes to you, a book deal is imminent. I disabused myself of that notion through experience over a ten year period, first with my original agent and then, later, with my second agent. There were three or four of my novels that went on submission to publishing houses through my agents. None of my manuscripts were acquired. There were some close calls, but ultimately what I was writing either wasn’t hitting the right timing in the publishing world or an editor had just acquired something in the same vein.
A published author is, in the end, just someone who doesn’t give up. I know plenty of talented writers who, if they aren’t successful within a few years, let the dream go. Being a fear enthusiast, the constant rejection and disappointment is nothing in the face of exercising my fight or flight muscles on the daily by watching, reading, and writing horror. There’s a body of research that people like me are programmed to survive…and hope.
That hope has always kept me going–it has made me resilient.
About two years ago, I broke things off with my second agent. I was doing well having short stories published, so I thought maybe I’d concentrate on that for awhile. Before I shelved my most recent novel-length manuscript–one that hadn’t gone out on submission, a story about friendships and cryptids and dealing with the weight of family and gender expectations–I decided on a whim to submit it directly to a small press I’d been hearing a lot of good things about. Three weeks later I had a contract offer for A Misfortune of Lake Monsters.
I suppose you could say horror and never giving up and embodying that Final-Girl-in-a-horror-story energy are my love language of a sort!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Letting the monsters in my head out to play has led to the fulfillment of nearly every dream I’ve had in life–but more than what I’m getting out of my career as a writer, what is particularly rewarding for me is when someone reads my work and recognizes their own experiences in it.
Again, as a horror writer, that maybe sounds strange. If someone reads A Misfortune of Lake Monsters, for instance, how can they identify with a girl who fakes lake monster sightings? How can they identify with teenagers who have to protect their town from being eaten by a real lake monster? It’s not those things exactly, but what they represent. There are very few people who have never felt smothered under the weight of what is expected of them, whether that expectation comes from parents, teachers, bosses, significant others, or society in general. And who hasn’t had to protect someone or something they love from something that can hurt or destroy them? How do you deal with that? How do you overcome it? How do you handle loss and grief and love–while trying to get the future you want for yourself, whether you’re 17 or 71?
The horror genre has given me so much, and it is so satisfying to think that my words and worlds might contribute toward building resilience in someone else.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nicolewolverton.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolemwolverton/
- Threads: https://www.threads.net/@nicolemwolverton
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nicolemwolverton.bsky.social
Image Credits
My headshot (purple turtleneck) and the shot of me all in black sitting on concrete stairs are taken by Heather McBride Photography.