Erika T. Wurth is an urban native of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent. She is the author of the New York Times editor’s pick, White Horse. She is both a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow. She’s published in Buzzfeed and The Writer’s Chronicle, and is a native artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation. Her most recent release, The Haunting of Room 904, has garnered national attention and received praise from some of the biggest names in horror, including Paul Trembly, S.A. Cosby, and Phillip Fracassi. She also has a short story in the recently published and highly anticipated Howl: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-In-Horror alongside Gwendolyn Kiste, Christina Henry, Ai Jiang, Katrina Monroe, and so many other incredible women from the genre.
Wurth sat down with Cemetery Dance to discuss The Haunting of Room 904, religion and lore in horror, Howl, and more.
You can find Erika T. Wurth on Instagram @erikatwurth or on her website.
(Interview conducted by Haley Newlin)
CEMETERY DANCE: The Haunting of Room 904 challenges popular horror like William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist and films such as The Conjuring franchise, which have established Catholicism or Christianity as the primary defense against paranormal and supernatural disturbances, while omitting other cultures and religions. Can you discuss the importance of diversifying the lore, spirituality, and tropes in horror?
ERIKA T. WURTH: Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for Catholic horror. One of the funniest anecdotes I’ve read in this regard was one in which someone was talking about how a rabbi had been called in to exorcise a house and he said, “Sorry. I have to find a Catholic priest because really, they’re the ones who know how to do this” But I grew up with Catholics and curanderas, evangelical Christians and their zealousness, and Native American Church — so to me, it was only natural to write a book that engaged the idea of possession and ghosts from a more diverse perspective. Often Christians have a very binary universe and when you start to edge into Catholicism and the groups they colonized, as problematic as it is, it does at least allow for some sort of hybrid, cultural, and spiritual sense of these things.
Your protagonist, Olivia, has the gift of communing with the dead. This is how readers get the story of “the massacre.” What did it mean for you to share this with readers in The Haunting of Room 904?
As you’ve noted, I did refer to it as the massacre in order to respect people whose ancestors had relatives who died at the Sand Creek Massacre. But it was important to me as an Indigenous person who grew up only hours away from where this happened, to acknowledge it. I think it’s disrespectful to pretend that the things that happened on the land that you live on, didn’t happen. Additionally, my cousin is enrolled with the Cheyenne/Arapaho and had ancestors who had relatives who died at the Sand Creek Massacre. Part of the genesis of the novel was thinking about The Brown Palace, a hotel that I grew up only an hour from, and which was constructed in the late 1800s. It’s seen as this masterpiece of civilization. I wanted to butt that up against the fact that at almost around the same time, one of the most brutal massacres in American history was happening only hours away.
Many readers and reviewers praise your work for its effective genre-blending. What genres do you believe make up The Haunting of Room 904?
That’s a really good question. I’m definitely a horror writer, and I have an SFF edge, and that’s growing with each book, as I’m a tremendous nerd. And I’m certainly literary as I care very much about language and structure and about getting people to think. The thing is, however, that literary is considered a genre but literary is not a genre any more than genre is a genre. It’s a series of conventions: depth of theme, complex characterization, and attention to form and language — and this is a series of conventions that can apply to any genre.
Are there any particular authors, books, or films that influence your work? Any specifically for The Haunting of Room 904?
I’m a huge Silvia Moreno-Garcia fan, ditto for Grady Hendrix. And I think they were influences on my work in the sense that as different as they are as writers, though they care very much about structure, they also care about language and about making people think. And it should be obvious that The Ring and The Conjuring universe are huge influences.
You have a new short story in Howl: An Anthology of Women-In-Horror. What can you tell us about that?
Something that a lot of people have noticed as a thread in my work, is the theme of grief. And I think that the story is about grieving around relatives who might not have died but are still folks you have to grieve for. And then on a more fun and visceral level, it’s about werewolves. Something I wouldn’t have written about on my own, and really enjoyed the challenge of.
Who are some fellow authors you hope readers discover alongside your work?
I love Jennifer Thorne’s work — I just finished blurbing her latest. I adore Rachel Harrison. Cynthia Pelayo — and of course, Nick Medina, a fellow Indigenous author. I also hope folks read Bochica by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro.
