Gwendolyn Kiste is a three-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Haunting of Velkwood, The Rust Maidens, Reluctant Mortals, and most recently, a short story called “Your Mother’s Love Is An Apocalypse” in the Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror anthology, foreword by Sadie Hartmann, edited by Lindy Ryan. Kiste has also won the Lambda Literary Award and received the This is Horror award for Novel of the Year.
She doesn’t just tell any old ghost stories. Kiste’s books, like The Haunting of Velkwood, orbit themes of self-identity, complacency, and unbreakable bonds. To her, “Everyone’s life is like a haunted house.” Perhaps that’s why her books linger, giving readers a ghostly book hangover.
Kiste spoke to Cemetery Dance about The Haunting of Velkwood, gothic horror, themes of complacency and accountability in her latest novel, and, of course, ghost stories (her specialty).Continue Reading
