{"id":17719,"date":"2023-01-13T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=17719"},"modified":"2023-01-08T18:36:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T23:36:03","slug":"cemetery-dance-interview-aaron-dries-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/cemetery-dance-interview-aaron-dries-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cemetery Dance Interview: The Little Hurts of Aaron Dries"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Aaron Dries<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aaron Dries, Australian phenom, youth addiction counselor, pervasive author of dark fiction and all-around superhero, dissects his collection of little hurts: Cut To Care<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Each story in this book hammers home polarizing lessons in caring, whether by choice or by circumstance, and provides a stark look at the terrors of both caring too much and too little.<\/b><\/p>\n

Tune in as we discuss the finer points of the realities within from a man who lives life on the front lines and has seen the faces that breed there, and those which become the culmination of its tragic circumstances.<\/b><\/p>\n

(Interview conducted by\u00a0Rick Hipson<\/a>)<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n

CEMETERY DANCE: Aaron, it is so good to chat with you again, my friend. And in the middle of the night in Australia no less. To kick things off, what can you tell us about your recent collection, <\/b>Cut To Care<\/i><\/b>, a collection of little hurts? So many of these tales all but scream of trauma from the front lines of caring.<\/b><\/p>\n

AARON DRIES: Vicarious trauma is a real thing, and so the stories in this collection are hard-hitting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, yes.<\/b><\/p>\n

And they\u2019re really, really personal. But they had to get out of me because those head gremlins were in my head. It\u2019s like a snake that pulls into port with you. You know how you hear about the idea of snakes apprising their prey? Like they stretch themselves out to look like something they\u2019re going to eat?<\/span><\/p>\n

Right.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s like I could feel this snake in my bed sizing me up, and I could roll over and I could feel its scales against me and I thought, <\/span>I need to get this thing out of my life<\/span><\/i>, and I wrote it away. So I\u2019m feeling a lot better, and that there is a book that\u2019s emerged as a result of all this. It seems a little bit on the nose to say it, but it probably was a little bit of therapy on the page. Technically, yes, but I wanted to rattle the reader like I\u2019ve never rattled anyone before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mission accomplished.<\/b><\/p>\n

I wanted initially to grab a reader by throat and say, \u201cYou need to take a hard look at yourself and ask some serious questions. If you don\u2019t, you\u2019re done. You\u2019re done.\u201d So, it was a really intense experience, and it was something that I was working on during the pandemic, and I made the shift from working on long fiction. I\u2019ve been writing novels for so long. I\u2019ve been working on a novel for quite a while now, and I\u2019m very close to being done, but I just hadn\u2019t been able to work on it during the pandemic because there was no down time for me during the pandemic. I was at work every day and working frontline and caring for people and helping them to figure out ways to care for themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"coverIt doesn\u2019t matter that there\u2019s a pandemic and that the world is locking down. Domestic and family abuse ramped up. Homelessness ramped up. Mental health exacerbation ramped up massively. Alcohol and other drugs ramped up. And then you look at the intersection between that and minorities. All this kind of stuff was exploding all around me, and I was\u2026 It was the snake — the vicarious trauma snake that I keep alluding to — it was getting bigger and bigger, and it was looking Aaron-shaped, and I knew this thing\u2019s going to eat me alive. If I don\u2019t address it, it consumes you, and it\u2019s a really, destructive thing. So, I\u2019m hoping that this collection connects with people because who isn\u2019t feeling burnt out right now?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A hundred percent. I wonder if there is a flip side to this because I get the impression as well that — and I want to talk to you about this in more detail — but I think it would be very easy to read your collection and come away thinking, <\/b>Well, apparently caring too much is not good and we should make sure that we\u2019re not caring too much at all costs<\/i><\/b>. At the same time, I have to wonder that I think a lot of the burnout that\u2019s happening with a lot of folks that went into the pandemic with a lot of addiction issues, a lot of mental health issues, I wonder if all of a sudden a lot of those things came to the surface because now they\u2019re told to stay home. At least, at the beginning, they were told to stay home, they were told to social distance. And I think as a result of that, all of a sudden, these masks that they had to wear around society to fit it in, and we all know the danger of masking. I hate that. I\u2019ve got kids on the spectrum as well, and I\u2019ve seen the damage — and friends as well — I see the damage that masking can have on them. All of a sudden, these masks are put aside because there\u2019s nobody else around but themselves. Do you think that maybe contributed to that extra overboiling point of all these people coming out and suddenly making guys like yourselves on the front line busier? And do you think there\u2019s any positivity that came across that, where people had to face themselves?<\/b><\/p>\n

I definitely do think that. I think also that the pandemic raised awareness about what\u2019s been going on for a long time for a lot of people, and it\u2019s made having the conversation for people to actually be able to ask for help a lot easier. It has brought conversations around health and well-being into every family\u2019s home across the world. And these were things that people kind of shuffled aside, and in some ways ghettoed people into environments where they could only ever function wearing a mask. The mask of <\/span>I\u2019m okay. I\u2019m so okay that my cheeks hurt from smiling so much when inside I\u2019ve got terrible things going on.<\/span><\/i> So if there are things that are positive about what we\u2019ve all been through as a planet recently, I think it\u2019s absolutely that we\u2019re giving ourselves the permission to say that we\u2019re not okay, and I think that only good things can come from that. I guess what I\u2019ve also been saying too in terms of the ethos behind the collection, I deeply feel like it\u2019s optimism in this collection compared to this other stuff that I\u2019ve written. There are a couple of happy endings, sort of. The final story in the collection is called “<\/span>Shadow Debt”<\/span> and I\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, I love that story.<\/b><\/p>\n

Thank you, and look, you\u2019re working in your line of work. That\u2019s kind of your universe. It\u2019s a story that\u2019s set primarily in a nursing home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, you nailed dementia specifically so bloody well and so eloquently, and it\u2019s such a sneaky thing and it\u2019s very insidious. It really sneaks in. It\u2019s the snake that kind of sidles up to you that you just don\u2019t know it\u2019s there.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, yeah. And all the characters in that particular story are all people who probably historically have worn those masks, or have reached a point in their life where they realize, I need to actually take this off and to say that I\u2019m struggling, that being a caregiver is something that\u2019s really difficult right now, and I need you to come to the party with me, and I need us to be hurting together because hurting in isolation the way we are is tearing our family apart, because we\u2019re all grieving the loss of something. And as you know, when it comes to dementia, this particular story\u2026 Dementia is many, many losses stacked back-to-back. With the diagnosis, there\u2019s the side effects of medication. There\u2019s the condition itself and the way it erodes the brain, and so you lose your loved one again and again and again. And each time you come back, there\u2019s a little bit less, and too many, many, many deaths, and it\u2019s incredibly difficult to do in isolation. I really wanted to make sure that with that particular story that the women in the center of it, because it\u2019s a story primarily about women, of generations of women, each generation within the same family, basically saying, <\/span>We\u2019re stronger together if we admit that we\u2019re hurting and that we\u2019re hurting bad, and that we\u2019re really, really sad that dementia is taking a toll on our family<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this particular story, for those who haven\u2019t read it, is a woman in her seventies whose husband is in a memory care unit. He has Alzheimer\u2019s. He\u2019s not doing well. And on the way home from the nursing home on a stormy day, this woman pulls over and actually saves a young teenager\u2019s life. She was on a cliff committing suicide, and the woman brought her back and saved this girl\u2019s life, and then the girl ran. In the wake of that, it\u2019s almost like death in the wake of that suicide, and it\u2019s taking little bits and pieces from this woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted to write about reluctant caregivers. No one asks for that on their family, you know.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right.<\/b><\/p>\n

I wanted to write in <\/span>about people who step up to the plate and say, \u201cWe didn\u2019t ask for this, but your grandfather, your father, my husband, he is a good man and we\u2019re going to stand by him even though it hurts us. But we have to do this together.\u201d Meanwhile, this debt that she\u2019s going to have to repay because of somebody that she saved manifests in the stripping away of tiny little things in her home. Opening up the pages of a favorite book and the pages are all blank. Looking at photographs on the wall and all of a sudden the photographs of her and her husband aren\u2019t there, are missing <\/span>pieces.<\/p>\n

All of these little things. A record that she associates with her husband that\u2019s playing, and then all of a sudden all the grooves are gone, and so the needle is just wiggling all over the place. I mean it sounds like a theremin. Like it\u2019s these sudden little evaporations which is what the dementia process kind of is like in terms of the way it erodes away, I imagine, the human brain. And the things that are taken away, a little bit of hurt is replaced in those who live on, and I wanted to kind of honor that. So even though these stories are sad and depressing in many, many ways, and really, really scary, I hope that we\u2019re honoring people by their hurt, but then I think to some degree we remember and mourn people as a way to honor people.<\/span><\/p>\n

For sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a natural human thing, and I don\u2019t think we\u2019re exploring that enough in fiction, which is why I wanted this particular book to be about these type of feelings. And, you know, the decisions like I knew that this type of stuff was different from me, like I have tapped into some of these kind of themes in my fiction in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

\"coverCertainly on some stuff that I\u2019m working on currently, but I knew that this was like a bit of a shift for me. It\u2019s a bit more of a serious book. It\u2019s a definite step away from a lot of the splattery type of stuff that I\u2019ve done in the past. I wanted to let people know to expect a different book from me. I think the cover does that. I wanted to do something that was far more indebted to Murakami and those type of covers as opposed to necessarily the splattery type of stuff that I\u2019ve done in the past or the distinct coming of age body horrorish kind of cover art of <\/span>Dirty Heads<\/span><\/i>, for example.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Right.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just saying that I wanted to let people know through the design of the book itself physically to expect something different from me, and I hope that it doesn\u2019t scare people away.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so, no.<\/b><\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s some funny stories in here as well. Like I think there\u2019s a story in here called “Cut to Care” which is a three-page kind of splatter punk parable, for lack of a better word, about somebody who\u2019s like\u2026 It\u2019s the old expression, <\/span>I wanna give so much, I would give somebody this shirt off my back<\/span><\/i>, except it\u2019s taken to the hundredth extreme, you know. There\u2019s a story in here called “Nona Doesn\u2019t Dance” which is set in the nursing home of the future, in which we assuage our guilt for dumping people in nursing homes in Western cultures by allowing ourselves to watch kind of school-style end-of-year recitals with the elderly people who live in these nursing homes dancing the way they used to in their youth with the assistance of machines, and the outcome of that particular story I find\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s just creepy.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s creepy and it\u2019s disgusting, but I think it\u2019s also very funny. It\u2019s so fundamentally absurd, but caring is absurd, and that guilt is often absurd as well. And the fake layer, the fakeness sometimes of caring is inherently absurd too, so I wanted to tap into some of those elements as well. I find some of this stuff a little bit funny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, you really do have to laugh at it to a degree. I remember one resident\u2019s wife where I work. Just an amazing person. Unfortunately, her hubby had strokes and was more in quite a vegetative state so much as dementia. You know, just not vocal, not responsive at all, and this woman was like she deserved to have a cape. She was there almost every single day, weather permitted; was constantly — he was bound to a wheelchair — walking around. She had two kids. She was super busy, kept the family going, and clearly that was her absolute entire life, but it was just incredible too because, at the same time, it was just business as usual, just talking everything matter of fact, almost to the point where I think she maybe, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d say this, she elevated herself above it a little bit. I think she was very, very aware of the situation and what she had in the memory of what used to be because for her this was about a seven or eight year journey at this point, where the husband that she knew just was no longer there anymore. All that was left was that mask.<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s an invisible cannibal, you know. It\u2019s like a little invisible Pac-Man that\u2019s coming for the person that you love the most, and the person that you\u2019re describing is this real-world person, is essentially the main character of “<\/span>Shadow Debt<\/span>.” And I really wanted to write a story about that person because that person\u2019s a goddamned rock star, you know, and you say that they would be the last person to say, \u201cDon\u2019t come near me with that cape. I\u2019m not a hero here. I\u2019m not that type of person. Don\u2019t glorify me. I\u2019m here because I love my loved one, and that\u2019s all there is. If I\u2019m a good person it\u2019s because I\u2019m still here, but nothing more.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But really, deep down they are heroic, and I wanted to write about reluctant heroism in “<\/span>Shadow Debt”<\/span> and to make it the story of somebody who\u2019s in their seventies because frankly, when we\u2019re looking at the horror genre, not specifically but broader in all of literary kind of fiction, the elderly are invisible again. They\u2019re either the cute little pandas<\/span> that we kind of roll around or we villainize them in ugly ways by making them seem scary. And look, I like this stuff as much as the next person, but I didn\u2019t want to do that either. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"coverI think one of the best stories about aging out there is Joe Landsdale\u2019s <\/span>Bubba Ho-Tep<\/span><\/i>. I think that that is a story that I was really thinking of when I was writing “<\/span>S<\/span>hadow Debt<\/span>,” but the two could not be any more different in execution, but they are unified in that they\u2019re about giving sight in a heroic narrative to a part of our population that the rest of us isn\u2019t comfortable looking in the eye at and saying that they\u2019re still here because we fundamentally have anxieties about admitting to ourselves that that will be us one day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right.<\/b><\/p>\n

So I wanted to write a story about that person. And that\u2019s why \u201cShadow Debt,\u201d which is the final novella in the collection, is my favorite in the entire collection. This may have started with \u201cDamage, Inc.\u201d which is about social workers who go into the home of grieving families and act as dead loved ones to give the families the opportunity to say goodbye, and then a worker does this too well and the family won\u2019t let them leave. It may have started with this, but I knew that when I wrote the last story in the collection and it was the last story, and it was “<\/span>Shadow Debt<\/span>,” I knew that I finally\u2026 I started this instead of my own kind of healing process so that I could write that story. And I knew that the collection was done.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, that might have been my favorite element to it as well, that\u2019s through the girl that she saved.\u00a0 She ultimately, and in some other aspects of course — I don\u2019t want to give too much of it away — but I loved the fact that what is called <\/b>the situation<\/i><\/b>. So I love the fact that <\/b>the situation<\/i><\/b> for this older, beautiful, regular old lady next door kind of thing that <\/b>the situation<\/i><\/b> puts a spotlight and forces this woman to identify as sort of, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d call it evil, but certainly a dark desperation within her — a capability for evil that she had no idea that she was capable of, and it forced her to basically be at this crossroad where, like you said, she can choose to go in this direction and maybe preserve something even though the inevitable is still always going to be the end result for her. But because of her goodness, it really is that struggle for her where it\u2019s like, <\/b>Well, sure this will put me in a better position but is the damage something I\u2019m capable of? Is that something I want to be capable of?<\/i><\/b> And then I love the fact that it really puts her on the precipice of what does she do? Is she going to jump along with this other girl? Or\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. For me, when I was writing that story I\u2019m like, ah, well, this story has evolved into Richard Matheson\u2019s <\/span>The Box<\/span><\/i>, you know. Here\u2019s the box that arrives on your doorstep. Push it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

Push it and you\u2019ll get a million dollars, but somebody who you don\u2019t know will die. Would you push the button? In that story, in “<\/span>Shadow Debt<\/span>,” that is the kind of moral dilemma that she\u2019s faced here. She\u2019s like, <\/span>Would you do something really, really terrible to save somebody just for a day basically?<\/span><\/i> And what type of caring is that? And who are you really caring for? And sometimes the way we care for ourselves can be an ugly thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

Look, I am not interested in stories that are about good versus evil. I\u2019m really not. I\u2019m interested in stories in which people are in the pursuit of goodness, and for some people that may mean goodness is to do something terrible or to do something really, really beneficial. And then I\u2019m interested in the way that the people who are trying to do good are layered with anxiety and in some cases evil, and people who do terrible things have the potential for good. I\u2019m only interested in moral ambiguity when it comes to fiction in my own stuff, and not in the binary good versus evil sense. And that particular story is probably the one that nails that moral complexity down strongest. There are certainly others throughout, but that one may be strongest, is the one that kind of really drives that theme home because I\u2019m kind of bored by good versus evil stories. I know that\u2019s kind of what we do, but I think we can look deeper.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think so too, and I think that a lot of what I find fascinating is that you can certainly have folks that are evil that have some goodness to them. But then you could also have some fantastic people that might have a little bit of evil in them that is cause for caution.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, and we also mess up along the way of trying to do good things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure.<\/b><\/p>\n

And there are things where you\u2019re like, <\/span>Ah, I really should\u2019ve addressed this sooner, and I didn\u2019t because I was nervous to do so<\/span><\/i>. There\u2019s a story in the collection called “<\/span>The Acknowledged”<\/span> which is about a guy who is on a bush walk and essentially saves another dude\u2019s life. He had fallen and broken his leg and would\u2019ve been left in the bush to die, saves this guy\u2019s life, and becomes kind of a little bit of a small-town hero for a little period. He gets his fifteen minutes. And the guy that he saved keeps on wanting to say thank you, thank you, again and again, and this actually ends up becoming a nightmarish thing because there\u2019s no way he can ever show his gratitude enough. So what starts off as a present ends up being a visit in the night, breaking in to make food, overstepping all these boundaries, and our main character, who we know has done a great thing, is saying to himself, <\/span>I should\u2019ve put a pin in this long ago, and I didn\u2019t because I didn\u2019t want to hurt his feelings.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a lot of folks out there that are kind of maybe seeing themselves as both faces or both sides of that mask, where they\u2019ve got the one they think they should be showing everybody and the one that they see when their eyes are closed. You mentioned a little bit ago that through all the writing that it caused you to make some pretty major changes professionally, perhaps personally as well, and I think you alluded to certainly with your own writing. Would you mind unpacking that a little bit and maybe talking about some of those things? I love talking to people like you that really push through those crossroad moments, and I\u2019m guessing the fact you talked about it so positively you were able to overcome maybe a few demons from the darker sides of those masks.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, so, let\u2019s look at a story like “<\/span>Damage, Inc.”<\/span> which is the story of one of these social workers going to these people\u2019s homes, but she knows that she\u2019s almost not fit to do her job because her burnout is so severe that she knows she\u2019s not protecting herself, and if she can\u2019t protect herself than how is she going to help others. It\u2019s that old clich\u00e9 about we\u2019re on takeoff and the plane is starting to shake and the masks are going to drop down from the roof of the plane. Make sure you put the mask on because if you pass out, then your child will suffer, and so that whole idea was very, very strong in that character\u2019s mind. <\/span>I was having a lot of anxiety about work. I was having panic attacks. I was thinking the compartmentalization between my personal life and my professional life, the lids on those boxes were loose and all of the little gremlins were crossing over back and forth. That\u2019s not an uncommon thing for people working front line <\/span>to feel like.<\/p>\n

And you would kind of even feel it too, you know. We safeguard ourselves when we put ourselves out there on the firing line, because no one else is going to protect us. These industries are so starved for people who actually care, but the systems aren\u2019t built to support every element of the risk, and so there\u2019s things that we have to do to keep ourselves safe. <\/span><\/p>\n

I read that story and I realized I need to make some changes, so I had a shift in roles. I moved away from going into people\u2019s homes to supporting the teams who do that. Stepping away and helping people in that respect. I took some leave. I engaged with support to help me, which is something we all need to do, and my outlet which has always been my writing, was something that I did a little bit more meaningfully in an attempt to spread out all these toxins. As a result of doing those these things, I felt that those compartmentalisations kind of pulled back into line. It was like working myself through a mental gym so I could feel fit enough to go into that like, yeah, I\u2019m ready now. And the reason all that blurring was starting to happen is because I was tired, and so I needed to have some serious rest. And I\u2019m still working through that period of rest by alternating how much I can work, and still working my forty hours a week and writing. I\u2019m taking opportunities to do things that aren\u2019t on the frontline which is helping me to just bring balance back into my life. And that is enabling me to go to work and not feel anxiety anymore, and it\u2019s also enabling me to come back home and not feel like the snake is in my bed anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good for you.<\/b><\/p>\n

And I genuinely think writing this collection has been part of me being able to do that, and I think it\u2019s been a really big part of this, so I\u2019m feeling a lot better I guess is what I\u2019m saying basically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good. Now that\u2019s amazing. I\u2019m really happy to hear that, too, because it\u2019s so important on both sides, and I know this is going to come across totally selfish, but obviously the better more balanced that you are, you are going to be more capable of doing that kind of caring and helping to support the people that you go to work to support. And it\u2019s great as well because it helps to keep\u00a0 those incredible stories going along so that people like me can have that to enjoy, to look forward to, and also to connect to and hopefully get those questions, if not answered, at least start asking those questions about themselves and the people around them, and hopefully start to go towards that light that you offer through the darkness that you discuss in the books.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, and this kind of loops back to what we were talking about before about how the pandemic has changed us is that having conversations like this about struggles when it comes to mental health stability. I\u2019m lucky and extraordinarily privileged that I have the self-awareness to know when things aren\u2019t right. That emotional regulation is not something that everyone has, and I\u2019ve got the qualifications and the experience to see the red flags and to try to make sure that I combat them in a way that\u2019s safe to me and for other people. Not everyone has that, so I think the fact we\u2019re having this conversation now and talking about it so openly, I don\u2019t know if we would\u2019ve be happening and I don\u2019t know if people would\u2019ve listened to us talk about it quite so much before the pandemic. I think that has changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love what the Horror Writers Association<\/a> is doing currently in regards to responsiveness when it comes to mental health awareness in their programs. I think that\u2019s really, really, important that we\u2019re seeing that even in our genre. I think these are important things for us to be talking about in a non-demonized type of way. And look, here\u2019s the thing, the depiction of mental health in horror is something that\u2019s always been a contentious thing. I\u2019m not saying that we can\u2019t write stories about our own fears and anxieties and the ugliness of mental health. I think the conversations we\u2019re having about them are a little bit more\u2026 They\u2019re not falling on the deaf ears they once were. It\u2019s not a victim narrative either, necessarily. It\u2019s really about strength and resiliency, and I think that\u2019s a shift that\u2019s new-ish, especially within the writing field and our writing field specifically.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, that\u2019s very interesting to consider that because I read a quote that made me think, <\/b>Huh! I hadn\u2019t really thought about that but it makes a lot of sense<\/i><\/b>, for they were stating that one of the beautiful things about the horror genre and the folks that play within it, how often they\u2019re the most kindest, down to earth, giving people that you\u2019ll ever come across because predominantly the horror genre is made up of a lot of folks that are to some degree broken. And it\u2019s through the horror genre and through exploring those terrors, and of course that\u2019s the beautiful thing about horror is that it really does explore those terrors, the anxieties of both very real and very subliminal, and it was\u2026 Then I thought there\u2019s a lot of truth to that. There\u2019s a lot of truth to that regarding the folks within the horror community being somewhat broken, so that is fantastic that HWA is providing some more awareness, more honesty, and some more resources for folks to be able to pick up on.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Totally. I think within the horror genre, we\u2019re all outsiders. I think we\u2019re all the ones growing up who felt like we didn\u2019t necessarily belong, and at the time when we\u2019re younger and when we\u2019re having those feelings, they can be incredibly toxic and demand a lot of you and absorb a lot of your energy and consume you and be incredibly destructive. But for those of us who get through it, I think it helps to arm us with a particular type of empathy in which we can look at ourselves and those around us with a really non-condescending but empathetic eye; not a sympathetic eye, <\/span>empathetic<\/span><\/i>. They\u2019re a very different thing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Very, yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

And I think that is something we see more than anywhere else in the horror arena. We\u2019re outsiders talking to people who have felt like outsiders. That\u2019s where a lot of our readers are as well. Our universes within the horror genre are violent, grotesque, scary, splattery faces in which every anxiety is explored and exploited. But it\u2019s a safe space. I genuinely feel like it\u2019s a safe space.<\/span><\/p>\n

I agree.<\/b><\/p>\n

And I think that, yeah, are we all kind of floundering naked? Yeah, but there\u2019s not a lot of judgement, and I think that\u2019s really, really beautiful. And that\u2019s why, for me, community within the genre, as a writer finding your people is so, so important because it\u2019s nice to know that you\u2019re not showing off your little hurts and your scars to no one, and it is also nice to know that people do have your back as well throughout that process. <\/span><\/p>\n

I was on a panel recently where they were like, <\/span>What advice do you give to new writers?<\/span><\/i> And there were a lot of people who were like, <\/span>Ah, you know, you should be working this many pages a day<\/span><\/i>, things like that. And I thought, you need to find your people? You need to find your community because not only is it great to have people who\u2019ve got your back, other writers — especially horror writers — are really, really great people. So many of them are friendly, funny. They care. A<\/span> lot<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Absolutely.<\/b><\/p>\n

I remember seeing a Tweet to that effect not too long ago, and I was like, wait, I think you\u2019re right. I think there\u2019s truth to it, but it comes from us being outsiders. I think that\u2019s where it comes from.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, absolutely, and it\u2019s interesting because it\u2019s almost like in some ways we can just feel like we\u2019re just a collection of broken toys that are discarded in a little dusty box, but at the same time to find other people who are like that as well. And it\u2019s like, alright, well, we\u2019ve all got missing pieces, but together we can almost find those missing pieces with other people, or just knowing that it\u2019s okay to miss a few pieces here and there because there\u2019s still the rest of us that is going to be of use to somebody else if not ourselves.<\/b><\/p>\n

Well said, Rick. That to me, what you said just then, is exactly what the collection\u2019s about. It\u2019s all the missing pieces. It\u2019s all the people in the toy box, and I think that\u2019s a celebration, you know what I mean? I think that\u2019s the optimism and the happy ending that I feel is kind of inherent in between the lines in this collection. I think that\u2019s where that is. I think it\u2019s us saying again the removal of those masks, and say, look, I\u2019m missing bits and pieces but we\u2019re all missing bits and pieces, and we are perfect in our imperfection.<\/span><\/p>\n

A hundred percent. Very well said. Aaron, I would love to ask, if I can, one last question here before you collapse?<\/b><\/p>\n

Of course. Anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

You touched on it a bit earlier about expansions of some of the stories in here and breathing additional life into them such as potential film adaptations. You were kind enough to share the short film adaptation of “<\/b>Damage, Inc<\/b>.” and holy crap, did that sucker hit home. I want to ask you when the rest of the world can see this so we can discuss more openly about this brilliant thing you sent me?<\/b><\/p>\n

\"posterYeah, totally. I\u2019ll give the pitch to people listening. So “<\/span>Damage, Inc.”<\/span> has been adapted into a short film called\u00a0Becoming Emma Braintree<\/em><\/a> by an Australian film maker named Joshua Koske. I was very much involved in the creation of this thing, and it\u2019s been doing the circuit for about a year in terms of the festival run, and it\u2019s won a hugely unexpected amount of awards. And it has been seen by far more people than we probably ever anticipated that there ever could be. No one is more surprised than me and Josh. It has been so warmly received. It also won awards at last year\u2019s Stokers in the film competition it was entered in. In that particular competition, we won Best Screenplay. For it to be received by horror people so well, it was like mind-blowingly kind of affirming. If you like the movie, just wait until you read the book. Like it\u2019s one of those things that as soon as the story seeps out there, there was interest right away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s really hard to talk about what happens next. Ultimately, eventually the film as it currently is will eventually be available to other people to see. We\u2019re holding off a little bit because it may not be the end of this thing. These things aren\u2019t real until they\u2019re real but we\u2019re certainly shopping it around for something feature length. There\u2019s certainly interest on that front based on the concept itself, the original story, and the strength of the short film. The short film adapts in a really, really efficient way the first half of the novella, and there is a longer feature length version of this story that is written, that Josh and I have written, that expands and obviously encompasses the entire short story but fleshes it out even further in ways that I find really exciting to help us to nail down some of the conceptual stuff. And there are things in there that I\u2019m really, really proud of and that I\u2019m like, damn! Why didn\u2019t I think of this when I was <\/span>working on the novella? That\u2019s the gift you get back from collaborating with other people because there are elements when I saw the film, I was inspired by how good it is as the creator of the original story, and its an extremely faithful adaption. I was so impressed and charmed by it and by the effort, and I mean I was there on set every day. This was a film that was made during COVID-19 with incredible restrictions in place by young filmmakers who absolutely had everything to prove and who knocked it out and made something that is as professional as you\u2019re going to get.<\/span><\/p>\n

I agree.<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m inspired by their efforts too, and so that inspiration is now something expanding into new evolutions of this particular story, and that might not have necessarily happened if Josh and his team hadn\u2019t initially responded to it. There\u2019s a relationship that forms through the process of adaptation and looking at your work through a different kind of media lens unexpected even to me as the person who made all this stuff up. Look, I would love to see <\/span>Becoming Emma Braintree <\/span><\/i>or DAMAGE INC.<\/em> or however it\u2019ll eventually be titled up on the big screen, but it\u2019s also the short film has opened the door to opportunities for Josh and I to collaborate on a number of other things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you think we\u2019ll see a Books of Blood<\/em> sort of theme, with I know that Clive Barker was doing with Seraphim Films?<\/b><\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t that be great.<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh yeah.<\/b><\/p>\n

The production company associated with the creation of that particular short film likes what I do and likes the way that I see the world, and actively invested in working with me on looking at a lot of my projects. There is one that\u2019s not got anything to do with <\/span>healthcare, but it is an adaptation of my work that is very close to being a reality that\u2019s ever been, and it\u2019s exciting but you don\u2019t want to say anything because you don\u2019t want to jinx it, because the film industry is incredibly exciting, but it also runs on the edge of a razor.<\/span><\/p>\n

You gotta hope for the sake of hope, but don\u2019t hold your breath.<\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s fine. About as far as I\u2019m concerned, it\u2019s not real until its real but it\u2019s exciting. Super duper exciting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Suffice to say, Aaron, we\u2019re all excited to enjoy what\u2019s in store for the future of your work. I know I for one will be holding my breathe until I can enjoy more of your beautiful dark craft. Until next time, thanks so much, my friend. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Rick Hipson is a Canadian genre journalist living in Kitchener Ontario with his partner in crime, young spawn and two cats who insist they aren\u2019t vying for world domination. For over twenty years Rick has written for a variety of small press publications in print and online which no longer exist through, assumably, no fault of his own. He continues to share his love for dark culture entertainment through his film and book reviews, interviews and articles, which can be found through\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Rue Morgue Magazine, Cemetery Dance\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Hell Notes<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aaron Dries, Australian phenom, youth addiction counselor, pervasive author of dark fiction and all-around superhero, dissects his collection of little hurts: Cut To Care.\u00a0 Each story in this book hammers home polarizing lessons in caring, whether by choice or by circumstance, and provides a stark look at the terrors of both caring too much and … Continue Reading! “The Cemetery Dance Interview: The Little Hurts of Aaron Dries”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[983,307,2207],"class_list":["post-17719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-aaron-dries","tag-interviews","tag-rick-hipson"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cemetery Dance Interview: The Little Hurts of Aaron Dries - 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