{"id":21077,"date":"2026-07-30T15:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T19:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/?p=21077"},"modified":"2026-07-30T15:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T19:02:13","slug":"interview-cynthia-gomez-on-muneca-and-gothic-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/interview-cynthia-gomez-on-muneca-and-gothic-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Cynthia G\u00f3mez on Mu\u00f1eca and Gothic Horror"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cynthia G\u00f3mez is the author of the story collection <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Nightmare Box and Other Stories<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and a Tin House and VONA alumn whose short fiction has published in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fantasy Magazine<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Strange Horizons<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pseudopod<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nightmare Magazine<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and numerous anthologies.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_21079\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21079\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"21079\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/interview-cynthia-gomez-on-muneca-and-gothic-horror\/cytnhia-gomez\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cytnhia-Gomez.jpeg?fit=450%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"450,300\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Cytnhia Gomez\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Cynthia G\u00f3mez &lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cytnhia-Gomez.jpeg?fit=450%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-21079\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cytnhia-Gomez.jpeg?resize=350%2C233&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cytnhia-Gomez.jpeg?resize=350%2C233&amp;ssl=1 350w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Cytnhia-Gomez.jpeg?w=450&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 85vw, 350px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21079\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cynthia G\u00f3mez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">G\u00f3mez\u2019s new release, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/mu-eca-cynthia-g-mez\/fbf260bee822de4b?ean=9798217047574&amp;bkshp-astro=t\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mu\u00f1eca<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, is a queer, Latine novel set in 1968 Oakland about a working-class witch who sets out to save a bespelled heiress and explores misogyny, racial hierarchy, classism, and the power of female friendship and community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bookriot.com\/collection\/new-horror-books-2026\/\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Book Riot<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> called <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mu\u00f1eca <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one of the best horror books of 2026 so far. It also appeared on lists such as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/05\/19\/nx-s1-5800893\/new-summer-books-2026\">15 Books Our Critics Can\u2019t Wait for This Summer<\/a>\u201d from <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NPR,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buzzfeed<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/kristenharris1\/best-lgbtq-books-2026\">Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2026<\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">G\u00f3mez sat down with Cemetery Dance to discuss her new gothic horror release, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mu\u00f1eca, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the author\u2019s early experiences reading classic gothic horror, additional influences such as Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Isabel Ca\u00f1as, and the creepy doll trope.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can connect with her at <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/cynthiasaysboo.wordpress.com\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cynthiasaysboo.wordpress.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>(Interview conducted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/haleynewlin_author\/\">Haley Newlin<\/a>)<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"21082\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/interview-cynthia-gomez-on-muneca-and-gothic-horror\/imresizer-clear-muneca\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?fit=1556%2C2288&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1556,2288\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"imresizer-Clear Muneca\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?fit=696%2C1024&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-21082\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=238%2C350&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=238%2C350&amp;ssl=1 238w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=696%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 696w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=768%2C1129&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=1045%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1045w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=1393%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1393w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?resize=1200%2C1765&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/imresizer-Clear-Muneca.jpg?w=1556&amp;ssl=1 1556w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 238px) 85vw, 238px\" \/>CEMETERY DANCE: <\/b><b><i>Mu\u00f1eca<\/i><\/b><b> is such an impressive debut with so many of my favorite tropes and subgenres of horror, especially gothic. How do you think your early experiences reading classics from mothers of gothic horror like V.C. Andrews and Daphne Du Maurier affected your approach to writing <\/b><b><i>Mu\u00f1eca<\/i><\/b><b>?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CYNTHIA G\u00d3MEZ: I\u2019ve loved the Gothic from a very early age, starting with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Secret Garden <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and, yes,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">V.C. Andrews. I think it\u2019s hard to appreciate just how influential those works were for me; they inspired in me an absolute love for the Gothic, with its family secrets and the hideous things kept in attics (<em>so many attics!<\/em>) and a deep wish to write my own Gothic one day. I also took really strong inspiration from Sarah Waters, from the class rage and the concept that class rage can be a supernatural force.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And another tremendous influence that all my Gothic reading had on me is best explained this way: I remember all those covers, those young white women running from their mansions in their white nightgowns. But, as I enjoy pointing out, you know what those novels very rarely concern themselves with?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just who was washing all those gowns, anyway? And what might their lives and their interiority \u2013 and their political agenda \u2013 bring to the Gothic? That question is one of the many reasons I wanted to write this book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>You mention in the introduction of <\/b><b><i>Mu\u00f1eca<\/i><\/b><b> that Isabel Ca\u00f1as and Silvia Moreno-Garcia have also influenced your writing. What is your favorite book from each author and why? How do you think these titles shaped your writing process or the way you thought about creating characters and atmosphere in your debut novel?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My favorite Ca\u00f1as is far and away <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Possession of Alba D\u00edaz. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From the opening paragraphs, we know we\u2019re going to be dealing with a lush, extremely dramatic, bloody tale, and it delivers. I didn\u2019t read it until after I\u2019d finished working on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mu\u00f1eca<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but the way she writes longing and lust has already seeped its way into my next book. For Silvia Moreno-Garc\u00eda, my favorite has to be<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Mexican Gothic<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, for the way that the English colonial family\u2019s monstrous legacy seeps into the very soil, into the walls. (I also dug the way that the main character, Maite, in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Velvet Was the Night,<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is allowed to be highly flawed and almost pitiable.) In terms of their influence, I think that overwhelmingly it was because they\u2019re such standard bearers of the modern Gothic; by that I mean that they are so much more explicit and conscious about sex and sexuality and skin color and class.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Mu\u00f1eca<\/i><\/b><b> blends horror and historical fiction so effectively. What was it like researching subjects such as Spanish colonial land grant recipients and the queer landscape of Oakland in the late 1960s? Do you enjoy the research part of the writing process?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, for the research for this book, picture me sitting in a sunny room on the top floor of the Oakland Public Library, in their Oakland History Room, surrounded by old newspapers and land grant maps and congressional record books, my pencil happily scratching and my hands tapping away at my laptop. You can also picture my face falling when I realized that not only was I not going to be able to set <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mu\u00f1eca <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">inside the actual home I was determined to set it in (it\u2019s called the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/localwiki.org\/oakland\/Ellen_Kenna_House\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ellen Kenna House<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) but that I wouldn\u2019t be able to set it in Oakland at all. This is because all of Oakland is encompassed in what was a single land grant, to Lu\u00eds Mar\u00eda Peralta, and I didn\u2019t want to base the Miramontes family on any real people. So I found that nearby towns had some smaller land grants, and it was plausible that the Miramontes ancestor was one of those grantees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Funnily enough, I picked Orinda, as opposed to other nearby towns with similar backstories, because it had the best name. And come to find out that Orinda was for many years a sundown town. I didn\u2019t know that when I picked it, but, as I said at an event, the history of the U.S. is so soaked in racism and death, that you stick a knife into any part of its soil and it\u2019s going to come up bloody.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love research so much. In fact, it\u2019s not entirely a stretch to say that I want to keep on writing historical fiction just so I can have an excuse to keep learning about times and places and events that I want to explore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>I loved that <\/b><b><i>Mu\u00f1eca<\/i><\/b><b> features an iconic symbol of horror &#8211; dolls. However, you take this classic agent of terror in the genre and turn it on its head. Without giving too much away, can you speak to the doll element in the book and why you find yourself drawn to dolls?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I love creepy dolls in horror; the 1988 horror film <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dolls <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was actually one of the inspiration texts for this book. I think I\u2019m partly drawn to dolls for the reasons that a lot of us are: because they look just enough like humans to inhabit that kind of uncanny valley, that human-like territory. I also love what I get to do with dolls in my horror \u2013 I\u2019ve written three stories now where a doll or figurine plays a key role in the plot \u2013 because I can subvert the way that dolls are treated in real life. In real life, dolls are associated with femininity, so in turn they\u2019re associated with weakness. I got a chance to play with that a little in this book \u2013 to turn it on its head, as you say \u2013 although I won\u2019t spoil it for the reader by mentioning exactly how.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What makes this book so special is Natalia and Violeta\u2019s relationship and the power of female support and community. I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about the ever-present threat of the white van, one of the many symbols of theft of autonomy in the book. What do you think this story says about collective opposition to injustice?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I started daydreaming this book, one of the first images was of Violeta, trapped inside her body, and without giving anything away, I\u2019ll say that I always knew that patriarchy would be connected to why she was so horribly trapped. But the more I started writing the book, the more I realized how rich the theme was, about loss of autonomy. It comes up with that looming threat of that van, a threat that looms over the lives of every female character in the book (especially the queer ones.) It comes up every time people treat the paralyzed Violeta like, well, a doll (even Nati catches herself doing that) because her disabled body isn\u2019t valuable. She isn\u2019t valuable, unless she\u2019s making babies or hosting parties or managing the house, and that\u2019s because of the patriarchal values her family lives by. And of course it comes up when we realize that women couldn\u2019t even get a no-fault divorce in the U.S. in 1968. (I\u2019m sorry to tell you that attacks on no-fault divorce are part of the right-wing playbook in the U.S.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s really interesting to highlight the role of collective response, because I think that being part of a collective living situation, living with her queer found family, is what makes Nati such a good foil to the Miramontes family. There are all these little nods I put into the collective spirit that was blossoming in the \u201860s: the poster-making parties, the consciousness-raising sessions, the anti-war movement. Because when Nati comes into that house, she\u2019s bringing all of 1968 with her, in her way. She\u2019s representing an entirely different family structure, but she\u2019s also got her class-conscious politics, influenced by her mother\u2019s pro-union and pro-working class politics, and those politics are also a direct opposition, and a threat, to the patriarchal values that the Miramontes family upholds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>As an avid horror reader yourself, I have to know, what are some of your all-time favorite horror books? Horror films?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, man. Okay, so, films: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Shining<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It Follows<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ready or Not<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sinners<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scream<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Silence of the Lambs<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get Ou<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><em>t<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Books: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Shining<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Haunting of Hill House<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Misery<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Carrie<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ballad of Black Tom<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Can readers expect more horror stories from you?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Oh, yes. I am a horror kid, through and through, and it\u2019s not an accident that my first published story happened when I stopped trying to write literary fiction and gave myself permission to take inspiration from Stephen King and write a story prompted by \u201cwhat if?\u201d (In that case, it was \u201cwhat if an apartment seems to have one very cursed spot on its wall, and something awful happens to anyone whose photograph is hung in that spot?\u201d)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">My current WIP is much more ambitious in scope (it\u2019s got two timelines, 1913 and 2013) and a lot more characters) and it\u2019s also much more gnarly in body horror, which is definitely out of my comfort zone. I\u2019ve also got two stories in two different anthologies coming out in August: one is called \u201cRich Soil,\u201d in an anthology called <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eat the Rich<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, by Atomic Carnival Press, and it\u2019s about a CEO whose trees have\u2026plans for him, shall we say. The second story, \u201cI Spy,\u201d also comes out in August, in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under a Malevolent Eye, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an anthology about surveillance capitalism. \u201cI Spy\u201d is about a factory owner whose granddaughter\u2019s new doll turns out to be capable of way more than he thought.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cynthia G\u00f3mez is the author of the story collection The Nightmare Box and Other Stories, and a Tin House and VONA alumn whose short fiction has published in Fantasy Magazine, Strange Horizons, Pseudopod, Nightmare Magazine, and numerous anthologies. G\u00f3mez\u2019s new release, Mu\u00f1eca, is a queer, Latine novel set in 1968 Oakland about a working-class witch &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cemeterydance.com\/extras\/interview-cynthia-gomez-on-muneca-and-gothic-horror\/\" class=\"more-link button bg-gold white\">Continue Reading!<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Interview: Cynthia G\u00f3mez on Mu\u00f1eca and Gothic Horror&#8221;<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[3684,2299],"class_list":["post-21077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","tag-cynthia-gomez","tag-haley-newlin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - 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