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Carmen Maria Machado

“Urban legends, like folktales, fairy tales, myths, etc., operate on an entirely different didactical/rhetorical level than most other kinds of writing. One of those ways is how explicitly they serve as a warning or a lesson, and how that warning or lesson shifts across, say, geographical migration, or time. It’s a malleable, ever-changing form, and I think that’s both intoxicating and gratifying, and also terrifying. It will always be showing us something we don’t want to see. “

Read Carmen’s first and final drafts in Issue 7, available now.

Carmen Maria Machado’s writing defies and blends genres such as surrealism, fantasy, and horror to create writing that is so palpable it seems alive. Her work has been compared to that of Shirley Jackson, Kelly Link and Angela Carter, but with a voice that is uniquely her own.

Her spellbinding debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was longlisted for the National Book Award before it was even published. Her memoir, In the Dream House, was Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, was the #1 Indie Next Pick for November 2019. Set in Shudder-To-Think, PA, Carmen’s newest project is a limited-run comics series called The Low, Low Woods, out from DC Comics, which takes body horror down paths heretofore unexplored in comics.

Carmen Maria Machado's writing space

Carmen Maria Machado's writing space