Interview with Author Lillah Lawson

Interview with Author Lillah Lawson

1.     First, congratulations on your upcoming Stoker eligible book Tomorrow and Tomorrow, co-written with Lauren Emily Whalen! Could you tell us a little about the book?

Thank you! Tomorrow & Tomorrow is a gender-flipped, dark contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, set in the Athens, GA music scene! It has all the things you expect from Macbeth – ghosts, witches, prophecies, and plenty of murder most foul – but it also has lots of band drama, beautiful locales (both in North Georgia and Scotland!), a badass heroine or two, and if I say so myself, a truly terrifying villain.

Author Lillah Lawson

Lauren and I are both massive Joan Jett fans, and we knew we wanted her and The Runaways to be the unofficial muse(s) of this book. So, it’s very feminist, very rock n’ roll, but without sacrificing any of that dark, psychological horror of Shakespeare’s play. It turns out that the story of a Mad King full of hubris and drunk with power leant itself very well to an adaptation about a small-town band trying to break into the scene. It’s all about networking and backstabbing – basically power, and what people will do to get it. Anyone who has been part of a local arts scene will be able to see the parallels!

I know there’s been discourse about the term “cozy horror”, but I think our book applies. It’s scary as hell, but it’s got a comforting quality to it, and dare I say, it’s really fun. I’m so proud of this book and I hope people love it.

2.     How did you and Lauren Emily Whalen end up teaming together on this project?

Lauren and I have been friends for over ten years, and we’ve been on this writing/publishing journey together for most of it. Our writing careers have followed similar ebbs and flows and we’re both fans of each other’s work. We’d been talking about writing something together forever, but pretty much only in the abstract; just sort of daydreaming. But during COVID, we found ourselves talking a lot over increasingly lengthy voice messages and just started bouncing ideas back and forth for a book. Lauren has done a number of Shakespeare retellings, and she’s excellent at them. I’ve always been a “bard bitch”, but I never had the guts to try an adaptation. Finally, I was just like, “What if…what if you did Macbeth? And I helped?” I knew I could bring the darkness! We talked about it for months and ended up with this amazing plot and characters, and had the whole thing mapped out before we ever set pen to paper. So when we finally sat down to write it, it came out of both of us so easily. It was one of the most enjoyable and easy experiences I’ve ever had writing a book. We enjoyed the process so much we’ve talked a bit about doing a second book together, but that’s all under wraps for now!

3.     Since Tomorrow and Tomorrow is about an all-female rock band, did you develop a playlist as inspiration for this book? If not, what songs or bands would be a part of this book if it had a soundtrack?

Oh, yes. I make extensive playlists for every book of mine; I start them long before I ever begin writing, and I’ll listen to them for weeks to get in the right headspace. I think Lauren does something similar. One of the first things we started doing was making a playlist, and since we’re both such music nerds (with somewhat different tastes), it was a very, very long playlist – well over a hundred songs. We recently cut the playlist way back (let me tell you, that was agonizing for me) to make an “official” playlist, which we’ll be releasing during our Hype Week in October at Sword & Silk Books (our publisher). So stay tuned for that!

The playlist is a secret ‘till then, but I can tell you it’s a perfect blend of goth, classic rock and pop that’s dreamy and dreary and a little bit spooky. Obviously there’s Joan Jett, and some Athens locals like Tears for the Dying and Lera Lynn. And as with anything I do, Ghost and Queens of the Stone Age are involved. And you can trust Lauren to bring the Taylor Swift! Something for everyone!

Lately I’ve been on an indie/outlaw country kick and I’ve been daydreaming hardcore about Joan Jett doing a song with someone like Lera Lynn or Tyler Childers for the soundtrack. I’m just sitting over here manifesting!

4.     In addition to Tomorrow and Tomorrow, you also have a short story eligible for the Stokers called “Oblong Objects in the Mirror (are Closer Than They Appear)” which was published in the anthology Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic by Cosmic Horror Monthly (May, 2023). What inspired this story?

If I’m being honest, I was nervous submitting this story, and I assumed that it wouldn’t make it through the slush pile. It’s a deeply personal story, probably the most personal one I’ve ever written, and it skates on the borders of horror. The experiences described within are definitely horrific, but they are told in an abstract, fuzzy-memory style that’s full of symbolism and a lot of self-loathing prose. It’s basically sitting inside the mind of someone who has been utterly broken as they try to put themselves back together again.

I’ve written versions of the story many times over the years, adding pieces of poems and going back to edit certain parts. I used to think that PTSD and trauma, once worked through, were just gone; all better. But one thing I discovered during a particularly low period during the pandemic is that PTSD and trauma don’t just disappear when you “do the work”. Yes, you get better, but healing is not a linear process. My favorite book is The Great Gatsby (I know, I know) and the last line of the last page – boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past – always makes me cry. It’s been my favorite since I was a teenager, but I never applied it to my own life until recently. Healing from trauma is a two steps forward, one steps back sort of situation. You get better, you have a setback. It’s a lifelong journey, and some days you just feel like Humpty Dumpty, fallen off the wall and shattered, your yolks running out all over the place. Messing up somebody’s floor, a total embarrassing inconvenience. So yeah, it’s a story about the messy, cracked-egg parts of healing, and how it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. A lot of it is terrible, horrific. Not pretty at all. And that’s okay.

Woof. I feel like I got way too heavy there. Everybody have a sip of iced coffee! Anyway, I have to thank the excellent Jolie Toomajan for accepting the story and including it in the wonderful anthology Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic, published by Cosmic Horror Monthly, proceeds of which go to The Chicago Abortion Fund. Jolie was also kind enough to blurb Tomorrow & Tomorrow! I can’t thank her enough. And I strongly encourage everyone to grab a copy of Aseptic and Faintly Sadistic. Not only does it benefit a wonderful cause, but every single story in the anthology is incredible – not a dud in the bunch.

5.     Where can people find you online?

You can reach me in the usual social media places – I’m on Instagram, Twitter (I refuse to call it “X”), for now anyway, Threads, BlueSky and Facebook, all under the handle @ LillahLawson. I’m also on Goodreads! I do have a website, but I’m woefully bad about updating it. Still, if you’d like to give it a visit, it’s lillahlawson.com.