Four Questions with Kenya Moss-Dyme
When I tell you I’m excited about the latest author to join my Q&A series, it’s an understatement. Kenya Moss-Dyme is one of my favorite horror authors. Her stories scare the hell out of me, and I had the pleasure of getting to know her at StokerCon 2023, where we worked the Black Women in Horror Dealers Room table and shared space on the BWiH panel. If you haven’t read her collection, Daymares, you should.
Her latest collection Sick XOXO releases soon, and DarkLit Press just announced a new publishing venture in which Moss-Dyme’s novel will be its first release, coming in 2024. I can’t wait!
Tamika Thompson: What is horror?
Kenya Moss-Dyme: Horror can mean something different for everyone. What gets underneath someone else’s skin, I may find laughable. There are not too many things that scare me when it comes to the actual horror genre, referring to the occult, black magic, supernatural or monsters. I can read and watch it with a bowl of popcorn and cackle and make jokes all the way through. For me, the kind of horror that has the potential to keep me awake at night or really puts fear in my heart, involves humans. I watch a lot of true crime and some of those stories really have me shook! Horror hides beneath and inside of almost everything. Even the sweetest and most honest experience can quickly turn into a horror story if you just change a few of the details. If you believe in the bible, it’s literally a 17th century Books of Blood. So I’ll say that everything is horror, just squint a little, turn the music down—like when you’re driving and looking for an address—you will see it if you look.
Thompson: What is the spookiest experience you've ever had?
Moss-Dyme: This is going to sound crazy but since I’ve been an adult, I’ve come to realize that I experienced an apparition. I was very young, like 4 or 5, and I was outside jumping rope in front of where I lived in the projects in Chicago. Row homes, so there were walkways leading from each of the doors to the main sidewalk, and these low chain link fences with stakes. That detail is important because of what happened. No one else is outside and I’m jumping rope and suddenly horses come trotting down the sidewalk. One stopped at the end of my walkway and fell on its back and kicked up its legs, then it got up and ran off. Right behind it, another one stops and does the same thing. I’m standing there, frozen, terrified. When I could move, I ran inside and told my grandmother but she didn’t believe me, told me I was seeing things, it was my imagination. But here I am 50 years later and still seeing it just as clear as day, but I can’t tell you what I ate for dinner 3 days ago. But I remember that because it left a mark in my memory and I still don’t know what it meant or what message it was supposed to be. Symbolically, horses are associated with strength and courage but none of that would have applied to me at such a young age. They’re also associated with the apocalypse, so make of that what you will.
Thompson: What is the scariest book you've read and what about it frightened you?
Moss-Dyme: I’ve been asked this question many times over the years and my answer remains the same. The scariest book I’ve ever read is They Thirst by Robert McCammon. I read it well over 20 years ago and I still cannot go into L.A. without thinking about the scenes from that book. For the longest time after reading, I said I would never even visit L.A. because it scared me so much. No spoiler, but vampires pretty much overwhelmed the entire city in a way unlike any I had ever read or even seen in a movie. And I was so invested in the characters! The opening story of the main character and how vampires attacked his family as a child, and here he is still looking for his revenge, waiting for this moment. I’m happy to report though that when I finally did go into L.A., it was beautiful and there was both an orange and a lemon tree in the backyard of our AirBnB, which gave me the biggest smile. But when we went out at night, I couldn’t resist telling my kids about the book so they would be on the lookout, just in case.
Thompson: Love plays a crucial role in many of the stories within your upcoming collection, Sick XOXO, with tales centering on first love, newlywed love, the lovelorn, a parent's love, and undying love, among others. What will readers learn about love's potential for horror from this text in which "various types of love transform into malevolent forces?"
Moss-Dyme: The inspiration for Sick XOXO, or “sick love” came from a conversation I had with my mom, whose been gone now about 25 years. She said to me, what is scarier than being so much in love with (a man) that you allow them access to ALL of you? Your money, your safety, your thoughts, your body; you let down all of your guards and they can destroy you and leave you in a pile of ashes that blow away with the wind. What’s scarier than that?
And you know, admittedly those words may have kind of messed me up a bit over the years, messed up the way I view men and relationships because dammit she was RIGHT. Think about that. We don’t give that kind of access to everyone. You’re literally letting this person that you think you love—that you think loves you—you’re letting them inside of your life and inside of your body like a parasite, and we know what parasites do. They eat you from the inside out. That’s true horror. Because when it goes wrong…woooooh. That’s some effing horror for you. In this collection, I wanted to explore different types of relationships but in each one, there are lines being crossed and people realizing that at the end of the day, there’s a little bit of evil in all of us. Even when we love.
Kenya Moss-Dyme began writing short-form horror in her teens and won several scholastic writing awards for her creative work. Her first novel, Prey for Me—the hard-hitting story of a monstrous child-abusing preacher—was followed by the Amazon best-selling dark romance, A Good Wife. She has since firmly established her place in the horror genre with the release of Daymares, as well as appearances in anthologies and publications. Her latest collection Sick XOXO will be released in November and her upcoming novel will be published by DarkLit Press in 2024.
