Strange & Fantastic #25
An interview with Ivy Grimes, City of Spores news, and Mushrooms for Mirabelle Part 6
Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the April sunshine.
In last month’s newsletter, I shared how much I loved Ivy Grimes’ debut novel, The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, which I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of. I’ve always wanted to interview Ivy, and since her novel is releasing on April 21st (next week!), I thought now would be the perfect time to do so. I reached out to Ivy and asked if she’d be interested, and she was!
Real quick, before we get to that, though, I did want to share some quick—and exciting!—City of Spores news. I’m ECSTATIC to announce that the audiobook for City of Spores has completed production and should be available via Audible and iTunes in a week or two!
The audiobook was produced and performed by the incredible Kerie Darner, and I can’t say enough great things about working with her. She’s the perfect narrator for City of Spores, and she’s made the city of Madripol and Johanna Kolibrik and all the other characters come absolutely ALIVE. Kerie and I cannot wait to share the audiobook with you—we think you’re going to love it! Now, I know I normally only send one email out a month, but I do want to let you know that I’ll be sending another (short) email out to each of you when the book is up on Audible and iTunes, so please forgive me in advance.
Alright, enough about that—now on to the star of the hour: Ivy Grimes!
Interview with Ivy Grimes
Ivy Grimes is originally from Birmingham, Alabama, and she currently lives in Virginia. She has an MFA from the University of Alabama. Her stories have appeared in The Baffler, Vastarien, hex, Maudlin House, Cosmic Horror Monthly, Seize the Press, ergot., Potomac Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Grime Time is available from Tales From Between. Her collection Glass Stories is out now with Grimscribe Press. Ivy’s debut novel, The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, releases April 21, 2025 from Cemetery Gates Media.
Hi Ivy, thanks so much for doing this interview! Let’s jump right in. What are your 5 favorite books? How have they inspired your own writing?
They change so often! This only counts for today, but here are five that have had a major impact on me since I started writing fiction:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
This was my first big chunky Murakami book (read right after A Wild Sheep Chase, which I also loved), and it made me want to seriously try my hand at fiction. I loved the passive protagonist who goes around collecting his wife’s drycleaning and making simple meals, until he slowly gets caught up in the mystery of her disappearance. I was inspired by how it blended humor and the mundane and the surreal and aspects of a conventional mystery.
The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns
I was already a fan of Barb’s when I read this one, which is a hilarious and unusual take on the fairy tale, where the “evil stepmother” speaks, not as a powerful feminist figure, or even as a wholly sympathetic person, but as a resilient and talented woman who’s trying to make ends meet and who makes some unfortunate decisions.
The Brothers Karamazov by You-Know-Who
I didn’t read this one until a few years ago. It’s very long, after all! At some point in school, I read the section where Ivan rejects the idea of God because of the existence of unjust suffering, particularly the suffering of children, for which he says there is no possible excuse. I still believe in God, but I am bothered by these worries quite often, and I write about/around them all the time. I can’t even say, like Alyosha does, that I want to suffer too. I was inspired by Ivan’s boldness and incisiveness, of course, but in the end, I was more inspired by Alyosha’s persistence through weakness, and his insistence on seemingly small matters of kindness and community.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
I found this hugely influential. Two sisters who love each other, and one pits them both against the world. They’re so isolated in this ambiguous, interesting way. Jackson is funny, and she lets herself be really fanciful here even while she’s hiding the dagger. This book shows off the power and safety and beauty and loneliness and wretchedness of being different. Of living in your own world.
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
Like many of my favorite books, it’s serious and funny. I’m drawn to hippie art, and this book sets us in a surreal sort of commune where we investigate the troubles that keep us from paradise on earth. Acid-tinged imagery. Love the casual first-person voice. I bet it was a total joy to write, and if I’m wrong about that, I’m not sure I want to know.
AND shout out to beloved books like Dubliners, The Big Sleep, Vonnegut stuff, Invisible Man, Piranesi, Sula, The Sea, the Sea, The True Deceiver, Ruth Goodman’s fun history books, The Makioka Sisters, Gingerbread, Excellent Women, etc., etc. I’m also consistently inspired by books and stories that friends have written.
Those are all great answers! I’ve got some new books to add to my TBR. So what was your writing process like for The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion? How was it similar to/different from your writing process for your short stories and other novella?
I don’t think too highly of my process at this time! I can’t seem to control my writing intentions the way I’d like. But with The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, I wrote the first chapter first, and I was delighted by Ruby’s voice and the characters I met in that chapter. From there, it spun out. I’ve written other novels and trunked them because I didn’t feel the same sense of consistent delight when returning to them. I originally called the book Ruby, Opal, and Phew, a title which no one else liked.
As for short stories or flash pieces or little poems, I tend to write them in little bursts. Whereas novels require the patience of everyday living, a short story can come from a concentration of terror or rage. That’s much more fun in a way, but I haven’t felt like writing short stories lately. Too much comfortable ennui!
I totally get that. And I have to admit, as much as I love the title The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, I actually really like the original title, too! Speaking of those characters, besides Ruby and Opal, Phew was my favorite character in the novel. He's so weird and funny, and I love the idea of this little kid prophet wandering around in the woods listening to God. What inspired his character? Do you have a favorite character in the novel, and if so, who is it?
Phew was my favorite, too! He surprised me and made me laugh right away. I think in retrospect, he owes a little of his DNA to Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I didn’t see that until I’d written the novel. I’ve always liked writing funny kids, though. I grew up around extended family in my hometown in Alabama, and all of us kids spent a lot of time with elderly family members, so we had some old person qualities alongside our kid qualities, which is what Phew is like.
That’s a great way of describing Phew—a kid with old person qualities. I know a lot of your writing is influenced by fairy tales—what is it about fairy tales that captures your imagination and/or inspires you as a writer? Do you have a favorite fairy tale, and if so, which one, and why?
You know, I’m still not entirely sure! Whenever I ask myself this question, I have a slightly different answer. I love the various ways artists move in and out of fairy tales as they retell them, exploring their own interests within them. Before I wrote The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, I was really inspired by the movie Bluebeard (2009), directed by Catherine Breillat. She switches between retelling the fairy tale of a young wife forbidden to enter only one of the rooms in her husband’s castle, and the frame story about young sisters in conflict.
I’ve also been inspired by reading the psychological analysis of fairy tales by Marie-Louis von Franz. She was primarily a mystic, as I see it. I don’t agree with everything she said, but I find her creativity inspiring. I love the idea that fairy tales are dream maps, something from another world to help explain you to yourself, or help you find your way. In the most immediate sense, I find fairy tales uncanny, and I’m drawn to this feeling. I want more of it.
Oh, I’ve never thought of fairy tales like that, as “dream maps”—I love that idea! I've always loved the dreamlike, surreal—and uncanny, as you said—feel of your writing, and I've always wondered: How do you do that? Is it something that just happens as you're writing, or do you use a specific method to achieve that?
I’m also not entirely sure about this! I honestly think this is what comes naturally from me when I’m in a flow state. When I want to write something more linear and comprehensible, I have to consciously focus my mind on that. When I’m having the most fun, in the most absorbing kind of play, I’m writing out dreams. They make sense to me, though.
Speaking of dreams and the surreal and uncanny, we both share a deep affinity for David Lynch. What do you love about Lynch's work? And how has his work inspired or influenced your own?
Yes, we do! I love to see that in your work as well. I first encountered Lynch’s work in my teens, so it’s been part of my life for a long time. Mulholland Drive was the first movie of his that I watched, and it scared me so much, I slept with the light on for days. I was haunted by the deranged prolonged stares of the characters, the reality of the nightmare behind the dumpster, the love and hate existing in the fractured identity of one innocent-appearing woman. I went straight to the internet to see other people’s theories, too, and I had a lot of fun with that. I love movies and shows that spawn message boards full of wild ideas. Eventually, I watched Twin Peaks and loved its mixture of dread and camp. Fire Walk With Me probably shook me the most and is my favorite movie, taking me into the darkest corners of my mind. Talk about uncanny! I love the scene where Laura is looking at the picture given to her by the horrifying Mrs. Tremond and walks right into it, touching the faded wallpaper and passing through the doorway. I could go on through all of his movies. I love the “lighter” ones too, like The Elephant Man and The Straight Story. I love his mysticism and belief in the power of the unconscious mind. He reminds us we live inside a dream.
Agreed! (Fire Walk With Me is also my favorite Lynch film, and that scene you mentioned is one of my favorite scenes in the film!) OK, I'm stealing a page from your interview playbook here, because I think it's such a wonderful question, but what question would you like to be asked? (Please answer it.)
“Ivy, why do you enjoy reading indie books in addition to widespread classics?”
I love the variety of perspectives you find, not only in terms of the worldview behind the story, but also in different ways of approaching the art of storytelling, from stream-of-consciousness to explicit realism to a million different dream worlds. Also, I like reading books soon after they were written rather than the years it takes a book to move through traditional publishing. I love the immediacy, the punch to the face. I love the democracy of storytelling, that great stories are all around us. I love your work, Austin, and I appreciate your storytelling kinship! I love meeting other writers who love dreams.
What a great question and answer. Thanks for the kind words—I very much appreciate your storytelling kinship as well, Ivy! Finally, where can readers find your new novel, The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion, and where can they find out more about you and your work?
You can order The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion from Cemetery Gates and many fine and not-so-fine online book retailers! If you have any questions or problems finding it, feel free to message me.
To learn more about me, you can visit my ramshackle website www.ivyivyivyivy.com.
Monthly Serial: Mushrooms for Mirabelle
[Read Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5]
(Part 6)
Mirabelle woke with a start. I was hovering over her, zipping this way and that, agitated out of my mind. I’d been trying to wake her for several minutes since returning to the house.
She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “What time is it?”
Sun’s coming up, I said, but never mind that. Something bad happened, Belle. Real bad.
Mirabelle sat up. “What?”
She gagged, her eyes watering, and she placed her hands over her nose and mouth. “Ugh! It smells something awful in here!”
I looked at her blankly.
“Oh. You lucky you ain’t smell nothing no more.”
Belle—
“Sorry. What is it? What’s going on?”
Follow me, I said, and rushed for the stairs. Hurry!
“I’m coming,” Mirabelle said, creaking up the stairs behind me, two at a time. I seeped through the door and then she pushed it open and joined me in the room.
I floated over near Daddy.
He lay motionless, blood pooling on the floor where it dripped from his sheets. Fungal shelves had broken through the skin of his neck. Dark mushrooms flowered from his eyes and mouth. They budded from his face, his chest, his arms, his legs, between his fingers and toes. Beneath his pale and bruised skin, pulsing silver streaks branched every which way like a network of glimmering spiderwebs. A stalk grew through Daddy’s head, the black cap on the end swelling and compressing with the black spores I knew were roiling inside it.
Mirabelle couldn’t hold back the sobs that racked her frail, little body. She gasped for breath.
But I wasn’t finished bringing her bad news. Not yet.
Belle, I said.
“What?” Mirabelle asked, voice hoarse. She tore her eyes from the thing in Daddy’s bed.
I motioned to Henry’s empty bed and the broken window.
***
Fyffe was on fire.
We could see towering columns of black smoke rising from the center of town as we raced to Granny’s house. Even there, on the edge of the Wytchwood, we could hear the wails and screams and angry shouts filling the morning air.
We’d barricaded Daddy’s body in his room before leaving for Granny’s. I don’t know why his body didn’t take off like Henry’s, but it bothered me bad. As far as I could reckon, it had something to do with Henry taking the elixir first and with Daddy’s body being so broken. But I wasn’t sure the things living inside him weren’t just pretending to sleep, either.
Mirabelle pounded on Granny’s door; it creaked open on its own.
“Granny?” Mirabelle called.
We stepped into the dark beyond the door when she didn’t answer. The fireplace was cold, like it hadn’t been touched in years. Dust blanketed everything. The weeds at the window were dead and wilted. Behind Granny’s little wobbly table, her mattress lay abandoned.
Mirabelle picked up a folded piece of old paper lying on the table, blowing away the dust that covered it. She opened it and read; a moan escaped her lips.
“No,” she said. “No, please. No…”
What, Belle? What Granny say?
Mirabelle sniffled, tried to calm her shaking so she could read me the letter.
“Mirabelle,” she read, “This town… My sister’s dug her claws deep into it. She like a diseased tick dug into the skin, sucking on the lifejuice of the place and poisoning it at the same time. Sometimes, there ain’t nothing left to be done except to burn the whole damn thing to ash. Signed, Granny.”
Before I could respond, shadows fell over Mirabelle, cast by two figures standing outside the open door.
Oh, no, I said, able to make out their faces before Mirabelle could.
“The hell you doing here, girl?” the taller of the two shadows barked.
“Told you!” the other figure said. “Told you I seen her ‘round here, conniving ‘bout with that ol’ witch!”
“She weren’t no witch!” Mirabelle cried. “She the only person in this town that give a damn about me!”
Belle, I said, aching to do something—anything—to protect my sister.
The tall man stepped into Granny’s house. Mirabelle’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the rifle leveled at her. Then she recognized him.
“Mister Seeley?”
“Knew we shoulda burned what was left of your family in that damned ol’ house,” he said, stepping closer. Mirabelle moved back, edging toward the fireplace. “Knew it come back to haunt us, letting you and your daddy and your brother live on.”
I couldn’t do anything to help Mirabelle. My hands were useless. I was useless.
Belle, I’m sorry—
“Just shoot her a’ready,” the other man said, as he entered the house behind Mr. Seeley.
Mirabelle’s eyes widened when she recognized the second-oldest West boy. They’d been so close before she turned thirteen and everything done gone to hell. “Eustis?”
Eustis West brought his rifle up to his shoulder and aimed at her face. “Henry dead, and her following, mayhap that’ll stop this mess before it get too far gone.”
“Here’s to hoping,” Mr. Seeley said. He aimed down the sight of his rifle.
I’m so sorry…
“No, please,” Mirabelle cried, squeezing her eyes shut. “Please—”
A terrible ruckus pierced the air around us and then silver tendrils were wrapping around Mr. Seeley and Eustis and dragging them both kicking and screaming out of Granny’s house toward the feet of a terrible figure covered in mushrooms.
Mirabelle screamed as another mushroom creature joined the first. We watched in horror as both creatures bent forward and sprayed black spores over Mr. Seeley and Eustis. The spores spread like a black rot over the both of them; they screamed and writhed, gagging as their throats and eyes and ears and nostrils were filled with hungry, black fungus.
The window, I said, catching sunlight glinting off glass across the room. The window!
Mirabelle turned and saw it. She hefted a pot from the fireplace and sent it crashing through the glass in a spray of twinkling quicksilver.
Then she was jumping through the broken window, and we were running, running, running past the stilled bodies of the freshly dead mushroom creatures, even as the bodies of Mr. Seeley and Eustis West began bearing fruit.
TO BE CONCLUDED…
Signing Off
Well, that’s it for April 2025, folks. Be sure to grab a copy of The Ghosts of Blaubart Mansion! You won’t regret it.
As always, thanks so much for reading, and stay strange.
—Austin
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please subscribe—you’ll get a free eBook of my short story, “Magus,” available EXCLUSIVELY for subscribers!
I’d also love it if you considered checking out my weird fantasy noir novella, City of Spores, or my illustrated sci-fi thriller chapbook, Goodly Creatures.
