Sami Ellis

Sami Ellis is a queer horror writer who’s inspired by the horrific nature of Black fears and the culture’s relation to the supernatural. When she’s not acting as the single auntie with a good job, she spends her time not writing.

Check out her words in the Black horror anthology, All These Sunken Souls.

Ellis's debut novel is Dead Girls Walking.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I am very much a speculative fiction author, and I love, love, loved getting the chance to play around with death in a Friday the 13th-type camp story. Thus, and this is probably a spoiler to some, Dead Girls Walking as a title is quite literal. The girls are dead - and somehow, they are also walking. Gasp!

What's in a name?

The name Temple Baker came to me in full. I usually have to mix and match different names that are familiar to me (there are lots of “Imani’s” in my notebooks), but the original title for Dead Girls Walking was Temple Baker the Badass. I hated the title, but the name itself stuck - and if you read the book, you'll find that that's not all there is to her name (though she'll kill you before she ever tells you).

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

As a teenager, I read anything that was kept in stock at the library. That mostly means that as long as it wasn't popular – thus not already checked out – I was reading it in one sitting. I think teen me would be most surprised that I stuck to one kind of story, one kind of genre. I always loved horror, sure - but I had been reading 2 rom-coms a day back then. I inhaled Kimani Tru and Simon Pulse's entire catalogue just for fun. The idea that my adventurous tastes don't translate to my talent would probably shake teen me to her core.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are difficult for me because they teach me, and the reader, about patience that we may not have. I have to wait to get to the fun parts I like! All of my stories are like a Jenga tower. Readers pick apart at it page-by-page, chapter-by-chapter until everything collapses on itself - and the collapsing part is the fun part for me. Bodies are found, girls are screaming, and somehow I’ve got to rebuild everything that fell apart.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I see my younger self in my characters. Temple is hardheaded and frustrated with everything, including herself. It makes her lash out and fight people who are only trying to help her. I wasn't exactly that girl all the time, but there were plenty of times I was. I had friends that were that girl. I've had students that were that girl. And those people just needed someone on their side for once, even when they were acting out. So I tried to write Dead Girls Walking with love love, instead of tough love, for some girl to find it when she needs it – since I’d probably be the same at that age.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Dreams influence me a lot! I used to have frequent hallucinations around when I went to sleep and woke up (they’re called hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations), and eventually I decided - "Well, I'm a horror writer, so let's write some of these down." I used to have this one particular hallucination that was recurring, which had never happened to me before. I would keep waking up and there would be math all over my walls. Scribbled, in-depth math like a professor's chalkboard. I would always get out of bed to run to read it, but by the time I reached the wall I would be too awake and the hallucination would dissipate. I used that one in Dead Girls Walking.

Visit Sami Ellis's website.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Girls Walking.

--Marshal Zeringue