P.M. Raymond hails from New Orleans, Louisiana so she knows a thing or two about good gumbo, grits, and café au lait. She currently lives on the East Coast with 27 cookbooks and an imaginary dog named Walter. She is a 2024 Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland award winner, 2024 Killer Shorts Screenplay Competition Top 10 Finalist, a 2024 Claymore Award Finalist, and named to the 160 Black Women in Horror in 2023. Her work has appeared in Punk Noir, Flash Fiction Magazine, Kings River Life Magazine, Dark Fire Fiction, Pyre Magazine, The Furious Gazelle, and Dark Yonder. www.pmraymond.com. She is, most recently, the Winner of the 2024 Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award.

1. What was your first published work? 

Short story, “The Day the Music Died” – The story appeared in Carolina Crimes: Rock, Roll, and Ruin anthology from Triangle Sisters in Crime and published by Down and Out Books in Sept. 2022.

2. Is there a story inside that you have seeds of but can’t seem to connect that’s dying to get out?

 I’ve been reading a lot about my hometown New Orleans, Louisiana folklore, a racy part of NOLA called Storyville, and the Rougarou mythology. I want to write something that takes these old tales I grew up with make them twisty. 

3. How do you handle a rejected story?

 I tell my Slack group EVERYTHING! Very lucky to have a supportive writers’ group who boost each other through the good times and the rejections.

4. What does literary success look like to you? 

This one’s a bit of a cheat since this answer is literary adjacent but…having one of my short stories adapted to the screen (big or small) would be the height of success for me. 

5. Do you read your book reviews?

How do you deal with bad or good ones? I don’t have any individual book reviews but read the ones for anthologies I’m part of. I think book reviews are for other readers so I try to be pragmatic about it. Art is subjective so sometimes low scoring reviews are actually more about the reader’s preferences than anyone’s writing ability. Reviews can sting as much as they can uplift so knowing that going in keeps my expectations level. 

6. What is the most difficult part of your artistic process? 

Staying focused long enough to finish a book. I mostly write short stories but I’m attempting my second novel and first novella. My mind wanders often so I have no idea how long this is going to take!

7. As in most times, the truth is stranger than fiction, what has been the hardest scene or chapter you’ve had to write, if you were channeling personal experience?

 I channel themes like generational trauma, revenge, unexpected emotional outrage, not specific incidents or experiences.

8. What inspired your latest work? 

The ideas of traumatic energy lingering in the land. I explored the concept in an award-winning short story but I am expanding the idea to a novella.

9. If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be? 

I would tell my younger writing self that rejections are part of the territory and to not let them define my value as a writer.

10. Best advice you’ve gotten from a fellow writer?

Don’t compare my writing journey to anyone else’s. It is human nature to want to make comparisons, but I prefer to lift up other writers and celebrate their successes. Jealousy is a waste of my time.

11. What is your go-to comfort horror/Sci-Fi book? 

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James. I love old timey ghost stories. 

12. If you were to genre-hop, which genres would you most like to try writing?

 I already write crime noir but I would also like to write romance or science fiction.

P.M. Raymond is a member of the Black Women in Horror Organization. The group’s mission is highlight and honor Black women writing in the horror genre. Their most recent publication, “160 Black Women in Horror”, spotlights both mainstream and emerging Black women authors in the genre. Purchase your copy here!