March 20, 2025

Vanishing Daughters ft. Cynthia Pelayo

Vanishing Daughters ft. Cynthia Pelayo

Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. Known for her genre-bending works that blend crime, horror, and folklore, Pelayo shares her personal journey, including her Puerto Rican...

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Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet. Known for her genre-bending works that blend crime, horror, and folklore, Pelayo shares her personal journey, including her Puerto Rican heritage, the impact of death and loss, and her work as a journalist; and how these experiences shape her writing. Pelayo's latest novel, Vanishing Daughters is now available!

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Hey, girlfriends, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, you

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are still listening to SUSTO and I am still your host,

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and today I have a very very special treat for you.

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We are joined by none other than Cynthia Belio, who

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is the first Bourriqua, the first Puerto Ricanya bram Stoker

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Award winner. She's also the author of titles such as

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Forgotten Sisters, Children of Chicago, and The Shoemaker's Magician. In

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addition to writing genre venting novels that incorporate fairy tale, mystery, detective, crime,

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and horror elements. Pilio or Sina, as I've heard you

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like to be called, has written numerous short stories, including

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the collection Lotteria and the poetry collection crime Scene. The

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recipient of the twenty twenty one International Latino Book Awards,

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she holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from

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the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and she

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lives in Chicago with her family. And we will kind

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of drop this again later, but if you want to

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look into her now, you can visit Sinapilio dot com. Cynthia,

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thank you so much for being here. Welcome to SUSTO.

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Thank you for inviting me. I just love you. I

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love everything that you do, so thank.

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You the music to my ears. I mean again. Also,

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I'm like I told you right before we kind of

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started recording, I was like, I'm going to get into it.

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But I'm such a fan of this book of your work.

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I think, just right off the bat, something that I

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noticed in reading Vanishing Daughters, which should be available now,

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it I can tell that you are a poet. Your

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writing is just so beautiful, and the world building that

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happens in your writing is it's so cool and so

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so If y'all are looking for something to add to

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your I'm sure already very long to be read piles.

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You need to get Vanishing Daughters. You need to put

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it at the top of that pile and read it

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because it is so so good. Cynthia, would you care

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to kind of introduce the listeners to a little bit

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about who you are, if maybe they don't know you yet.

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Yeah, So, Cynthia Palaio, my friends call me Sina. I'm

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Puerto Rican. So every Puerto Rican that you know probably

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has a Puerto Rican nickname. And so my oldest brother

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is Roberto Junior, but we call him titoo our family.

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Then we have Richard, who's GOC. Naturally he would get

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GOC from Richard. I don't know how we got that.

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And then my my nickname just became Sina, and so

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that's a term of endearment. That's what my dad called me.

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My dad died in twenty twenty three, and so I'm

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still like reeling from that because I was super close

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with him, and I was born in Puerto Rico. My

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parents were born in Puerto Rico, my great great grandpa,

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parents great grandparents, and so they my family came here.

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They kind of went back and forth for a bit,

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and then finally in the eighties they were like, we

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got to stay here for the kids so they can

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go to school. I mean, my parents have a sixth

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grade education. They grew up in houses with dirt floors.

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My head of latrine, and so they were just like,

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we could stay on the island and deal with you

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know that it's very difficult. It's gonna be difficult for them,

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or we can be here and it's gonna be difficult

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for them, but at least they'll have running water, because

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on the island there's issues with like the water and

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the electricity going out and things like that. So I

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think my parents knew. My dad especially knew, these kids

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are gonna deal with racism. They're just gonna deal with it.

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This is gonna be their life. He dealt He was

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a darker skin, so he dealt with it quite extensively.

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I dealt with it, of course, being a woman and Latita,

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and I recognize my privilege as being a lighter skin Withina,

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and I do recognize that it still hasn't shielded me

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from so much. And so I grew up in inner

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city Chicago, and the inner city and our neighborhood quickly gentrified.

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We were the first Hispanics on the block. Within a

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few years, all the everybody else left. I was the first.

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I went to inner city schools that were didn't have

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the proper resources. But you know, I may do like

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I had librarians that recognized, like she she likes to read,

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but this is we got all the beat up books.

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So I read a lot of like classics. I was

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the first person in my family to step in a

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college classroom. I had no idea what I was doing

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there because that was my high school was like ninety

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percent Latino. So the walk into a classroom with all

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white people. It was terrified, and I was. It was

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the first day I ever experienced, like straight up racism.

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Was the first day I entered a college classroom. And

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I I came home crying because I told Dad and

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I was like, I'm not going back, and he's like,

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you're going yeah. And I eventually worked as a journalist.

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I worked in Inner City for the Intercity newspapers. I

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left journalism because of post traumatic stress covering crime, and

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then I eventually got my MFA and started writing Wow,

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lending crime.

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Wow.

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Yeah.

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And I mean, in reading your work, I kept thinking,

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this is someone who has truly lived a robust life.

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And I don't know you personally. I don't know many

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of these details that I'm hearing now, So hearing them

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now it's kind of also validation of like how much

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of your life and yourself that you pour into your writing.

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And I think that is such a beautiful, vulnerable thing

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to do as a creator, as a writer and author,

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and it truly shone through through this book and on

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all of your work. But again, in reading this book,

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and I have some questions about it, it was it

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was so so I don't know, just like the grit

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you know that it had was I like, I wanted

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to like hug you if I don't know, that's weird,

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but I was like, I was like, I just felt

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kind of also seen in some places. So I was like,

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this person understands true loss, and so I just I

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want to thank you for putting that out there into

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the world, because it can be very hard to do,

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but I think you were going to truly, truly impact

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a lot of people in a really positive way. So

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I wanted to ask you. I guess the first question

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that I have here is again about the way that

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you blend crime, horror, and folklore into your writing, and

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especially in this book. Do you have a particular approach

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to balancing all of those genres and additionally, what draws

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you to write these kinds of stories that mix those

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things with investigative elements.

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I think with fairy tales and folklore, those were just

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the first stories I was told. My parents couldn't read English,

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and so what they did they would just tell me

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whatever stories they remembered from like their kindergarten or their

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preschool was told to them, like you know, whatever ghost

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stories my father remembers from like, you know, the island.

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I remember him telling me that up on the mountains

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in Puerto Rico that you would late at night you

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would see like lights blowing up the mountain and he's like,

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those are the ghosts of people that would walk up

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with their lanterns and they would fall off and they

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would like miss their stuff and fall off the mountain

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and die. So like things like this they just like

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really stood out to me. So fairy tales were told

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to me by my mother and like ghost stories by

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my father. And then with covering crime, I think it's

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because I just I was exposed to so much crime

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growing up because I went I went to a high

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school that it struggled. It was ninety percent black and

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Latino and ninety percent at the poverty rate our high school,

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and so there was a lot of socioeconomic issues there

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and a lot of really good people there, but many

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of them were victims of circumstance. And so I unfortunately

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lost a lot of people to goune crime. I have

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friends who are surveying life in prison for murder just

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because of so much. And it's still like we still

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see it. We still see young people hurting each other

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and that's something that that stuck with me, like what

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we do this to people from a very young age?

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What is going on? And so I think that's where

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I started exploring it from my personal experience. I couldn't

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do it via realism because it's too painful for me

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to write it without the monsters. So I write it

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with the monsters included, and that makes it a little

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bit more easier for me to mentally process.

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Yeah, definitely, I've had someone on the show, a screenwriter

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and a director, say that horror is a really good

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analogy for attaching grief to and honestly, I think for

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many emotions and kind of experience experiences that we have

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to go through as as people. But kind of jumping

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back to this what you mentioned about like your dad

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telling you stories about like you know, the lights in

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the mountain and other kinds of stories. Are there specific

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legends or stories, either real or fiction that influence to

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vanishing daughters? And I want to kind of just call

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it out specifically to why the idea of like sleeping beauty.

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I think that kind of like the story sleeping Beauty

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was very prevalent in this book, and I read in

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a previous interview that you had mentioned your next book,

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which was Vanishing Daughters, was going to be kind of

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based around or built on, the story of Sleeping Beauty.

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So I'm curious about that, and also if there were

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any other kind of legends that influenced this book.

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I mean, definite, that's definitely just the concept of La Yourna,

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because she's I know, you know, there's the story that

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she did the horrible thing with her children. Of course,

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it's a folk story or a legend. Do we know that?

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And so I am fascinated that so many of these

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legends and folk stories are around women becoming monstrous because

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they were either murdered or something bad happened to them.

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And so that was my fascination with it. And then

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I kind of thought about the vanishing hitchhiker, which is

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a woman in white and that story. You have that

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legend all across the globe. You have it throughout Latin America,

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you have it throughout Europe, you have it all Like

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I feel like every single state and America has a

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vanishing hitchhiker, and it's very often a woman dressed in white.

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And so I guess I just started thinking, why are

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we scared of it. Is it a ghost that's was

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hit by a car? Is it a ghost that was

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like murdered. Is it a ghost that like fell down

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that like? And so just the fact that we create

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monsters out of what I think were murdered women, I

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think is sad.

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Yeah, one hundred percent. And you mentioned that, and I'm

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so glad that you kind of like said it almost verbatim. So,

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I mean, I have the reader's copy here, and I

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don't know if you can see I have all my

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tabs here on the book because the way that I

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read a book is like anytime something kind of like

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impacts me or that I think is like really strong,

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I leave a little tab. And there are many tabs

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here in this book. But one line that I want

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to read, if you don't mind, and it just to

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echo what you said. It says, why do we fear

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the ghosts of women who were murdered? Why don't we

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fear the thing that made them what they are? And

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oh my god, I just got toolls right now reading it.

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But when my first read through of this that I

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like again, it just kind of it hit me like

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a ton of bricks, and I was like, oh, it

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was just like it it's painful and it's sad, like

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that is kind of like that that is true, like

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that's that's what happens. And those are also the kinds

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of conversations that I try to initiate when I'm telling

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these stories, especially like you said, with the story of Laodona,

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that is such a classic story. I love this kind

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of I'm not sure what to call it, if it's

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like a reclamation or like a restructuring or whatever about

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the way people are now talking about the story of

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Lioona or La Malince and kind of approaching it from

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a more like human like empathetic space instead of like, no,

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like she's a bad person, she's just a ghost and

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that Whereas I don't know, if you believe in astrology,

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I'm a cancer, so I have a lot of like

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feelings and emotion, and so whenever I hear these stories,

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I'm like, no, but I want to know their side. Yes,

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I'm a virgal rising. But then you also mentioned the

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trope of the vanishing hitchhiker, which again was also very

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prevalent in this book, and like you said, it's a

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classic tell and your use of it in in this book,

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00:12:55.759 --> 00:12:57.879
it was so nostalgic because it's also one of the

234
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stories that I heard growing up, and I want to

235
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to ask you more about your relationship with that story,

236
00:13:02.840 --> 00:13:04.720
although you just kind of mentioned about it, but I

237
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also wanted to say growing up, there is a book

238
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and I constantly I'm sure my listeners are tired of

239
00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:13.720
hearing of it. I'm constantly referencing it on sustal. It

240
00:13:13.799 --> 00:13:16.159
took a book called Stories that Must Not Die And

241
00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:18.240
in the questions that I sent you, there's a link

242
00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:20.360
to it so you can check it out later if

243
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you want. It's a PDF of the book. It's page

244
00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:24.480
five of the PDF that I sent you. But it's

245
00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:27.279
the story of the Vanishing Hitchhiker. And that story was

246
00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:31.320
read to me in elementary And the name of the hitchhiker,

247
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the ghost hitchhiker in this story, her name was Maria,

248
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and so I was like, oh my god. I was like,

249
00:13:35.879 --> 00:13:39.200
even the name was so close to to what you

250
00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:42.279
Her name one of the characters names in this book

251
00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:45.480
was Mary, So I was just like, WHOA Like, It's

252
00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.480
interesting to see how these stories are so similar regardless

253
00:13:48.480 --> 00:13:50.559
of where they're told geographically.

254
00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:57.200
Well, with the Vanishing hitchhiker specifically, I was just fascinated

255
00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:01.559
with it because this particular story is the Chicago area's

256
00:14:01.559 --> 00:14:06.480
most famous ghost story. And what I find fascinating about

257
00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:11.840
this one, as opposed to like other folk tales about

258
00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:15.720
other women that are perceived as monstrous, this particular one,

259
00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:21.200
there is like a level of endearment or warmth over Mary.

260
00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:27.519
And while it isn't I know, we're talking about Latin

261
00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:31.360
need that like, while it isn't a Latino story, I

262
00:14:31.399 --> 00:14:35.240
also feel like it's still like an it has hints

263
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:37.840
to an immigrant story, and I think what a lot

264
00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.799
of people forget and what I the arguments I make

265
00:14:40.840 --> 00:14:42.720
in a lot of my books when I write about

266
00:14:43.159 --> 00:14:48.320
Irish immigrants or Dutch immigrants is that these people were

267
00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:52.279
once the immigrants and were the other at that point

268
00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:55.879
in time, and a lot of the.

269
00:14:55.559 --> 00:15:00.559
Persecution that they experienced are now we are experiencing as

270
00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:04.320
Latinos in the United States. And so that's why I

271
00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:06.840
do like to go to like those stories to kind

272
00:15:06.879 --> 00:15:09.720
of see like what were they experiencing, And especially with

273
00:15:10.279 --> 00:15:13.440
I wrote about the Irish immigrants who were working on

274
00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:16.879
the Illinois Michigan Canal. They were literally working on this

275
00:15:17.039 --> 00:15:20.480
canal building it falling into the river and dying and

276
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nobody cared.

277
00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:24.600
Like and I was just like, this is literally like

278
00:15:24.919 --> 00:15:29.279
our immigrant farm workers today, Like these people will work

279
00:15:29.639 --> 00:15:33.320
and then get sick from the chemicals or in accidents,

280
00:15:33.399 --> 00:15:37.519
and nobody remembers their names. And I remember when I

281
00:15:37.559 --> 00:15:40.399
was doing research finding accounts of like, yeah, we just

282
00:15:40.399 --> 00:15:43.320
don't know how many Irish immigrants died, and I was like,

283
00:15:43.399 --> 00:15:46.720
that's we're literally doing that today to the people today.

284
00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:52.200
And so with this story, I just felt like there

285
00:15:52.279 --> 00:15:55.679
was so much historically that I could kind of build

286
00:15:55.799 --> 00:16:01.679
onto and ask, And especially with we're talking about the

287
00:16:01.799 --> 00:16:06.360
character or the ghost story. The ghost name is Resurrection Mary.

288
00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:11.279
I feel like every single Chicago knows the story. If

289
00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:13.799
you're born in the city of Chicago or raised in

290
00:16:13.799 --> 00:16:17.240
the city of Chicago, you have been told variation of

291
00:16:17.279 --> 00:16:21.200
the Resurrection Mary's story. And this was me trying to

292
00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:26.080
give her some agency. And in all the accounts of

293
00:16:26.120 --> 00:16:29.919
people who have seen her, she always says, take me home.

294
00:16:30.080 --> 00:16:32.159
I want to go home. And so this was me

295
00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:33.200
taking Mary home.

296
00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:38.080
Oh my god, ah so so so good, so good,

297
00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:54.200
thank you. I want to ask also if there was

298
00:16:54.799 --> 00:16:59.039
a particular scene or an element in Vanishing Daughters that

299
00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:03.080
was especially either difficult or rewarding to write. And I

300
00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:06.720
want you to choose where to take this question. You

301
00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:09.440
don't have to give both. You can just kind of

302
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:10.519
choose one if you'd like.

303
00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:16.759
To, Oh, difficult or rewarding. Ah, okay, I'll do both.

304
00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:23.119
So difficult was writing the serial Killer because to put

305
00:17:23.200 --> 00:17:26.440
my brain in the mindset of a serial killer was very,

306
00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:33.359
very difficult and very disturbing rewarding. This is also a

307
00:17:33.400 --> 00:17:34.400
grief story.

308
00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:39.839
I wrote it while I was not well. My father

309
00:17:40.319 --> 00:17:43.160
died and I was very close to him, and I

310
00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:47.880
wanted to kind of write about what it feels like

311
00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:51.839
to go through grief. And one thing I've noticed is

312
00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:57.480
that in American culture, to grieve openly is perceived as strange,

313
00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:02.319
whereas we just let it all out, like we cry,

314
00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:06.440
we scream, we we do what we need to do,

315
00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:10.880
and it's seemed as so normal. I mean, I remember

316
00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:13.759
sitting vigil next to my father's but like, we just

317
00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:16.240
do this, this is part of death, is part of

318
00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:19.039
the process. And then I kind of felt like shamed

319
00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:23.039
almost by like Americans or American culture, because I was

320
00:18:23.119 --> 00:18:27.119
grieving so loud and people were like are you okay?

321
00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:29.200
And there was like they're losing it. I'm like, my

322
00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:30.240
father's what do you mean.

323
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:32.519
My father just like no, I'm not okay.

324
00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:38.559
Yeah, and it's okay not to be okay. And I

325
00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:43.000
just thought that was so insulting and so disrespectful.

326
00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:44.880
Or could you imagine going like and you know, I

327
00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:47.759
remember my husband He's like, oh yeah, may well, we

328
00:18:47.799 --> 00:18:50.519
would be there like with the rosary, during the rosaries

329
00:18:50.519 --> 00:18:53.240
for like days after someone died.

330
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.799
It's part of the process. And I was so insulted

331
00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:01.240
that there was this perception that I will grieving too

332
00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:04.200
much and I'm like, oh, I'm not grieving enough. And

333
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:06.599
so the book was that the book was me being like,

334
00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:08.680
this is what grief feels like.

335
00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:14.960
Oh my god. Yeah again. I just thank you for

336
00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:17.960
being so open and so vulnerable. I want I keep

337
00:19:17.960 --> 00:19:20.039
saying thank you because I agree with that. I feel

338
00:19:20.079 --> 00:19:23.599
like grief is kind of shamed in some ways, and

339
00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:25.720
I won't I don't want to get like air their

340
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:27.920
business up. But one of my closest friends, one of

341
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:31.079
my best friends, they lost a parent a couple of

342
00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:34.759
years ago, and I remember them saying something very similar

343
00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:38.319
about how like they felt like they weren't almost allowed

344
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:41.759
to grieve. And so just again everything you're saying now

345
00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:45.519
and then in reading the book was wow. It was

346
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.960
like a just such like a deep look into what

347
00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:54.759
those emotions feel and can look like too. So again,

348
00:19:55.079 --> 00:19:57.119
for the one hundred times I'm going to keep saying it,

349
00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:00.480
thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah, the main

350
00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:03.920
the main character of the book Briar Rose Thorn. She's

351
00:20:03.960 --> 00:20:08.759
a journalist who starts experiencing these eerie occurrences after her

352
00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:11.880
own mother's death. And so I want to ask, you're

353
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:14.400
kind of touching it already, but what was the inspiration

354
00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:16.000
behind her character.

355
00:20:17.240 --> 00:20:19.799
I wanted to write a character that was very like

356
00:20:19.880 --> 00:20:23.440
on the nose to be like appended to like a

357
00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:27.960
fairy tale. Like I didn't want to like it's almost

358
00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.079
like I didn't want to write like sleeping Beauty herself

359
00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:35.920
and what that meant. But I wanted to write somebody

360
00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:40.440
that was like very embedded or very like a representative

361
00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:45.680
of what a fairy tale is. And then developing her

362
00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:47.799
took of a long time, and I think it took

363
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.200
me like months to even find her name. And I

364
00:20:50.240 --> 00:20:52.880
was just like, I'm just gonna go with Briar and

365
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:56.039
that comes from the Grim's fairy tales, the Little Briar Rose.

366
00:20:56.599 --> 00:21:04.000
So she's a mash of the various characters of Sleeping Beauty,

367
00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:11.160
mix of myself as a journalist, and and a third

368
00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:13.200
thing that I don't even know where she came from.

369
00:21:13.319 --> 00:21:16.319
Yeah, a third secret ingredient.

370
00:21:17.839 --> 00:21:22.440
Yeah, it took a while to like really pin her down,

371
00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:26.359
but I wanted somebody who had been in Chicago for

372
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:29.480
a long time, that had ancestry here, that did have

373
00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:35.480
like like really you know, you know, you know, generational

374
00:21:35.599 --> 00:21:39.200
roots here that was connected to this place in time.

375
00:21:39.440 --> 00:21:42.400
And then when as I was doing the research along

376
00:21:42.559 --> 00:21:45.960
Archer Avenue and it's this takes place along Archer Avenue,

377
00:21:46.359 --> 00:21:49.720
and Archer Avenue is said to be the most haunted

378
00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:52.559
road in the Chicago land area and one of the

379
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:55.960
most haunted roads in the United States. So it's not

380
00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.920
just resurrection Mary that's scene here. There's like people have

381
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.359
claim to have seen like carriages being pulled by like

382
00:22:03.519 --> 00:22:06.480
black horses that have like fire coming out of their eyes.

383
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.599
People have said that they've seen like monks rising from

384
00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:12.960
the woods. So Archier Avenue is a lot of weird stuff.

385
00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:17.160
And so when I found that historical piece of all

386
00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:20.680
of those Irish immigrants that had died there. I was like,

387
00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:22.599
this is it, this is her ancestry.

388
00:22:24.000 --> 00:22:27.279
Yeah, yeah, god, yeah it was. It was really fun

389
00:22:27.400 --> 00:22:30.920
to see how you kind of weaved in these, uh,

390
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:33.640
these folk tells or the ghosts, these ghost stories throughout

391
00:22:33.640 --> 00:22:36.880
the book because the story itself, like the main story,

392
00:22:36.920 --> 00:22:39.119
is already it's creepy and it's eerie. And again, like

393
00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:41.880
you said, you you got into the minds of a

394
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:44.880
serial killer who you wrote so well because reading it

395
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:47.079
was like uncomfortable at times, I was like, oh, this

396
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:51.440
person is making me like crawling my skin. So the

397
00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:58.119
work paid off. But also, yeah, the weaving voice, Yeah,

398
00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:01.839
the weaving of those stories into the novel was so good.

399
00:23:02.279 --> 00:23:06.200
And the novel itself it touches on the horrors of

400
00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:09.960
real life. You know that horror is like tremendous grief

401
00:23:10.079 --> 00:23:14.599
and violence, particularly violence against women, and this book is

402
00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:18.720
about a serial killer targeting women over years, and it's

403
00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:23.200
countless women, countless lives lost. How do you approach this

404
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:27.559
weaving of supernatural horror with real world terror.

405
00:23:28.839 --> 00:23:32.000
That's a great question. It's one of the things I

406
00:23:32.119 --> 00:23:35.799
usually do when I'm drafting a novel, is I know

407
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:37.880
I'm going to go into it with a fairy tale

408
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:42.000
or a folk tale in mind. I usually want some

409
00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:46.839
type of true crime element as well, and then we'll

410
00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:52.000
have like the overall arching story. With this story, we

411
00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:55.799
have had a lot of community members have claimed that

412
00:23:55.880 --> 00:23:58.480
there's a serial killer operating in the city of Chicago.

413
00:23:59.319 --> 00:24:03.319
There have been reports of over fifty one woman of

414
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:07.079
predominantly women of color throughout the city who have been

415
00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:14.160
murdered in very similar circumstances. And I thought it was

416
00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:19.920
very strange and scary that law enforcement keeps brushing aside

417
00:24:19.960 --> 00:24:26.599
the very similar instances in which they're found. And so

418
00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:30.359
I wanted to explore a serial killer in this story

419
00:24:31.039 --> 00:24:35.640
that is like obsessed with, of course women, and there's

420
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:43.279
very specific type of women women like he Yeah, you

421
00:24:43.319 --> 00:24:46.400
had mentioned writing being in his voice was very upsetting.

422
00:24:47.039 --> 00:24:49.480
It took me a while to find that voice and

423
00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:52.680
to develop that serial killer's voice, and I researched. I

424
00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:54.960
did a lot of research, reading of different serial killers,

425
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:58.039
Like I read Sounds of the Lambs again, but that's

426
00:24:58.359 --> 00:25:00.759
I'm like, that's not really him. And someone said you

427
00:25:00.759 --> 00:25:05.880
should read Joyce Carol Olts's Zombie, and that book is

428
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:09.519
loosely based off of a young Jeffrey Dahmer and it's

429
00:25:09.559 --> 00:25:12.720
told from his perspective. I could even finish the book,

430
00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:14.720
like I was reading it and I was like, yep,

431
00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:17.359
that's that's kind of I get. I was starting to

432
00:25:17.400 --> 00:25:19.400
get the voice of my serial killer. And I was like,

433
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:23.039
I've got my house, Like I literally like I got

434
00:25:23.079 --> 00:25:25.640
halfway through, and then I went and I donated it

435
00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:27.240
to like a community library center. I was like, I

436
00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:29.400
don't even want this book. It was so disturbed. Oh

437
00:25:29.440 --> 00:25:35.079
my god, Joyce carol Olds's Zombie. It is disturbing. It's

438
00:25:35.119 --> 00:25:38.319
like loosely based off of a young Jeffrey Dahmer.

439
00:25:39.160 --> 00:25:44.680
Yeah wow, but a great reference for character study, I guess. Yeah,

440
00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:48.680
oh wow. So have you as we you know, approached

441
00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:50.400
at the end of our interview, and I forgot to

442
00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:54.720
mention earlier. This is a video episode available for patrons

443
00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:57.920
on patreon dot com Slash Sustal podcast. So as we

444
00:25:57.960 --> 00:26:01.000
wrap up our interview and before we jump into the

445
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:06.680
Patreon exclusive questions, have you ever had your own experience

446
00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:10.440
or encounter with the paranormal and if so, could you

447
00:26:10.559 --> 00:26:11.640
share that with us?

448
00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:16.000
That's a great question, because I was like a paranormal

449
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:21.839
investigative girally like hardcore for a while. I've gone to

450
00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:25.640
so many different places with my tape recorders and my

451
00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:29.799
different equipment. I've done it all. I was like spending

452
00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:33.920
night hearing and going to abandoned places, and I never

453
00:26:34.119 --> 00:26:40.519
ever ever experienced anything until randomly my husband and I

454
00:26:40.519 --> 00:26:42.839
had taken a ghost tour, like a fun ghost tour

455
00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:46.240
in Chicago espirs and then this is what my book

456
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:49.680
Before Vanishing Daughters is based off. I've Forgotten Sisters. We

457
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:52.839
were standing outside of the Chicago River and the tour

458
00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:56.119
guide is like, eight hundred eleven people died in the

459
00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:58.920
Chicago River right here in nineteen fifteen, and he starts

460
00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:01.000
telling us the story, and he tells us if you

461
00:27:01.039 --> 00:27:04.079
take pictures, you'll see orbs. Some people claim to see

462
00:27:04.119 --> 00:27:06.400
a face. And I was like at that point, I

463
00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:08.319
was so like disillusioned. I'm like, I'm not going to

464
00:27:08.359 --> 00:27:10.799
see anything. And I just started taking a ton of pictures.

465
00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:14.440
And then as I was scrolling through the pictures, there

466
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:16.559
was a woman standing behind me and she like screamed.

467
00:27:16.559 --> 00:27:18.640
She's like, oh my god, there's a woman in your

468
00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:23.039
picture and we zoomed in and it's like from shoulder

469
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:25.519
up of a woman looking out from the water, and

470
00:27:25.559 --> 00:27:26.279
we were.

471
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:27.759
Just like, oh my god.

472
00:27:28.359 --> 00:27:32.400
It was so creepy. And that's what my book forgot

473
00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:35.119
there's just based off of And it was because of

474
00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:38.799
that that I'm like, Okay, something's there. And I felt

475
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:44.359
very like what we struggled with wanting to believe. And

476
00:27:44.440 --> 00:27:47.599
after that, I felt like, Okay, there's there's there's a

477
00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:50.880
there's a cosmic wink. The universe is like winking at me.

478
00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:51.640
There's something there.

479
00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:54.480
So yeah, oh my god. I had like just full

480
00:27:54.559 --> 00:27:55.480
chills when you said that.

481
00:27:55.720 --> 00:27:59.480
Oh it was very Yeah, it looked it was like

482
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:01.279
a face that people are just like, that's a face

483
00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:05.160
staring at you. And since then I was like, I

484
00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:09.160
have to write the story and so yeah, it might

485
00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:13.720
look great. Yeh canon camera but uh yeah, we would

486
00:28:13.720 --> 00:28:15.880
have like scrolling on the viewfinder. But yeah, I'll show

487
00:28:15.920 --> 00:28:16.160
it too.

488
00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:21.000
Oh my god. That is so cool. And our final question,

489
00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:23.599
this is something new that I want to start asking guests,

490
00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:25.880
so you'll be the first person to answer this question

491
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:29.200
on SUSTA. I want to know what is haunting you

492
00:28:29.319 --> 00:28:32.440
right now? So if you have any books or movies

493
00:28:32.599 --> 00:28:36.720
or music or multiple things that are just currently like

494
00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:39.400
just can't get them out of your head. What's haunting

495
00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:40.160
you at this moment?

496
00:28:41.039 --> 00:28:45.359
You know what's haunting me? Saints, like different the stories

497
00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:48.880
of this. I don't know, Like I've had this like

498
00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:52.440
weird thing with different saints lately, and I've been like

499
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:57.599
researching different saints, and I mean this, there's like thousands

500
00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:01.160
of saints and then some of the them aren't even

501
00:29:01.279 --> 00:29:06.920
recorded because like their history was like never the original

502
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:10.720
saints were sainted by cults or by like by they

503
00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:13.119
became like a cultish activity. I don't know. I've been

504
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:18.960
really fascinated with saints and their stories and how some

505
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:21.920
of them have some wild stories of saint ud. So yeah,

506
00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:24.200
that's been my thing. I've been on a very like

507
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:30.119
iconography thing lately, and I don't know where it's going.

508
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:32.279
So I'm just writing that out. But some of these

509
00:29:32.319 --> 00:29:36.720
saints have got some wild stories heads being chopped off,

510
00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:43.119
yeah yeah, and you know, going becoming it, going into

511
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.839
meditative states, and it's some you know like Joan of

512
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:48.599
Arc you think you forget, you know, we forget Joan

513
00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:50.920
of Arc was like burned at the stake as a

514
00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:52.359
witch and she's a saint, so I don't know. I've

515
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:53.640
been really into saints lately.

516
00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.440
Wow, oh my god, that is such. That is such

517
00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:58.480
a good answer, especially for the first time that I'm

518
00:29:58.480 --> 00:30:01.359
asking it on here. So such a great answer. Yeah, yeah,

519
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:04.559
I was actually yesterday. It's so fun. You mentioned I

520
00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.559
was going around town here in Austin and I was

521
00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:12.160
dropping off some red cards, the know your Rights cards

522
00:30:12.400 --> 00:30:16.160
for immigration and in case someone has encounters with ice.

523
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:19.039
And one of the places that I went to, oh,

524
00:30:19.119 --> 00:30:20.680
of course, one of the places that I went to,

525
00:30:20.759 --> 00:30:23.799
it was a shop that had candles and stuff, and

526
00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:26.680
there was a wall that was just all candles and

527
00:30:26.839 --> 00:30:29.519
it was all saint candles, a big section of it,

528
00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:32.319
and I was looking at them. I was like, wow,

529
00:30:32.359 --> 00:30:34.440
there's so many of these that I had never heard of,

530
00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:38.359
and like, obviously people are working with them or praying

531
00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:41.200
to them or putting in petitions with them because their

532
00:30:41.440 --> 00:30:44.599
candles are here. So it's so interesting. I was I

533
00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:46.279
had taken a picture. If I go by again, I'll

534
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:48.160
take a picture. I'll send it to you and hopefully

535
00:30:48.160 --> 00:30:50.440
that'll contribute to your study on saints.

536
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.160
I'm just so fascinating. I'm like, I feel like, I

537
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:57.240
don't know, I feel like there's almost like this reclamation

538
00:30:57.400 --> 00:30:59.880
and I think there's a portion of us that are

539
00:30:59.920 --> 00:31:05.200
like reclaiming that we can reclaim these images and I

540
00:31:05.240 --> 00:31:10.839
can reclaim it, you know, as absolutely non binary or LGBTQ,

541
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:13.599
Like I can reclaim this image and this this strength

542
00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:15.920
and this power and tap into it. I don't know,

543
00:31:15.960 --> 00:31:17.680
there's just something, there's something there. I don't know what

544
00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:19.880
it is. It's kind of and I think it's I

545
00:31:19.880 --> 00:31:23.359
think it's all kind of started with the Bishop recently.

546
00:31:24.279 --> 00:31:28.119
Remember when the Bishop kind of went viral a few

547
00:31:28.160 --> 00:31:32.519
days ago. I saw that, uh Trump, She's just like,

548
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:36.880
have some mercy on trans children, on immigrant I was

549
00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:40.279
just like, yeah, reclaim this. So I loved it.

550
00:31:40.559 --> 00:31:42.279
Yeah, absolutely, Oh my god, Yeah that was such a

551
00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:47.240
beautiful moment. Oh my well, speaking of beautiful moments, once again,

552
00:31:47.440 --> 00:31:51.240
thank you so much for coming onto Susta and also

553
00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:54.799
for writing Vanishing Daughters Again. It is available now. If

554
00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:58.440
you haven't yet, please go pick up your copy. Right

555
00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:00.119
after this, we are just going to jump into to

556
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.200
the bonus Patreon content, But for anybody who is not

557
00:32:03.400 --> 00:32:06.799
a Patreon, a best goalfriend subscriber on Patreon. Thank you

558
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:09.759
so much for listening today. Cynthia, thank you so so

559
00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:12.480
much for your time for being here. If people wanted

560
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:15.079
to find you online or in stores, where could they

561
00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:15.640
look for you?

562
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:20.640
Thank you. You can find me online at Sinapalile dot com.

563
00:32:20.920 --> 00:32:24.480
I'm on Blue Sky and substach and for now Instagram.

564
00:32:24.480 --> 00:32:27.599
I'm still on Instagram, but overall for my books, you

565
00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:30.559
can find them in Barnes and Noble or any of

566
00:32:30.599 --> 00:32:33.160
your favorite local dy bookstores.

567
00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:35.559
Awesome, Thank you so much.

568
00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:37.680
Ay goolfriends.

569
00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:40.680
This is aiden I am jumping in while editing because

570
00:32:40.799 --> 00:32:44.759
I realized that I forgot to promote the book giveaway

571
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.440
that Cynthia and I are doing. Cynthia was so kind

572
00:32:48.559 --> 00:32:52.880
and so generous as to donate two signed copies of

573
00:32:52.920 --> 00:32:55.680
her books. To learn how to enter the giveaway and

574
00:32:55.759 --> 00:32:59.039
win your signed copy, you can do so by checking

575
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:02.599
out the social medidia post for this episode on Instagram. Again,

576
00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:06.079
that is at susital podcast on every social media platform,

577
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:09.559
but this giveaway is happening on Instagram, so go to

578
00:33:09.640 --> 00:33:12.359
this post swipe through the carousel to learn how to

579
00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:16.680
enter and win your signed copy of a Cynthia Belio Book,

580
00:33:17.079 --> 00:33:17.680
good Luck,