A Discussion on My Writing with 83 Year Old Aunt Betty

I am on vacation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this week visiting the folks. There is still about a foot of snow on the ground while back in Dallas it is in the 70s and I just saw from a Facebook friend's post the trees are starting to bloom. Seems cruel and unfair, doesn't it? However, I did get to visit with my Great Aunt Betty yesterday. Aunt Betty is 83 years old. She's really my dad's first cousin, so technically, she is also my cousin, but out of respect, my parents have me call her aunt. That's fine with me because I can't see calling a relative who's more than 40 years older than me by her first name, anyway. Just wouldn't be right...

Aunt Betty asked me over lunch what I had been doing with myself these days. I told her I was still working on my budding writing career, which had been derailed last year for health reasons, but is up and running again. She wanted me to send her a copy of my book and one of my magazines, which I agreed to do, but with a warning that my work was much creepier than what she was used to reading.

Now here's the thing. I love my Aunt Betty, but Aunt Betty goes to prayer circle every week and is very active in her church. Aunt Betty is your typical sweet lady relative with the mismatched dishes in the kitchen from her grandparents, the white crocheted doilies sitting out around the house, and the Christmas decorations still festive in March. She even has the ancient plant that's been with her for years and years and a binder to keep all her church clippings in. I am thinking she will not appreciate my work, even though I know she is very proud of me, but she insisted I send her my writing. She told me she reads Dean Koontz, for heaven's sakes, so how bad it could be?

I wanted to snort, but that would have been rude. Instead, I responded that I had been told I was creepy and twisted. One reader even told me they wouldn't want to be my husband or boyfriend. She insisted she was proud of me for pursuing my dream and wanted to read my work, anyway.

So now I have to send Aunt Betty a copy of Twisted Tongue magazine from the U.K. with a crazy she-demon illustration on the cover with my story about Persephone, the seductress in daisy dukes and cowboy boots who will eat a man alive. And I have to send her a copy of Deadlines: An Anthology of Horror and Dark Fiction from Comet Press, in which my story features a lesbian kiss and a twisted murder. I am wondering how she is going to handle these tales, but I guess I'll find out the next time I talk to my parents, if they're still talking to me after Aunt Betty reads her mail! *chuckles*

If you'd like to read either of the stories Aunt Betty is going to read, you can find them here:

La Nuit du la Chat Noir

A Taste of Murder

As always, happy writing and happy reading to all!