Jan Stinchcomb
Jan Stinchcomb is the author of Verushka (JournalStone), The Kelping (Unnerving), The Blood Trail (Red Bird Chapbooks) and Find the Girl (Main Street Rag). Her stories have appeared in Bourbon Penn, The Horror Is Us (Mason Jar Press) and Menacing Hedge, among other places. A Pushcart nominee, she is featured in Best Microfiction 2020 and The Best Small Fictions 2018 & 2021. She lives in Southern California with her family and is an associate fiction editor for Atticus Review.
Twitter: @janstinchcomb
Are there particular films that influenced your writing?
I have a few beloved genres. My family always made fun of my addiction to horror films, and I wish I had pushed back earlier and figured out why that genre meant so much to me. I should thank my late father who took me to so many movies he probably didn’t need to see. Growing up I was drawn to the moody psychological horror of the ’70s (Sisters, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Don’t Look Now). I loved the big shockers, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Exorcist. I was interested in the horror of living in the female body and the challenge of surviving it.
I adore noir: the sumptuous cinematography, the irrepressible femme fatale, and the constant repetition of that ever-useful formula, crime/investigation/solution. Favorites: The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, The Lady from Shanghai, Criss Cross. One of my kids watches these with me now, and it’s very gratifying.
What is your favorite comic strip or graphic novel?
I have so many, but the one I consider a masterpiece is My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, by Emil Ferris. A monster-girl in 1960s Chicago plays detective and solves the murder of her upstairs neighbor. This necessitates digging into her own family history, examining friendships, and doing a study of art, horror, and monsters, both human and fantastical. It is a coming of age story with a subplot about World War II.
Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome?
Every day. I’m not kidding though I wish I were. I always thought that when I had published enough, Imposter Syndrome would leave me, but it never did. I now have a novel, two novellas, a chapbook and dozens of stories published, but none of this has cured me. I’ve figured out that you never really master writing. The method that worked for one book won’t work for the next. A “good” writing year can be followed by several “bad” ones. And there isn’t much you can do when inspiration has left you except to calm down and back off. Read and watch movies. Garden. Run. You can’t really force yourself to write, or at least I can’t. What does help: a trusted community of friends and beta readers, or taking classes with and alongside of people you admire.
Do you collect anything? If so, what, why and for how long?
Dolls. This is another thing that people ridiculed me for, as if liking dolls proved that I was immature or a bad feminist. The collecting started in childhood when my relatives would bring back dolls as souvenirs from trips they had taken. I still have a few left. In my defense I would say that dolls served two purposes: they turn into characters, and when you put two or more of them together, you can create dialogue. Dolls were a way of practicing narrative from an early age. I don’t know why we tend to give them to girls and not boys. I don’t know why more of them aren’t allowed to be “ugly” and “evil”.
Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination. Why?
City all the way. I like museums, theater and bookstores. I get bored in rural settings. I can stand about three days of camping, maybe a week, even in a remarkable place. Some of my most important memories are set in cities in France, Italy or Russia. Montpellier and Marseille. Venice, Florence, Rome. I really loved Moscow when I was living there. Their metro system makes the city accessible to everyone, and I found it quite safe in the ’90s. I don’t know what it’s like now. I love being in the LA metropolis. It’s a hard life considering the expense and the car-dependence, but I don’t want to give it up. This was supposed to be a question about vacations and not life choices, but it has made me realize something: I want to live in a city so interesting and diverse it makes me feel like I’m always on a voyage.
