Welcome to another LEGENDARY episode of Storybeast! Our Legendaries are special guests who are an expert within their area of storytelling. In this episode, Ghabiba Weston and Ruth McKell have the pleasure of interviewing Legendary Taylor Grothe.

Taylor Grothe is an autistic, nonbinary queer writer passionate about voice-driven narratives centering on strong, compelling femmes and enbies. A 2024 Nonfiction MFA Candidate in Fairfield University's Creative Writing Program, their work can be found in Coffin Bell, Bag of Bones Press, Haven Speculative, Shortwave Magazine, and various other places. They were a Round 9 Author Mentor Match adult mentor, the graduate Assistant Managing Editor of Brevity Magazine for 2022-23, one of the founding members of and the 2023-24 program coordinator for Round Table Mentor, and a host of Queer Author Talk (#QATalk) on X, formerly Twitter. They are scheduled to speak at StokerCon San Diego 2024, on the Modern Young Adult Horror panel. When not writing or playing cello, you can find them planting the garden alongside their two young children and spouse in the most haunted state in America, Connecticut.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• how to say French words like an American (spoiler, none of us actually knows the correct way)
• how Taylor started writing horror
• about the joy of unhinged freedom in writing horror
• about using atmosphere to build character
• what's behind Taylor's story inspiration
• what we consider the book version of a jump scare
• about Taylor's incredible debut, HOLLOW: where craft skills meet heart skills
• about Taylor's top 3 horror writing tips for aspiring horror writers
• Taylor's research process
• the secret to sounding like an expert in anything you write
• about a jumping off point for starting your own idea trove (great for short story ideas!)
• Taylor's advice on how to tackle writing a short story
• what writing non-fiction can teach you as a fiction writer
• some love for cheese

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Feel free to reach out if you want to talk story or snacks!

A warm thank you to Deore for our musical number. You can find more of her creative work on Spotify.

As ever, thank you for listening, Beasties! Please consider leaving a review to support this podcast.

Be brave, stay beastly!