In this Halloween special episode, I am in conversation with Bryanna Harbeke. Her debut modern Gothic thriller, Are You There, Sloane? is about two girls, one living, and one dead, working together to solve a mystery so they can move past their traumas and inhabit their own worlds.

One Halloween night, six friends decide to take a moonlit walk through the woods.

Only five come back.

BookTok influencer Keeks said of this novel that “I had to get up and take breaks because I was actually scared”, and “the twists and turns were absolutely unmatched”. One reviewer said that she “[couldn’t] wait to share it with her mystery book club”, and another reviewer said that she “wanted to cancel wine-nights with my friends to continue reading and figuring out the whole story and everyone’s little secrets”.

🏰 The appeal of dark academia and Gothic horror.
🦇 Processing trauma by writing genre fiction.
🎓 The complexity of higher education and dropping out of graduate programmes. 
🌈 What it means to be your own publicist when you're actually an introvert writer.

Bryanna's ceremonies for writing are:

📚 Having a towering TBR pile to commune with at all times. 
💤 Immersing in a project then taking deep rest. 
⚗️ Alchemizing autobiographical details.
⚰️ Learning about how death is understood in different occult and religious traditions.

B.K. Harbeke was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. She has bachelor’s degree from UCLA in German studies, and a master’s in British/American literature from the University of Zurich. She loves Tarot, witchcraft and anything to do with the Occult. She currently lives in Zurich with her husband and ragdoll cat. And yes, she would spend the night in a haunted house.

Find her at https://www.instagram.com/bk.harbeke.writes/ and https://linktr.ee/bkharbeke.writes

To read the transcript, go to the episode page here.