Wen-yi Lee is a Clarion West alum from Singapore who likes writing about girls with bite, feral nature, and ghosts. Her speculative fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Uncanny, as well as in various anthologies. The Dark We Know is her debut novel. Find her on social media @wenyilee_.

I had the opportunity to interview Wen-yi which you can read below.

First of all, welcome to Geeks OUT! Could you tell us a little about yourself?

Hi! I’m Wen-yi Lee, a speculative fiction writer from Singapore. I have some short fiction out there, but The Dark We Know is my debut novel from Gillian Flynn Books.

What can you tell us about your debut book, The Dark We Know? What was the inspiration for this story?

The Dark We Know is a queer YA horror about a bisexual art student who reluctantly returns to her strange hometown in order to collect an inheritance from her abusive father’s funeral, and must reunite with her last surviving childhood friend to stop the supernatural evil that killed their other friends two years ago.

It was inspired by the musical Spring Awakening, specifically the song “Those You’ve Known”, in which the main character is steered away from suicide by the ghosts of his two dead friends. My brain is always looking for chances to speculate, and I started envisioning a version of the story where he could see ghosts all along. The play ends shortly after, but I was thinking about aftermaths: he decided to live, but what does that loss and grief and survival look like one, two years later? What if he’s not so alone, because there’s actually a fourth childhood friend, a runaway artist who slips in and out of the play at crucial moments? How does she grapple with her old friends’ deaths?

Were there any books/films/music/etc. that inspired you while writing your project?

I grew up religious and The Dark We Know touches on some of my complicated feelings about that, but that only came into the book when I read Andrew Joseph White’s Hell Followed With Us. They’re very different books, but the clear-eyed gut punchiness of the way that book approaches the main character’s religious background nudged me into a lot of reflections. The Dark We Know always had an angel, though–that’s from Spring Awakening. It’s fun how things come together in the process of writing.

Taylor Swift’s song ‘seven’–specifically the line “are there still beautiful things?”–helped me unlock part of this book too. I could go on about this song, it’s one of my favorites, but both ‘seven’ and The Dark We Know are about haunted characters looking back and yearning for the lost innocence and simplicity of childhood and childhood friendships. There’s even a whole bit about an abusive father and playing pirates, both of which are in Spring Awakening and thus in the book. It’s kind of eerie how well the song fits (it can even be read as queer-coded). But the “beautiful things” line really tied together the arc about what this art student holds dear and is healing towards.

Also, Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House! It wasn’t an inspiration from the beginning, but I watched it while writing and it reinforced a lot of the themes of dealing with aftermath, reconnecting with estranged loved ones, and having to return to the home in order to resolve the haunting that’s followed you.

As a writer, what drew you to the art of storytelling, especially young adult fiction and horror?

I’ve been writing all my life and as a Gen Z I’m one of the writers that was a teen when YA took off and followed me into being an adult writer. I got into horror later on, actually through the process of writing and publishing The Dark We Know. I’ve come to really appreciate the genre because of how human it is at its core; it’s about emotion and humanity and really allows for the extremes of both, which can be confrontational and hence cathartic. We actually pitched this book to both adult and YA publishers, but at its core I think it’s a coming of age story I wrote for me as a teen and others in that point of their lives, so I’m really happy it ended up in YA.

How would you describe your writing process?

All over the place. I’ve reluctantly come around to some kind of outlining because it really does help cut down on time, but drafting chapters in order is like a straitjacket to me. I ‘chase the shiny thing’, as someone put it to me once; just write whatever scene I feel strongest about in the moment and string it all together afterward. I start with the premise and some idea of the arc and themes, but after that I figure it out in pieces, edit as I go, and excavate the layers progressively.

What are some of your favorite elements of writing? What do you consider some of the most frustrating and/or difficult? 

I love prose and themes and character work. I love turning over a sentence until it produces the effect I want. I hone characters over and over through rounds of revision and the book only feels sure to me when they feel like they could step out of me and stand alone. On the other hand I usually get tripped up by plot. I’m not someone who enjoys plotting and setting down action and consequence and figuring out twists, which is unfortunate because I do enjoy intricate stories and I tend to layer in a lot of moving parts, so I just torture myself. I usually approach plot from a character point of view–where I want the characters to go and what’s the story I need to get them there. I also love worldbuilding–I started out in high fantasy and I was the kid who’d have binders full of worldbuilding details.

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want others to know about you?

My friend said that she’d never seen me happier than when we visited the Paris Catacombs. I’m also deeply intrigued by cannibalism as a metaphor for love/hunger/devotion, and people get concerned because I’m also vegetarian. And despite all that I tend to write hopeful things!

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

What language would I love to be fluent in? Just something that’s been on my mind. I’ve studied Mandarin and Spanish at various points and wish I had the discipline to be fluent at both because I do love both languages. I wish I knew Teochew because that’s a family dialect. And I’d love to know sign language; it’s so cool and expressive and I fell in love with it through the Deaf West Spring Awakening revival.

What advice might you have to give for aspiring writers?

Write what you want to read, as cheesy as it is. On a practical level, if you pursue it seriously, you’re going to be reading it a lot, so you’d better like what you’re writing about. On a more emotional level, I think that’s how we get the most interesting and passionate art, and I think that often comes through to the reader. The Dark We Know started because I tweeted about wanting more media that made me feel the way Spring Awakening did and then I realized I could just do it myself.

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

I can’t in fact talk too much about these yet, but I have two things coming up that I’m really excited about: an adult sapphic historical fantasy set in the Chinese secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, and a YA horror anthology! I’m also in the early stages of another YA horror novel set much closer to home.

Finally, what LGBTQ+ books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT? 

I tend to like things strange, dark, and beautifully written. Some current favorites are Nghi Vo, Trang Thanh Tran, Tamsyn Muir, Julia Armfield, and Zoe Hana Mikuta!