Bloody Parchment: Meet E Garcia

I've got E Garcia, one of the SA HorrorFest Bloody Parchment short story competition winners here today, chatting about her story, "Get out of Death Free?" that appears in our Blue Honey and The Valley of Shadow anthology that was recently released. For those of you wondering about the 2017 competition, we are now officially open and accepting submissions. Go see our blog for all the details.

So, without further ado, let's get on with our chat.

What darkness lies at the heart of your story? 
Though this story is more quirky than dark, the theme that I wanted to touch on about being unprepared for Death is not exactly light either. Most of us avoid thinking about our mortality on a day to day basis, and there is little connection with our dead. Funeral homes prepare bodies and not many people spend time with the corpse of a loved one to come to terms with the loss like we used to. The idea of not being ready for Death on both sides of the afterlife is an unsettling thought to me. What if we end up walking in Limbo for eons, never to see our loved ones again, just because our culture no longer had rituals to break ties and prepare everyone for the end?

What do you love the most about writing?
Writing lets me get all the stories out of my head and un-jumble them into some sort of order. It keeps a measure of structure in my brain. Also, I get to escape real life for a while to explore the characters and worlds that spawn from things I read, people I meet, and dreams I have.

Why does reading matter? 
You can’t create in a vacuum. Everything you read impacts how you improve as a writer, gives you new ideas, and pushes you to keep creating. Without reading, I would have no reason to write.

An excerpt...

“I have a coupon.”
Death stared at me. Or at least, I assumed that was what he was doing during the prolonged silence. It difficult to tell what his facial expression was beneath the hood of his blue DO I LOOK LIKE A PEOPLE PERSON? sweatshirt.
 “A coupon.” His voice didn’t come from his chest, but seemed to rise up from all around us, the deep notes reverberating in my bones.
“Yep.” I flipped through the mass of receipts in my wallet and found the ragged square of paper my young niece had given me. “Here. Get out of Death Free.”
Accepting the paper, he inspected it from all angles. Even two years later, I was amazed by the level of detail the then seven-year-old had put on it. It even had fine print.
PRICES AND PARTICIPATION MAY VARY. LIMIT ONE COUPON PER CUSTOMER. NO TAKE BACKSIES.

What other things have you written?
I have one work in progress that is being edited for publication. It is an urban fantasy novel that involves magic, corgis, and more Blues Brothers references than I can count.