Welcome to the first-ever “Fantastical Five” interview with speculative fiction author P.A. Cornell. Since this is the science fiction version (it also comes in fantasy flavour), we’ve taken our tea out to the far reaches of space!

P.A. Cornell (She/Her) is an award-winning, Chilean-Canadian, speculative fiction author who was raised on a steady diet of books. When she was five years old she learned where all these books were coming from and decided then and there that writing was the path for her. She penned her first speculative story as a third-grade assignment: a science fiction piece about shape-shifting aliens. Over three decades later, she still has this story, which she keeps in her writing desk to remind her of how far she’s come.

Despite her early interest in fiction, her first publications were in non-fiction as a journalist and copy editor in Toronto, Canada. Since 2016, she’s dedicated herself to writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror full time. Her stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in multiple genre magazines and anthologies, including Flame Tree Press’s Gothic Fantasy series, ZNB Presents, and Apex Magazine, to name a few. Her short story, “Splits,” first published in Cossmass Infinities, went on to win the 2022 Short Works Prize for Fiction. That same year she also published her debut science fiction novella, Lost Cargo, through Mocha Memoirs Press.

An avid collector of joyful moments, when not writing she can be found reading, drinking various varieties of tea in ridiculous quantities, building Lego sets (check out some of her builds on Instagram), hiking, making felt art, and watching movies, among other things. She also enjoys travel and hopes to do more of it in the future.

Cornell is a 2002 graduate of the Odyssey writing workshop, and full member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. She has lived in six cities across two continents but currently lives in Ontario, Canada in a home she shares with her husband, three kids, and two cats. The cats are named after two of her characters: “Jax” and “Rebel.” (Bonus points for anyone able to name the stories they appear in.)

Website: https://www.pacornell.com/
Twitter/Instagram/Facebook: @CornellWriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17347884.P_A_Cornell
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/P.-A.-Cornell/author/B074G52MGD?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

All purchase links and information for my novella, Lost Cargo: https://www.pacornell.com/lost-cargo.html.

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For this Spooky Six tea with Ben Fitts, I sought out the most unusual and unique flavors of yogurt I could find, and we grabbed some very big spoons and dove right into the interview!

Ben Fitts (he/him) is a writer, musician and zinester from New York. Fitts is the author of the books My Birth And Other Regrets and Snailbutter, as well as over forty published short stories. He has been writing for fun since around the time he learned how to read, but began to taking the craft seriously as an undergrad at Hampshire College when he realized he wanted another creative outlet when the band he was in at the time broke up. His short stories soon began receiving publications in a variety of zines, anthologies, and other DIY publications that weren’t turned off by their oddball content and dark humor. Nineteen of these early stories were collected in his debut collection My Birth And Other Regrets, which was published by the press NihilismRevised in 2019 when Fitts was twenty-two years old. My Birth And Other Regrets has received praise from a variety of notable authors within the bizarro fiction movement, including Danger Slater, Sam Richard, and Ben Arzate, among others.

Grateful to the zine community that had given him his start, Fitts created The Rock N’ Roll Horror Zine in 2018, a DIY hand-stapled publication that published only rock, punk, and metal themed genre fiction stories. The Rock N’ Roll Horror Zine was published between 2018 to 2019 for a total of six issues that featured works from a wide variety of underground writers. In addition, he created the one-off zines Choose Your Own Death, A Beginner’s Guide To Bizarro Fiction, Ant Sniffing Zine, and A Beginner’s Guide To Witch House.

Following his graduation from Hampshire College, Fitts relocated to Brooklyn, New York where he co-founded the indie rock band War Honey and has since made a living as a working guitarist. War Honey released a pair of extended plays, including 2020’s Shard To Shatter which has received a colored-vinyl reissue from the label Handstand Records.      

His second book is the novella Snailbutter that was released by Hybrid Sequence Media in 2021. A work absurdist and bizarre horror-comedy, Snailbutter follows a day of school in the life of ninth-grader Doug, whose best friend had climbed into a giant snail shell that he found in his backyard and refuses to come out. As he tries to help his friend come out of his shell, Doug encounters monsters, robots, mutants, Nazi scientists, British girls from other dimensions, and other things you probably dealt with at that age as well. A second edition version of Fitts’ collection My Birth And Other Regrets featuring two brand new stories is set to be released in spring of 2023 by Hybrid Sequence Media.

Website: https://doomgoat666.wixsite.com/benfitts
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ben-Fitts/author/B07KFRJLKT
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18261823.Ben_Fitts
My Birth And Other Regrets New Edition Pre-Order: https://hybridsequencemedia.com/product/my-birth-and-other-regrets/

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