Joshua R. Pangborn's Newest Written Creation, Homo Phobias
Get ready to dive into a twisted world of queer horror as writer and filmmaker Joshua R. Pangborn explores identity, fear, and love in his thrilling debut anthology. From fat-positive representation to dark cinematic storytelling, this collection pushes boundaries and embraces the terrifyingly beautiful. In our exclusive interview, Joshua reveals the inspirations behind HOMO PHOBIAS and gives us a sneak peek into the creepy, sexy, and unapologetically queer stories within.
Camp, sex, and horror pretty much describe my basic vibe as a screenwriter, so it was only natural that I would gravitate towards these themes when putting together my first collection. For me, this is the voice that resonates--giving me a chance to celebrate the worlds I want to see more of. I want to celebrate queer voices that embrace their identities through a horror lens.
I think it's a challenge trying to land on a title of a book for an anthology; you have multiple stories inside, and they are not all necessarily connected. Therefore the title needs to present to the reader an idea of what they are getting into when they pick up this collection. In this case, I wanted the audience to know they were about to read a collection of queer horror. I wanted to use Scream Queens or Queer for Fear, but unfortunately Ryan Murphy and Bryan Fuller took those titles already! That made me think outside the box a bit, and settle on a twist on a word all too familiar to the queer community. Doing so allows me to ensure the reader is fully aware that this is a collection centered on queer characters in fearful situations.
I've spent so many years writing dialogue and scripts, and that has shaped the way I craft prose. I'm more euclidean in my descriptions, presenting only details I think are vital for setting the scenario or for cluing the reader in on what is to come. The stories come alive, I think, in the internal monologuing of the characters, the interactions between them through dialogue. And of course the cinematic twists and turns I've crafted. In many ways, I've approached each story as a script with the idea that the reader is replacing the camera.
Homo Phobias is extremely queer and fat-positive. Every story is centered on queer characters living in fat bodies. The stories themselves are scenarios that are reflective of these identities too-- settings in gay bars, love lives more reflective of a queer experience. At the same time, I'd argue that being queer and fat are not necessarily important to the plot--and that's what makes a collection like this so necessary. Fat and queer characters shouldn't exist only for plot reasons--they should exist because they exist, and we should be able to see them, without any special reason. Fat queer people exist and they are the main characters of their own stories, so we should see this reflected in the films, television, and stories around us. Yes, some of what happens to the characters are specific to their lived experiences as queer, fat people, but in many ways the stories could easily happen to other folk as well, and because of this, it makes it all the more important, in my eyes, that the characters in my collection are queer and fat.
For my part, I didn't necessarily know what each story was going to be when I set out to write the collection. Early on I settled on the idea of the dark side of love as a unifying theme for each tale, but I wasn't sure how many stories I'd have or even how long each would be. When we settled on nine stories, Dhafir Jackson, the editor, is the one who ultimately came up with the organization of the collection. Knowing my love of alliteration, he broke the stories down into three categories: Madness, Mothers, and Magic. From there, we did flirt with the idea of connecting the stories further and having them interconnected in some way, but as my new feature film is structured that way, I decided against it.
As I mentioned when I spoke about the title, for me conveying to the reader what they are in store for is an extremely important point--I did not want to hide that they were in for a queer horror collection. But I also did not want a reader to pick this up without knowing how central to the collection fat characters were. Dhafir and I went through a few ideas to help convey this before finally settling on this design. We took the photo and then Dhafir manipulated it to enhance the horror as well as the eroticism, and, voila! We landed on a design I'm so proud of that properly tells the reader what they are about to read: a collection of queer, fat-positive, sexy horror stories.
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The hardest part of writing the book is the formatting! Every time we changed a word or wanted to incorporate a new font, poor Dhafir had to spend time adjusting the margins, correcting errors from the uploads, and all these little details I'm sure he hasn't even told me about. I just had to write the stories, but he had to do all the hard work! I'm so grateful to him for taking this off my plate too.
As far as the most challenging story to write, I'd have to say it was probably The Gift since that went through so many revisions. I just couldn't settle on what I wanted to say with it--I had the plot, but it just wasn't coming across like I wanted it to. In fact, I was still making revisions to it right up until the last day before we uploaded the final draft of the collection. Thankfully, I'm extremely happy with where it is now, so all of that was worth it (though, like I said, every time I made a change, that meant more work for Dhafir, so I'm sorry, Dhafir!!!).
I was pleasantly surprised by the feelings I had when the book was completed and uploaded. I've produced a lot of work at this point, and while it always feels rewarding, there was something different about completing Homo Phobias. It may have been something as simple as the fact I was able to hold the book in my hand, I'm not sure, but I was surprised I could still get as emotional as I did upon finishing. That, and I was surprised by how many people are looking forward to this book! I didn't realize there was such a demand from the SideKick fans, and I can't wait for them to read this.
I think a writer tends to put a part of themselves in everything they create--their fears, their experiences, their hopes, their dreams. So it shouldn't be a surprise to share that while a part of me is in every story, yes, there are two specific stories which incorporate personal experiences--though I think it's better left unshared which two.
Actually, yes! The next step with this book is to do the audiobook version. I also plan to adapt some, or maybe even all, of the stories in the collection to film. So we have some fun things in store!
For the readers who are queer and fat, I want them to see themselves in stories they don't usually get to see themselves in. For the readers who aren't queer and fat, I want them to see characters they may not have much familiarity with in recognizable situations. And ultimately, I just want everyone to have a great time reading some creepy horror stories!
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Want to know more about Joshua R. Pangborn? Check out his last interview.
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