Interview with Author Rachel Alm
“Rosewater” begins as a scary-witch in the neighborhood story, with teenagers daring each other to enter the witch’s yard, but it quickly becomes a beautiful character study and an exploration of human compassion, cruelty, and motherhood from the perspective of someone who has been hurt by love in the past and is quite sure she will never open her heart and let herself be that vulnerable again.
Rachel Alm (she/her) is a writer and amateur historian originally from New Jersey, where she studied history and environmental policy as an undergraduate at Rutgers University. This is her debut short fiction work. She lives now in Nashville with her husband and small little tabby cat. Her video game essays and interviews can be read over at Superjump Magazine, where she also serves as an editor. She also publishes work over at Medium.
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Marissa van Uden: Thanks for joining us today, Rachel! I enjoyed so many elements of “Rosewater,” but one thing that really struck me was how rich the characterization is. The characters have a depth and humanity to them that’s often difficult to get across in such a short piece of fiction. How did the monster and Marshall take shape for you during the writing, from idea to final form?
Rachel Alm: Thank you so much for enjoying “Rosewater” and for the interview! The evolution of this story dated way back to my college days, when I took a class that really changed how I viewed anything horror-related. I realized that I love to root for the monster who should be prey and thought: Why not write that? I also grew up in New Jersey hearing all about the legend of the Jersey Devil. I loved the Jersey Devil. I still do. I wanted to be the Jersey Devil when I was younger.
Our main character in this is a monster. She’s a predator, she’s spent years watching the minutia of her prey, which, in this case, is humans. She doesn’t fear humans at all. I’ve spent a lot of my life fearing walking alone at night, of being the soft thing that’s hunted, and so I fantasize about being able to defend not only myself from the ill intents of strangers but other vulnerable people too. What if I was the monster? She’s a bit of both now–human and monster–a being that straddles two worlds and has to reconcile such a thing. She sprung up pretty naturally from my ruminations on that.
Marshall’s character, on the other hand, evolved later, as an exploration of what motherhood might mean to something that’s never had to think about being a mother. He was originally written for her story, and he still, admittedly, serves that purpose, but he’s also a young boy in a terrible situation who finds solace with a thing he should fear. I think he’s drawn to her because of her ostracization and because he’s a thoughtful and contemplative kid who wants to make sense of his world, and she offers something of an alternative answer.
MVU: The narrator is haunted by memories of her lost love, who makes such an impression all through the story even though she is unnamed and only seen through brief glimpses of memory and emotional echoes, like a private treasure guarded from both the readers and Marshall. Somehow this veil makes her feel all the more real, as it’s so relatably human to carry this kind of living presence of special people from our past that only our heart can truly know. Could you tell us a bit about your choice to show their relationship in this way? Were the roses always a part of her story?
RA: I am, for better or worse, a ‘rule of cool’ writer. There are sometimes images or ideas that I think about as being super fun that don’t always work out, even as I try desperately to adjust the narrative to make it happen. But this was an instance of the blood-drinking roses managing to work very well. It evolved from this idea I have of gentle people needing to ‘grow thorns.’ I mean, thorns are an evolutionarily adaptive feature; they exist because there’s a necessity for them. Marshall grows these ‘thorns’ to defend himself, that end culmination of his unspecified defensive act, and the monster learns to chisel away at hers. All of this is predicated by their origin–the witch, who houses both of those eventualities.
The roses supping on blood is very much a call to justice, this valid application of violence, but I didn’t realize this until after I’d cathartically and subconsciously got it all out in prose.
That lost love, this mystical witch, was originally a longer thread. I tend to dawdle a lot in my writing–I love lingering on the details, I love crafting a scene–it is my weakness to meander in a moment. But I have to be practical too, with length and execution, so I decided to distill their moments together down.
The people we love live through us, indefinitely, and we have little versions of them that live in our heads. Invoking those memories invokes her partner, as she’s learned from her, and learned of kindness and tranquility from her. We all do that, and I believe to a monster observing the world, the beauty of humanity sticks out more than the ugliness, especially when we experience the tender, wonderful heights of the former.
MVU: The story has a heartfelt gentleness to it even while showing how cruel and violent the world can be, and there’s a sense of melancholy that threads it all together so the interplay of emotions never feels jarring or uneven. Was that difficult to get right, or was it more organic and subconscious process?
RA: Most of my older stories that I come to re-edit–sometimes with, like, ten years in between–reflect a much more feral, younger idea, and I like to keep the teeth on those pieces sharp. This one was a reactionary piece of mine, and I remember where I was in life when I wrote it. At the time, I felt like a fox now free of the bear trap, bloody-legged and ravenous, newly unquiet. Now I see my younger bitterness there, and I know I need to temper things a little, make them make sense as a whole story. Take it from the fire, so to speak, spin the glass a little. The wounds have healed a bit.
The final version was changed slightly from its first iteration but most of its transition was organic. I did edit the end more extensively, because I am a sucker for found family, but generally all of it just seemed to fit well together.
I also try very hard to write a character as a character, to shuffle into their shoes and make their decisions, not as I would do but as they would. Yet we often can’t help but leave shards of ourselves embedded in the story, no matter how hard we try to divorce ourselves from that process. I liked to think this was an attempt at me drawing distance from myself and my feelings, by making a totally unlike-me character, but I don’t think I’m yet deft enough at creative subterfuge to do that–I hope to be someday!
MVU: You also write essays about games and TV for Superjump Magazine and Medium. When you sit down to work on these, what do you do to get into that more analytical headspace; for example, do you separate your creative writing and essay writing into different locations or times of day, or is it easy to move between them? What does your week look like in terms of writing habits and practice?
RA: Superjump is wonderful! I’m truly so happy to be a part of their team. It’s somewhat easy for me to move between them, because one gives me a break from the other. I start most of my mornings, when not out at work, writing and reading with my cup of coffee. I’m heavily editing my current manuscript.
So being able to swap between something where I control characters, world-building, etc., where I have to dictate the direction, to something differently creative (a review or think piece) where I write about other creatives, makes me feel less trapped by either work’s needs. And often one helps me make sense of the other. If I’m facing a roadblock in my own work–if a character interaction is wonky, or I need to change the pacing of a certain series of scenes–I can go to write an article and it helps me clear out that ‘stuck’ idea, because now I’m not staring at it in a locked room. I have other outlets to learn from and redirect that creative energy into.
Less cluttered than usual, actually.
MVU: I’d love to hear about your passion for videogame narratives, because somehow games are still often overlooked and underrated for their storytelling craft, even though some of the most incredible works of fiction are published in that medium. Which games most inspire you as a writer, and what have you learned from them over the years?
RA: They are! I absolutely love video games.
I am a hardcore Final Fantasy fan. I’ve been playing the MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV, for over a decade now but it was Final Fantasy XII that drew me into the series initially, after a friend rightly pegged it as a game I’d enjoy. I beat it, like, three times. It has such a rich world with a robust political system and very realistic characters for a Final Fantasy game, which as a series tends to lean more into camp and sincerity. It’s what I love about it. But I think I really dug into that groundedness in FFXII; it definitely served as an inspiration for me to start writing my fantasy stories more deeply and taking them more seriously.
As a writer, games are fantastic ways to experience character. There are so many games that put you in the shoes of someone else, and you have to be them for upwards of twenty to forty hours. Sometimes these are characters you can relate to, or they’re more blank spaces where you can write your own name in, but many games play with that forced proximity very creatively and force you to inhabit someone very unlike you. When you read a book or watch a movie and a character does something, you’re just watching them. But in a game, well, now you’re complicit in their actions, because you have to pull that trigger or make that choice. It’s a big differentiator in interactivity, and I think it really helps us empathize and do stronger character work.
And playing games all these years gave me great reflexes. Like, actually good physical reflexes. Play games, everyone, you’ll get great at catching stuff mid-fall!
A companion enters! Thalia loves watching me play games with friends.
MVU: Many writers struggle with creativity due to the constant pull of social media, 24/7 news, and technologies like AI polluting every place where humans try to share their personal expression and creativity with each other. How do you find yourself navigating these, in terms of either protecting your time and creativity or finding balance?
RA: Social media’s a tough one, I have to lock in, push back on my desire to scroll through my phone all the time, and actively remember what my goals are on any given day. I try really hard to stretch that muscle of hardcore focus, and to lean on physical interaction–pour-over coffee, record players, reading hardcover or paperback books, walking to the store, etc.–anything that requires a barrier of time. I think a desire to slow down and take the longer route helps cull that immediate need for interaction.
AI is another, bigger conversation. I have very strong stances on AI. I know it’s useful to others, I know it can probably be useful to me, but I won’t touch it. I’ll browse my library archives, I’ll flip through informational books. I like the effort of things. I was a runner for many years, an athlete for a while in college, and in a way I symbiotically learned to write with that same sports-coded ferocity and obsession, because I wrote a lot during those years too. That expenditure of effort–and the love of expending it–is what made the difference for me, and it made me more stalwart in my approach as I faced down that barrel of AI-generated content.
I constantly have to remind myself that I can only ever really take care of my own creative garden and community, and that the world will move the way it always has. To quote the late great Kurt Vonnegut: So it goes.
MVU: Love that answer! Are there any particular themes or ideas that you’d love to write about in the future, that you haven’t tackled before? And what are you working on at the moment, if anything?
RA: I’m actively finalizing one novel out of around four different ones I’ve been writing for years. This one is a really gentle story, I think, which was actually challenging to write because I kept it pretty PG to PG-13, but it is an adult novel. I’ve always wanted to craft a story that most ages can read but that centers adults, and this is that! It’s a love letter to friendship and … well, love too!
That said, I’d like try my hand at a truly funny story. I wrote a short one recently as an experiment that was an absolute, brought-tears-to-my-ears-from-laughing joy to write. I want to continue that one, and experiment with some more. I love a good laugh! I think it’s hard to write humor well because it’s difficult to write genuinely funny characters, at least for me. There’s an expertise to it that I’d overlooked before, since I thought it would be easy, but it’s definitely not!
Sitcoms and animated shows like Bob’s Burgers are great learning grounds for this, but so is playing or watching humorous live-plays of games like Peak or Big Walk (another way games help writers!), because you get to observe spontaneity and witness the realism of banter. Having funny friends helps, of which I have many.
MVU: To finish our interview, we love to hear about a favorite charity or cause that’s meaningful to you. Could you share a little about it, and tell our readers where to find it?
RA: I have a deep love for cats, thanks in no small part to our little tabby, Thalia (named after the muse), who is such a gentle, sweet, and mischievous little soul. I think cats are sometimes seen as these independent, standoffish beings when it’s just that they love differently. We adopted her from Nashville Cat Rescue when she was barely three pounds and she had all these scabs from an infestation with ear mites they helped clear her of. She’s all better now, immensely loved, and I wish all cats the same. The rescue can be found here: www.nashvillecatrescue.org
Thalia loves a good perch. We think mostly so she can judge her citizenry from up high.
MVU: Thanks again for sitting down with us today! Before we sign off, do you have any other publications coming out in the near future that we should look out for, or is there a work by a favorite author or friend that you’re particularly excited about?
RA: I always encourage people to check out all of the work that Superjump Magazine is publishing. It is a passion project for all of us, and we definitely skew towards the more positive end of the review and criticism spectrum, where we celebrate games and developers, especially in the indie scene. We have immense talent on our writing team, and I love reading and editing for them.
I’m also in the process of querying my first book, which I touched very briefly on here, so when that manifests, please keep an eye out!
