Indies Introduce Q&A with g. haron davis

g. haron davis is the author of The Lonely Below, a Summer/Fall 2024 Indies Introduce middle grade selection. 

Kromeklia Bryant of Solid State Books in Washington, DC, served on the bookseller panel that selected davis’ book for Indies Introduce.

“This debut novel is a must-read: it effortlessly weaves together a horrifying truth, supernatural elements, and the poignant sense of being unheard and misunderstood,” said Bryant.

davis sat down with Bryant to discuss their debut title.

This is a transcript of their discussion. You can listen to the interview on the ABA podcast, BookED.

Kromeklia Bryant: Hi! I'm Kromeklia Bryant from Solid State Books, and I'm joined today by g. haron davis. They are a New-York-born, Tennessee-raised author and fish keeper, currently residing in the outskirts of Kansas City, Missouri. They specialize in horror and fantasy with a little bit of funny thrown in for good measure. In their spare time they can be found playing video games, daydreaming about epic fish tank builds, and preaching the gospel of BTS.

Welcome!

g. haron davis: Thank you! Glad to be here.

KB: How was Children's Institute?

ghd: It was a lot less nerve wracking than I thought it was going to be. I didn't have time to be super nervous, because it was lunch, panel, signing, all really close together. I didn't have time to sit and panic. It was really fun! I really liked talking to the other authors. They were really cool. I love New Orleans, so I was just happy to be there. It was a really good experience, I think, just talking to other authors and booksellers. And it was my first book signing. So that was really neat.

KB: Oh, wow! Congratulations!

ghd: Thank you.

KB: You've edited and been in a few anthologies, one of which is out in August. Along with The Lonely Below, you have The House Where Death Lives coming out. Is The Lonely Below a theme you've explored in any of your earlier works?

ghd: Thank you for mentioning the other anthology. That's edited by my friend Alex, who is awesome. Alex Brown. It's actually coming out the same day.

KB: Oh my gosh!

ghd: Yeah, I don't really know what to do with that, because I didn't expect that.

But as far as themes, I don't really think that Eva and her story are super connected theme-wise to my anthology stories. Well, I guess in a way they kind of are connected, aren't they?

KB: Uh-oh!

ghd: I thought that they weren't. But now that I talk it through, I'm like, “Oh, wait.” Usually I'm writing about kids trying to figure themselves and the world out and learn to trust themselves, or have other people trust them. I guess that is connected! I don't know why I didn't see that when I was answering the question before. That's a pretty big connection.

KB: Since it sounds like you're trying not to give something away, I'll ask my next question, and then maybe you can expound a little bit on the connection. I'm gonna go with this one: family, both found and real, are prominent as well. Do you think your story would be as good if Eva didn't have the support system that she had?

ghd: No, I don't. As someone who has a pretty small support system — it's a small system, but it's very strong — I feel it's super important to have one. If I didn't have that I would probably just sit in my room and do nothing all the time, and not really try things. I feel like Eva is kind of similar. She feels things really intensely, that's kind of a hallmark of autism. If she didn't have anybody to try and help her navigate those really big feelings, she would probably just not have attempted to investigate anything. She definitely wouldn't have been trying to make friends with anybody, and I don't think she would have gotten anywhere with her investigation, or even just adapting to the school. I don't think she would have been able to do that without her family or her found family.

KB: Yeah, found family so important. I'm in my fifties, and I'm finding family one person at a time. Very slowly. It’s hard to add people to your found family.

ghd: It really is.

KB: I'm actually realizing that more because, you really have to trust the other people, that they're there for the right reasons, and that they're there to help you. I really noticed that Eva was really putting herself out there. She was like, “I'm in this situation. It's new. I'm scared, but I need help.” And she put forth a lot of effort.

ghd: It's difficult to really maintain connections when you're autistic, but sometimes it can be super easy to make them, depending on how you grew up or what level of support needs you have. I would be considered level one autistic, which means I don't need as much support, and I have pretty okay-ish social skills. Eva is probably a little bit better at that than I am. She has more difficulties in other ways, but with people, she's used to talking to them. She's used to her sister, so she's got those connections.

For her, it's really easy to just look at people and say, “Okay, I want to be your friend. And I'm going to work towards that goal.” That's something that I did when I was her age. One of my very best friends in middle school and high school — we still talk, she also found out she's autistic recently — we became friends because I saw her in my classes, and was like, “We're gonna be friends now.” I said it matter-of-factly, and she was just like, “Oh, okay, cool. That works.” That's something I think is sort of common with autistic people. If they see somebody that they think that they're interested in befriending, they'll just be like, “Yeah, we're friends now.”

KB: Yes, I have a staffer that is autistic, and she has told me that we are now friends forever. I was like, “okay!”

ghd: That’s usually how it goes!

KB: Empathy and understanding is a theme that also runs throughout The Lonely Below. Can you speak to why it was important to the plot?

ghd: I think it was important, because it's important in terms of living as a human. I feel like we all need a lot more empathy and understanding — some of us maybe more than others — but it's just such a human thing. I especially wanted to make sure that it was clear that autistic people have empathy. We have understanding. It just might be difficult to translate that into words or actions that allistic people — non-autistic people — might be able to pick up on. So I really wanted to make sure that Eva was a pretty empathetic person, and that it was clear that that's not some sort of fluke. “She's autistic and empathetic?” No, she's autistic and she's a human with empathy.

KB: I think that sometimes the representation of neurodiverse people in media or books is very limited, so I was really glad that Eva was very empathetic and understanding. And I liked that Theo — who had a brother who was neurodiverse — was empathetic, but she struggled with the bullying part. Her friends were bullies, and she wasn't really stepping up, probably due to peer pressure.

ghd: Yeah.

KB: But she finally comes around and shows that she can be empathetic and understanding, regardless of what other people think.

ghd: Theo is frustrating sometimes, because she could have just been a nice person without being like, “Oh, she's autistic, I have to be nice to her.” But a lot of people are like that, like, “Oh, you're autistic. Oh, I guess I'll stop being a jerk to you now.” You could have just not been a jerk; that would be ideal.

KB: Something else that I noticed that I thought was really interesting was: why weren't there any boys in Eva's friend group?

ghd: You know, I thought that was a really good question. Initially, the story was going to be set in an all-girls school and the teachers were all nuns.

KB: That would have been different, for sure!

ghd: I know, right? I kind of like that. But then it was like, “That's a little weird, let's change it. So that's not potentially offensive to random Catholic people.” When I went through doing those changes, I was like, “I kind of like the fact that her friends are not all female, but there's not any boys.” That's something that is similar to me, again, in that she's not used to boys. Her family is her, her mom, her sister, and then her dad. She doesn't really know a lot of like extended family because they move around a lot, so she doesn't have any other frames of reference for that.

So, when she gets to school, she immediately latches onto Vee, because Vee looks cool and she's like, “Well, I have to make this person my friend.” Then Vee shows up with Ami, and Ami is the coolest. So now Eva has this mission to befriend both of them, and she's so stuck on that mission that she doesn't even notice that there are other humans. The only reason that she notices the other group of girls is because they're picking on her. But if it were up to her, it would literally just be Vee and Ami. I don't think she even knows anybody else's names. That's how focused she is on trying to befriend Vee and Ami. It's difficult to expand that range of interest when you're so focused on the initial people that you decided are going to be your friends, and so she's kind of stuck there.

But I feel like now that everything is a little bit less up in the air about whether or not they're her friends, she'll be able to focus on like branching out a little bit, talking to boys or non-binary kids other than Ami, and actually make other friends.

KB: Yeah, there's one friend, Mac, that she has an interesting relationship with, that she seems like she struggles to understand. It's so hard not to give stuff away! All my questions are about what actually happens in the book. I am struggling so hard. I wanna know stuff!

ghd: We'll figure it out after this.

KB: I don't think there's any other questions, you answered all of the questions that I have. I really loved your book so much.

ghd: Thank you.

KB: And I really like it for the age group that you developed it for, because I don't think there's a lot of horror for that age out there.

ghd: Yeah, which is a shame, because that's literally why I write. When I was a kid, I had R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike — who was technically for older people, but you know I read it anyway. I used to do art, I sketched a lot. Then I had a teacher who was like, “You know, maybe you'll write that someday.” For some reason it did not occur to me that regular random humans could write things. I was like, “Wait, I can do that?” So I put down my sketch pencils, and I started writing instead. I'm literally doing this for middle grade audiences. I wanted to toss my hat into the ring of middle grade horror.

KB: Keep writing middle grade, please. Middle grade horror! I read a lot of fantasy middle grade, but this is my first middle grade horror. I'm excited for you to write more.

ghd: Thank you. I have some ideas that I want to pitch to the same editor, because I love her, and I have decided that we're friends forever now. So hopefully, I get to write more.

KB: Oh, we'll be on the lookout. Thank you so much for joining me today.

ghd: Thank you for having me.

KB: You're welcome. Look forward to hearing more from you soon.

ghd: Yay! Bye, everybody!

Find out more about the author at ghdis.me.

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